WINTER PROJECT HOW TO: firewall and firewall indentation, 51 Chevy

hrm2k · Feb 10, 2009

I have been following Moose13's adventure into his 49-52 chevy firewall.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=332409

Although this is not something that is hard to do, it is getting started in the right direction that is important. I think we hit the nail on the head with our way of doing it.

My buddy Doug and I have been working on our radical custom 51 Chevy Fleetline( O/T build ) for about 7 years, 3 or 4 hours a week.......it is really a slow process. And we have been very cheap about it . This post shows how we did the indentation in our firewall. Other than gas and time, we have $0 in this part of the build.

We had to do this to the firewall as we had decided to set the engine back 10 inches form the stock S-10 motor mounts. That decision required us to take 9 inches out of the firewall.

So this is what we did and how we did it.

We started with a gas tank off a Polaris ATV that we got out of a dumpster along with the 3/8 rod and the 1"x1" tubing and the 18 gauge metal from the same dumpster. The first thing to do was cut the Polaris gas tank;

This was the starting point. This is the piece that we cut from the POlaris gas tank.

The bent reinforcement rods would attach to the firewall frame. The rod was bent so it fit the corners of the insert almost perfectly.

when both sides had been bent, we welded it to the 1" x 1" tubing which is the basic substructure of the firewall. It looked like this before insulation and covering both sides in metal.

we split the gas tank down the seam that is visible above in picture 2. We found some sheet metal that was the same thickness as the gas tank piece. We welded a strip of new metal down the middle of the gas tank piece and then welded it to the firewall. The rod gave us a nice rounded edge so it all flowed together like it was stamped as one piece.

After covering the firewall with metal, it looked like this

So this is not a work of art, it is a firewall that I will have no problem riding behind. Even if something catistrophic happened to the motor, the p***engers would be protected.
The only problem as I see it, we will need a motor with a ****load of torque to haul this heavy beast around

John