1955 Chevy Bracket Car

[chasracer]

Some of you that are on other forums may well have already read some of the information that I share here and also seen the pictures. As an aside, I like to share what I work on with others as I like to see what others are working on. There are a lot of times where a few words or the corner of a picture can give birth to an interesting idea that I might never had thought about.

And just to set a few things straight - yes I was on the "other" board for quite awhile actually - something in the range of 15 years I think. I wasn't a constant poster on it but I did enjoy seeing and reading about other people's projects. The moderators at that site for whatever reason seem to think that they actually have an important job function to perform and I would say that on occasion that description might be a good fit - but it's also a bit misleading in them believing it is important to be the censorship committee. I am a strong believer in free speech - I might absolutely hate every word coming out of your mouth but I'll also defend your right to say it. Anything less and we're all pissing away one of the greatest experiments of all time - these United States of America. The moderators there like to say that everything is for the good of the forum, but if you don't have the same opinion of things that they hold so dear and true, then you are a problem. What they truly do not understand is the conceptual idea of forum software and databases. The current outfit that purchased automotive sites left and right over the last couple of years put in a forum software that is very limited in abilities simply because that was their intention. They don't care about the ideas of "forums, community or comradery" - they only care about using you to make money. Via an independent tracking source, they provide reports to their customers about usage and number of views - the things that they can say proves that the customer's ads are getting seen. The funny part of it is that every major browser has any number of add-ons that will block ads at a 100% rate - meaning that those customers are probably paying a rather stiff fee for advertising that is not getting seen. Once that information finally filters into someone's head, there will be process to force the ads to the top and it will be interesting to see at that point how many of those forums end up in the digital trashcan.

So - my '55 - (thought I forgoet about it?) ha - this project is like way too many others I have in that it's been a lot longer in getting anything done on it than I ever imagined. I should already have about 10 years of hits on this thing by now and right now it's nothing but an empty shell taking up space in the garage. A little over a year ago - that one - the "C" one - I don't know yet if I get banned for saying certain words - anyway, I had a lot of time on my hands. So this car had been stored over in the edge of a clearing for a number of years and every so often I would hear "are you ever going to do anything with that old car" and I decided it was time to do something. The car was still sitting on the wheels and tires that had come with it and they still had air in them too. I hooked up my golf cart to the front frame with some chain and proceeded to pull the car down into the backyard and up to the garage. I wasn't quite ready to put in the garage just yet as it had a lot of sheet metal and other items that I had zero use for and all that needed to be gone. Most of the frontend components and front sheet metal was sold, the doors were sold and the car sat in the driveway with a cover over it. My grandson came and stayed with us for about 4-5 months and I put him to work removing all the wiring and other miscellaneous pieces. At this point I decided it was time for it to become my new garage queen and I rolled it into the garage. I would get into how I rolled it but let's just say it wasn't on it's own wheels and tires. With the car in the garage, I now needed to get rid of the frame and rear. I read a lot and asked a bunch of questions about jacking the car up on whatever and unbolting the frame and rolling it out but I decided that a quicker more brutal method would fit my needs. I mean why roll out a frame that you're just going to cut up and cart to the dump when you can just cut it up from the car to begin with? So between a couple of blades in my sawsall and my cheap little chinese Cut-50 plasma torch, I went to town. I have to say the Cut-50 is actually rather impressive. I used to work at a body shop and had the chance to use a top of the line torch there and save for having to make two passes on maybe 1/4" thick steel, the Cut-50 gets the job done and for a heck of a lot less money. So, this is where I am at for the most part sitting on about two months now. I got it to this point and have just started on the driver's side rocker panels (inner and outer). There's always other things to work on around here but I do try to sneak in a bit of time on the '55 when I can.

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[BamaNomad]

I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with it.. :)

[busterwivell]

Me, too!

[carls 56 (RIP 11/24/2021)]

interesting, good luck.

[chasracer]

:) Thanks everyone! I am hoping that posting it's progress here will actually help generate some progress.

[bigblock]

I got to do about the same body work to my 56 2dr sadan so the more you post will help me.

[chasracer]

Gotcha.

In thinking about the panel replacement piece, I worry a bit about warpage. While there is some access to place a dolly for planishing the mig welds, it gets tighter as you get closer to the wheel area. I have had some decent luck when cutting a replacement oversize and then slicing through both panels a bit, tack it and continue.

I know there is a lot of junk replacement panels out there but for what it's worth I scored both of the outer replacement rocker panels from Rock Auto and they were Goodmark pieces. Right now I think they are low on replacement panels but maybe it will improve.

[BamaNomad]

:) Thanks everyone! I am hoping that posting it's progress here will actually help generate some progress.

