Projects 1955 Pontiac Star Chief: ChiefResurrection

Update

New spin balloons for the Chief! The folks at Discount Tires gave me a great deal, good price, and were nice enough to let me film and snap pics during the process.

The tires on the car are from 1975, the first tire change it had. Its tires and brakes were replaced by Sears in October of 1975, at 38,412 miles. Appropriate time I think in miles if not maybe a bit long for the old bias on it.

So yes, about time to get some new ones! The tire store has a freshness date of 10 years before a tire is called dangerous, well these tires are about 45 years old, since their change, could be a couple years older sitting on a shelf too...yes out of freshness!

20191130_tires Jacking by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 8:54 AM

20191130_tires Off01 by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 8:54 AM

Floating in the air!

20191130_tires Off02 Floating by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 8:54 AM

20191130_tires Off04 Waiting For Removal by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 8:54 AM

20191130_tires Off03 Remove From Rim by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 8:54 AM

Old stems were crumbling, yet the Chief held air! luckily the tires held together on the four mile trip to the tire store.

20191130_tires Off05 Old Stem by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 8:54 AM

Old lead weights from Sears, nowadays they work in Nickle and Zinc to lesson the impact on the environment.

20191130_tires Off05 Old Tire Weights by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 8:54 AM

Balancing the tires, narrow white walls were about 60 bucks a shot, wides were 240 bucks each, so I let my wallet decide that one.

20191130_tires Off06 Balance New Rubber by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 8:54 AM

Hub caps, all four originals went back on.

20191130_tires Off07 Hub Caps Going On by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 8:54 AM

All done! New tires and hub caps, what a great time, fast and fun with the staff at Bonney Lake Discount Tires!

20191130_tires Off08 Afterwards Out Front by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 8:54 AM

 

Update

Before I took the trip to get new tires, the rain was threatening so it was time to work on the wipers on the old Chief.

The wipers are vacuum driven from the reservoir canister which is fed by the intake manifold, passing through a one way air valve.

I suspect my air valve is broke since it provides little vacuum enough to run the wipers and power brakes.

There is a wire inside a spun steel casing, like that of a bicycle ten speed brake or gear lever hose. Its spun steel casing is not water proof, so I gave mine a good spritze of PB blaster and let it sit overnight.

20191130_wiper Motor Loosen02 by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 10:03 AM

With some pliers I was able to work the switch back and forth and the cable moved easily inside the spun steel casing. Yay!

20191130_wiper Motor Loosen by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 10:03 AM

A trick I learned from some older fixers, take the normal sucction hose off the wipers, stick that end in a cup of transmission fluid and work the wipers back and forth by hand. This sucks up some of the fluid and lubricates the internals of the wiper motor.

I did this and it worked amazingly well. Over the last month now its been just fine and works each time, so a great fix. I remain dubious as to the longevity of this fix as there are solvents in the transmission fluid but so far so good.

20191130_wiper Motor Trans Fluid by Bishop Schulz posted Dec 1, 2019 at 10:03 AM

The passenger side wiper was stripped and didn't move, I'll need to source a new passenger side wiper arm.

 

Update

Hails all, a bit of work on the old Chief, a wiper motor fix, some new vacuum hoses, fit all of it onto a new episode of the Resurrection series.

Enjoy!

 

Update

The old Chieftain now has some tires! In January the Chief will visit Mad Max Cars in Puyallup for a transmission removal, overhaul, and put back in. Should have a ton of pics from that and some video too.

Meanwhile, here is the latest video for the Chieftain series, Tires!!

 

No promises.......I'll have to look but I might have my old wiper arm somewhere if you still need one.

 

OOooo that would be awesome! Heres to hoping you have one =) Cheers!

 

Its December and the holidays are upon all of us! I've been meaning to get this out there, this is the work on teh weather stripping for the ol'chief.

I cover some advice I was given on adhesives and present the whole tearing apart and gluing back in place of some new rubber in the video below.

I also took my team out for a holiday axe throwing event and popped a short vid at the end of me tossing some axes, fun stuff! Enjoy!

 

Hails fellow car tinkerers. Its January now and I figured I'd post something even though the Chief here is in hibernation until the rain stops and some sun shows up.

Spent some time today removing the regulator and power window motor from the chief, a rear passenger door setup.

Hope to help others with the video, I went in not knowing how to remove it, managed not to bugger much up and made a video covering the extraction.

Thanks all, hope everyones holiday went good! Enjoy this fun time of me removing the door innerds!

 

Oh and this Friday, the Chief will be heading down to Mad Max Cars in Puyallup to have the transmission pulled and sent off to a retired transmission aficionado.

