A couple of years back we embarked on the build of a 1953 Chevrolet 150 business coupe that someone at the opposite end of the country (NZ) had started. Full credit to them, the work was all pretty damn good, making my life easier. Today was our last certification inspection so next is to make it legal with the govt. Any who.....short story long, I have bought another 53, this time a delivery, in not such great condition. We are going for a 6 hour drive on Wednesday to pick it up. These are the pics I have of it at this stage.
The car comes with, 2 chassis, one rolling and one bare. A spare firewall and a right hand drive dash. A full set of front panels all stacked in the back. The plan is to utilize a spare set of jag ifs irs and sbc that I have laying around. I will be setting up my molasses bath again to eat all the rust off the panels before the work begins.
You know i hold your builds in high regard and this one will be no different. Look forward to the progress reports. JW
Today was a good chance for a stock take of the inventory that came in the delivery. I also spent a fair bit of time on the water blaster both inside and out, resulting in an inadvertent change in color from rusty stained white to rusty stained blue/green that was probably a factory applied coating. From all the cleaning I only found 1 little bit of cancerous rust that will require excision and replacement. Any who here is a bunch of reference shots. The door opens and closes beaut, a little wear on the hinge pins.
Had a quiet day yesterday, started out cleaning out the back cargo area and scraping a bit of seam sealer, ended up taking out the diff, springs and front suspension before welding a few caster wheels to the chassis at planned ride height! Nothing to see here!
Whilst cleaning up the delivery and doing a stock take on a few things I noticed a couple of things that are unique to the delivery model. The rear valance/filler panel between the body and the bumper has a dip between the over-riders. The rear bumper has a corresponding dip to allow for the rear door opening. The over riders are also unique in that they are lower to clear the door. A detail I noticed after having sectioned and reshaped the front and rear ones on the coupe. Another quirky detail is the top rear corners of the front doors. A coupe/sedan door has square top corner. The delivery on the other hand has a radiused corner but carries the character line through. Cheers team.
Those little changes must have added a lot to the manufacturing costs! That piece in the rear bumper and valance looks like a kind of step. JW
I took this photo in Kingman Arizona back in 2016. Even though it's a 54 it would make a good parts car for your 53 !! JW
The grill on mine has those narrow teeth on it, but only a couple. The bar they are on must be the same profile on 53 and 54.
Rebuilt 700R4 trans secured today, pick up on Tuesday. That will be all the major components ready for chassis fab over the break.
Just got home from picking up the trans 700R4 with torque converter, flex plate, dipstick, tv cable, Speedo cable and rear mount all included. Reputedly rebuilt but never used, no fluid anywhere so highly possible that is true. For the price it is worth the risk! All that is left to find is the driveshaft and yoke, but I now have enough to set up the entire driveline and chassis.
Good score, that will make it a good highway cruiser, not that we are allowed to go very fast now, or is that just where i live. JW
I took the opportunity to grab a sbc from the shelf and bolt it to the trans and slide it in the hole. Still a bit high in the frame but a bit of persuasion will sort. The Vette headers have always been a favorite of mine. I modified them to have v bands rather than 3 bolt flanges. First order of business will be a front cross member/radiator support.
Boxing day consisted of a workshop re-org and some wheels under the body. Then I scraped a bucket of underseal, grease, oil, dirt and dust off the chassis ready for tomorrow, when I plan to remove unnecessary brackets etc before we start fabrication. Cleaned up and ready for tomorrow. Merry Christmas to my USA watchers.
You don't muck about for sure. This is going to come together rather fast but must ask what happened to the 39 coupe build? Hope you had a great Christmas, Wade. JW
JW, the coupe resides in the shop right next to the delivery. Most of the chassis engineering is complete. The coupe also has jag ifs irs, so I figured that if I am rebuilding 1 set of jag suspension I may as well do 2 sets and finish both chassis at the same time, blast/paint and reassemble them as a pair, economy of scale stuff! I was working on a deal with a panelbeater mate for the coupe, my hours for his hours, but he has decided that moving to the west island will be better for his family, so I am inheriting a few nice tools instead so I can muddle through with the coupe panels myself.
Another day of scraping and grinding. I removed the leaf spring brackets, park brake mechanism, and various other un-needed items I also welded the rivet holes left behind to tidy up. A couple of the body mount brackets were chock full of rocks and dirt that I managed to blast out with the water blaster. Now the whole chassis is clean and grease/dirt free and ready for more progress tomorrow.
Marking out the axle center lines today, so we get to play with the timu lasers! First up I put the chassis on 4 stands at a nice height to work. Level across.....check! Look at the drawings..... Ah, yes 4 and 23/32" difference between front and rear.........well f#@k me! That was the exact height I had plonked the front on a pair of stands! Today is going to be a good one! Find the center of the rear axle measure from rear of chassis, it is exactly in the middle of the 2 bumpstop mount bolt holes......makes sense! Set up first laser to drop rear axle center line onto the deck, then measure forward 2921mm, not 2912mm like I started to......damn dyslexia! Second laser projects that measurement up off the deck onto the chassis....... Lo and behold it puts the line dead centre of 2 holes in a front suspension brace! We can't really ask for more than that now can we! Now all I need is to confirm where the relative axle centers are on the front and rear jag items...........stay tuned!
The Jalopy Journal