It can keep one motivated.. which is the first step towards *progress*... :)

[chasracer]

Worked on '55 a bit more today but it's hot and humid around here again which takes a lot out of me. I should have mowed the back grass but just didn't feel like walking around in that sun.

First I cut out the firewall and foot board area doing most of it with the plasma cutter. I ended up finishing the cut with the sawsall to get through the front bottom floor supports. I have more cutting to do for getting the rockers in but I'll probably try to save as much good metal as I can now so I have something to attach them too.

Next up was figuring out getting the body up a bit in the back to fix that upright. I thought I was going to have to go get a 4x4 but I had some leftover 2x4 in the shed that I screwed together instead. I lifted the rear of the car until I had an inch under those rear casters, then I cut the previous brace out and replaced it with a longer one to push that upright closer to being straight. I let the car down and moved it around a little bit - seems okay. The last thing was taking that last bit of frame with the shock mount on it and shoving that over the rear end and into the vacant space in front of it. Then I jacked up the rear end, removed the wheels/tires and set the drums back on those roller plates. I should be able now to turn the rear 90* to the car and roll it out the front. I'm saving that for tomorrow as I can only take so much "car metal" to the dump at one time without someone noticing.

This pic is just the firewall area that I cut out. I decided to cut it out bigger than I planned and just put the engine where I want it then fab a new firewall/trans cover. The frontend piece there is due for a lot of fab work too unless I suddenly come up with the funds for a Mll frontend.12098
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[chasracer]

Did a couple of hours on Project Shoestring ('55 Chevy). Got the last part of the frame out of the way and into the truck, cut the spring u-bolts and tossed the springs, shocks, other pieces in truck. Moved the rear to the side of the garage and posted it on CL - got one bite but not sure if it's a scam - whenever the first thing they want is the address - it bothers me. Most honest people want to know something about the part first.

Moved the car body forward and back so I could get most of the dirt cleaned up and decided that moving it out for a wash is probably a good idea. Still got a little bit of cutting to do - rear wheel wells need to come out and part of the rear seat brace area will come out with it. After that my next thing is the inner and outer rocker panels.

I've been a bit surprised at how quickly everything has gone so far. I was hesitant about a few things but so far no issues so just keep on pushing I suppose. I don't want to go much further without getting the rocker stuff done as I feel like even though the inner ones are gone, there is still some stability provided by the outer metal. Getting all of that replaced to me would strengthen the body and I wouldn't mind cutting out some of the other areas that aren't going to be needed.

The dash is one area that needs some work too. It's apparent that in one of it's last lives someone was interested in keeping tabs on the engine/drivetrain. I have a nice assortment of instrument holes in the dash and I haven't really figured out yet what I am doing as far as instruments. My preference is to always keep everything right in front of me so I am leaning towards reworking one of the instrument clusters to house a tach in the center and then array some smaller gauges around it. Normally oil, water, trans and vacuum are all I need.

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[bigblock]

Thanks for the pics, I'll try to get some of mine up to show you what I'm dealing with but it looks a lot like that.

[chasracer]

Sounds good - maybe between the two of us and a bunch of others we can get this site really active again!

[chasracer]

Well, just another half-raining day around here - got a couple of storms out there and we're getting a little bit of the moisture off of them. I was planning on working on the driver side rocker panel again but I have this one little problem. I tend to get bored with stuff and sometimes I get on a roll with something else and want to continue that work for a bit. I also have one customer car in the lot that I need to drop an alternator, front brakes and some front hubs on and I am still waiting on some of the parts to show up.

My '55 Bracket Car has a plan - mostly in my head but there is a plan. Power will be a nicely warmed over 496 BBC with some aluminum heads, either a 4150 or 4500 intake, solid roller cam, good crank, rods and a new set of small dome pistons I picked up. I'm probably going to get the heads and intake cut so that I can up the compression numbers on it and it will be getting a diet of methanol. I plan on putting the chassis together so that I can bounce between using a TH350 or Powerglide depending on my whims of the moment. All it really takes is just making the frame saddles for the trans crossmember a little bit wider and drilling a couple of extra holes.

On our '89 Camaro we had started out with a 355 engine and a TH350 transmission - well a couple of those really. We ended up switching over to a Powerglide combination to calm the car down and get some additional consistency out of it. With the TH350 in it, we were always climbing the ring gear on the launch. I rebuilt the first TH350 and like an idiot sold it off years ago but I have kept the second one. This one was modified with an aftermarket bell housing, transbrake and a few other internal goodies to keep it alive. Just for fun, I have another first gear set that I'm going to finally use and I think with my 9" rear packing either a 3.73 or 3.91 (honestly can't remember whats in that box) and the stouter 1st gear, we should have a good launch along with being able to mile per hour on the other end pretty good.

