im doing alot of the work myself. the only things im not doing myself tho is the paint and body cause i wanted it done sooner so while its getting that done i can work on the interior and other stuff and be done in half the time, the internal engine stuff the martinez bros are doing it,chrome and trim straightening and polishing not sure yet but its ready to go, and the exhaust im having it done at a muffler place i guess but this is what im doing myself, ill post pics of it as i go along rewire the whole car with wiring kit switching out brake and gas lines putting the trim and bumpers back on changing out all the glass and putting the windshield and back glass back on, uses a rubber gasket and is done with a rope ill show you guys how changing out all the plastic rollers on the window mechanism and oiling the whole thing putting the interior, carpet and headliner in swapping out the front drums for disk brakes all bolt on dropping engine and tranny back in new bushings in front suspension rebulb the whole car do up the trunk really nice put hidden sound system in it rear bumper kit decided to go airbags, dont want to cut or weld on the frame or put the extra weight in the trunk so ill post pics of that as i do it too. i know i know, im a lowrider at heart, thats why i put hydraulics in my 65 and i dont like airbags but just dont want to stress the car out, and the bags im getting will lay the car almost frame on the ground and lift it as high as my 65 when its locked up. i will put mufflers on them tho that for sure. well i get it back soon, when i do the fun will start again like when i first got it and itll move on along again. ill keep you guys posted thanks for checking my build
Small but got this today in mail, matches my interior it goes on my steering wheel. Og not reproduction
took a while cause for some reason it took a loooong time to find good 350 sbc heads. you would think heads for a 350 would be a dime a dozen, nooo. i thought they were just a casing with springs and valves but its alot more than that. my 350 block is a 1st gen 350 4 bolt main. so the heads i wanted were 1st gen 350 heads or camel humps. but most of them needed to be rebuilt, or cracked. well for 1st gen, you dont want 2nd gen smog year heads from like 72 and newer because they cut alot of corners in making them, so theyre thinner and have poorly designed ports and water jackets that make the head crack easy if it ever overheats. and when you do find 1st gen heads they never have hard seats, where the valves sit and seal so unleaded gas makes them work poor and shitty. they were designed for leaded gas which made them seal and function better. smog laws came in and smog year heads and intakes were designed for the smog pump and all that other bullshit and unleaded gas followed that made heads without hard seats work shitty. if you dont know what heads you have or are looking at just google the casting number and itll tell you. i found these in san jacinto, new pre smog heads with hard seats taken off a brand new 290hp crate motor which were never used, taken off motor as soon as it hit the shop and replaced with higher performance heads. 300 bucks thats a deal
been busy with holidays, so havent been on here or working on car for a bit but heres something i busted out this week. i called trim restoration places and polishing, i was quoted $500 for just the grille alone. the rest of the trim i didnt have time to take down to get started but i looked online how aluminum is worked since i never tried to polish or fix a grille before. well turns out aluminum grilles on 50s 60s cars are anodized. its a film thats ontop of the aluminum that causes it to haze even if the aluminum is shiny on the bottom it gets a dull haze on top after a while. well i followed what it said online, heres my attempt This is what it looked like its the way it came with the car. Dull gray haze, pits, dirty and bent. Thats why they charge $500 to do grilles cause this is how they usualy get them step 1. Remove anodize. to do this you have to fry it off. after researching everyone says use easy off oven cleaner. but this stuff is twice as strong. you get it at home depot for 8 bucks brush it on and leave it for 10 min, then spray it off. i used a small bowl and paint brust to put it on. you can see it bubble up as it burns off the anodize something told me dont do it on my driveway, so i did it on the pavement off my driveway on the street. this is the same spot one week later Step 2. File flat all the surfaces with a MILL BASTARD file from home depot 6 bucks. file flat the surface to get all the deep pits out. you can see how deep the pits looked before
and now filed flat Step 3. Sanding. long process, start with 220 grit sandpaper to take off the deep scratches the file left, then 400 grit, then 600 grit, then 800 wet sand grit. each higher grit takes off the scratches the one before left. its baisic sanding and took long so i didnt take pics of the process but you get the idea. by the time youre done with the 800 grit, it should be smooth and scratch free. thats when you hit it with this. you dont have to rub hard, just as long as the polish turns black then wipe off by the time youre done polishing it should look bad ass like chrome, reflective like a mirror
didnt get all the pits out, got about 95% of them tho and if you saw this in person and with the sun hitting it it looks like i had it dipped so i saved $500, no need to get it redone more. so thats $500 i can put into something else like chroming the bumpers or getting my carpet, headliner and weatherstripping
Same process with stainless steel with the file and the order of the sandpaper, but you dont have to deanodize it so you go straight to filing and sanding then polishing with black, brown, then green polishing bar. i bought from eastwood the trim anvil and hammer to take dings out of the stainless, over 90% of my trim is straight, no dings or even scratches. and what is damaged they sell cheap like the headlight bezels and side marker bezels. i got the tools, sandpaper, polishing bars and got to work, done with more than half my trims just today in a few hours so looks like im also saving $1100 i got quoted to polish and redo my trims. heres the last piece i did today
