The Story
This is the story of my '55. Use the bookmarks to jump to specific chapters, or just start reading.
The BeginningThe links in the following text lead to photos. Use your browser's Back button to return to the story. I first saw this car while driving from Tucson to Sierra Vista (both in southern Arizona). It was sitting in the middle of a Junk Yard, up on top of an equally old station wagon. I passed the car several times in the next couple of months. Each time I saw it, I became more curious about it. Finally, on one trip, I pulled off the road, walked up to the fence, and took some pictures. It looked sad, sitting up there, very weather-worn but with surprisingly good looking sheet metal. I couldn't see any corrosion or collision damage. No one was there, but I found a coffee can wired to the fence with a business card in it and stuck the card in my pocket. This started almost 3 months of tracking down the owner and negotiating with him for the car. He was an eccentric 80+ year old gentleman who didn't really want to go through all the work of getting that car out of the middle of his Yard. Finally we worked out a deal, he pulled the car out, and delivered it to my house. That was in October of 1998.
Everything Comes OffI spent the next few months disassembling the car. Everything was photographed, every part was bagged and tagged and put away in a shed I built just for that purpose. See the disassembly photos in the Photo Album. After the car was disassembled, I entered the next phase of the project. I bought a 20 gallon parts washer from Harbor Freight and started degreasing everything I could. The water-based stuff sure doesn't work as well as the Gunk we had when I wrenched for Harley-Davidson in the 60's. I soaked, brushed, scoured, and scraped 44 years of grease-clogged grit and grime off the chassis, suspension, and engine compartment. I rented a pressure washer to clean the frame. After stripping the frame, I cut the old rear trans/motor mount "ears" off. I MIG welded on side motor mounts, a rear trans crossmember, and upper rear shock absorber mounts (relocating the upper shock mounting points from the body to the frame, where they belong.) Then I sent the frame out to be sand blasted and powder coated chassis black. I built a glove-box media blasting cabinet and started bead blasting all the individual parts, such as the upper and lower control arms for the front suspension, etc. Just about every metal part on the car was taken down to bare metal. Any and all rust was thoroughly removed. After bead blasting, parts were powdercoated or primed and put back in the shed. The big stuff (everything too big to fit in a standard home oven) was sent to a commercial powdercoater. The smaller stuff I did myself with Eastwood's HotCoat system.
Things Start Going Back TogetherI purchased a dual master cylinder, power disk brake conversion kit from Stainless Steel Brakes, along with 2" dropped spindles. When I got the frame back, I reassembled the front suspension with all new polygraphite bushings. All suspension linkage components were blasted, primed, and painted chassis black while the frame was at the powdercoaters. The idler arm had the optional ball bearings instead of rubber bushings; known as, "Poor man's power steering." I replaced these bearings along with every other bearing, bushing, and felt or rubber washer in the front suspension. The steering box was completely rebuilt. New gas shocks, an anti-sway bar from PST, and new coil springs finished off the front suspension restoration. For the rear suspension, I purchased new rear leaf springs with a 2" drop. I found a 10-bolt rear end from a '79 Camaro in a Junk Yard, purchased it and tore it down. I had Tucson Differential install new Richmond 3.73 gears and an Auburn posi unit. I also had them replace all bearings, crush sleeves, and thrust washers while they were in there. I stayed with Camaro rear drum brakes but replaced the slave cylinders, springs, and brake shoes. I put on new finned steel drums and replumbed with all new brake lines and flex hoses. (The only piece of the original brake system I reused was the brake pedal.) New stock shackles and spring bushings, new gas shocks, and a rear anti-sway bar (again from PST) completed the rear suspension restoration. For a transmission, I selected a 700-R4 from a '92 Chevy and had it rebuilt with a
JR. shift kit, a pressure kit, and a 3-4 clutch kit. The work was done by Banks
Transmission in Tucson. I wanted to retain the locking torque converter, so I had it set to enable lock-up when it shifts into OD. I will
eventually gate that signal with a brake switch and a vacuum sensor so the converter will come out of lockup if I step on the brakes or if vacuum gets too low due to excessive engine load. So now I need something to put on the frame. Since the body had been sitting under wraps in the back yard for about a year now, I decided it was time to do something with it. I found a Body and Paint shop that picked up the body, sent it to a media blaster where it was plastic media blasted down to bare metal. Then it was hauled back to the body shop where 43 years of dents and dings were hammered out and a few small rust holes were cut out and patches welded in. After the body was straight, true, and rust free, it was primered, first with a self-etching primer, then a 2-part urethane primer, the firewall painted black, and the underside undercoated. It was then put on a flatbed once again and driven home to be reunited with its "new" rolling chassis. I mounted the body to the chassis with all new polygraphite body mounts. I then set about recalking every body seam and joint. All the old seam sealer had been removed during the media blasting process. I used 3M Autobody Sealant for this. Caulked seams were then covered with a coat of primer to give a primer-sealer-primer cover over all seams. At this point, I have something that is starting to look like a car again, but all it can do is sit there and look good.
