Gas, tires, oil.

Here’s the ‘55 with the front end installed (enough to drive around anyway):


And it tilts (it just doesn’t stop tilting):

Last time I showed how to french in turn signals in fiberglass. I used the stock lens to shape the tunnel, but I decided not to use the factory socket and base. The sockets were in pretty bad shape and the contacts no longer made a good connection to the bulb. Because the tunnel now defined the lens shape, I can use any turn signal that is bigger than the stock one. First I made a flange for it to sit on. I coated a piece of cardboard with release wax and taped it to the end of the tunnel.

Then I laid fiberglass strips over the tunnel and the inner face of the cardboard. I went to the junkyard and found some front turn signals from a ’80s chevy van. In spite of their size they are extremely light. They use a socket that just twists out from the back. This socket is replaceable (the same one as on millions of chevy pickups). Because the housing is plastic, it’s already equipped with a ground wire (very important for a fiberglass front end). For now I attached it with foam double sided tape, but I’m going to get some aluminum or fiberglass threaded rod and bolt it one also (I just can’t stand the thought of the hardware weighing more than what it holds on).

Here’s a pic from the front, it needs some more spot putty and sanding, but it gets me back on the road. The amber color is solely from the bulb (which is not on).

I’ll post in the future about mounting the headlights and making the front end tilt.

In order to get the ‘55 going again with the new fiberglass front end, one of the things I needed to do was to get the turn signals mounted.

Here is the turn signal on the stock fender.

Since the stock turn signal bezel was pretty corroded and the bulb sockets had given me trouble in the past, I decided to french in some new turn signals. First I used the lens as a template to cut out an opening.

Then coated some heavy paper with release wax and rolled it in a tube. Then I used the lens keep it the right shape.

I wanted to fill around it, so I made some filler out of white gel coat and glass micro-balloons. This sort of filler is much stronger than the bondo-types that use talc.

Here’s a shot from the inside, I used some tape to hold the paper in place and prevent filler from dripping through.

Next I coated the part of the tube on the inside of the fender with some gel coat and a couple layers of fiberglass cloth. Also shown is a piece of fiberboard that cut to fit over the tube. This is a guide so I can trim it down evenly with a die grinder.

If I was just frenching the stock turn signal, I’d just make some mounts to hold it as shown below. The thin fiberglass tube actually fits around the lens and between it and the housing.

Next time I’ll show the new turn signals and how I mounted them.

Turns out that St. Patrick’s Day is now a school activity staple (google “Leprechaun traps” to see examples), so my wife pulled a few pranks on the kids and blamed the leprechauns. Now the kids blame leprechauns for everything (the 5 years got a bug or spider bite one night, I asked him what bit him while he was sleeping and he said “It was a leprechaun!”). So one night after the kids went to bed, we pulled the front sheet metal off the ‘55.

The next morning we had the kids look out the window and said “Look what those leprechauns did to the car last night”.
But the next night, they were good and replaced the front end:

The new one is a one-piece fiberglass front end I got off of Craiglist.

How much did it lighten the front end? I haven’t weighed it yet, but the suspension is at the top of the travel, you can see the rubber bumper against the upper A-arm in the pic above. Next I have to mount the headlights, turn signals, radiator and bolt the whole thing down some how. If the suspension hasn’t come down, I’ll have to cut a coil off the front springs. Now I just need fiberglass trunk lid to balance out the rear (of course then I’ll need ‘glass doors to even out the middle).

After I got my NP 833 transmission installed in the ‘55, I needed a shifter knob; the 3/8″-16 threads were pretty sharp. I went to the flea market and some yard sales looking for some likely canidates, I even eyed some of the kid’s toy’s. Then I found a nice antique glass doorknob at the flea market, it even had the right threads in the shank (some older door knobs used threaded shafts). I used it for a while, but the glass was a bit loose, so I removed the nut I had below it lock it in place and ran it down until the threaded end the the shifter touched the glass, thereby imobilizing it. Then one day I found that the top part of the glass had popped off from the pressure.

It was disapointing to wreck something like that, but I found an almost identical one at a yard sale. Mean while I had settled on green for the interior color (see here for the construction of the door panels) and had found some green glass knobs for the window winders. I would have loved to have had a matching green glass shifter knob, but I came close by painting the underside of the glass green with model paint.

So what’s next for the ‘55? Finishing the rust repair in the floor so I can put the carpet in, maybe giving it a new coat of flat black on the exterior (or maybe flat green). Modern suspension and brakes would be nice… and sensible… and responsible, but let me just say that in my garage there is something on an engine stand with nice, fresh crosshatching on its cylinder walls just waiting for assembly.

