I took My 55 Chevy Bel Air out last night. We went to the Inaugural car show at Dale 1891 put on by Ronnie Setser. Not a bad turnout for the first show, and Thanksgiving weekend. Lots of cool cars in cluding a 1970 Plymouth Super Bird and a 1956 Ford Galaxie with a retractble roof.

Gotta love all the nice cars and the effort people put in to keeping this part of American History alive and well!

Since the body and paint takes the longest of the whole restoration, I decided to continue with the smaller details of the car. Being mechanically minded, I like to have all the little things working as they were intended to the day the pulled off the line at the Chevy plant.

This time I removed the door latch/lock assemblies because they were basically rusted in the unlock position. I told myself I would take pictures beforehand so I knew how to put them back together. Guess what I forgot to do? Lucky for me there were three other doors to reference for reassembly.

By taking these assemblies out and cleaning and lubing them myself, I save over $60 per unit! If they have to be replaced one day down the road, so be it. But for now, the restoration continues and saves money too!

The engine was still running a bit rough so one of the guys at a car cruise I go to suggested we get together and check it out. When I got there, he hooked up his tach/dwell meter and we started to check out the firing part of the issue. After working on it for a bit, we made out way to the carburetor where a pretty good sized vacuum leak made itself apparent. After a trip to Napa, we replaced the carb gaskets. They did not have any EGR valve gaskets so he just put some sealer on it temporarily until I can get some gasket material to make one.

After it was all cleaned up and bolted back down, I took it for a little spin around the block. Man, it sure is spinning again! While it does seem to be running a bit better, there still seems to be something not quite right to me. But then, I’m always looking to improve things a bit.

Working with a 56 year old vehicle, your bound to find worn or missing parts. Today, I found the latter. When I opened the hood, somethign landed at my feet. I looked around and discovered it was one of the rivets holding the hood release lever to the hood. What to do? Since I didn’t have rivets that large, I headed to the hardware for some nuts and bolts. I needed to make sure they matched the size of the rivets so they would not get in the way of the trim when I placed it back on the car. The bolts were just a bit to big, so I reamed the hole out to make them fit and now I’m back in business. Now that that was done, back to what I originally was working on today, priming the doors I had just sanded.

Another project on My 55 Chevy Bel Air restoration I’ve been wanting to do was the Deluxe heater control switch and levers. The majority of them were there but they were broke and rusted. o I pulled the controls out of the dash and started the disassembly of them. A wire brush, bench grinder and some WD-40 and we’re on our way.

I got it all taken apart except for once screw holding the chrome bezel on. That screw would not budge. I tried lubes, impact tools and eventually resorted to drilling the screw out. And let me tell you, that was not an easy task either! That had to be one of the stubbornest screws I have ever met (and the hardest). I drilled on it for over 30 minutes and used a half dozen drill bits. Finally, without damage, the bezel was off and the screw came out.

Now to clean and reassemble the unit. This is one of those times I’m glad I picked up something I didn’t need at the time. I’m referring to the box of 55 parts this guy said he was going to throw away if no one wanted them. It just so happened to have another deluxe heater assembly in it. Enough for me to piece together a whole working one for my car! Considering that rebuilt units like this go for $200-$300, I figured I made out pretty good.

I started sanding the fender and doors on the passenger side of the car today. What I found was kind of surprising, sort of. While I did expect some Bondo near the bottom of the doors because of the shape they are in, I did not expect it to creep half way up the door. It does not appear to be rust damage as on the bottom, but more of maybe accidental damage. The rear door showed some dents that were filled in, so without sanding this all the way down now, I am guessing that there is some type of body damage on the front door as well. For now, the paint is down to the metal (mostly) which is my main objective and I will concentrate more on this filler in a while.

The back of My ’55 Chevy Bel Air had been sagging and I’ve been wanting to restore it to the original ride height so now seemed like a good a time as any. With all the rain we’ve been having here, I haven’t been able to cruise like I want to, so I figured let’s do it. Of course, I have to wait until they arrive to see how it will look, but at least I got the old ones out. It doesn’t look too bad under the car. Still some grass from when I got the car over a year ago. I’ll clean that up and when the new springs arrive, it’ll be good as new!

I cannot believed I waited so long, but I finally did it. For years I have hear about and seen the Rain-X commercials but I finally got some to try out. The wipers work fine on my ’55 Chevy Bel Air but until I get another cable to turn them on from inside the car and not from under the hood I wanted to try something additional.

I got a bottle of Rain-X from a local auto parts place and cleaned my windshield and applied as the directions stated. I wasn’t planning to drive in the rain but just in case…

And boy did just in case come in handy. I drove to a cruise night about 40 minutes from my house. After being there for only a half an hour, it started to pour! After waiting out the heavy stuff, I decided to head home. It was only sprinkling but man did that stuff work great! The rain beaded up and just rolled off the windshield.

As I stated before, I don’t suggest driving without your windshield wipers on, but in the case where it is just barely raining, this stuff works great. Another good thing, my daily driver’s wiper blades are getting a bit worn and with an application of this stuff on the windshield, the smearing was gone too.

Better late than never….

Today was a day to really give the new 700r a test. The monthly car show was on in Plant City (about a 40 minute drive from me). I was excited, but nervous at the same time. I have confidence in the guys at Automaniacs but whenever there is some new elemnt of the car that needs testing, I get a little nervous until it proves otherwise.

The ride out was fine and the ride back jsut as good. While I did not notice a noticeable difference in gas mileage savings, I am happy I made the switch. Hopefully now I can concentrate on the body part of the restoration.

Marc called me and said the speedo gear was in and to bring the car by for a couple hours while he installed and tweaked everything. I gladly obliged and had it there in no time flat (glad the speedometer works now so I won’t drive faster than the posted limit). He had it installed in less time than quoted (man those guys at Automaniacs are good at what they do!) and I was soon on the road grinning ear to ear.

Today was the first real test drive with the new 700r transmission and with the new working speedometer. I took a video of the first road test of my new transmission and speedometer to see how accurate the speed was. The needle waved a tiny bit but was pretty much right on the money. I love it when a plan comes together!