The Car Gets an EngineSo now I needed an engine. I had a 4-bolt main 350 block I got from a friend that I intended to rebuild. After estimating the total cost of rebuilding this donor into the kind of engine I wanted, I realized that, for A Few Dollars More, I could buy a brand new engine that was pretty darn respectable. I went down to the local Chevy dealer and ordered a new ZZ4 crate motor. Seven days later they called to tell me it was there and I could pick it up whenever I wanted. (I found that the crate makes a pretty good temporary engine stand, with a few castors stuck to the bottom.) I bolted the 700R4 transmission to the new motor, with a new Hughes torque converter, and slipped in the whole outfit. It fit perfectly, the HEI distributor even cleared the firewall. (Way back when I welded in the side motor mounts and trans mounts, I made allowances for a big distributor just in case and moved the engine mounts forward about an inch.) To this new engine I added Taylor Spiro Pro ignition wires, a Holly street fuel pump, a high torque mini-starter, an Edelbrock Victor aluminum reverse rotation water pump, a March serpentine belt conversion kit and pulley set (hence the need for the reverse rotation water pump), and an A/C compressor from Vintage Air. I also added a Rochester Q-Jet carb, ceramic coated headers from S&S Headers, a 17" stainless steel flex fan, braided stainless steel fuel lines, and an alternator. I completed the drive train with a custom fabricated drive shaft. At this point, it looked about like this. After adding a custom 3-row radiator, the A/C condenser, and the trans cooler it looked like this. The new gas tank was installed, but I didn't want the car sitting in the garage for another year with a tank of gas, so I converted an empty 1 gallon lacquer thinner can into a temporary fuel tank and bungee corded it to the front of the battery (You can see the top of the can in the last photo link). See the Photo Album for additional engine photos.
Restoring the Rest of the Body PanelsI was now ready to start on the doors, front fenders, trunk, and hood. I called the place that had done the body, only to find out they had gone out of business. I found a new place and gave them the doors to work on. The doors came back perfect, but there really wasn't all that much to do. The guy who did the work said they were the best '55 sheet metal he had ever seen. I then gave them the trunk lid to do. On all the panels, they knocked out the dings, floated a thin coat of plastic filler and sanded it down until everything was flat, and primed it the same way the body had been done. The work was very good but very expensive. I realized I couldn't afford them any more, and besides, I wanted to see what doing body work was like. I did the two front fenders and the hood myself. It was one heck of a learning experience. Body work is an art! I must have done each panel 3 times until I got it right. I kept over-sanding with the rough sandpaper. By the time I got thru with the fine sanding, I would end up with low spots and have to start over.
