Chrome, And More Chrome.

It is without a doubt that the '57 Chevy had quite a bit of chrome. Most 1950's cars were anything but shy on the chrome department, and the 57 kept up with its peers, albeit in a more refined way. Comparing the 57 Chevy to a Cadillac of the same vintage, the chevy is noticeably less chrome heavy.

The beast had one option that my first 57 did not have.... Extra chrome. Where on earth would you put extra chrome on a 57 you might be asking yourself?  It is a good question, but, alas, I am going to give you the answer you seek.

You see in the '50 before Ralph Nader, and his (sometimes warranted) complaints about car safety, most of the interior of the 57 was what would be considered today an injury prone environment. You could easily impale yourself with the steering wheel, or just crash into the metal dash. However, this metal dash tended to be painted the same color as the car. My car stands out because of 2 things. Somebody took the time to actually pad the dash with the same hideous material as the seats, and I have chrome front windshield trim, chrome glove box, chrome ashtray, chrome door moldings... In fact very little of my car is painted the original black. 

Seeing as I live close to Key City Plating, and they have a good reputation within the restorer community, I might go over there and have them give me a quote. Yes, it will be expensive but the chrome is in bad shape. It also "cheapens" the look of the car when the chrome happens to be flaking off of it.

Here is the box full of chrome...

Another neat little thing that is going to be expensive, but at the end will be well worth it. Oh by the way, even the locks are chrome plated...

Used cars, and surprises

When you buy a used car, there is little assurance that everything will be perfect, or that the car was taken care of. In the case of the 57, the car had been well cared for, but it is a 58 year old car. By comparison most 58 year old cars in 1957 were, how shall we put this in polite terms? Dust, or relegated to museums. 

Having said that, a 58 year old car is going to have its surprises, and I am sure that this one is not going to be any different. I have really not taken a good look at things in the car, as I care very little for the engine, transmission, and suspension. All that stuff is going to be addressed in the future.

However... I noticed something missing. I am pretty sure that the motor for the wind shield wipers is located in the firewall above the distributor, and it leans at an odd angle. Mine is AWOL.

For those of you not familiar with the shoebox chevy's this (amongst many other things) were major advances at the time. A lot of cars of their age, (and some european ones) used vacuum powered motors to run the wipers. That seems like a legitimately fine idea, after all Mercedes used vacuum to power stuff all the way to the early '90s. you will say... And I will tell you I have one of those cars, and they used an auxiliary vacuum pump. Not the engine. Chevy was using electrical motors (yey). 

The system inside however left a bit to be desired... in that they used a "transmission" with 2 rollers, and braided steel cords to drive the wipers. Sounded like a bright idea at the time I am sure.

Modern wipers have bars, and have no play in them. The motor is also out of the engine compartment, and squirreled away somewhere safe. Cold electrical motors are far more reliable, than over heated ones in the back of the engine compartment. So what does this have to do with the price of china, you ask... Well, all those pulleys, and the cable, and the engine are no longer with the car. They MIGHT be part of someone elses... But not in this one.

So decision 1... Do I e-bay the parts one piece at a time and gather them around, and hope that they work well enough? Or do I update...

Second surprise... Looking for the wiper system, I encountered issue #2... No electrical whatsover under the dash. Upon further inspection the system under the hood was in no better shape. The fuse box... Well, 3 or 4 sickly looking glass fuses is not necessarily a good thing. Decision #2. Do I wing the electrical, or buy a pre engineered one?  I have done this in the past, so NO, it is not a big deal. However. I discovered painless wiring. Ordered one of their 28 circuit systems. That made the decision for the wipers easy. Go with a new system. Ordered the system that has 2 speed and intermittent wipers. Maybe later the wash bottle..

Now with those 2 major things, I should end up with a reliable electrical system, that in turn will make this a reliable car (eventually)

Surprise #3... When I bought the car, it did not have the original bench seat. It had a seat with a fold down center, and seemed to be more comfortable than the original bench seat on my first 57 (or maybe I remember that one wrong????) As I was looking at things, like my original fisher door sills, I noticed that my bench seat had levers. In a 4 door?  Well, lo and behold... The front seat backs fold... So this came out of a coupe. It is also a "power" seat!. So, My 57 has power seats... :-D

As for the last entry for the day, sadly when I went to remove the no name dangerously sloshy battery  and replace it with an Interstate one I have, I found that I had about 2/3 of battery tray. This I was not expecting, however a replacement part is a whopping 60 dollars with the fancy tie down kit. A couple of bolts, and the old one can go into the recycling can.

Blizzard not warned.

In the game of life, some things are meant to happen.. And some do, but albeit at a cost.

I found another 4 door hardtop, this one a 57. I made an appointment to take a look at it.

I was looking for a car, that had very little, or no rust (HA!, I live in Iowa). I was also looking at a semi complete car. The ideal candidate should be in pretty streetable state, as the goal is to do a "rolling" restomod.  

HERESY I hear coming out of the bleachers.. How DARE you think of spoiling an unrusted survivor!. Well, let me explain...

in 1957, the Bel Air was a top of the line, and had the same 283 HP as the corvette. Now if you think about it in 2015 terms, that would be like your fathers' impala producing 500 horses..  In 1957, most cars had drums on all 4 wheels, no sway bars, and suspensions made out of stamped sheet metal. The 57 shared the road with its peers, and older brothers. Therefore it could keep up with traffic, stop with it, and take corners with it. 

In 2015... Those characteristics make taking the car out a gamble. There is no way that the stock brakes, suspension, steering, and above all optics, are up to par with a modern car.