I have previously shown the construction of new door panels for my ‘55 candian pontiac. I like the theme of having a scary outside and a classy interior. I found these green glass knobs at Dixon’s Auction in Crumpton, MD (nice story on a recent “Antiques Roadshow FYI, Program 124 | Premiered Wednesday, August 24, 2005). They’re really just drwer pulls, I drilled out the rivets that held on the stock plastic knobs and attached these with stainless screws and nylock nuts.

I think they match the color of the carpet nicely. But why glass? To match the antique door knob I found for a 4 speed shifter knob (for a later post).

2 years ago today… I was in Montana.

Meanwhile, tonight in California, I’m getting snailmail.

I had alluded to the fact that sedans (or posts) are lighter than the corresponding hardtops in spite of the fact that they have more metal showing (a vertical post in front of rear side window and a rim around window on the door). I found some actual numbers in this book, “Chevrolet, a book of numbers):

It has codes for the serial number plates and the codes stamped just about all drivetrain components (axles, engines, transmissions). It also has the weights for various models, lets look at ‘55 V8s first:

The first column of 4 digit numbers is the model, the second is the price and the third is the weight. My ‘55 candian pontiac (the model is a “Pathfinder”) is a utility sedan, its based on a Chevrolet drivetrain so the numbers should be comparable. The number right after the number of doors is the number of occupants (3, 5 or6). For the utility sedan, it’s 3. That’s because it doesn’t have a back seat (nor do the rear side windows roll down). This also makes it the lightest model at 3055 lbs with the normal sedan coming in at 3080 lbs. There’s no hardtop 150, so we have to go the a more deluxe model (210), where the 2dr hardtop is 3142 (some of that weight is other options, the 210 sedan is 3115). To get a convertible we have to go up to a Bel Air, where the weight is 3285 lbs., but again, some of that extra weight is other options. So, model contributes as follows for a sedan: 150 to 210, 35 lbs; 210 to Bel Air, 10 lbs. Body style: utility sedan to sedan, 25 lbs; sedan to hardtop, 27 to 40 lbs. and hardtop to convertible, 120 lbs. Each step doesn’t make much difference, but a convertible Bel Air weighs 230 lbs. more than a utility sedan.
Here’s the numbers for ‘68 V8 Chevelles, with much the same trend.

In this post, I showed how the overdrive 4 spd. NP 833 trans I got off of ebay had some problems. The tip of the output shaft is surrounded by rollers and sits inside a race machined into the input shaft. The rollers had gotten chewed up, as well as both shafts. New shafts were about $250-350 each, so I’d end up with like $800 bucks in this trans. I thought about getting another one on ebay, even if it was bad, maybe I could put two together.
What I ended up doing was finding a needle roller bearing (with its own races) from SKF that fit in the internal bore of the input shaft with no modification (the bore was just a little rough, not out of shape). I then had the tip of the output shaft built up with hard chrome and then ground down to fit the ID of the needle bearing race (Babbit Bearing Co, San Jose). As far as I’m concerned its better than factory, now it has replaceable races. Unfortunatly I can’t find the pics, so you’ll just have to use your imagination. I put in a new main bearing, rear bushing and all the seals.
So here’s a pic of the stock pickup shifter in the ‘55, it’s too close to the steering wheel and needs a knob, but thats for next time.

Having synchros in first gear is really nice, and with overdrive I’ve got no problem cruising at 70 on the highway (except now I need to update the brakes).

I have previously posted about my plan to upgrade the manual trans in my ‘55 to a 4-speed, overdrive with syncros in first gear using an NP833. Everything seemed to go pretty easy, I just was able to switch transmissions in a day (including new u-joints). The next day I took it for a ride, when I got to 4th gear it made a godawful noise, kind of like some grinding on an empty 55 gallon drum with an angle grinder. I pulled out, took off the side cover, all the gears looked OK. The bearings didn’t feel bad. I messed around with the detents (I though maybe the shifter was pushing 2 gears too close), put it back in, same thing. So I took it back out and swapped the old trans (had to switch the yokes again). By now I’m getting pretty good, I can switch transmissions in about 20 minutes. I email my ebay seller, he had claimed the trans was in good shape and was swapped out for a 350 turbo for “medical reasons”. He said he was selling for a friend and probably couldn’t get the money back. Shipping on the thing was $75, so I didn’t shipping it back would do either of us any good. Finally, I got $100 back out of my $225.
I pulled the input shaft out and found this:

Thats a chewed up roller I’m holding. Turns out the tip of the output shaft rides inside the end of the input shaft, surrounded by rollers. The bearing surface is the shafts themselves, no races.