My Main Man

I have to give a shout out to Dean at Advanced Auto, he came through again. This time I needed a rear seal for the front rotors, a $4 item. I go into Advanced and get assisted by another employee, not to throw her under the bus, but after all of five minutes, she gave up. Telling me that there were way too many boxes to look through, she said good day. I knew I had an ace in the hole, so I pulled it out.... " is Dean working?". She said sure, go to the back of the store and see him. 

If you have been following my posts, you know he is a parts guru who was able to identify all my brake parts after over an hour of detective work. 

I see Dean and show him the part, no surprise, he finds the correct part after only a few minutes. This time the part is to a 69 Chevy II. He says to me "come on, you got to make this harder for me" I LOVE THIS GUY!!!!!!!

I plan to do some work on the 55 Sunday. 

• Install radiator
• Install heater core and heater box
• Rebuild front rotors
• Install calipers and hydraulic hoses
• Install new climate control cables.

That should get me up to date on everything that is torn apart. I will need to run new stainless steel brake lines and install a new Master cylinder to complete the brake work.

It's been a while

I haven't had the opportunity to do any work on the 55 lately. It seems every weekend is booked and finding time during the week is impossible. I have spent the time researching items needed, prioritising, and determining the order of the remaining repairs in order to maximise my time and minimize the budget

I spoke to my engine builder, to let him know what my needs are. He is going to work up three options. We settled on a 454, punched out to a 496 with a little stroke. I explained that i am not going to race the car, it is going to be a cruiser that will live between idle and 3,000 rpm, but it needs to be torquey so I can have some fun when I want to. I have always loved and respected the car, so I would never beat it or dump the clutch out of respect for my dad, who I miss every day.

I have been thinking of ways to incorporate his memory into the build. Currently the 55 has a black shift knob, my idea is to change that to a white knob with his nickname in turquoise Belair font "Jaggers". 

I picked up some EZ slider control cables for the climate controls. The factory ones are binding. These are covered in plastic with a lubricant inside.

My dad's birthday is this Thursday December 3rd, this will be the first since he passed last year, I wish he was here. I miss him not being here to talk to. I miss him not spending time with my daughter and wife, my daughter loved his PIGGY back rides! I also wish he could be here to make this restoration and father son project.

I have to mention again that all of this would be impossible without the love and support of my wonderful wife and amazing mother.

Don't jinks me!

I am pleasantly surprised with the progress so far. Every second I spend wrenching on the '55 brings me closer to my dad, I just wish he was here so we could work on it together. Also, it has been years since I had a car that was this easy to work on. I am really getting back to my roots. As a teenager, adjusting points on a distributor, adjusting timing, and packing bearings was a normal weekend for me.

Finding all of the brake hardware, thanks to Dean at Advance Auto on rt 8 in Gibsonia, was a seriuos hurdle to clear. I picked up the new calipers, hoses, and bearings. I will need to get new hard lines and a master cylinder to make sure no more particles are in the system. Still thinking of going to power brakes..... Thinking.

The radiator and heater core were inspected, pressure tested, and passed with flying colors. Another smart move my dad made was to add a fourth core to the radiator. I will have no issues with cooling. A fresh coat of black paint makes them so pretty! The radiator is going to look so bad ass against the turquoise.

None of this would be possible without the love and support of my wife and my mom. I can't wait to get the car done so I can share it with them and take my mom for a ride!

I get by with a little help from my friends - at Advanced Auto.

I can not sing the praises of Dean from my Advanced Auto, it was like CSI Automotive. I walk in with a box full of calipers and hoses from a four wheel disk brake conversion kit from the 90's, with no real idea what year and make the parts fit. He dug his heals in and spent 45 minutes using every trick in his arsenal to figure it all out.

First set back, it won't BRAKE me.

Before I get to the brakes, let just tell you how overjoyed I am that my five year old daughter is just as excited as me to work on "Grandpa's car" as I am. Before we started we took a few minutes to talk to Grandpa up I heaven and let him know what a good job we would do fixing his car. My daughter is in charge of making all the shiny parts shine. She took to it like a pro, buffing the front pumper - 15 years since it had been polished.

Now to the brakes. I was expecting to see dark fluid, boy was I surprised when I took the cap off the master cylinder and found this. It looked like bacon grease. The amount of material that settled out was shocking. It was even under the edge of the master cylinder where the cap sits. I have no idea what caused it.

 

 

 I moved onto the rotors and calipers. Once I got the them off and inspected them I was pleasantly surprised. The rotors look fine, I also removed the wheel bearings. The grease had solidified. No biggy, I was more concerned about their condition and the condition of the spindle. New bearings won't set me back much. 

I found a lot of the sediment in the calipers, which means it is also in the brake lines. I am not sure how to clear the lines and get rid of it. I am thinking I may need to replace the brake lines. Since I need to replace the master cylinder and need new lines, it may make sense to upgrade to power brakes.

I drained the gas tank next, my dad helped me out on this one. Thanks to gas sablizer, he added, the 5 gallons of 15 year old gas, looked and smelled new. Once I get the tank out I am hoping for no varnish. 

Also, got word on the radiator and heater core I had checked out, clean bill of health!!

Can't stop me now:

Brakes brakes brakes, have been on my mind.  I need to make sure they are in good shape. I have been doing a lot of research to try and determine what the correct replacement parts are for the disc brake conversion kit we used and I am getting close. When I inspect the system I will need to know what parts I need to order.

Thanks to a lot of advice from members of several 55 chevy facebook groups, I have decided that instead of buying new calipers, which really aren't that expensive, less than $30 a pop, it makes more sense to rebuild each caliper for around $9 each.  Also I will be replacing all the wheel bearings as well as the master cylinder and the hydraulic hoses. Bearings and hoses are around $6 to $8 each.  This is definitely a value added task, minimal cost for a great deal of safety and security.  The last thing I need to do is have a braking system that could fail.

Changing to power brakes isn't a hard job to do, kits are out there that just bolt in. The only drawback is the expense.  They can range from $250 to $350.  The nice thing is that I can do that down the road, having manual disc brakes instead of drums, does help stop the car better than stock.

I mentioned before, the more hands on I am with the car, the closer it brings me to my dad. When I was younger, we would do these types of repairs on the family cars and my own.  I can remember my dad helping me pack wheel bearings with grease, make sure I didn't over tighten bolts, bleed brakes...... This will bring back so many more memories.

Relax, this won't hurt:

Today the goal was to drain and remove the radiator, drain the gas tank, and remove the heater core. 

Radiator:
Surprisingly, there was little fluid left in the radiator, the hard part was removing the hoses. The lower hose needed more persuasion to come off.

Heater core:
The heater core took considerably longer. The firewall had to be modified so the big blocks valve covers would fit. This pushed back the firewall making the heater box a tight fit.

 After two hours, the heater box came out and when I pulled the heater core...... Guess what..... It looks brand new. I then realized that the car was only driven in the summer, so the heater was never used. I plan on having both the radiator and heater core checked and pressure tested.

Gas tank:
I don't know if it is good or bad, but it seems that their may be no gas in the tank. What little gas was there smelled OK and was not discolored, so I may not have to deal with a varnished tank. I will know more when I drop the tank.