[trbomax]

 We winched it out of the building and onto the trailer on friday.

[trbomax]

 Loaded up. We drove back sunday afternoon and stuffed the car and trailer in the shop.We will get it unloade in a day or so but before I can begin any work on it I have one wall of the shop that must be insulated and finished.

[themoose]

That's a great looking ride....I'm looking forward to seeing it come together.
Moose

[EDNY]

That's a pretty car!  What's the game plan?

[trbomax]

 I did some serious evaluation today and its not as nice as it seemed to be when in the barn in toledo. The paint cant be saved so as to present the car in a manner that I am used to.So there will be a complete dissasembly,body and chassis. There are some things I will change on the body before a refinish. The change from sbc to bbc will require moveing the rad shell fwd about 6", and a different way of mounting the front of the motor. I may just cut the whole frot clip off and start building off of the "X" junction forward. I need to get a 53-54 chev front suspension complete because I want to eliminate the lever shocks on the upper control arm,and match the 5 bolt wheel pattern on the 58 rear. I had planned to set the front suspension crossmember into the frame as opposed to under the frame (as it is now). This will allow me to remove the stock front crossmember and mount the rad shell on the suspension crossmember. Since I originally built the frame with an AC stick welder in '62, I suspect I will want to re-do a lot of the welding, even if only from a cosmetic standpoint. Since I now have the options of tig or mig , I may reweld the whole thing. All the chassis components and frame will be blasted prior to any work,then again prior to paint. This time It will have an interior (the glass car never did but the steel car had several different ones). I am seriously considering finishing out the top and not covering it with vynal,but instead a texture finish like is used on jeep tops. It has a texture finish on it now,but it was only a temporary measure and never intended to be permanent. The driveline will remain as it was,t-10 into a drop-out 58 chevy limited slip with coils and the 3 link rear that I did in '62. I know the driveline will be a grenade with the bbc so I will have to restrain myself while driveing. The motor will be built from my collection of parts that I accumulated while raceing blown bbc drag boats in the late '60's and '70's. I may not go the blower route and use a tunnel ram,I have a couple of those too,dont know yet. The pic is from last night when I backed it into the shop.

[EDNY]

Have you considered a Mustang 2 style front suspension?  They have all kinds of height and width options.

[themoose]

Sounds like you have a bunch of good ideas. Gonna be an interesting build for sure.

Moose

[trbomax]

Have you considered a Mustang 2 style front suspension?  They have all kinds of height and width options.

  Not really.I wont put ford parts on a chevy anyway. Useing what I did in '62 makes it personally period correct for me. I want to keep it like it was or could have been then. I know the bbc is a stretch,but then the 396 came out in 65,so its not too bad.My first choice would be a 425/409, but I would have to start buying parts and working with a motor that I am not familiar with.If I was 10 yrs younger and did not have the health issues I have now,thats what I would do.

[TFoch]

Cool looking ride. I'm looking forward to the progress and seeing how you fit the big block in there.
Tom

[ghost28]

That's a great looking car and with history with you makes it even cooler. I know I had to move the original firewall back 4 inches in my 28 sedan and 6 inches in my 27 sedan just so I could run the original hood and put a small block in them. Are you gonna run everything on it? fenders hood and so on.

[trbomax]

All the bodywork will be the same except for the paint. I guess I'll just start blocking the whole thing out and go from there.. When I had the sbc in it it fit fine w/o cutting or moveing anything. I am going to do a lot of frame modding ahead of the cowl so as to lower the front by 6" or so. The "gasser" stance was good in 62 but not what I want now. I never ran a hood except the top when it was a steel car,and then only in winter. Running a hood now that it wont be a daily driver doesnt matter,it wont see bad weather or snow. Keeping this in mind,my plan is to completly remove the stock front crossmember since its only function is to mount the rad and shell anyway. I am going to move the rad/shell fwd to get the 6 - 8 inches I will need for the blower drive and cam driven pump. I dont think the width will have to be changed since both sb and bb use the same side mounts and my plan is to use 66 corvette manifolds which are probably better flowing than block hugger headers anyway.. I'm pretty sure the steering box will have to be relocated,but the lowering 6" will necessitate that anyway. Everything from the rear of the block back will be the same as it was with the sbc.

[32chevy vett]

That is one nice looking ride. Can not wait to see the build.

[trbomax]

I had some extra time today so I got all the tie down straps off of it and looked at the electrical situation. When I built it it got electric door latches from a 300sl mercedies (same one the seats came from) .I built old school power window regulators ,actuallythey werent old school in 62 but they are now. They have a gear motor and a large gear below the glass. The deck lid was hydraulic,I used a convertible top pump (remember those?) and one cylinder. Everything ran off of horn relays to keep the wire sizes down.So I hooked up my 200a batt charger to the starter end of the main batt cable and started throwing switches. Amazeingly,the widows work just fine. Not so much on the door latches though.The relays growl but nothing happens,I suspect there are ground issues.I had to throw the deck lid switch a few times,but then it ran and works fine!The lights work,heater blower runs, and the interior lights work! All in all, a pretty good day. I need to take one rear tire/wheel in town and get a new tube put in,then I will have all 4 holding air and can roll it off the trailer. Some pics tomorrow.

[themoose]

Sounds like you have power everything....Not bad a luxury car with a big block...What could be better!

[trbomax]

Sounds like you have power everything....Not bad a luxury car with a big block...What could be better!

 It had power steering but not power brakes.