Am I a 'Rockstar' yet? My '53 Chevy on the road again!

When we last left off Black Beauty (my ’53 Chevy’s given ‘show name’ ) was looking good laying on the ground in the rear but I was concerned over clearance issues. Needless to say, it kept snowing and snowing and I couldn’t even get it out of the garage to go for a test drive. Not being a patient person I decided I wanted to do something while I was waiting for winter to be over. I have hated that orange engine paint from day one and it was time to do something about it.


At the Detroit Autorama this year Sinticket, Hotdamn and I had a pretty extensive discussion on kandy paints on engines and even visited the House of Kolors booth to pick out a color. I wanted my engine Kandy red but I wasn’t sure how well it would hold up. The guys at the HOK booth assured me that with proper prep and painting it would indeed hold up to the heat of my 6.
So began the project…

My first step was taking A LOT of pictures so I made sure I got this thing back together right. I am slightly intimidated by the Rajo set up and the multiple carbs

After the pictures were all taken it was time to pull the motor. Should be easy, right? Just a little Six, NOT! I quickly learned that the intakes and carbs involved in this Rajo are like a Chinese puzzle with only one solution. Everything is way close together but luckily with a few choice phrases and cut up fingers I convinced it to come apart.

Having the engine out would allow me to give the whole bay a good cleaning. I also wanted to weld on the motor mounts some more. Some of you may remember from the old post how the motor used to sit on tubing to compensate for the lift on the entire car. I had chopped the pipes off and remounted the motor with it in the car. Having the motor out completely would help me clean up the mounts and make them more secure.

Last look at awful orange…




Once the motor was out I took it to my friend the motor detailing god Dave. He does all of the engine bay restorations for the fancy classics where I work. He is super detail oriented about prep for paint, painting and then putting everything in right place and making things just PERFECT. I could have painted my motor myself but I knew he would do an awesome job. Plus I was leaving for the Round Up very soon.

Loaded up and ready to go (much easier to move a V8 by the way&#8230


I found another neat patent application stamp in the head like on the Rajo once the valve cover was removed.


You may also notice that the top of the head is painted awful orange as well. I guess that is an old speed racer trick to help the oil flow better. That is the ONLY part of the engine that stayed awful orange!

 

After the motor was cleaned and primered the first step in laying the kandy was laying the base coat silver. The local paint shop told Dave and I to coat it until it was covered and the flake was “standing up”. Three quick coats later it was ready for red. We had talked about how red meant RED so he quit after 7 coats of red. It is RED!

 

While he was doing his thing with the motor I had my own work to do. The car has these crazy chrome inner fenders compliments of its show car days in the 70s. At first I thought they were a little hokey but they’ve really grown on me. Plus they are in really great shape. Easy to polish!


I spent quite a bit of time in this engine bay lately.
Welding…


Scrubbing and painting…


And sometimes just resting…


But in the end it was all worth it! Pretty clean chrome and shiny black new paint!

 

In addition to the engine compartment there was a lot of cleaning, sanding and painting of the various engine components, including the finned valve cover. It had ‘awful orange’ (as I affectionately refer to it) in the fins. I compare cleaning the paint out of those fins to removing wallpaper in a house. Once you’ve stripped it you realize what a bad idea it was in the first place. Needless to say you won’t find any wallpaper in my house or paint in the fins of my valve cover!


Good thing for trusty aircraft stripper!


Going…


Going…


Gone!


Another reason for this re-paint was these headers. They were getting really rusty and I had to get them off and redone before the season no matter what.


After blasting alone they came out better than new!




I figured I had might as well do the Rajo intake as well since it was off. It had some type of silver paint and even some kind of clear that had yellowed over it.


Her ‘markings’

 

Polishing the Fenton intake and valve cover turned into a pretty big project. I had never polished anything that had been sitting for that long before. I made a sweet deal with the Wenol man at the swap meet and got everything I needed to be a pro-polisher
Almost everyone who stopped by the shop got into the action. There is something to be said when you can work on something and see the progress right away.

