Just bought my first HAMB friendly car! 1958 Chevy Bel Air!

It was only driven from 1958-1970, so 12 years, I was expecting more to be wrong with it since it sat for the last 30, but I have been surprised. Fingers crossed that it continues that way. Thanks for the compliments!

 

Drove the car again to work today. Seemed to drive, run and stop as well as it always has. Also took a little time tonight to try to aim my headlights, hopefully next time I drive at night I will be able to see better. Also does anyone have any tips on how to trouble shoot my dash lights? Having dark gauges kinda sucks at night!

 

Lookin' Great!

 

Replace the bulbs???? are any of them bad?

There isn't much to them, they are just wired for power and they ground to the case of the gauge cluster through the socket.... so you are either missing power or your ground isn't good enough. Check with a meter to find if you have correct voltage going to them. I have had it happen before where all the bulbs were burned out... This should be an easy cheap fix (under $5 if you are just fixing a power issue, probably $20-30 for bulbs if they are all burned out). These tiny light bulbs are expensive now

 

if your dash lights are out on some cars the tail lights are out also

 

I will have to take a look this weekend and see if I can get them to work. I know I will have to eventually pull the steering wheel in order to get a frayed wire fixed that runs the horn. I can hear it short out when I drive the car. If we are down to the little things now I will be happy.

We checked all the lights before I started driving the car. Everything on the outside works, and on the inside nothing on the dash works other than the green blinker lights, which do flash. I havent really looked into it. I was hoping that there was a fuse I was missing...

Thanks!

 

Try working the headlight switch left to right. When cars sit for a long time the contacts to brighten and dim the dash lights get dirty. I have taken the switch out and sprayed WD 40 in it and got it to work. That is, if you have power to the switch. Dash lights may be on its own 4 amp fuse.

 

Quite often, the rheostat for the dimmer in the headlight switch goes out, and then your dash lights are inoperative. A visual check will sometimes confirm this, also a bad connection at the rheostat will do the same thing.

Nice score on the '58 Chev!

---John

 

I hope that this weekend we will have time to check out the dash lights. As of tonight, we got the roof all buffed out, polished and waxed. It looks good, and I hope to get some video footage of it tomorrow. The good news is that we tried the same method on the hood (which I thought would not shine up) and it seems to work. Ill be shooting a few more videos of that. Stay tuned!

 

NEW UPDATE!!
http://youtu.be/KhS6ShcVRYc

 

Great stuff! Roof looks awesome and I really like that it looks as if you've just cleaned everything under the hood while preserving all the original finishes and have resisted the impulse to repaint anything.

 

Thanks! The way I see it, the car has lasted this long without new paint, why paint it now.Plus if I had decided to paint the motor, it would stick out like a sore thumb against everything old in the engine bay. Then I would have to start painting everything and it is a slippery slope from there. Hopefully today we can finish up the hood and see if that will shine up.

 

Got the hood and driver's side fender all polished out and waxed. I also drive the car a good five more miles today on 100 degree weather in stop and go traffic and it ran fine. Just waiting on the next thing to break. More videos to come!

 

That's a rolling piece of American dream sculpture my friend. Anyone who critiques THAT because it's got four doors can't possibly have both balls in the bag. Bravo!

 

The black fender was replaced at some time with a new one. The black coating on the new factory body parts, was thought by many ignorant painters to be primer,it isn't . So no primer led to new finish coat paint falling off. Your doing great things with that car. Stay with it. Thanks for sharing with us.

 

If anything, that is one thing I wish they had done differently. The car would need no paint work on my book if it was not for that fender. But since it is there, I will eventually have to paint it. Hopefully I can get someone to match the worn old paint with new paint. Sounds super hard, but I bet someone can do it.

 

Thanks! It sure gets alot of attention when I drive it around!

 

I uploaded a new video today. Ill be posting it on here as soon as I get off work. Stay tuned!

 

NEW VIDEO UPDATE
http://youtu.be/VtFW2hkPfXw

 

I gotta figure out how to buff my dash.

 

I bet you could get a little foam pad on a drill and do it that way

 

Great progress! Keep the videos coming.

 

I hope to make one this week. I also hope you guys do not mind me making a video of me just driving the car, because that is what I have been doing most of the time. Driving until something else breaks!!!

 

Worked a little bit on the Bel-Air today, and finally got the dash lights working! Turns out the connections for the dimmer inside the light switch were all corroded, and with the little bit of cleaning and some bulb grease, now the swich pulls out much nicer, and the dash lights work!
I have driven the car more than four days this week, and will take pics of the dash tonight when I drive it home from work.

Another bit of info, I found the levers for the floor vents, and they are AMAZING!!! I love how much air runs around your legs when you have those suckers open!

 

Very cool, love the pics.

 

By all means, we love driving videos. I saw all your videos on YouTube and enjoyed them thoroughly.

 

I hope to have a new video by the end of this week

 

Cool car and I love the Videos... I wish we could get more videos builds on the HAMB.

 

Today I fixed the horn on the car. If you remember in my fourth video, when I drove the car for the first time, it would blow and not turn off, well it turns out it was the horn contact. The plastic sleeve was broken causing the metal spring and plunger to push out, making permanent contact. That is fixed for now. Another video will be up soon.