Projects Cutting my Hotrod Teeth (57 Chevy Budget build/revival)

Your radio conversion would be a great thing to share here. Lots of us would like some way to hear music the modern way but most of the vintage look replacement radios aren’t great (if, they are even available for your car).

 

^^^^ I second the motion

 

I hog ringed a sheet over my seat in my 53 after adding foam before putting the Mexican blanket down. Works better than duct tape

 

Yeah, no duct tape. Hog rings, or if you absolutely have to, zip ties. If you straighten out some coat hangers and kinda weave them into your blankets on the ends, it makes a great place to grab the blanket with the hog rings and pull them tight. You can get really good results for almost no money.

Duct tape, even under layers, will roll up on the edges and get lumpy, it's not worth it.

Cut your foam, and if you want, wrap the foam-topped springs with a sheet and ring that into place like the Pope said, then ring the blankets on over the top, as tight as you can pull them. It'll work.

 

Also, I like the radio conversion, looks good.

 

Thanks guys! I’ll try the hog rings instead. First I’ve gotta find a piece of foam the right dimensions. Lots of places sell it but it seems like you either end up paying way more than I want to, or the pieces are too small.

I’ll take some photos of the radio mods I made. It’s the kind of thing you can knock out in an afternoon and a trip to the hardware store. Oh, and the $20 amp board off eBay.

 

I used multiple pieces of foam from Walmart. Built up the holes before putting a piece of 1" foam across the cushion

 

That’s a good suggestion. There are lots of pieces missing so I was going to have to stuff something in the low spots anyway.

 

Today I got the front half of the floor painted. I did find a few small pinholes that I’ll need to keep an eye on and eventually fix, but nothing too concerning. I mostly just wanted to get rid of that nasty tar-board and make it all one color. It’s nothing fancy, just a thick layer of flat black enamel, but it’ll be better than what I had.

 

I'll dig up a few pics of my seat repair. Basically the same seat

 

Ignore the mess. It's since been cleared out lol

 

If you're really cheap like me and you like thrift store shopping, I've bought a few foam mattress toppers for maybe 3 or 4 bucks each and cut those up for the foam. It's usually the egg crate shape and you'd have to probably triple it up if you don't have any foam to start with, but it really works great as filler or for an overlay if your original foam is intact but maybe broken down a bit.

Upholstery foam is weirdly pricey. I once stripped a couch on the curb for red leather and took all the foam out of that, it seemed a little nuts at the time but I used every piece of it.

 

That turned out great considering what you started with! Thanks for the photos, helps me visualize what’s possible. I was just going to cut a piece that size of the seat top, and put it under the ripped up cover and call it good, but the patchwork might be the better way to go

 

Funny enough, a neighbor down the street put a chair out on the curb a couple weeks ago that I probable could have cut up for foam. Damn! I’ll give a thrift store a try too. I really don’t want to put much if any money into the 4-door specific pieces of this car such as the front seat so keeping the fix as cheap as possible sounds good to me!

 

If you intend to two door convert all the foam could be used to patch up a two door seat that'd likely be in Same shape lol

 

I received the electric fuel pump yesterday, but I ordered a different design of mechanical pump at the same time. It turns out that the pumps I was trying to use are all badly-designed pieces of junk. I got the new one in first try with very little effort, and it’s working, according to my vacuum gauge!

Turns out it wasn’t my fault, just the way those pumps I had were made, the arm has too much side to side play and slips past the pushrod. Glad I finally found a pump that works. The bad part part is, now I’m back to figuring out what fittings to use, however this new pump has 1/4 inch ports, so not quite as weird of an adaption as 1/8 npt to 5/16 inverted flare. I think I’m starting to get the hang of the fitting sizes.

I also finished up my budget redo of the front seat this afternoon. It isn’t perfect, but it’s a helluva lot better than what I had before which was so dry rotted that any time I sat on it, i was covered in yellow foam dust after. The vinyl covered edge pieces actually cleaned ip very nicely!



Here’s how it ended up looking. Oh, and the dash is apart again because the light switch got jammed up and then I ended up busting the plastic inside trying to push the rod back in. Replacement is ordered but I’ll be working on the fuel lines (finally) next!

 

Don't even beat yourself up over trying something you have never done before. Looks 100% in these pictures so only you know what is wrong. Nobody else will know unless you show them. You are learning "Gr***hopper" and will only get better the more you do.

 

Keep an eye on Craigslist free ads, there are always free couches that you can scavenge the foam out of!

 

Got her running off the tank! Took me some fiddling to get rid of a leak up by the carb but this is a major milestone on this project, and I’m pretty proud of myself for figuring out my fuel delivery issue. It’s running a little rough, but now I’ll actually be able to run it longer than a minute or so to actually set timing and tune the carb!

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/oCrE1u_XNOI

And, we have liftoff!

Probably the most terrifying yet fun drive around the block of my life! The throttle keeps sticking and I’m not used to 1st being unsynchro’d, but it’s a real car again! First time it’s moved under its own power more than a few feet in over 30 years!

 

YES!!!!!!! You have been on quite a journey.

 

This is terrific! Your persistence has paid off. Glad to see your progress.

 

Another couple major steps this week, the car is now plated and insured!

I think I got my sticking throttle issue resolved. My return spring was getting hung up on the idle speed screw. I ended up changing the spring setup and now it doesn’t seem to run away if I give it some gas.

I’ve been playing with the timing a bit trying to get it dialed in. I’ve found several different opinions on the matter. Some say 8 degrees, some say 10, or 12. I find I can’t retard the timing any more than about 8 BTDC. Does that sound correct? If I go any further, it starts missing and dies.

I suppose my timing chain could be worn and causing the timing to be a little “off”, but should I keep trying to retard it further, or leave it where it’s at and move on to the idle speed and mixture? How “bad” would it be to set it to say, 6 degrees initial timing if that’s where it seems to run the smoothest?

 

Yeah always set where happiest. Recommended specs are purely a baseline to work off of. Tolerances on all parts were 1-3° either direction. So if you got a fluke everything set correctly could be 12° off on new parts. And that doesn't figure in wear

 

Thanks guys, I figured my ears and common sense were worth just as much as checking readings on gauges and the timing light.

Now i’ve got the motor idling at about 900RPM, leaned out as far as I could go with the highest vacuum reading I could get. It’s sounding a lot better now. Is 900 too high for idle? I have the idle speed screw all the way out so it’s idling as low as the carb’ll go.

 

I’ll also say, it seems to maybe be running hot. The top of the radiator is hot to the touch, and I don’t think I’m getting circulation, since the top rad hose doesn’t feel “full”. I did check the thermostat and it opened in a jar of 180° water, so not sure why it wouldn’t be opening. I ended up kinking the line for my aftermarket temp gauge, so it looks like that’ll be the next (re-)purchase.

 

It also seems that I just needed to build some oil pressure to get my vintage Stewart Warner oil PSI gauge to go. This was taken out of the same ‘71 El Camino as the Sun Super Tach that I found in a junkyard a few years back.