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

Wow - gotta love history! I bet that thing blew fire out of those short headers even if it had extensions!!!
Hopefully one day soon it will again

 

Great history. Anything new?

 

Well it's been a little while, but I've definitely been at it with the old coupe. A TON of cleaning, as this thing was pretty damn gross from sitting for at least 5 decades. I acquired a nice pair of Divcos, an early Scintilla Vertex for tach drive, and a few other neat miscellaneous parts along the way.... but most of this stuff came with the car and it's amazing how well preserved everything was. No restoration happening here, just some TLC and reassembly. The engine is in remarkable shape for how long it has sat and it spins over like it ran yesterday. This ain't no stocker.... it has a reground cam, pop up pistons, lightened crank, Wayne main caps, and a bunch of very neat modifications. I am going to remove the head and check the condition of the bores, as well as have the head checked out and have hardened seats installed by Glenn Hutchison of Sacramento, Ca. That's my boy helping out pull the GMC, and he is very excited to work on his great-grandpa's old hot rod as much as possible.

 

Some random shots along the way...

Nash Twin Six distributor as it was in the car, completely seized and rusty. The Stewart Warner tach drive is one of the coolest pieces, and it's working like new again. Just waiting for points from Brillman Co... that place has everything.

 

All parts coming together for the Scintilla-Vertex. Big thanks to Cedric Meeks!

 

The Fisher as well...

 

looking good!!!

 

Some shots I inherited from my grandparents.

 

Collection of all the parts that are patiently waiting to find their place back on this ol' girl eventually. The amount of quality fabrication and welding on this entire car is just mind blowing.

 

Thanks man for letting us enjoy this with you. It’s so friggin cool!

 

So great to see (and hear) that you are still hot on the trail of bringing this great piece of history (rodding and your families) back to life. Love it all!
Tim

 

One more for now... This is the house on Kenmore Ave. in Los Angeles that my grandfather was born and raised in. I can only imagine the activities that occurred here in the 40's and 50's. I sure wish to have been a fly on the wall during those magical times. A story that was told by a friend of his regarding the reasoning for the coupe having two seats goes- My grandfather was a regular street racer and would often race in the L.A. riverbed, and his friend who was the flagman would get picked up on the way, hence the second seat. Funny enough, only the driver's seat had a seat belt. As the story goes, my grandpa knew the route of every tunnel in the riverbed and where they led to in case of a police raid, which apparently happened often, and took the tunnel that led to Figueroa St. The visions of an open header, rowdy 6 powered coupe escaping the fuzz through a concrete tunnel with two misfits in there is beyond cool. The car will definitely be driven here for some photos once it's on the road.

 

What an interesting thread. You are definitely making them proud and doing the car justice. It sure cleaned up well and it is a bonus that you have so many of the original parts.

 

that ' fisher' named ignition must be ultra rare!!

 

Was the Fisher ignition another product by the late Fred W "California Bill" Fisher? I know he had the "How to Hop Up Your ...." books, Fisher head for GMC,, was a co-founder of Go Power (go kart parts and later dynamometers, then he started HP Books.

 

A Great thread that continues to impress and Thanks for sharing all the extra little goodies that are the history of the car and your Family!! That Camino Must Be A Beast.

 

Yep, California Bill. I'm slowly collecting all of those books... I have a ton to learn.

 

I have a copy of an original California Bill Chevrolet 6 cyl speed manual copy right 1950, it's available.

 

How cool is this, thank you for sharing the history of your Grandpa´s adventure´s and his car. I bet your appreciating his efforts and carrying the torch on must be putting a smile on his face.

 

Your son's photo really needs to be on the "Makes Me Smile" thread

 

What a great thread!

 

Thank you very much. I'll be forever grateful for this experience and can't wait to get it back up and running!

He's a great kid. I have photos of him at 4 years old helping me build the hemi in my El Camino. He'll definitely be seen more, he's my little crew chief!

Thank you!

 

If you haven’t tried it I recently discovered CLR for removing rust on small parts. It’s amazing, I bought 4 gallons, great for brackets, fasteners, trim etc, doesn’t affect coatings, or attack soft metals.

 

Agreed. All the old photos give us some great imagery. Thanks for posting all this here. It's great to hear you're just 'cleaning it up' and putting it back together. Fantastic.

That GMC must've been making some power, pretty rare to see a photo from this era blazing the tires.


Neatest recovery and history I've seen in a long time, probably ever. Big props to Christian for making the connection, he could've snatched it up and flipped it or whatever but he didn't. Says a lot about him, good man he is. Can't wait to see that Jimmy running again. Billet(?) caps on the center two! Man I could go on and on about how cool this thing is.

 

Truly is a pretty cool car, nice job on bringing it back

 

Got this sweet Cirello buzz box for the magneto. According to Tom, these weren't made any later than 1964.

 

Been slowly acquiring the correct parts to wrap up the distributors / mag. I plan to use the Vertex for now, but like the idea of having available options if I wanted to change it up. I think the Twin-Six look is a little more iconic on the early GMC's. I have also been cleaning the original remote oil filter canister, and discovered some cool, pencil drawn scribe marks on the mounting plate.

 

Picked up this early Culver City quick change from my pal Pete Eastwood last night. One of the nicest, untouched TRUE Culver City quickies I have come across.. no welds to be found, perfect threads, never polished... it's near perfect!

 

Pulled the head on the Jimmy last night and it looks good! The cylinders need some love in a couple holes, but for sitting for at least 5 decades, it looks killer. It definitely would have ran if I tried, but I think it'll be smart to clean it up as much as possible without serious machine work and run it as is. However, the dome on these pistons is no joke! I will bring the piston and head into the piston shop and have everything reverse engineered. I need to pour the piston and chamber, but I'm expecting a high C.R. number. This may change whether I'll run it as-is, or have to rebuild it with streetability in mind. We still having forgings that'll work for a Jimmy with a medium dome.

These pistons are very trick. At this time, my grandfather would be founding Venolia Pistons with Bob Toros and I wonder if this is one of their cast pistons prior to introducing forgings in 2618 alloy. They have beautiful pin towers with a lot of support, hollow domes and are extremely lightweight. The rings are 3/32, 3/32 and 5/32. The top and second rings are massive, but the second ring is a napier style which is very advanced for its time, and it also has an expander behind it to increase radial tension which I have never seen before. The oil ring is only 5/32 which is impressive though, as I would have expected a big 3/16 ring or larger.

The T-handles were made by my great-grandfather, Nick Sr., who was a blacksmith and welder for the Southern Pacific Railroad for 45 years. These tools, along with many others were made for my grandfather during his younger years. They worked like a charm! My grandpa would brag that his father worked for 45 years and never missed a single day of work in his career.

 

Wholly crap! Mega dome!! I remember that one guy in Ben's video said 'We fired it once back here and it was LOUD!' Well, now we know why lol.

I wouldn't kill the compression, your Grandfather's race car is worth spending 15 bucks a gallon on. That thing would sound so good with that much squeeze and open headers.