Projects Building "Lucy:" 1950 Chevy Styleline Deluxe 4 door

More work on the exhaust. Made these brackets. The stock one on the drivers side was to low with the suspension being dropped. I've worked hard to keep ground clearance. these 90° brackets I made are for the exhaust hanger strap so it's not bent where t connects to the underbody.

 

The passenger side is totally finished. It's
Tough to see cause of the lighting but the pipe from the manifold to the muffler is almost exactly centered between the transmission crossmember and floor, slightly favoring the crossmember side, which is exactly what I wanted.

The muffler ended up a little closer to the read floor pan than I wanted which makes me nervous because of the oil/dirt undercoating bit there is about 3/4" clearance and I know much air goes under there and it would take over 200° to ignite that floor coating. I *may* drop them a bit by lengthening the down pipe and one of the curves of the axel arch to get more like 2" but I haven't decided if I care yet.

I also am 50/50 on taking some brake cleaner and a scuffing pad and cleaning the exhaust up and painting with high heat paint but I am thinking with no snow and avoiding rain, if certainly won't rust through from the outside… Any rust through will happen from condensation on the inside. I don't care if it gets surface rust underneath…

 

Another update. I am kind of embarrassed to admit this but pride is no good anyway. I dropped a 1/4" thick 2 1/2" long RTV silicon goober in the distributor whole and in trying to get it out, it fell down in on the starter/fuel pump side. This was with the intake manifold off. I drained the oil hoping it would come out. It didn't. I got a new oil pan gasket because I didn't like the one the guy used when he built the motor and I'll just drop the pan and retrieve it

 

One of the true advantageous of having an exhaust system custom "fitted" is the fact that the straight pipes do not have to be continuously straight.
The pipe bending machine can "tweek" the pipe, make slight or not so slight bends, to follow floor or frame contours.
My '51 went to the exhaust shop with its headers attached to the 235.. I supplied the mufflers.
Pipes were fit like a factory installation, but more than looks alone, my clearances from floor pans and fuel tanks and lines are good.
Flanges were used, going through the system, so sections of the exhaust system could easily be removed, without affecting remaining parts of exhaust system.
I spent $175 for my exhaust work at the pipe bending shop.
When I calculate what I would have spent for materials alone, I believe I did the right thing, for me.
Drew, 3/4" of clearance from muffler to floor is close, real close.
Excessive heat, vibration or a possible fire has to be considered, and I know you have.
Keep the wheels turning on your project.

 

Drew, you could ovalize the exhaust pipe in a vise between 2x4's. That might help lower the muffler and give you some floorboard clearance.

 

Looking great brother, keep it up! I'll be revising here often as you know since you are one step ahead of me. Thanks for being the lab rat

 

Tommy, I can persuade it down a bit if I have to but I think it's going to be ok. The ovalize thing came in handy with the down pipe yesterday. These 1990's vortec manifolds stick WWAAYYY out and I have about 7/16" between the pipe and the frame!

Marcus, thanks man! That works both ways... You being miles ahead of me with the customer (or should I say kustom) work. Thing is, my wife wants the car stock. I want her to enjoy it to so stock (appearing) it stays. For the most part. I think I am going to do a 1/2 ton truck next and do it totally her way so she has her own

 

Nice car and very cool that you are doing everything yourself. I will be following along as you make more progress.

 

Thank you! I don't have a choice. the deadline is may 23. If it's not done I have to borrow a 49-53/4 GM car to drive my son to his first birthday in (don't worry it's less than a mile and I'll make sure my car is safe - brakes etc). There is going to be a void in my life when this car is done so ill probably build another lord willing. As stated above, I wanna do a pickup for my wife and he gardening/hobby stuff. then a Cadillac. Gonna be tricky with no money

 

Ok Update:

The exhaust is totally finished. Just some nuts to tighten as everything is finger tight for the moment. Its looks great - professional, actually, except of course for the fact that it is butt welded and I didn't bother to grind them smooth - as the old saying goes: aint nobody got time for that.

I decided against painting it, as well, as I honestly don't care if it surface rusts. It won't rot, as the car doesn't see snow and I avoid rain if I can. Its parked in a garage. Besides, I can't protect the inside, which will be exposed to condensation. The exhaust, minus the mufflers, was $110. Not bad for mandrel bent dual exhaust.

A TIP for anyone doing this: Do your downpipes and hang your mufflers first. Measure how far your tailpipe will be inward from the frame at the back, and how far the outlet of the muffler is from the frame. Knowing this, the overall distance, and where the axel is, achieve this path AS SIMPLY as possible with tack welds, checking fit along the way, if kept simple, it should fit the first time. I made my driver side whilst looking at the original. When I had a complete day to work, i set that aside and banged out the passenger side in one afternoon in the method I mentioned above and it was like a 3 hours to-do. The driver side, which I did trying to mock an original that was probably done using a bender with the car on a lift, was a disaster. After at least 20 cuts and welds, I decided to say forget everything from the top of the axel arch to the muffler and start new. literally 5 welds did the trick and she fits perfectly. Keep it simple.

