the floor pan patches are ready to go in and I cut out the bad dash . someone hacked up the transmission mounts and I had to cut them out also. the driver side wheel well radius has been cut and the patch panel being mocked up to go in. I picked up the 396 from the machine shop also.
I do not get to do much to it during the week so it wears me out on the weekend. I almost dread installing the 396 and getting the fender well headers to work.
I bought the patriot fender well headers and I have read that some were hitting the stearing box and are a pain to get them to clear it. a friend of mine had to raise his bb 2" to make them clear.
From personal experience with the BBC Patriot headers from Speedway: The catalog states they aren't a direct fit for tri 5s. It's true. The driver's side tire hit the header tube when the wheels were turned to the left.
I might go higher on the radius-if the car had 210 or Bel Air side trim it HAS to cut into it to look right otherwise it's just too low. Check out the "Mauve Stove" 55 Chevy 210 post on the Keystone/Bison dragways reunion site. The rear wheelwell radius is critical on a 55 gasser. Nice car and keep up the quality work!
I looked at a lot of cars and pictures to see about where they were cutting them. I ended up with the lip just about 1 inch below the gas filler door like the original ag car. it had 28" tall tires and mine are 29"
Sorry, but my first impression when I saw the progress photos of your car is that the rear wheel radius was too small. You can get a much better impression of the correct size and placement when watching the movie "Two Lane Blacktop" - same car as in "American Graffiti" if I'm not mistaken. They were able to do side-of-the-road wheel changes with some pretty big slicks in "TLB" and I'm not sure the same would be possible with the openings on your project. Sorry to rain on your parade, but better now than when it's all painted and pretty.
they are not installed yet ,I am still trying to decide if I want to make the radius go up more . the original AG car did have a more of a wider radius but it only had L-60 15" tires that were 28" tall. the opening was bigger because that it had bigger tires for two lane black top. opening was almost to big for the L 60's. with where I have it now if I welded in in I could still put a 10" wide rim in with a lot wider tire than the 265/70/15 that I have now.
The Jalopy Journal
