Chevy

A few things you should know about show judging: Every Tri-5’s exterior, regardless of class, is judged for panel alignment, sheetmetal condition, fit of moving components, and finish quality on the entire exterior to include glass, wheels & tires. All these items need to be addressed as the car is being restored, as trying to gain point loss on a completed car is costly and sometimes difficult. Cleanliness of these areas should be addressed prior to the event, but is one of the few things that can be maintained at the show.

While reading a local newspaper in July 2005, my wife noticed a ’57 Chevy for sale. She mentioned it to me, asking if I thought her brother Bobby might be interested in it for parts. I decided to go and take a look. What could it hurt?

The car was sitting in a rural area about thirty minutes north of our home. It had been sitting, all but forgotten, among the rice fields. I found a rodent-infested 210 with rotted tires, rusted rims, no carburetor, and a trailer hitch that was attached to a frame made of heavy-duty iron. The color was an awful faded shade of red.

While many folks are content with slapping on a new set of front discs, very few people take the time to do it right and upgrade the rear as well. There’s a host of reasons to pitch out those old shoes and slap on a set of rotors, the obvious one being vastly superior braking advantages. Control is another one. Most older cars are nose heavy to say the least. Travelling 60 mph in a 4000 lb. vehicle and dropping the anchor on a car that’s front-only disc brake equipped can bring about some scary end swapping. A quality set of rear discs can keep the rear end at bay and greatly reduce stopping distances. Add not having the hassle of replacing worn shoes, and the conversion route is starting to look pretty worthwhile.

ne day in May of 1967, my parents surprised us by bringing home a green & white 1955 Chevy convertible. I didn’t know how or where they found it, or whom they bought it from, and I certainly wasn’t asked for my opinion beforehand. I was of driving age, and my siblings weren’t far behind. Since my folks owned a ’65 Pontiac Bonneville, this old Chevy was for us “kids”.

When installing an open-element air cleaner, use a drop-base unit. This will allow for additional hood clearance, and it opens up the possibility of using a larger filter element.

When doing an HEI distributor conversion, label or mark the location of your spark plug wires on the distributor cap for fast, easy reference.

This 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible was designed and built by Hulst Customs of Merlin, Oregon for Don and Karen Blacksmith of Grants Pass, OR. This car is a full custom in every sense of the word, way too features and modifications to list, but you’ll find most of it is visible in the pictures here.

“Heat” officially debuted at the 2009 SEMA show, was a Top 25 pick at SEMA by Hot Rod Magazine. From there, the car went on to the Good Guys show at Scottsdale, AZ and won the Top Ten pick.

Take a 2008 Harley Davidson Dyna Street Bob motorcycle, add vast amounts of ingenuity, imagination and innovation and blend with over 3,000 hours of labor and you might end up with this homage to the ever popular, instantly recognized 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.  This red beauty was recently seen at the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) Show held in Las Vegas, Nevada .

One of the things I see as most admirable and effective about the 1955-57 Chevy is the suspension design. It was the first of the strong, lightweight, open driveline, modern IFS (Independent Front Suspension) cars that GM would do so well with for many years after. This IFS was very well designed and in many ways a better design than later GM IFS.  I believe it to be superior by far to the 70's and 80's GM IFS, for example. For that reason, this suspension was more often upgraded as technology advanced rather than replaced. Racers and rodders both found that to make them shine on the roads and on the track only took a bit more tweaking instead of heavy modification (like sub-framing).

That front seat just won’t go back quite far enough, will it? We must be giants compared to the people back in the 50s... or perhaps we have all gotten a little bigger around the equator in our old age. Installing a tilt steering column can make things even tighter as they are slightly longer than the stock column. Or perhaps you have a floor shifter that hits the seat and you just don’t want to change shifters or modify the seat. A simple solution is to relocate the seat further back in the car. But, if you move the seat back on the floorboard, the rear legs of the seat tracks will drop off the seat platform and lean to the rear. Plus, new holes would need to be drilled in those nice stock floorboards. Classic Chevy has developed a simple bracket system that bolts to the floor using the stock mounting holes. The seat will be relocated toward the rear of the car 4”. Best of all, no new holes will need to be drilled in the floor.