Gas, tires, oil.

To make Halloween a little more exciting for the trick or treaters (we get 100’s), I put my ‘55 up near the steps with a dummy hanging out from under the hood.

Then I rigged up a bosch headlight relay to my ahooga horn, I used an old extension cord to trigger the relay from in the house.

On the other end of the extension cord I attached a remote starter switch.

It’s a real rig, but it was quick, cheap and effective. The best ones were teenagers who would act tough and poke at the dummy, I’d trigger the horn and they’d really jump. For a while I had some people hanging out in the street, just waiting for another person to get suprised. If it looked like I took a couple years off their life, I’d give them some extra candy. I had a strobe light flashing at the car, I think this helped build a tense mood. I’ll show it in another post.

I rented a 2005 Impala to go to the airport (cheaper than paying long term parking) and snapped a couple pics. My ‘55 is a little worse for wear after 50 years, but where will that Impala be in 2055?

In order to use the NP 833 4 speed OD trans in my ‘55, I had to switch driveshaft yokes (its the same length as the old 3 spd.). My trans np833 used a 350 turbo sized yoke, but others used the bigger 400 turbo one. I went to the junkyard and got a yoke (and driveshaft) for $15.

I got one with outside clips on the u-joints, like the ones in my ‘55. The same u-joint fit both my old drive shaft and new yoke. I have an interesting (and I think, superior) method for changing u-joints. First I use pliers or a screw driver to remove the clips. Everything else is done with a bronze (or deadblow) hammer and a couple pieces of scrap wood.

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Last time I described why I wanted to use an np833 4spd overdrive trans in my ‘55. The only things that needed to be changed were:
1. The shifter, the car had 3 on the tree, new trans was 4 on the floor. The shifter mounts to the trans and the car already had a hole in the floor (probably from a 3 spd. floor shifter), so this was easy.
2. The driveshaft yoke had different splines. I went to the junkyard and picked up a driveshaft for a 350 turbo trans and just switched yokes (to be shown in a future post).
3. The front bearing retainer on the trans, which also centers the trans in the bellhousing, had the larger truck diameter of 5 1/8″. I didn’t want to change the bellhousing, so I unbolted the bearing retainer and took it to a local machine shop. They turned down the O.D. to 4.68 for only $15 (I think they gave my wife a good deal). Below is a pic of the newly machined part, as you can see, the bolt holes are very close to the edge.

You can see the original diameter from the gasket, nearly a 1/4″ had to be turned off (I later trimmed the gasket with a razor). I had to replace the hex head bolts with allen head bolts. Next time, the driveshaft gets new univerals and the trans goes in (for the first of 3 times).

I use my ‘55 Candian Pontiac to get to work when I don’t take my sportster (basically, rainy days or when I need to haul stuff). The car came with a 3 speed on the column (3 on the tree) manual transmission, and 1st gear is not syncronized. The rear axle ratio is at least 3.55 or numerically higher, so the poor old 283 was really winding up at 65-70 mph. And I often get caught in several miles of stop and go backups on the highway. So out came the old trans ( I’m getting some help from my middle kid, 2 yrs. old):

But what to put back in? An overdrive auto would be nice, but I wanted to be able to do the swap over a weekend, and I didn’t want to spend too much money. To put in an auto, I would have to put in side motor mounts and a trans crossmember. If I were to do that, I would get the mounts that move the motor ahead 3/4″ so an HEI distributor can be used. That would mean getting a new 6-cylinder mount radiator for fan clearance. And if I am going to pull the motor, I might as well assemble the new motor for the car. So things would snowball (these are all things I want to do eventually, just not right now).
The 5 and 6 speed transmissions that come the ’80s and up camaros and such would be nice, but pricey. And, they use a 26 spine clutch, so I’d have to switch mine (10 spine) out, a real pain with a front motor mount and bellhousing ears. And some use a hydralic clutch.
I had pretty much made up my mind to get an overdrive unit from a ’50s-’60s GM car and pair it up with a 3 speed manual that had syncros in 1st. I was searching ebay for one, when I found an NP833 transmission out of an ’80s 1/2 ton chevy pickup. Its an aluminum case 4 speed with 4th being overdrive. A slightly different version was used in ’60s and early ’70s mopars behind some high horse motors (hemis and 440s). The Chevy version has a 10 spline input and the output is the same as either the 350 or 400 turbo (mine was the 350 size). It is the same length as my old 3 speed and came with a floor shifter. The only problem was that the front bearing retainer, that also centers the trans in the bellhousing, was the larger truck size. Some chevy pickups use a bellhousing with a 5 1/8″ opening, instead of the 4 11/16″ opening in the cars. I’ll explain how I got around that problem next time.

The ‘55 needed some some door panels, well specifically, it needed some side panels in the back seat area. The car is a utility sedan (no back seat, rear side windows don’t roll down) but has a back seat put in (well, wired with baling wire). The original carpet is long gone and the bare metal is dangerous for the passengers (my kids and brave hitchikers). I decided to do all the side panels at once, because the door panels were pretty ratty.

I wanted to eventually put carpet on the floor, so I went to Home Depot and found some nice, short knapp, dark green indoor/outdoor carpet for the floor. They also had some runner carpet in the same color, but with a pattern shaved into it. I thought this would look nice on the door panels, especially with the interior metal work eventually done with House of Kolor green marblizing (left over from my trike).

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Heres is a pic of my ‘55 Candian Pontiac utility sedan, fresh from the ebay seller’s house (about 2 years ago). It has ‘55 chevy sheetmetal on the front end, the Pontiac fenders can be seen at the front of the trailer.