I am hoping to get some great footage of the restore process and an interview with the guy, ya never know. Secret wizardry is afoot no doubt in rebuilding a 1955 hunk of transmission iron.

I'll pop that up here soon, everyone stay safe and enjoy your winter!

-bish

 

Update

Leap year! Well I have some news on the transmission. Sure the car has only 42k miles on it but according to Stan, who is retired and restores these old dual range hyrdamatics as a hobby, an extension of his transmission career....he has NEVER seen a transmission blown up as bad as this one.

Ive got receipts for the cars miles, so the 42k is a reality, but the transmission, was run hard, really hard, destroyed. He said all the shafts were wobbly in their case holdings, springs were broken, and the main drum, was split, and he'd never seen this level of carnage.

I am holding to my guns and having it rebuilt and NOT going to convert over to a modern chevy transmission...so we are four weeks out on the rebuild.

For your entertainment, and maybe gasps, here are the pics Stan shared with me.

Stan laid out the innards of the broken transmission

20200229.transmission_worn Parts by Bishop Schulz posted Mar 1, 2020 at 12:13 PM

20200229.transmission_worn Parts Collection by Bishop Schulz posted Mar 1, 2020 at 12:13 PM

Housing springs are shot...

20200229.transmission_broken Spring by Bishop Schulz posted Mar 1, 2020 at 12:13 PM

20200229.transmission_broken Spring Large by Bishop Schulz posted Mar 1, 2020 at 12:13 PM

This steel drum, the heard of the transmission, split! And of course all the bands are burned and fried

20200229.transmission_broken Drum by Bishop Schulz posted Mar 1, 2020 at 12:13 PM

Once this is back in the Chief, I will get to working on the interior...maybe give it a first wash and buff? Ill need to linseed oil the rusty roof, the rest, meh, polish the old 1970's cheap paint over job.

cheers!
-bish

 

Hails all! The transmission rebuild is done. I don't have pics of that since it was in Stans hands, a saint who is as old as god and been working transmissions since the wheel was a new thing.

I did make a video showing the transmission story and extraction.

 

Update

Hails Jalopnics, with all this shut-in and close down due to this Corona plague, Ive got little happening. The transmission and driveline refresh are sitting at the closed shop.

In the mean time, i've soaked the old speaker grill and its rust is a thing of the past. The lettering on it was mostly missing. Took some time but found new ones, its a small thing but a nagging thing sitting there in front of your eyes, always broken and chrome missing.

20190622_074058.script by Bishop Schulz posted Apr 2, 2020 at 4:12 PM

Dip and clean

20200402_160923_cleaned Speaker Grill by Bishop Schulz posted Apr 2, 2020 at 4:12 PM

new lettering in hand

20200402_124711.new Chrome In Bags by Bishop Schulz posted Apr 2, 2020 at 4:00 PM

20200402_124827.new Letters Showoff by Bishop Schulz posted Apr 2, 2020 at 4:00 PM

Front hood script from a 57, wound up in my collection of items.

20200313_173640.chieftain 57 Hood Logo by Bishop Schulz posted Apr 2, 2020 at 4:00 PM

 

Man looks like my 'Star Chief' is a slightly different font, dag gum...oh well.

 

I read your adventure in Pontiacland with great interest...I just started on a frame swap on a 55 Chieftain Wagon to a 55 Safari....the Safari frame had suffered at the hands of a kid with no welding experience....just pulled the Chieftain frame which is excellent, I will redo everything while it's out...I will put the old Safari frame back under the Chieftain wagon which I'm sure someone will resto mod....keep up the great work...I don't have the picture discipline you do!! Lol

 

That is as awesome project!! Discipline is just earned like scars and cussing at nuts and bolts hehe, you have an awesome start. Wagons are where its at, such a majestic vehicle!

 

Update!

Well its been some time, all this lock down has things closed and buggered up so progress on the Star Chief is slow. Ive dropped off the Chief at the Mad Max car shop and they will install the freshly rebuilt hydro over the next week or so.

I will get some pics of that for sure. In the mean time, a couple of fun shares:

Getting ready to load up, hasnt been out in the sun for half a year!

20200606_111826.getting Ready To Load by Bishop Schulz posted Jun 6, 2020 at 12:18 PM

Old rig my grand parents had in Alaska:

20200403.trip.00.06a.Betty In Alaska by Bishop Schulz posted Jun 6, 2020 at 12:18 PM

Nice old shot, early 1960's of the Reno main street...and what a coincidence, it captured a white four door Chieftain cruzing by!

20200403.1960.00.06.Reno Main Street by Bishop Schulz posted Jun 6, 2020 at 12:18 PM

 

Did you get your trans in yet?

 

Any updates?