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Featured Club Car
"Mike and Rena Woods '57 receiving a Top
Ten Award at the Triple XXX on 08/17/08" |
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1955 Chevrolet Bel Air
Sedan
Owner: Larry
& Julie Vannoy,
Shoreline, WA
We (my wife
Julie and I) bought the car just over a year ago. I had been
wanting to start a project car of my own as I had been
helping a friend on a 54 Metropolitan and thought I should
be doing this for myself if I was going to be doing it. As
it happened my friend with the Met ran across this car and
told me about it. A couple was splitting up and needed to
divide assets and the 55 was one of them.
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what I could tell they had not done much to it since they
purchased it. The seal around the heater motor and the
seal at the back of the hood were both missing so as it sat
out in the rain, water found it's way through the heater
opening and right into the floor board. Rather than fix it
they just ripped the carpet up and stuck rags up under the
firewall pad to keep the flood out.
Having purchased it in mid
summer I really wanted to drive it a little before I started
working on it. After all who wants their car down in the few
months of good weather we have. So I began to clean it up
and do a few things to stop the water leak and the bare
necessities to get it going. For the most part the car is
original. There are a few things that got changed down
through the years obviously but nothing so major that kept
me from thinking I could get it back to it's original state
(or close to it). It came with Power Brakes but someone in
their infinite wisdom took that off and jury rigged a master
cylinder onto it. I still have hopes of getting that
returned to original but have had difficulty finding parts.
So if anyone has any parts or ideas let me know. All that
was left of that system is the brake pedal and the vacuum
canister in the fender well. So it has a ways to go.
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For
the rest of the summer I drove it some while I cleaned and
observed and noted what I thought should be done. If I had
been thinking I would have taken some pictures of the
condition it was in as I started tearing things apart as
winter approached, it would prove to be a shortcoming on my
part as well as a lost history of what it had been. I knew
it was time to see how bad the floors were going to be. I
thought when I got the underlayment out of the floorboard
that it would be really rusted but the drivers side wound up
being worse than the passenger side. I thought I could just
get by with taking the carpet out but the more I worked the
more I found and soon all that was left in the inside was an
empty dash. The question was would I ever get it back
together. My wife kept telling me that I should put
something back together since it was really getting to a be
a daunting task with parts everywhere and I had never had a
car down this far. But being the male that I am I did not
listen. Ha!
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Fortunately none
of the floor panels were very bad so with a lot of sanding,
rust inhibitor and primer I think and hope that I have
stopped the rust (for now at least).
The headliner was way past gone
and when I finally got around to tearing it out the roof has
covered in rust also. More sanding and primer took care of
that. So now it was time to put something back together. I
had absolutely no experience with installing a headliner and
by the time I got back around to installing it I had
forgotten what it looked like when it was finished (remember
the pictures I should have taken). But thanks to Gina who
responded to my call and let me look at her four door I was
able to get it back together. For the first time I think we
did pretty good, but we learned some hard lessons. I think
the windlace was the hardest, especially after I finally
figured out what they sent me was sewed up wrong.
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put in the firewall pad, carpet steering column, and all the
wiring and instrumentation under the dash. What a difference
it made. When we got
the car it still had the thick plastic over the rear seat.
The top of the back had long since been rotted out by the
sun but the seat part was almost like new when we took the
plastic off, amazing. The only thing bad with the back was
the top part so being tight on money and wanting not to
waste what was good we ripped the stitching out and bought
some vinyl material, sewed it back in and painted it with
the original coral spray paint. For now it looks pretty good
(until we can do better). The front seat was a total mess so
new foam and seat cover was a must.
That is pretty much where we
are at on it. It still has a long ways to go. The front end
needs a total rebuild (next winters project) and the engine
and engine compartment will come in time. The paint is well
fair. The coral part has not been painted from what I can
tell. The gray has been painted and there is a funny story
that goes with it but I have gone on too long already I am
sure.
Larry. |
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