Projects My new 53 chevy 4dr daily driver!

Awesome that its your daily... Great story too ... Just read the entire thing... Cheers ..John


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So Ive been doing alot of driving. I finally swapped over to 15" rims and radials. Tried those out for several tanks of gas and theres absolutely no change in the MPG. So I changed back to my 14" WWW. Next, sometime this winter, Ill be cutting out my exhaust AGAIN to increase to a 2" system and allow for better "breathing".
Next, Ill have to look at carberator options.
Other than that, Ill be doing my first oil change soon from when I got it back from the builders. I photoshopped up a bunch of cool water slide window decals. I took original pictures of water slides from the era and changed them a bit and made some from scratch. Ill post pics of those soon.
Been driving very nice. Starts up and purrs no matter the temp or cold starts. Drives great and sounds good too. I hope the 2" exhaust doesnt change the tone too much, I really like it right now!
Oh yea, I started building my grill a while back. Ill have to finish that soon!
More to come

 

So heres some really really cheap (free) wooden wheel standsI made. Didnt take long at all. This was all scrap lumber cut offs from a previous project. I screwed all the wood of each layer to the next. Its really heavy and dense. I can slide right under the car with no jack stands in my way. Love it!!




And these are the water-slide decals I created. I scanned a bunch from some books I had, I tweaked a bunch in photoshop and put 'em on. Theres more steps than that, but heres the results! Coool!!











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I love my 4 door 210, low miles and solid. rides like a boat

 

Hell yea! Mine rides very solid even up to the top speed of 65 on country roads!

 

Finally put together the new grill! The car has a bit of a monster theme, so I tried to create a grill monster "mouth" if you will, and still keeping the mild custom thing going. I like it!
First, heres a shot of how The Bride looks from the rear. The rear wheel/tire combo looks so cool here.



Ok, so heres some different anlges of the grill. Tell me what you think!













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Just finished doing the door panels on my car. Ill do a tech article on how I did it soon!

 

good job
That grill is a monster. Desoto teeth?

Godspeed
MrC.

 

Thanks Mr.C!
The center grill teeth are '55 chevy bumper guards, a combo of front and rear. The pieces to the far left/right sides are front bumper guards from a '56 chevy

 

So I just completed the little frankenstein dash I had been thinking about. Next, Ill have a heater housing assebmly tech article soon. Im making one housing out of two. Should be interesting!
Till then, dont let Frankie GETCHA!








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That's awesome

 

A couple thoughts concerning your fuel mileage.....it looks like you're running a "cold" intake. On an everyday vehicle, you should have heat on the bottom of your intake manifold. The headers you've got appear to have provisions for heat tubes, so make a plate for the intake from a piece of steel and run tubes from each header to the plate. The old Chevy six speed manuals said that a properly tuned dual carb setup would not only give better performance, but also better mileage, and I proved them right with the McGurk intake and Stromberg BXOV-2s on my '53 Bel Air. I found a pair of carbs with adjustable main jets, which made fine tuning the mixture a snap.

 

Heathen,
Thanks for the input. I still havent nailed the MPG problem yet. Do you have a picture of those carbs or a pic of your set up? Also, after all that, what MPG do you get?
Thanks!

 

This 4 door is turning out REAL SWEEEEEEEET!

 

No pics right now, but if you go on Ebay and punch in "BXOV2" there's one for sale right now and you can see what it looks like.

 

There's some updates! Been driving it a lot! Front wheel cylinder went out on me. I replaced both front cylinders. Lucky I had already upgraded to the dual reservoir system.

So since last post, I painted the floorboards, replaced wheel cylinders and am working on mild body custom touches like rear wheelwell openings and lowering the rear bumper 3-3/4".

Also, I picked up a T5 with mechanical speedo at the yard. Picked up a V8 bellhousing at the swapmeet. Also picked up a smooth running 250 inline for $50 off CL. All I need now is a Nova rearend and a driveline to make the swap. But since the car is running pretty reliably right now, I wont do that swap until winter.

I pre-registared with Rose City Round Up and with Billetproof. This will be the first year Ill be able to drive my car to the shows. Fingers crossed!

 

Nice fender treatment, inspired by the 57?
I'm not sure I have seen that done on a 53/54 before, very cool and the work looks great as well.
You may find that 235 too tall with the stock air cleaner, if its a truck 235 it is taller than the car versions. you can use it, but you will need another air cleaner.

Godspeed
MrC.

 

Thanks Mr.C! I actually started realizing how many cars had the swept back wheel wells after I started doing this. I was imagining like a 64 Falcon or a 61 belair. I was going to find some rough quarter panels and fab them in, but never found anything, So I made my own. After the first side, I was looking at all the tri-5 stuff and watching the morph from year to year with the wheelwells. Also, that was a 250 in the last pics, not a 235.
I hope to be wrapped up with filler done and paint on by this weekend!

I did this last night before hittin the sack!

 

If you're running a single carb, you could try a Holley Weber 5200 - it's a progressive 2 barrel, like half a four barrel with a primary barrel and a secondary. A lot of guys use them on Jeep six cyiinder engines and IHC six cylinders, as well as some import four cylinders. They came on Pintos and Vegas and a bunch of other little cars but I've heard they improve both mileage and power. I've seen them on ebay - older ones have fewer complications to deal with in terms of hookups. I think you can order them through one of the six cylinder websites but don't remember the name.
Chris

 

Been away from the hamb for awhile, found this thread again....
The bride turned out nice, oarsome job, dude!

 

Thanks friends!
Here is some progress on the wheel wells. The rear bumber was dropped about 3-3/4" inches. Still need to smooth out the filler and weld in some patches and fill the Belair trim holes, but the primer will do for scootin to work.







Heres a photoshopped pic that shows the front wheelwell treatment idea, the lakepipe "french cuffs" and a 2" drop. Also this shows a 2" front bumper drop.

With the lowering of the bumpers and lowering the wheelwell openings, I gained a visual 2" drop at stock height. When I finally lower it 2" itll look like a 3-4" drop and itll ride nice without bottoming out!

 

thanks chriseakin, ill look into the holley line up later

 

I MADE IT!!!

I finally made it to Billetproof in Chehalis WA.

The first year I had my car, the auto tranny went out. The next year the motor went out. The third year the motor that had been rebuilt the previous year went out again!! This year I made it! Up and back with no problems! I was running the 235, 3 speed, original enclosed driveline and original 3.55 rearend with 14" wheels and WWW biasplys. I drove 55 MPH the whole way at 2400 RPM. It was really foggy on the way up. Here is a pic of my 53, my brothers 62 Ranchero and my mom and dads 64 Merc. The other pic shows us parked on the grass at the show! YAY!!

 

Very cool, passed you guys on the way back and exchanged some waves. Car looked like it was doing great man! Love that little ranchero that was rolling with your group too.

 

looks top notch homie

 

Thanks for the feed back guys! Im enjoying now, driving almost daily to work, other days I ride the cycle.

 

Dude this is the kittys tittys. How did u do this? Im in love with it. your car is bitch'n too! Im going to my 54 in a whole new makeover.

 

Thanks dude! Frank that funky 54!

 

Not so much a daily driver now that my commute has changed after my promotion, but I still take it out for fun now.
Im hoping that after I swap in the 250 inline, the T5 and the Nova rearend that I will be able to drive it to work more often. My commute is a hour on the freeway at 65-70 mph, each way. The 235, 3 speed wont cut it right now. The swap is planned for this winter. Once I have a Nova rearend, it will commence!!

 

Man you're doing a great job on your '53! I love it! Have a blast driving her around!