Projects 53 Chevy Bel Air "Cleetus" mild custom daily driver

So getting pretty wired. According to tracking I'll have my headliner the day after tomorrow. I'm a pretty skilled dude when it comes to upholstery. While I have experience a guy I worked for near Houston back in 2017 made the comment that I had some of the most natural upholstery ability that he'd seen in the decades he'd been in business. Pictured is a headliner a year after I redid it with the original 40 year old material. Only part of it I actually replaced was the actual glue. Think I fixed a soft(not broken or torn) spot in the board with resin. Customer brought it back to show off because regardless of whether I do a headliner through my personal side business or through where I'm working I always give a one year warranty through me personally if new material....in this case the customer was cool and super regular at the shop so i still gave him the warranty with the agreement it only covered major failures. It's been three years and still looks great. Anyway all of that aside I think the last time I did a full bow style headliner was right after the army when I briefly worked for a big talk street rod shop over twenty years ago lol. Everything I'm hearing and reading says my car is one of the easier ones as I don't have to pull glass or anything. And I have no doubt it'll come out fine. But I'm pretty sure if anyone happens to take a pic of me mid install it'll answer their question if their question is "what does a monkey humping a football look like?" Lol. It'll definitely be worth it. Definitely looking forward to a more finished interior look

 

So far not overly impressed by this headliner from a "proper American company". Had to cut the bow loops just to get it where the bows would reach. Have a LOT of trimming to do at the edges. And realized when I looked at a mostly stretched section the stitches were squiggly. Guess I'll just make one for the 54. Didn't exactly plan on financing a few hundred bucks for someone else to do what I could easily do roflmao. Oh well I'll be able to make it work and it'll look decent. Lesson learned lol

 

Well got the front half mostly done

 

Headliner closer to being done. Gotta dig up my spare bow clip as I managed to drop one of them. Ill dig it up and attach at rear glass and tuck around c pillar. Got one a pillar wrapped but still need to do the other. While I've found even more flaws in the quality of this headliner (like an actual hole where they forgot to stitch about an inch of it near passenger c pillar lol) I'm happy with how it's turning out. And can tell by the different temps from before I began install I'll be glad I put it in once winter hits lol.

 

Needed to be leopard print.
looking good.

 

I honestly wanted to do vinyl. But instead of a monkey humping a football like on this one it'd be six monkeys humping a football in a mud puddle. After someone gave the monkeys drugs. Lol. Not to mention to price difference.

 

Also thank you again for giving me two bow clips when I told you I was only missing one. That's why I have a spare to replace the one I lost yesterday lol

 

Welcome.

 

I think you even said "here's two in case you lose another one" roflmao. I saw and heard the one fall yesterday. Just no clue where it went lol.

 

Oh should mention the visors match much better in person. Between the spray dye I used on them and the flash of the camera they just look off in pics. Actually match pretty well

 

Guess I'll drop the starter tomorrow to make sure I just need the starter itself. If it needs a flex plate the part is no big deal as I have a good spare. It'll just be a pain to change with my cross member setup. But I can change it without actually removing trans or engine or even pulling the driveshaft. So not horrible

 

Pretty much as far as I'm going with the headliner. May touch up the rear corners a bit later

 

Looks good to me

 

Added much more of a finished look to the interior than I expected. More motivated to get carpet, sill plates, and finally decide on rear speaker grills. Undecided on two chrome stock style grills or some sort of vintage aftermarket grill. Whichever I choose they'll need to be hard to see through to hide the modern pioneer speakers

 

Already decided on grills for the 54 though. Since I'm doing a white shag rear package tray I'm going to go with retro pipe organ style grills

 

And gear reduction starter on. As if hoped it was just the starter bad. Really don't know how I did it lol. This gear reduction starter hangs up a bit but it'll work for now till I can afford a new one. But In any case the clunker is back to usable again.....just gotta get legal lol

 

Think I'm going to try to revisit this mini project this weekend. Kept going back and forth between welding it in place or bolting it in with small pieces of angle. Then today I revisited the k.i.s.s. method and figured I'd cut the stock cross member 2" long on each end. Then split the end into three tabs to bend back to then drill and bolt to this piece. Figure I'll drop the rear of the trans 1-2" in the process as I knew the tail shaft was too high when I installed it lol. Later I can go back and add a bar over the top of this piece to brace and even include a drive shaft loop. All while still being able to easily unbolt and remove

 

Tiny bit of progress on the cross member. Picked up a transmission mount and drilled the plate so I could bolt it on

 

And giving this cheapo a try. At least till I get the heater core sorted. I often sit in the car to smoke before work. And it's starting to get cold. Figure with the added insulation top and bottom this cheapo might take the edge off lol

 

Throwing some paint on this before I get under the car to chop up the stock x member to install it. Not particularly worried about looks. Just trying to keep rust down. In any event this plate is high quality steel. Left it outside for like seven months and the only specks of surface rust were where I bent it lol

 

So after actually fitting it my original plan of making it bolt to the stock cross member is out the window. I do have it bolted in place but wouldn't trust serious miles on it. But as I finally got the original cross member separated from the car I'll get everything bolted where I want it and then take the cross member to weld it up. Ended up dropping the tail shaft more than I wanted but can easily shim the mount

 

Went ahead and did something I was putting off. Despite only 80k on this engine it has too much blowby to just run breather caps. Guessing previously previous owners ran it non-stop with 20w50. Only valve covers I had to allow me to run PVC that weren't over the top 70/80s style(I have a pair of blue anodized moroso valve covers lol) were these chrome edelbrocks. Not that I don't like these valve covers.....I just prefer them on car 25+ years newer. Lil test start and car is already acting happier. In the nearish future I'll get a pair of finned aluminum valve covers with pcv holes. Also I ran pcv the CORRECT way. Should always be a sealed system. Running a pcv valve on one side and a breather cap on the other is a vacuum leak. Purpose of the passenger valve cover is to keep pcv valve closed until there is positive pressure. At best the pcv on one side and breather on the other would be a negative crankcase ventilation setup. Personally I like to avoid sucking oil through my carb if possible lol

 

All good. Only reason I was open to doing pcv was I found this breather lookalike pcv lol

 

Bottom side of a similar pcv valve off the engine for my 54

 

And my next trick. Replacing the flex plate without actually removing engine or trans. Just removed bellhousing bolts and put two real long bolts in the bottom and dropped the middle down. Already have the good used one I had in. Got cold so I'll finish reassembly tomorrow. Did check to see if it turned over smooth. No more grind. Now I can brag my car has Corvette parts as the flex plate actually did come from a Corvette.....only not a cool one. Disco era Corvette. Same era some Corvettes came from the factory with 305s lol. So same parts as Jim Bob's farm truck lol

 

Pulled this hacked up piece of metal aka my custom crossmember back out. Gonna brace and weld it up at work tomorrow. Shimmed the new piece and angled the trans mount spot up a bit to not have so much drop

 

Ignore the beautiful welds roflmao. I managed to get proper penetration despite how it looks. Thing ended up super rigid. In fact to help get it to fit after welding I tried pushing up in the middle to bow it up a bit. Instead it simply lifted the car lol. Gotta get eight more bolts because a couple lost their threads upon removal and I lost a couple. But this will work for me