If i was to grind the wends and paint this exhaust, I would be show car proud of it. BUT my car is not a show car in any way, shape, or form. So no pretty exhaust.

 

I want some opinions. The custom/hotrodder in me has been since I was a child. Daily drivers have been customized as young as 17 with subtly different trim, grills, and "nosing/decking" was called "shaving" when I was a kid and I did plenty of, again, SUBTLE changing like that. Well, that "instinct" is telling me to ditch the front and rear bumper guards (if thats what the upright chrome things on my bumpers are called) but part of me thinks they are cool.

What do you all think?

 

assembly

If you remove the front and rear vertical guards, you will be exposing a "not so nice" three piece bumper.
The guards functioned as protection and a cover up for the three piece deal. Some Chevys came with one piece bumpers, mostly on west coast, some in Canada.

 

I personally think you should keep the exterior of the car just the way it is, completely stock appearing, but with your 327/350/57 rear end combo packing the surprise. I agree on the bumpers; the guards cover up and hide the bumper piece overlaps. There was someone on the HAMB who "flipped" the rear guards, and then drilled through them for the exhaust pipes to exit; completely different look. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

Actually, I know my front one is one piece, and I am pretty sure the back is too. It's most certainly not a west coast car though. I was told it was in Michigan all its life. But at one point it was spruced up. Maybe they put new bumpers on it? Good advice to leave it probably. A full custom is absolutely out of the question but I am toying with the idea of subtle things like chrome smoothies and perhaps Buick tail lights

 

If the bumpers are 1 piece - them dump the guards - they are a distraction.
Nice car and nice work.

 

You can peek around, behind the bumper guard to see if both frt. and rear are one piece.
In its 65 years of life, someone may have installed one piece bumpers, or, it came with one piece bumpers.
Can't image, though, someone taking the time and $$$ to install one piece bumpers, then hiding the fact with bumper guards.
If one piece, my guess is there were factory installed.

 

Probably. They've def. been re chromed. I can't imagine them being original. They are perfect. The guards are too. The grill is hammered though

 

Rear is one piece

 

So tonight I got the massive RTV goober that fell in the distributor hole out of the engine.



The new gasket will probably never leak. I used a scotch bright pad and brake cleaner to make the pan perfect where the gasket goes and used a gasket adhesive to stick the new gasket to it. I cleaned the block side with a razor, scotch bright pad, and paper towel. Went together nicely. Had to drop the tierod ends and the thing that connects them to the pitman. Everything is finger tight but then my wife called me in the house so later or tomorrow it torquing them, putting the oil back in, and installing the new intake manifold, and the carb

 

Not exactly a huge step forward but the oil pan and intake manifold are both on. This isn't exactly the look I was hoping for...the aluminum manifold isn't what I was expecting visually.

How the heck are the center 2 bolts on each side (so 4) torqued? Can't get a socket wrench in there and the angle combined with the height of the carb mounting surface means no socket extension either

 

You would use a crowfoot wrench on the torque wrench.

 

I see socket head bolts, and that will make getting a Allen head socket into there difficult; regular bolt heads work better, and like mentioned, a crowsfoot works fine. I sometimes tighten "by feel" to what I sense the other bolts take for torque; better than nothing, and it's the heat crossover there as opposed to a water passage. That's what I would do; practice with a torque wrench on a bolt held in a vice, and then the same length breaker bar to get a sense of the leverage needed. Or, swap bolts out. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

very nice car and great work......the custom in me says to deck it leaving the key hole and adding what we called a bull nose to the hood......just minor changes to satisfy the custom in YOU.

 

Thanks for the crowfoot idea with a regular bolt. Deferred back to my "to poor to buy a torque wrench" days when I was a teenager, and did it by feel. I did use the torque wrench on the other eight bolts as reference though.

U-235 you very much for the kind words! Down the road, I do want to jacket, pancake the hood a little bit, make it a one piece hood, one piece windshield, various customizations. For now, it's staying stock, my wife and I more or less share the car, and she likes the body the way it is. I'm somewhat impartial

 

pretty excited about these. I'm fairly certain it wasn't original but this is what was on my old single exhaust. It was quite worn out, and I got a great deal on these new ones

 

Worked on the brakes and gas pedal tonight. The Clevis for the power booster shaft to pedal arm was actually too long so I made one from a nut and plate steel. My whole pedal assembly is home made

 

Moving right along. Drew, but I think you might want to consider doing a little finishing work on your fabrication. It compliments all your hard work and hones your skills.

 

Tommy, ironic! Just started that today

 

I made these. One mounts to the intake manifold and holds a OEM 73 nova kickdown cable in the "correct place" and the other is a 3 sided box that goes over the corner of the carb and is held in place by the carb. This is a custom bracket to accept the OEM accelerator cable from the pedal I was given. Not sure of the donor car, the kind gentleman who gave it to me may comment if he doesn't wish to remain anonymous