Whiskeyrunner (Matt) working on the intake


My nephew Selden found it to be great fun (let’s hope that feeling lasts!)


As I was waiting at the Austin airport to go home from the Round Up Dave called and said my motor was done. I could hardly wait to get on the plane to get home to go pick it up! I had no idea how good (or bad ) it looked! So I raced over to his garage right after work that Monday to pick it up. Needless to say, I LOVED it!

 

Now for the fun part, getting it all back in and running. As my mom often reminds me when I complain about this or that car or motor, if it were easy everyone would do it. So with that in mind I rolled out the cherry picker for another afternoon of fun. Worst part was now I had this sweet kandy paint job I didn’t dare scratch! Well, three people, three jacks and a couple hours later she was back in there. Only a few little booboo marks on the oil pan!




Tin Indian (Matt squared) working on losing a digit or two…


And she’s in!

 

I also had a lot of other projects going on at the same time. Tightening the front end, moving the fuel filter and removing the old stubborn exhaust!


The next couple weeks were spent installing, cleaning, and adjusting everything to be put back in. Every night I was sure it would be the night I got it started but it never seemed to happen for some reason or another. Thank goodness for my boys at the local NAPA and Side_valve here on the HAMB for all of their quick parts deliveries!

Here are some installation in process pics




How many of you out there have a kustom sword dipstick? Not too many I bet!
Aaaarrrgghhh!


I even had an opportunity to corrupt another girl into the hot rod hobby, Tin Indian’s (Matt squared) gal Diana volunteered for an evening of fun. She got the privilege of making the gaskets for the Rajo. We’ll just call her Gasket Girl! She did a good job making them and siliconing everything up nice and tight.




Getting closer…


Carbs and lovely linkage back on


The next picture should show my fancy new wires and fuel line but it was getting late and I had made myself a deadline by making an appointment at the exhaust shop Saturday morning at 7:30 am. By the time I got the wires pulled thru the looms and fancy red fuel line run it was approaching 1:30 am Friday night (well, technically Saturday morning) and I wasn’t in a picture taking mood I wanted to make a youtube of its first fire but it wasn't that exciting. It fired right up though after the fuel pumped up to the motor. It ran good but sounded like a derby car with no exhaust!

 

So the next morning I transported the car to my friend James who is the king of exhaust. As long as he is alive I will never bend a tube. He knows what he is doing and does a great job. Best part is, he always asks what I want and does it. How many men can I say that about?

He got right to work figuring out a plan. He was shocked at how low it was and not really happy he wasn’t going to be able to run the exhaust over the axle. He kept telling me how it was going to look bad under and I kept reminding him now one can even get their head under there to look! Eventually we settled on a good compromise and he got right to work.




I still needed to find some dust caps before I put my spider caps on. Fortunately his shop is right next to a parts store that actually had them! I figured I might as well repack the wheel bearings while he was working. Everything was nice and clean in there…


I love grease!


Looks like something one of those Red Hat ladies would drive!


In no time at all he had me all fixed up and ready to roll. I am quite happy with the way it all turned out. We were able to get them out the back which is what I wanted. I thought for a minute about dumping them out the side but I just didn’t think it would look right.




Now, for the BIG moment, what will it sound like?
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Perfect! I love it! It is just as loud (and what some would call obnoxious ) as I hoped! It has a nice quiet idle to it then winds up as Zach Suhr put it like a &#8220;mad bumblebee&#8221;! Unfortunately it was pouring rain so the only place it was going was back to the trailer
I promised him tomorrow it would be nicer and we would go for a spin!

 

Sunday it was GORGEOUS in Ohio and I could hardly wait to get up and get going. I was really anxious to see how it rode and drove and ran with all of the changes made. I drove on a back country road figuring that would be a good test for ride height considering the amount of potholes, washouts, etc. It ran and drove like a champ! It never bottomed out or hit the rear end at all. It is AMAZING how much better it steers not all jacked up like it was before with those huge tires.

