Projects Cutting my Hotrod Teeth (57 Chevy Budget build/revival)

That's why you do flat black. Cheap and easy to touch up as you do repairs. Plus it'll hide a lot

 

Find ethanol free gas here https://www.pure-gas.org/

 

Yup that’s the site I used

 

I decided to grind out all the bondo and then see what was left to save on the drivers door. Sadly not very much at all. This right here is why I’m not putting a bunch of time and money into the body of this car. The main bodyshell itself isn’t bad, but all 4 doors, the fenders, the trunk lid, and the doglegs as well as part of the rockers need welding to do it right. And with that amount of work, it makes more sense to find a rusty 2 door and graft the quarters on while replacing the trunk/fenders/doors.

For now, these holes are just going to get bondo’d and I’ll at least prime the exposed metal on the door. Might fog in some dusk pearl at a later time.

 

This guy can hook you up with doors and other 57 parts. https://www.facebook.com/justin.wilkerson.75

 

Thank you, though I already have a tri five parts man about 30 miles from me. He has a back yard with probably 50 tri fives!

 

While taking the respray off the rear door last night, I decided what I’m going to do for the hood and fenders, and it’s probably going to ruffle some feathers…

Let’s just say a gallon of exterior house paint is a helluva lot cheaper than a gallon of Sherwin Williams automotive. I called for a price on a gallon of what I used on the wheels, and she told me $798.

Now, once again, the bodywork I'm doing is not meant to be perfect. It's meant to keep the raw steel out of the elements, and look okay from 10... er... 50 feet away. I know this is the wrong thing to do, but I plan on at least doing it the right way and considering the fenders and hood have practically no paint left on them, it certainly can't be any worse doing it this way.

 

Brush on paint is traditional.

 

Good that you have a tri 5 parts guy. It's worth it to pay a little bit more for his best stuff.

 

Budget build? You are shopping for paint in the wrong places. Do you not have a Tractor Supply near you?

 

Sure do, but the idea is to keep the car roughly the factory color, and as fas as I know, they don’t mix custom paint for tractors

 

A gallon of red, a gallon of white and a quart of black or brown. That combo should give you the option to custom mix your own dark pink/rose color

 

That’s definitely daunting but it’s an idea…

 

Yeesh, looks like rustoleum tractor paint is up to about $85 per gallon at tractor supply…

 

Yeah sorry guys but I don’t see how buying 2 gallons and a quart, and mixing it myself is any better of an idea than having a gallon exterior paint custom mixed… if I’m missing something, I’d love to hear what it is, but from purely a cost and effort perspective, the paint store mix sounds like a much better idea…

 

Paint for the fenders has gotta be under about $100 total to make sense, otherwise it’s a much better idea to use some more sherwin williams rattle cans like I did on the wheels.

 

Good point about latex based paints, I was hoping to find something oil based. Alright, well I’ll throw out that idea. It seems dumb to bother with doing a “good” job when I’m just bondo-oling over the rust holes and splashing it, but it sounds like my best option is to just get more of what I used on the wheels. It turned out great. It was on special at the time for about $30/can so I’ll see what I can find.

 

Main issue with house paint it it'll age really fast and crack and end up coming off in sheets

 

Do NOT use latex house paint!!!
The "right" way to do it...57 Chevy Dusk Pearl spray paint...not that cheap but better than using the wrong stuff.
Dusk Pearl Met. - The Auto Paint Depot

 

I’ll see if it’s any cheaper at SW, but yeah this is probably what I will end up doing. Seems silly but otherwise nothing else makes sense cost-wise.

 

You wouldn't need all of that ^^^^^^. I would start with a quart of red, white, then add a pint of black and brown. That would actually be less than a gallon and properly thinned and hardener added would be enough for three coats. Not doing the jams and trunk interior but will get the car looking like a million bucks. Do not add all of the paint at once and start with the quart of white. Slowly add the red until you get the desired shade of a medium dark pink. Begin adding a small amount of brown then black to darken it slightly to the desired shade that looks good. Keep notes of your mix and that way you can duplicate it later for another repaint 5 to 6 years down the road. Pick up the cheap Harbor Freight spray gun. VIOLA! Budget paint.

 

If you're brushing it on, you could probably do a couple front fenders and a door with a quart. You might just go to your local automotive paint supplier and ask how much for a quart of their cheapest paint is, color matched to the factory color. If it's enamel, it'll cover better if you pre-paint it with something somewhat close first, so the matched color is the last coat or two.

Basecoat you can cut 50/50 with reducer to double the quan***y, and if you don't clear it, it'll be as faded out as the rest of the paint. It'll be thin, but if you're spraying base over some spotty primer and odd paint blotches, it'll probably match the rest of the car better than if you put a whole gallon on in a solid color. I think you could get a quart of cheap stuff color-matched for around 100 bucks, and maybe $30 for a gallon of reducer, which you'll have leftovers.

That might actually be cheaper than S-W exterior latex. I had a jobber account there and I think the "Emerald" exterior paint on my shop was $150 a gallon a few years ago.

 

I’ll stop in and pick the SW workers brains on this next time I’m up that way. None of this is top priority, I’d just eventually like to paint the fenders and hood, and whatever bare spots are on the rest of the car. I’m certainly not about to paint the whole car. The whole right side, trunk, and left quarter I’m completely leaving alone, so we’re talking about half the main body. You think I could do that with a quart’s worth?

 

Since you're not doing any jambs, and depending on what you're trying to cover up, I think you probably could do that with a quart. It helps if you have some old paint to use up that's somewhat close in color so you don't need so much matching paint to cover, but since you're trying to match an already worn and blotchy paint job, even if it ends up light or blotchy in spots, that might work to your advantage, make it match a bit more. Depending on what type of paint you get, a quart might be plenty.

Would help to see what the car looks like once your primer and bodywork is done to see how far you went and how much needs to be covered before you buy paint. Get that far before you buy the materials, you might need a lot less than you're thinking.

 

Sounds like a plan!

 

I got the car back from exhaust this morning. It ended up being a bit higher than the estimate which I was expecting anyway. Just glad to have it back and actually have it fully drivable. It ran great on the way home, so I can’t wait to really dial in the timing and carb!

Here’s a quick clip of the idle. Just a pair of 17” Brockman Mellowtones and 2 inch pipe all the way back from the manifolds:

 

Sounds great!!!

 

I dig the sound!

 

No good news goes unchecked!

Figured I’d take the car out on my lunch break from work this afternoon and it actually was performing and driving really well… until it wasn’t. I had it up to 65 mph on the highway just for one exit, and then almost made it back home before I started having the bogging under load problem again. I knew I needed to get it to a safe place to park ASAP, and I almost did… I ended up in the turn lane for an empty church parking lot. Couldn’t get it to start again but eventually my fiancee came to save the day. I pushed the car into the parking lot and unfortunately cracked the bumper on her daily. Now I owe her a new bumper but at least nobody got hurt and the 57 didn’t get hit. With the way people drive nowadays I don’t trust them to look where they’re going…

Anyway it all snowballed from there and it ended up that I chained the car to the back of my little s10 pickup and operated the brakes and steering wheel the 2 mile trip home. I took the carb back apart, because I had already tried to just byp*** the mechanical fuel pump and run it off an electric pump and a jerry can, but even after the float bowls were filled up, I got no gas with the accelerator pump, so I knew it was most likely the carb. It turns out a big chunk of the probably original accelerator pump rubber is broken off. Makes sense since the carb is 20 years old.


By sheer coincidence, I noticed the carb was built exactly 49 years to the day after the car. August 16th 1957, and August 16th 2006. What are the odds!