Painting and Final AssemblyFor the panels I worked on, I used Evercoat Rage fillers and DuPont paints. First I removed the dings as best I could from the bare metal (every piece of sheet metal was stripped bare with plastic media blasting). Then I went through several iterations of applying thin coats of filler over the worked areas and sanding them smooth. When the filler work was finally done to my satisfaction, I applied two thin coats of VariPrime self-etching primer. I then put on a couple of heavier coats of SelectPrime, a primer-filler. I did several iterations of block sanding, priming, and guide coating until I got a good primer base with no low spots. At least not that I can see or feel; I was still a little nervous about how all this would turn out. I hung all of the sheet metal to check fit and alignment. I made hinge and body shim adjustments and marked final assembly alignment points so I wouldn't have to do too much fiddling after color painting. I now had a car that looked like a patchwork of several different primer colors. Because I intend to paint the car white over light blue, I was concerned about getting slightly different shades of blue depending on the color of the primer underneath. I disassembled the car for a second time (yes, this was a very labor intensive project) and shot a final coat of DuPont 2K UroPrime over all the body pieces, after scuffing everything up with Scotch pads. This went rather slowly, since my garage had to double as my "paint booth". I had to roll the car out, clean the garage, and cover my work benches before I could paint a piece like a door or trunk lid. While this procedure worked OK for priming, it was inherently too dirty for color painting. Since I was having bad luck finding a painter that had the skills I wanted and the time to do the job, I decided to undertake the color painting as well. I turned one bay of my garage into a temporary spray booth. I hung rolls of heavy plastic sheeting from the ceiling and installed a series of draw strings so they could be rolled up and down like blinds. I used clothes pins to seal the plastic at the corners. It took about an hour to prep the booth for spraying. I placed two exhaust fans under the garage door and installed several filters in a panel of plastic sheeting I used as a door. I installed a large intake fan with filters in the ceiling, since the exhaust fans worked so well the plastic walls would bulge inward under the negative pressure they created. Negative pressure is bad in a paint booth since contaminates can be drawn in through any little opening in the walls. The intake fan balanced the exhaust fans and eliminated the negative pressure problem. I guess I was taking somewhat of a risk using exhaust fans that weren't explosion proof. Due to the nature of the paints with which I was working, I worked with an Outside Air Breathing System from Hobby Air. I wore full coveralls with hood and gloves to prevent skin absorption. My grandson called me "the spaceman". This setup worked pretty well. See the photo section on the Paint Booth. I painted the car the original colors of Shoreline Beige over Glacier Blue. The original blue was a metallic so that's what I chose to use also. I learned the hard way that a single stage metallic is not a good combination on which to learn, since the metallics can't be color sanded. I ended up sanding off the single stage paint and starting over with two-stage Dupont ChromaColor basecoat and clearcoat system. This worked much better, since I didn't have to be so perfect with the base coat. After 2 coats of base and 2 heavier coats of clear, I started the color sanding and buffing process. I color sanded with first 600 grit, then 1000 grit, then 1500 grit, and finally 2000 grit. Then I rubbed it out with machine rubbing compound and followed with machine swirl remover and finally hand polish. Needless to say, this took countless hours of my time. View the pictures of the paint process here.
The Last DetailsAfter everything was assembled that I could assemble, I had to enlist a little outside aid for some specialty tasks. A local muffler shop ordered a set of Flowmaster Delta Flow Series 50 mufflers for me and fabricated a custom 2 1/2" dual exhaust system with cross-over to bolt to my ceramic coated headers from S&S Headers. I had to drive to the shop with open headers. Luckily, it wasn't too far from my home. That 355 HP ZZ4 motor sure commands your attention with open headers. Next, I took it to an Air Conditioning shop to have some hoses custom fabricated and installed and the air conditioning system charged. This was followed by a trip to an alignment shop to have the front end aligned and the brakes bled and adjusted. I was having trouble with the power brake conversion kit I purchased from Stainless Steel Brakes. It seamed to me that I had to apply entirely too much pedal pressure. The stock kit came with a 6" booster. After several telephone calls to SSB, I exchanged the 6" booster for a 9" booster and this solved my problem. One problem I have yet to resolve is tire/wheel clearance on the back. The Camero rear end I used is actually a little wider than the stock rear end. That fact, coupled with the oversized wheels and tires I'm using, makes for a very tight fit squeezing the tires between the wheel wells and the brake drums. I have to deflate the tires and let the differential drop as far as the springs will let it just to change a tire. This would not be a fun exercise on the open road. It would actually cost me about the same to narrow the rear end as it would to go to narrower wheels and tires. This is what I plan to do. I still need to install and plumb a windshield washer reservoir and pump and adjust the headlights. I don't know if I will ever be totally done with this car, but who cares? Did I mention I was born and raised in the motor city, Detroit? |