So, without further ado, here&#8217;s Black Beauty&#8230;
The Before


And the NEW and IMPROVED after!










Yes, there are some things I still need to do but he&#8217;s come a long way! The first order of business will be putting the skirts on. He needs skirts. Wait, that sounded kind of funny&#8230;but you get the point. I drove it last night about 40 miles or so and it ran great. The handling, the drivability, everything has improved. The lowering blocks really aren&#8217;t causing any noticeable problems thus far but I know I&#8217;m not out of the woods yet. Now that it&#8217;s drivable I plan to play around with the air shocks and look into those progressive snubbers from Eaton if things get rough. I also want to get some &#8217;54 surrounds with Lee lenses (any Alliance vendors sell those?). But the best part is, it runs and drives again, YAY!

Special thanks to Whiskeyrunner (Matt K) and Tin Indian (Matt squared) without your help I would have never gotten this done. I owe you guys a lot of rides to the Dairy Queen this summer! Thanks also to everyone else who dropped by the shop to play cars.

For those needing the catch up on my '53 Chevy here are some old posts about it...

What is this whole Rajo 6 about?
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=216461

Bringing it home
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=217200

How low is too low?
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=240978

 

Thanks for a detailed look at that head Chevygirl , i was curious bout that .
Lookin foward to seein her done .

 

Yes you are a Rockstar!

Car looks great

 

That is bad ass. and I second that 'you are a rockstar know". where did that head and intake come from? It lookd like they run into the same ports. Thats the coolest shit ever.

 

Yea Megan!

Nice work to you and your pals!-- Can't wait to see that car in person someday. Congrats hug coming your way at Bonneville, if not sooner.

jay

 

Gotta Love a girl who's not afraid to get her hands dirty!
Well done!

 

cool, i like youre 53,, greats pics/story, way organized

 

LOVE THAT RED !!!

 

Wait, I thought you already WERE a rockstar???

Your car is looking great Megan! Glad to see it back on the road - I'm sure you'll have fun with it this summer!

You've made a 100% improvement over the old look and stance.
...and the 6 sounds great!

Malcolm

 

Yup, true Rockstar status! Send me yer addy, I think I found a couple stickers

 

Anyone with chrome innerfender wells has to be a rockstar...very nice...looks much better and that is a bas ass looking 6...have fun!

 

Good job! It looks perfect.

 

It looks awsome Megan, when will I get to see it? Indy, Cinnematic?

BB

 

Big difference between the before and after. Looks like it sits up a bit higher in the front, are you going to leave it that way?

 

Wow. What a difference. Fantastic work. When do I get to go for a ride?

 

Lookin great Megan! The motor came out great as well. I had never seen your car before and when I saw the before pic I though, she can't think that looks good can she? I thought she had more taste! Excellent job undoing the bad. My '63 was like that too when I bought it, chrome wheels, black walls, jacked in the rear. UGH! Looks great. I'd say you've always been a rockstar. Time for a chop and custom paint!

 

I got caught up at the start , and now that i see that it is done ! Fantastic work and great thread as always , Congratulations .

 

You've always been a rockstar in my book! Great job! Glad to see it back on the road. I really think you need to leave the hood off though for the summer and show off that Rajo.

 

The third carb on a straight 6 looks like a third boob on a woman.

Really out of place... & perfect.

JH

 

And just what would be wrong with that Jim?

Congrats on getting the car back on the road,,,It sounds as good as it looks! HRP

 

Hey Megan, Looks great... kind of a shame to cover it up with a hood. Big Ken keep on my ass til i put my hood back on. Really dig the pinstrips, i think that is what set my motor off. Congrats

 

You'd be surprised.

Looks a lot better, thanks for the post. Have been wondering about that orange.

I really dig that car... it catches me up for some reason, I'll have to see it this summer. Still working on those tix, keep your fingers crossed.