I thought I would post a chronicle of the rebuild of the 1955 Chevy my grandmother bought new. I've had the car since 1990 and it served as my first car and daily driver for four to five years. It had several changes in colors, motors, transmissions, etc..., but I never had the money or time to do everything it needed. It looked okay on the outside, but had issues beneath that bothered me. About 10 years ago I started tearing it back apart with the idea I wanted it back to something to reflex the original history of the car my grandmother bought. I could not settle on the straight six and powerglide though. So, I decided I wanted to bring back the seamist color that I used to hate and leave the body and interior a stock style. The drivetrain, stance and wheels would be more my preference.
Just before I pulled it out of the barn in 1990
1955-original.jpg
A couple pictures of how I had it in the early 90's:
First, Black & White with 7" rally wheels -
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Then, Dark Blue & White with 8" rally wheels and shaved rear door handles
1955 completed 1998.jpg
This is the first picture I found that was during the tear down, but it was a ways into the process.
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First order was the rust repairs. The floors were "ok", but had a few soft spots and a few braces that were bad, so I just went with all new floors and trunk pans and braces. After cutting them out the "ok" was probably less than "ok" once I got to cutting and removing:
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I thought the firewall was solid, but ended up with significant hidden rust after I found some pin holes:
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More rust I was not aware of:
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I was aware of this...the car was hit in the rear quarter in it's early years and the repair was less than stellar. It appeared it had a full quarter put in and they used a lot of lead at the ends:
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More to follow later...