thanks guys, your postitive comments keep me motivated and going when i come home and feel lazy and yea oven cleaner or that stuff im using works great to remove anodize just be careful with it and dont leave it on for more than 10 min cause itll eat the anodize plus start to rot and eat the aluminum. 10 min is fine, long enough then just hose off. if you try to sand or polish with the anodize on it still youre not going to get anywhere, itll actually look uglier than before you started because itll look like silver camoflauge cause it wont sand off even and the polish wont do anything to the anodize so the scratches wont come off either. ok i didnt mention that on aluminum, on my grille the first thing i did was file it with the mill bastard file. you ONLY do that if it has deep scratches and pits, which is usually only the grille and maybe the headlight bezels and tail light bezels because they are on the outside of the car and get hit by shit on the road as youre driving. if it has no pits and is straight or is your interior trim which all of it is aluminum, you dont have to file anything. right after its anodized, IFFF it has LIGHT scratches and scuffs you go straight to sanding it with 400, then 600, then 800. you dont start with 220 because you use that one to take off the scratches the file left. you guys get what im saying? no pits means no filing, so no file scratches to take off with 220 so after anodizing if it has light scratches and scuffs just start with 400 till you get to 800 then hit it with the aluminum polish and youre done. if it has NO light scratches or pits and is straight, after de anodizing go straight to polishing with the aluminum polish, no sanding at all so ur done in less than half the time polishing with the aluminum polish takes the longest, the longer you polish it, the shinier it gets so if you dont do it that long it wont shine as good. but it does take longer you really have to rub it down with it for a while or else itll look ok but not great. you dont have to rub hard, as long as it turns black just keep rubbing it in busted out this in the last hour, took me a short time because like i said no filing but had some small scratches and scuffs so 10 min de anodizing, no pits so straight to sanding with 400 for 10 min cause it had light scratches, 10 min with the 600, 10 min with the 800, and 30 min with the aluminum polish and a towel was straight, but looked like shit and would have looked ugly with new interior after de anodizing, its a dull even gray now anodize is gone but has light scratches that need to go so from here i start with 400 then work up to 800 and after sanding then polishing, show ready they can be mounted on a show car now
heres another piece i turned out today after work. you guys get the idea now with this. this one turned out really nice tho. before deanodizing it in my bathtub after polishing stainless steel isnt as much of a pain in the ass as aluminum cause youre polishing with a buffer wheel or power drill, polishing these things is by hand with a terry cloth and cream polish so it takes a long ass time
the guy doing my 59 has some cool other cars hes working on, at the same time as mine thats what slowed mine down but im good now i want one of these bad one day, but even he said yea good luck the paint booth where they prepped this to put in there
im going to take a break from building cars after this one for a bit this one really wore me down. but when i get back in ill look for a charger and build a muscle car. and thanks guys. im in the process of making a 3 part youtube video showing me do aluminum trim then stainess trim. its one thing to explain, another to show. getting this down you save hundreds and most of us can use that im not exactly copying homeboy cause this color is an acutal factory color but this is exactly how its going to look in the end i could have done the body and painted myself, but honestly i wanted it done sooner so while it was getting all this i was able to do my trims, motor, and interior. built not bought, this what this car is and i did 70% of all the work on this car by the time its done. only thing i didnt do is the paint and body and internal motor. everything else is all me whether its done yet or not, stripping the body of rust and bondo, taking it apart for paint, full interior, rewiring, gas and brake lines, floor heat and sound isulation, underbody and frame treating, full interior trunk, trims, disc brake conversion, putting it back together after its painted, glass, all my work. some cars go from shop to shop to shop but only 3 groups of guys put theyre hands on this car, the martinez family where it was first and my motor is, the guy thats painting it, and me. if it wasnt for that i could have said i built this car but they really helped and i was more than happy and appreciate theyre needed help especially the motor so thanks guys
this polishing thing is really getting old already, glad i dont do it for a living now i know why people just pay to get it done. fucken time consuming but im almost done with all inside and out and it needed to be done. wrapped this up today front seat trims, i dont know what the owner before me was doing inside this car but fuck were there alot of claw marks on them can you see the dent in the tub, anodizing
not perfect, but better dent is gone lots and lots of sanding, took me 4 hours. i used trim anvil and hammers to pick the dents out, ill post pics of them in morning
heres a side by side, you can see how much work i had to do on these. looks like they used the car to transport gravel, or they were raping people in it
ok, you guys remember, this is how my seats came. ripped up pieces of vynil on rusty springs not even foam left got the material to make this NOT perfect, but better than riding on rusty springs
the process used this to make sure i got the same curve on each top corner front seat done, round 2 back seat
not any real work or progress, but another piece i got for it. alot of chrome is going in my motor, so i got this radiator to dress up the engine alittle and its better than stock to keep me from overheating its aluminum, so i hit it and shined it up to make it look nicer and match the motor
aluminum isn't as hard as stainless, but if the trims are bad ull need this too And thanks guys, not perfect since I painted it but I can't complain since I'm building a daily driver, and compared to before
i use this to speed up my polishing aluminum. you can get these buffing/polishing drill bits on ebay or harbor freight. it works but still is a long polishing process
got this today, og air freshener for my 59. small but only so much i can do and get till i get the car back then ill get on to the big stuff the reason im getting alot of pinup girl stuff for my car besides it being a 50s car is cause its going to have a playboy theme. when you see what im going to do with my trunk youll see what i mean. got this to ride in the backseat and for the girls at the shows
Very cool read, your doing a fantastic job on a hard to find car. All your hard work will pay off when your cruising the slow lanes. I will follow this thread and see how things come out, it'll a great car. There are bondo artists out there who spread bondo over the whole car, then they do just enough block sanding then paint the car. There are great body/fender guys out there then there's your bondo artists. CRUISER
putting this in the back window. wired to the brake lights, lifts its hands signaling to stop [youtube]kQtgdb7-6mI[/youtube] this one when you hit the brakes it wags and lights up [youtube]X6DpKhRaHZ0[/youtube] and undecided if im going to mount this or not on the fender. its curved to spin as you drive and the air hits it. its only got 48 stars so this thing is between 1912 and 1959. alaska was added in 1959 and hawaii in 1960. IF i mount it, itll go on the driver fender just alittle past the windshield by the center fender trim or on it [youtube]uLk0bi47xj8[/youtube]
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