Technical A Kid's First Project: 1957 Fairlane 500 Town Victoria.

How many miles are on the 428
If you put a high lift cam in an engine with a lot of miles you can wipe the valve guides.
You may want to have the heads gone over before you recam it.
Just a word of caution
Don’t make the same mistake I did.

 

allegedly? around 70k. wouldnt trust that as far as i can throw it though
i plan on going through this engine entirely. i dont want to ever need to take it apart again yknow?

 

FINALLY made it back to the junkyard to get the two 15s i needed. time to order some decentl tires, maybe some mastercrafts, may get some cooper cobras though. if i were made of money id get some bias look but i plan on turning these tires to smoke so i dont wanna spend too much..

diff works good!

 

Decided on a cheapo tire called "gripmax maxgrip" its a chinese tire but the tread "looks right enough" for me. not a thin tread tire but it looks like a bfgoodrich copy.

 

off they come... not the best beads but ive seen worse.
yeah yeah ik its in the off topic car, but i went to astro salvage again today and we got THIS. an original 1960s mooneyes wheel! it was completely black and covered in rust when we got it. quick and dirty scotch brite polish and wire wheel and it looks perfectly patina'd!

he also recently got dumped, his gf had vandalized his glovebox with a bunch of art over the years, he wanted it gone, just sharpie so we wiped it off.

subtle improvements


im just saying how my weekend went, feel free to get rid of the pics if you feel its too ot i guess. we hit 4900 rpm in 3rd and managed to not kill me.

 

If you are good friends with the tire place people, have them spin the bare wheels and look for wobble before mounting.

 

Wow, a double stripe whitewall, hmmmm.
Where have I seen one of those before?

 

i think moriarty's orange kustom had a full set on it.

 

probably a good idea, though, this car drove itself to the yard about 30 years ago. as short as 8 years ago it was actually running! guy wanted the engine but it wasnt getting very good oil pressure.

 

the capris alt up and died, a replacement is coming, still need to do the intake on the vic... so the 57 is getting daily treatment for the next two days. new plugs and valve cover gaskets should make it much easier to daily.

these plugs only gave like 2500 miles on them.... not good.

p***enger side bank
drivers side bank.

gasket was saturated with oil, trashed.
****oned her back up.

i decided i want to add some... flair to the car. an old glow in the dark keychain? of course.
a Stewart Warner lighter? could come in handy.
and an old early/mid 60s hippie fridge magnet aswell? (mfg ~1963-1964)
all from the same seller too? i cant say no to that!

 

Those are what I used on my 57 Chev. They offer them in a whitewall variety also. As far as I can tell, they are the same as Milestar tires which are a copy of 70s BFGs. I’m sure they aren’t the best tire, but like you said, they have the right look and they’re CHEAP!

 

at this point the white walls wouldnt fit in with the style im going for, blackwalls will be perfect for it.

if i could afford it i would get some chromed wheels but that is out of my budget.

 

I like to revisit this thread from time to time. Your story and mine have a lot of striking similarities, even the year of car! I’ve had to daily my ‘57 Belair recently as a tree CRUSHED my OT daily a few weeks ago. With my build, I’m trying to emulate what someone our age could have throw together cheaply in the mid 60s. Pretty soon I’ll be swapping in a 4 speed Saginaw in my car. I’ve also got a few 60s trinkets I keep in the car or on my keychain. Rat Fink and Mooneyes, that type of thing. Oh, and can’t forget the STP stickers! Just for fun I even slapped on a Kennedy ‘60 bumper sticker

 

I’m in the same boat. I’m always checking for a set of chrome reverse wheels to come up for sale locally. I actually bought a killer set with redline wide oval tires a few summers ago, but they are too wide to fit in my rear wheel wells, even after I put 3” lift/wagon springs out back.

 

im going to install wagon springs aswell but im doing a 2.5"-3" lowering spring. i like when its super low. these plymouth hubcaps are my "smoothies on a budget"

 

I've got a set of Plymouth hubcaps for my car as well! The '57 Plymouth full hubcaps look straight out of a Mooneyes catalog

 

these are a '50-52 plymouth cranbrook hubcap.

 

i think at this point i should genuinely start making plans for the 428. i need a truck bellhousing, a 428 flywheel, a transmission with the sbf input shaft, a set of Tri-y headers for a late 60s mustang as a baseline for parts it absolutely needs to fit in the car.

(and a gasket kit, rings, etc, this shouldnt need any machining though)

for things i want... i want to get a mallory dual points distributor. if i cant find replacement points for it i will probably use a pertronix (eugh) unit i own in it to make it work until i can reliably locate mallory points as i dont want a ford ignition box. (i will also get a mallory rpm limiter... just in case)

i want to install a relatively choppy Isky sourced cam.

along with a set of edelbrock aluminum valve covers to go with the edelbrock intake, and maybe locating an edelbrock air cleaner aswell.

i think the 4 speed will come later as frankly i dont want to spend 1200 dollars on a transmission that is questionable at best and sbf 3 speeds are dime a dozen and bolt in.

the good news is that at the bare minimum the later 60s 3 speeds have a synchronized first gear and are wider ratio.

 

i can get a t-85 or 3 speed toploader for around 200 bucks, a c6 would be an auto yeah? the absolute cheapest I have seen a 4 speed top loader or even a super t10 is 1000 dollars which i cant afford to gamble that on a transmission.

 

4 speeds are nice, especially if you drag race it
But for simply toolin around town and cruising a 3 speed works fine especially with a big v8.
and
If you can get one with a Borg Warner overdrive, now you’re really cruising

 

theres loads of 3 speed od transmissions around but ive heard the overdrive box itself HATES abuse. and trust me, i abuse my cars. the od box is very fragile and shock loads (ie doing parking lot donuts lol) the 3 speeds are tough and so long as i dont power shift i should be fine even with a mild 428.

im not actually going to race this car (i mean, it doesnt even have seatbelts yet!)
so im not chasing times.

 

I have found a bunch of old school chrome wheels on Marketplace around here- some way too expensive and some really cheap. Your car has the 5x4.5 doesn't it?

 

yes, but im limited to 6.5" wide

 

i got the new tires on! by myself this time with my brothers help. almost all the shakes are gone even without balancing! the old tires were about a quarter inch out of round, I presume from sitting their entire lives... if they were round to begin with. (they were 70 dollars each on sale from 80 )

these gripmaxes are about 110 each, they dont even squeal around corners! however they do grip now so they kick hubcaps pretty bad in the front, gonna need to drive smoother from now on.
gonna bend the teeth out a bit and bang em back on, no damage, just hit gr***.

 

@gene-koning started a thread on this issue.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/hub-caps-questions.1354015/

 

seems i need to take a pick or chisel and clean out the grip tab of paint on the t bird wheels.

the mid 90s 15" vic wheels work great! they havent lost one yet from those and i did donuts with them.

 

about half the tabs on those were crushed flat! no wonder they didnt hold.

fixed the gasket on the other side, reused one, forgot it needs two, itll be fine im sure. (it wont)

now to get packing, got a vintage suitcase this time so no more bag. gonna make another fairlane to lloydfest thread. this time, its only me!

wish me luck lol.

 

I wish you success! See you there.

 

hey-you're a kid-- you don't even need luck yet..!-good luck anyway!