Projects Gangrene, a gasser story

Well over a year ago I went to look at this old custom. A friend had it in his garage for the last 17 years and had done nothing to it. The way it is, is what it was when he bought it. The 54 is really rough and I knew it so I passed on getting it. A year later I couldn't get the car off my mind so I bit the bullet and brought it home with me. We all make mistakes...

At first glance she doesn't look too bad.

 

On the way home.

 

The 54 is in bad shape. Bad chop top, REALLY BAD!, trunk is gone, hydraulics on the front. Ugly custom work done to it like the Stude?? taillights and trunk chopped in two to where the water had no place to go other than in the car and rot the trunk floor. There is so much I can't even type it all.

The kids seem to like it.

 

I never told my son Aryan to do anything to the car. I look over and he's unscrewing the sheet metal out of the back window. It's fun to watch him become a self thinker and just run with it. Getting the car home I started seeing just how much of a hack job this car was.

 

We tossed a battery in the car and got the hydraulics working.
Down


Up


Next comes that old 6 banger. Will it run?

Aryan and I took the plugs out and put some trans fluid down in the piston holes just to clean some stuff up in case it was tight from sitting.

 

The plugs were carboned up and needs changing but not knowing if the engine would even run left me with just a good cleaning on all of them with a wire wheel. We turned the engine over a few times to blow some of the trans fluid out of the holes and then dropped the plugs back in. There is no gas tank in the car so a can of gas with a hose in it serves as the fuel.


I get in the car and the gas pedal is froze. I messed with it in the car and under the hood but could only give it a small amount of gas. I'll have to look into that more. I twisted the key and she cranks no more than two turns and fires right up. It sounds good! I give it what gas I can and it takes off. It was in drive and the shifter is not hooked up. I found out the brakes DO work. HAHahhh
Aryan was laughing and I looked at him. He said I'm just watching you grin

 

I got a good look at the top today. Whoever did it the chop should have stayed working at Wendy's. It has to be the worse chop I have ever seen and I have seen many. If I had another roof I'd change it. I hate trying to fix other peoples screw ups. The front is nice but the back and middle is something to see in person.

 

I love customs and at first that was my goal to put the 54 back on the streets as a custom. So some of these early thoughts were leaning towards that goal.

I already knew I was changing the taillights and quarters around so I wanted to see just how bad things were. Here is what it looks like with the mud on.

Here what is hiding. Scaring stuff. Rolled sheets, brazed on in spots and finished off with almost an 1" of mud.

 

With the trunk lid cut in two and the taillights all screwed up I tried to figure out something cool that would look right. I could not find a trunk so if I had to leave it like that I figured I'd sloped and extend the 1/4's and run a continental kit on the back. I looked through tons of pictures until I found this one on the HAMB. That is somewhat the shape I was going for.

 

I did a ton of small work, gas pedal, shifter and so on while I let my mind roam about what to do with all the bad work done prior.

 

Here I was mocking some stuff up to see what I thought.

 

The work on the front end was not what I care for so I thought a change up front would get me more into the project. I knew where two of these bumpers and grilles were. Both would make one nice one.

 

Here is where some may get their feathers ruffled. SAVE THE CUSTOM! Easy to say that before you see the car in person. I dug into the car enough to see what it was. A total hack job. Nothing was welded. Every seam was brazed with globbed up spots welds ever 3 to 5 inches. Every seam cracked. Frenched headlights, taillights, hood you name it and it was a Bondo cracking nightmare. The driver side 1/4 was slammed at one time and what was the worse part is the car had anywhere from 1/8" to 4" of Bondo in it. Think about that for second. 4 inches of Bondo. Most places didn't need mud but they put it on anyway. A it's best it would have a skim coat 1/8" then paint. Another skim coat and paint this went on 4 or 5 paint jobs.

 

I gave up on the car and let it sit. I tried my best to make myself fix the car and save it. Every time I would go look at the car I would find more issues with the body. I could have slammed more mud on it and shipped it. No one would have known but it's just not in me to do that. I don't want my name on the car if it's going to look like crap in a year or two from bad body work. To fix the car right I would have spent more money and time than it was worth when I added it all up. I could buy a stock 54 and fix it like a custom cheaper than fixing this one. So the car went up for sale as is.

 

I couldn't get my time and money back and no good trades came through so I got to thinking about this as a beater gasser project. Not some ratty looking crap pile but something a little different. Chopped gasser that I could just beat the eyeballs out of it at every turn. Something that if it hooked wrong and went into the wall I wouldn't care. It would give a great show doing it. I guess that lit a fire under me. It's on!



Those don't look like shocks?

 

Out with the old.

 

keep on keepn on

 

Spindles were giving me a fit. The guy I bought the axle off of has some type of turned down spindles on it. He said he THOUGHT that Mustang II stuff would fit them. The drum with all new brakes and everything came with it so I figured I'd use that.

 

I wanted this thing to be a little more on the wild side. More of an Altered than a Gasser. I used the shortest springs I could find to moved the front axle as far forward as I could get it. I may move the rear end forward too but it's still up in the air right now. It will sit a couple inches higher than in the picture. The fender was tossed on just to get an idea of what she will look like. I want this thing to look like something that would have been built in a back yard with what they had laying around so the 6 lug drums are going to stay. I have a couple sets of 5 lug stuff I can use but I like this look. 6 lug rear end is in the works. Just need to figure out how to make it a posi without breaking the bank. The front rims and tires will not stay on it. It's just what I had laying around.

 

This is just plain sad someone would do this to a car. This is all Bondo from under the headlight covering up this brazed and spot welded junk they used to mold in the Buick Grille.

 

Bondo was 3 inches thick in some spots.

 

I posted a picture of all this Bondo in another thread so if it looks like you seen it before you have.

Much better!

 

Everything is just sitting loose on her. Just mock up stage right now.

 

I have the rear end ripped out of it and the car is half in and half out of the garage so no front end work while it's raining. I couldn't sit around so I messed with the part that was in the garage, the back. One thing I hated about this car was the way they cut the trunk in two and molded the bottom to the car.

 

As I said before while wanting to keep it a custom the back of the car was so screwed up only thing I could think to do with it was to extend the 1/4's and run a continental kit on it. I made a frame and started shaping metal for the back. After going over the car I gave up on a nice custom. She's too far gone. I cut all the crap back off and dug out what was left of the trunk.

 

Not sure why all the Bondo. He put Bondo all over everything. There is some spots it needed filler but he covered parts that were straight as could be. Layer on top of layer of Bondo. I had to take a cut off wheel and make cuts in it and use a hammer and screwdriver to chip away at it.

 

After getting all the Bondo from around the trunk I cut through the spot welds to get the bottom of the trunk from the body.

 

You can see the left rear 1/4 has been slammed and beat back out. The bottom of the body below the trunk is gone as is the taillight sections where they brazed in the Stude taillights. She's a rough ol' gal.

I chipped away at more Bondo and then cleaned up where I was going to weld. I hung the trunk back in the car and lined it up with the body. I wasn't happy to see whoever cut the trunk in half didn't just make one cut. He took an inch or so out of it. If you pull the two pieces together there is a 1" or more gap at the bottom. Oh well, I spot welded to bottom back on the car to make it easier to weld the two and a filler piece was cut to mate the two together once again.

 

Almost done with the added piece.

Not knowing any history past the last 17 years I wonder how long ago that the trunk did this?

More and more Bondo being chipped away. Little by little.


I still need to add some metal to the inner braces when I get back on it.