Father Son Build: 1950 Chevy Fleetline Deluxe

Back at it on Eli's car. We got the front end back together and have the car on all four wheels. Finished up on the rust repair of the floor. A little more paint and stuff on the bottom of the car.

We are not pulling the body off the car, but will lift it up and place 4x4 blocks between the body and frame so we can replace all the body mount bolts and rubber pads. Plus, this will allow us to get more areas coated with a solid layer of paint on the top of frame and other areas where we can't reach.

After that, we are dropping the SBC/Auto trans in which should be pretty fast. We bought the Walton Fab motor and trans mount kit which will be fast. Also ordered their power boaster/pedal kit too.

 

Nice build, great to see some young blood with a interest in old cars.

 

Great build and you're doing it together.

Rear sway bars, they're surprisingly similar from one car to the next, if you're able to modify mounts etc. Time vs money tradeoff though.

For the rustoleum - a little enamel hardener goes a long way with the durability, adding a little acetone or naphtha helps it flow out as you brush. Valspar enamel hardener is very inexpensive. But any will work. Will have to mix each batch you're working with, pouring the hardener in the quart will cure it out in the can

Let's see some more.

 

Looks Good Matt! Eli is a lucky kid.

 

Just found this build and I really like it. Love these cars and one day I will have one.

--louis

 

Thanks. He is super excited and appreciates old stuff. Nice Jeepster! I am building one for my wife right now. Pulled from a storage in Austin where it sat for 20 plus years. Eli is sitting in it in the second picture.

 

Good idea on adding the sway bars. We were going to grab one for a 55 Chevy since that is the rear end we have and they make so many parts for decent prices. I will look into the hardner. Did not even think of that.

 

Thanks Chris. I'm a lucky guy. Eli is a good kid and we both enjoy time together. I am grateful for our time in the garage.

 

Nice. These cars have amazing body lines.

 

Lifetime memories being made......you’re both fortunate ..
Enjoying your build.

 

Been working slowly on Eli's 1950. Life has been getting in the way a bit...in-laws in town visiting and a bunch of other stuff. Still plugging away though. Got the off topic front suspension set up. We purchased the power brake and pedal ***embly from Walton Fab. Super nice parts and happy so far with everything we purchased from them. These parts are huge time savers for us on this build.

Here's Eli painting the parts

 

We set a font fender on to make sure the wheel placement looked right. All of the measurements worked out and aligned from the original location.

 

@Thor1
Eli and I used the tool you sent us. We pulled the hood and started cleaning the fire wall up. Thank you again for sending this. we will find someone to p*** it onto when we wrap up with it.



Eli had some buddies over last night that helped clean up the fire wall.

 

car looks great man, love seeing yall chip away at it!!

im sure youve figured this out by now but just incase you havent its been my experience that the firewall body mounts may need to be shaved a little.

also my experience was that posies springs with a 3" block ( 2 1.5" aluminum blocks welded together) would bang the axle on the frame pretty regularly. that was also running 6.70's which is a 29" tall tire if I remember correctly?

before you have a driveshaft made for it see if a stock tri 5 will fit. I had a saginaw 3speed in mine and a stock 57 chevy drive shaft bolted right in.

also I seem to recall having to notch my tunnel a little bit too.

 

Matt, I am glad they worked for you! You guys are doing a great job on the car. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Steve

 

Thanks for the encouragement and sharing lessons learned. We have Posie's springs with 2" blocks now. Need to check the clearances to the frame. Hopefully we don't need to notch the frame but sounds like we need to.

I heard if you run a mid 90's LT1 set of exhaust manifolds, you can avoid t******* the body mounts. We should have the motor mocked up in the next few weeks and will know for sure then.

 

@Thor1 Thanks for the encouragement. We are having fun and now have friends joining us for the past two weeks.

 

Just found your thread, and am loving it. I hope to do something like this with my son someday. It looks like it's been a while...any updates? That driver's license is just around the corner!

 

Yes, we have made lots of progress since last posting that is all off topic updates so no photos. We installed a mid 70's Jag front end, late model LT1 350 with OD auto trans. Its a roller which is cool. The stance is just right too!

We put the project on hold and bought a mid 90's Tahoe for his first car and plan to keep this one going at a slower pace. We are at the beginning phase of building a new home and shop so all but one old car projects ( my wife's 50 Jeepster) are on hold for one year. Once we dive back in, its brake line plumbing, electrical and then body/paint and upholstery. Honestly, I am kind of relieved he is not going to be driving a 73 year old car as a daily driver because people drive crazy out here. It will be a nice fun car to cruise around.

 

We are getting ready to dive back into this project. When we left off, Eli was 15we paused to build a house and bought a 1996 Tahoe for his daily. Looking back, that was the right move. Eli is now 17 and a senior in high school. He is ready to start working on this again. He has a goal to get it driving so he can drive it to school before he graduates and drive it to the Lone Star Roundup. We are selling the Tahoe and taking the funds from that to cover his car.

We have a group of friends and family that are going to meet up one night a week to all pitch in and get this thing going.

The goal is the have the body work and paint finished. We will remove some chrome and possibly shave the door handles. The paint will be single stage gloss black and will run wide white walls on chrome steel wheels. The interior will be painted with the dash finished and we have black upholstered bucket seats which came from a 67 Camaro. We plan to run a V8 and manual, dual exhaust with Porter gl*** packs.

Below are some photos of where we left off 2 years ago. The floor rust repair was finish. we seam sealed all the welds and primered/paint top and bottom sides.


We had the motor and transmission in the car when we left off. 3 years ago, we found a good deal on a 96 LT1 350 with low miles and a 4L60E. I edited the engine out of the photo because all the fuel injection/computer bs. We are either going to run the Lt1 350 with the GM performance intake that allows us to use a carburetor and distributor, backed by a 5 speed, or run a 283 and a 3 speed overdrive or 5 speed. Or maybe we find something else along the way. I have pedals from a 55 Chevy car and early 60's Chevy truck in case we go hydraulic.



Here is where it sat the past 2 years, covered with a tarp. We had it parked under a car port the past 6 months

 

Glad to hear you guys are back on this Matt! Eli will be the coolest kid in school when you all get it done.

 

Cool project! Now that this is in the OT forum do you have any more pics of the Jag IFS install you can share?

 

I will see what I can find. The funny part is, I was looking online to see where I could buy a stock 50 Chevy rebuild kit and I stumbled across some HAMB posts from early 2000’s that mentioned the Jag front end.

I will say this, it is the easiest front end swap possible for these old Chevy’s. That bad thing is power steering boxes are hard to come by for these front ends.

 

Small update, found a 300 horse 327 and OD auto trans from a 66 Corvette that I am second in line for. The car had a frame off restoration and the guys been driving it for five years. The motor and trans were rebuilt. It originally came with a power glide and they swapped it for a built 200R4.

it is very clean and in the car so I can take it for a drive. If the guy in front of me p***es, I’m going to bring an engine hoist and go pull it this week with the owner as he is swapping it for an LS.

that would be a nice fit in Eli’s Chevy. I will know more tomorrow afternoon. Praying for this one to work out.

 

Hope you can get the 327! And, what a shame for the 66 vette...

 

Thanks. He sent me photos of the car and it was a nice restoration. Very clean!

 

Talked with the 327 guy — Bob— and the guy in #1 position for the 327 had to push to today due to a dr appointment he forgot about. Bob told me he is giving him one more shot and if he doesn't come, its mine. Still praying it works out.