This means that taking your 57 out for a leisurely sunday drive, is akin to russian roulette. There is no way that you can out stop, out corner, or if needed out accelerate a car made in the last 20 years. And that is a recipe for disaster. Therefore on to the restomod route.

I was NOT looking for a garage queen. I am looking for a car, that I can take out on a friday evening cruise without hesitation, and will be able to be seen at night, and see the road at night. I am also looking for a car that will not leave me stranded.  So in order to achieve my goals, I need to find the "best" car possible. 

That means stuff like an engine, or a complete electrical system.. are highly over rated.

Back when I had my original 57, one of the major pitfalls of it was the electrical system. It was plagued with electrical gremlins, shorts, fuses blowing at inconvenient times, etc. I am not going to repeat that with the new project.

Now on to the story that brought us here.. The actual pick up.

I live in Northern Iowa. This is winter. So far it has been a "mild" winter by north pole standards. I am not even sure how people survive farther north than me, but somehow they do.

The weather has been mercifully good with a couple minor storms that have left no visible accumulation. I plan on picking the car up on thursday, and make all the necessary arrangements. Weather report states that flurries are expected, but no accumulation.

The weather report was wrong... Wrong in a way that makes weather reports wrong. What happened that thursday was a blizzard. I had rented a pick up truck with a car carrier. The place I rented it from did not bother to change the tires to a snow denomination. I had a 3100 lb car, with a 500lb trailer being towed with a 2 wheel drive pick up truck with NO SNOW TIRES. The roads to, and from the place I picked the car up were mercifully snow free. However the moment I hit the town I live in, the snow plow drivers were still on their day jobs. Not a street, not a road or highway was plowed. To make matters worse, it was cold enough that the melted snow was turning to ice.

Let me tell you what hell looks like... Going up a hill, with a pickup truck, no snow tires, and loads of snow... Add weight... There you have it. Hell is not hot. it is cold.

I finally made it. I left the pickup truck at the rental place, and I drove the chevy into the garage.

Next day I got a call from the rental place (Name omitted to protect the guilty) stating that they gas was under 1/4 tank, and that there was a service charge. I told them that the car itself was not suitable for the weather, and that they should consider replacing the tires with at least mud/snow ones.

She actually stated that they were surprised to find the car back. They thought I would not make it.

Here is a picture of the underside of the car for those interested in that kind of thing...

For the shoe box chevy connoisseurs, to note.. Yes, it has a 6 cylinder.. Yes, it USED to have a 283. Yes, it will be replaced with something a bit more.... powerful. (in a chapter yet to come.)

Life is funny...

No, not funny haha, I once had a 57 Chevy Bel Air, 4 door hardtop. Granted it was kind of in rough shape, and it needed a ton of work, but you know what... I was the ONLY one in my group of friends with one. No one else had one... I also lived overseas in a country full of Renaults and Mazdas. Having a 57 was challenging to say the least. However I loved the lines, loved the way that you rolled down all 4 windows and had a mile long open space, loved how you could fit 6 people and still throw a body into the trunk (just kidding). Hated having to deal with the incompetent mechanics. Nobody could ever make the car run right. It kept bogging down. It was starving for fuel, even after a full rebuild. To make matters even worse, traffic is a nightmare, so often times I would start to get anxious about stalling, and not being able to restart the beast. A couple of times it did die.. And a tow truck and 50 dollars poorer (for a struggling student this represented food and booze for like a month). It was a love hate relationship for me. 

For those that are curious about the type of car...  That is not the original beast.. That is the accident... And how it happened, would be a good episode for Roadkill. 

The back story is that I have had european/japanese cars for the last 14 years. I have had BMW's Mercedes and Honda vehicles in that time span.  None of them are what you would call good project car material. Granted the 450SLC was cheap enough to buy, but there are NO aftermarket parts. In perfect working order that huge 4.5 liter engine produces... 200 horsepower.. The 300E is the wifes chariot and the 635 BMW is a fun car, but suffers from the same lack of upgradeability shall we say that the benzes have.

The honda... The honda.... OMG the honda....

Lets not go there.. I keep it because it is an appliance, and gets me through the snow... But more than 30 minutes in it starts going up my back... literally. Can't drive it for more than that. So lets leave that one in the appliance ledger.

Now, onwards... The 57, and how it came to be.  I originally found a 56. It was a nice powder blue, and supposedly it was in "good" shape, came with a new 350, and a 350 tranny.. Sounded achievable at 6900...  I called the gentleman in question, and he stated: "The car has been sitting for the last 30 years in a warehouse, and is in pretty good shape for the year... It has little rust, and some minor issues."

Ok, fair enough. The car is about 4.5 hours away. Nice day trip. Go take a look...

The car was not quite as described... 4 door hardtops have on real critical piece of real estate. The B pillar. This is what hold up your rear door, but also allows the front to close.

The rear door in this car dropped an inch or two after I opened it.. Upon closer inspection the whole of the B pillar was being held together by the rocker panel that was rusted, and held together by.. the stainless steel strip. The rear door doglegs.. were completely gone.. And you can bet good money that the inner fenders were no good, and that you at that point were buying a roof with some cracked glass... I left the car with a really mad demeanor. I was NOT happy that I had been lied to. This was far more than "minor" rust. This was an unsafe car. I looked under the carpet... Not a single floor board was complete. They just pop riveted some sheet metal so that things would not fall through it!.

So, attempt 1.. doomed.

Stay tuned for attempt 2...