History FOUND- Nick Arias Jr.'s '37 Chevy Coupe

I believe that is Harry Warner who originally partnered with Wayne F. Horning when they built the first Chevrolet 12 ports. They split up and went their own way for the GMC’s using different designs. Many 12 ports Chevrolets were shipped to South America to race in cars and boats. Their first engines were all carbureted.

 

Thanks, I'll need to ck. my achieves as I do have some info when the Iowa individual, I spoke of years ago happened to be visiting the Chassis Engineering facility during my visit, if in fact the same guy. Thanks, Ron

 

Ha! I thought these looked familiar..... If we can successfully run Loring LTA in July we will bring these rods and pistons to Bonneville in our '46 GMC XO/PP ..... and when you finish the Coupe, It can probably be run at a safe speed at LTA, the mile and a half timed run on a 2 1/2 mile runway has "common sense" safety rules based on the anticipated trap speed. Frank

 

Would love to see any info you can find on the guy and whatever Iowa connections there are.

 

Would you guys be talking about 12 Port Charlie from Nevada, Iowa? He was well known in the 70’s to 80’s for working on sixes. When I met him he had a long beard. Was in a wheelchair.

 

Why does it have a 38 grill shell on it?

 

Charlie Baker was one of the first members of Inliners International. I stopped by his shop in Nevada Iowa on a vacation once. He was casting and repoing a lot of parts at that time. I believe he was casting the Wayne F. Horning head for the GMC’s. I believe Don Ferguson has those patterns now. Charlie gave me a set of the Horning blue prints with all the dimensions figure and I gave the set to Don a few years ago. Not too much call for all of this now days and costs to reproduce is very high.

 

Justin,

When did John L. Crockett pass away? Amazing you were able to get ahold of his old scrapbook and that jacket! Any other stuff from his estate related to your car?

Where is the head leaking from, is it repairable?

This thread is outstanding, man. Keep up the great work, appreciate all the updates.

 

Still trying to figure all that out. The body has the darker original yellow color underneath it, but the grille shell and front fenders do not. Still a mystery.

 

Thank you sir. John passed away on Christmas day, 2013. He moved to Sacramento in the 2000s sometime, and I have no idea what happened to any of the remaining cars and engines he owned at the time. Apparently he was a pretty big inline 6 collector and ended up making some wild engines with custom OHC conversions etc. Just recently, a friend of mine from WA purchased a 228 (I think) GMC with a homemade OHC conversion out of a stock head from a racer here in SoCal just a few months ago. It's crazy how stuff is still popping up after all these years.

 

This is just awesome history I can't wait to see.more.updates

 

The LaSalle is finally done getting machined, hot tanked (dishwasher) and prepped for final assembly. I got this case from local hot rodder Augie Esposito that was already modified for closed drive Ford, so the remaining work consisted of minor, but tedious, upgrades that'll help this thing live longer but more importantly, seal better. The shifter shaft hole was counter bored deeper for a press in lip seal and chamfered the rear cluster shaft bores for o-rings, and the rest of the work went into the internals, gears, and a bunch of custom parts that no one makes any more. For as simple as these transmissions are, this one was a task!

Next step is to have Ken McAlister spline the main shaft for me and it's ready to go together.

 

Some solid progress being made. John Beckner at Montana Clutch & Driveline in Billings, MT is rebuilding and resurfacing the all-aluminum Schiefer clutch and flywheel, but is installing a steel insert into the flywheel like your typical aluminum type today. This one was just bare aluminum with some sort of face coating direct to the clutch and it did not like it, so it's getting a little facelift to allow me to drive it without worry. Ken McAlister has cut the Ford splines into the LaSalle main shaft for my Lincoln Zephyr u-joint, and I've been busy machining the rear mount for Cad bearing and other little miscellaneous things. I'm also very excited to finally run my sweet GM-LaSalle adapter by Cooks Machine in LA. My grandpa used to frequent Cooks, so it's cool to continue using period correct parts from the same area. New (old) center caps were added to the stock front wheels with a little adjusting of the retaining clips and they now just need to be wrapped in the correct Firestones to get the look. I've also begun the process of rebuilding the Strombergs, first of five. Tuning these will be a chore, I'm sure.

Slowly but surely...

 

Got the LaSalle assembled last night with my girlfriend and everything went pretty well! There's a lot of custom work in this thing and it's nice to see them all working together as a whole. On to the next!

 

^ That's pretty enough to put on display in the living room.

 

that was known as a '37 cad-la ford box

 

Wow, that came out nicely! You are doing a great job!

 

I like that!!

 

Thank you very much. This car is deserving of giving my best effort. Just can't make anything look too new, which is sometimes hard for me.

 

Thank you for your effort to chronicle the history and preservation process. This is such a remarkable story.

 

So this Rusetta timing tag is on the Auburn dash in a 32 Five Window I bought some years back. The coupe was owned by Dwayne Rogers who supposedly was a friend of Kenny Bigelow. I'm trying to find out if Bigelow owned this coupe or Rogers just snagged the tag. Its dated the year before Bigelow died.
Looking for history on this coupe.

 

Talked with Dwayne Rogers yesterday. He did not remember where he got that tag. He knew who Ken Bigelow was but did not him personally. So no story here.