So, I just finished up another TH350 the other day for one of my 4x4 friends and delivered that to him Tuesday morning. Which means I'm in transmission building mode right now and I figured I might as well knock out the TH350 for the '55 while I'm here. I'm not going to go into a step by step deal on building one of these - there's already a ton of videos, books and step by step articles on building them. I will however point out a few things that might help you if you decide to build your own or rebuild the one you have. If you look around a bit, I'm seeing these transmissions listed for $1200-$1600 or more. That's crazy to me as these transmissions are extremely simple to build, you don't need a lot of specialized tools and replacement pieces are still reasonable. A gasket/seal kit runs about $30. A basic clutch and steel kit is $75-$100 and usually includes the front and rear bushings. Besides a case of transmission fluid, there's not much else you really need other than a filter kit. You can also install one of the shift kits if you're inclined and a Transgo number is about $65 now. You might have need of an additional bushing replaced here and there depending on it's condition but for the most part a transmission shop would knock those out for you for very little money.

One of the first things to be done is draining the fluid out and paying attention to it. This transmission had been sitting for a number of years in the storage shed but I had put it inside a large trash bag so that kept a lot of junk away from it. The first thing I noticed when I pulled the plug was the amount of metal collected by the magnet. Nothing huge but just a reminder to check surfaces closely - most of it is probably just from the steels themselves sliding a bit on the drum surfaces. With the oil out, I removed the front pump - I use a couple of bolts and washers threaded into the pump and give them a good yank - after a few times, the pump usually pops out. I then removed the reverse clutch pack and then the forward or input drum. This is the one that I will start on. I have a preference to take apart each assembly, clean it, inspect it, make any modifications and then re-assemble it. I then set it to the side and grab the next assembly. I have - just like that 4x4 trans - built them from boxes of parts that were brought to me.

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[busterwivell]

Very talented.......

[markm]

Just curious I have always run TH400s in cars I raced, why a TH350. I guess I do have a 350 with a 5000 stall on the shop floor.

[chasracer]

Just curious I have always run TH400s in cars I raced, why a TH350. I guess I do have a 350 with a 5000 stall on the shop floor.

I used to race the TH400s years ago but it really all started with the 3rd Gen Camaro. I didn't have a TH400 at the time and with this car being built more along the lines of a super stocker, we figured the TH350 would be a better fit. There's also information out there that says the TH400 consumes more power however in this day and age of mega horsepower engines that's probably not a big concern. With the right aftermarket parts a TH350 can survive but about 250-300 passes seems to be the freshen-up window. At that point even with maintenance fluid changes we started seeing more clutch material accumulating in the pan. Mind you we are talking about a trans-brake application here too. We finally decided to bite the bullet and switch to a 'Glide - it hurt the 60 foot but it calmed the car down a bunch and we started winning rounds and a few races.

This was back when the car had the TH350 in it at Richmond Dragway:

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This is a .003 tree hit with me in the car at Bristol Dragway with the Powerglide:

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Back when I was running the TH400s, I had a 3000# '66 Chevelle with a 331 small block in it. The gear multiplication even helped to get the front tires on that thing off the ground - a little bit - but the last one I built, I think I raced it at least 3 years and then sold it to a guy that continued racing it. They are durable transmissions and except for upgrading the sprag in them, you don't really need to do anything else.

[chasracer]

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I have that trans pulled completely apart now and most of it in the soak tank for the night so I thought I would shift gears back and do some more metal work on the '55 tomorrow. The driver's side outer rocker panel is focus and it looks like I need to do a bit more carving on the old metal before it's ready for the new stuff. Another part of my confusion but I think I have the idea right is to attach the new rocker panel at the hinge panel first (tacked of course) then look at fitting the replacement sheet metal in place before working the rear of the rocker panel into place. I think that sequence makes the most sense right now.

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If I can get all of this in place tomorrow and tacked for the most part - I think that'll be pretty good for the day.

[chasracer]

@
busterwivell (https://www.trifivechevys.com/member.php/3249-busterwivell)

Thank you sir but I look at it more as simple economics - I don't have a lot of money. My Dad always said I had champagne taste and a beer budget!

[markm]

I used to race the TH400s years ago but it really all started with the 3rd Gen Camaro. I didn't have a TH400 at the time and with this car being built more along the lines of a super stocker, we figured the TH350 would be a better fit. There's also information out there that says the TH400 consumes more power however in this day and age of mega horsepower engines that's probably not a big concern. With the right aftermarket parts a TH350 can survive but about 250-300 passes seems to be the freshen-up window. At that point even with maintenance fluid changes we started seeing more clutch material accumulating in the pan. Mind you we are talking about a trans-brake application here too. We finally decided to bite the bullet and switch to a 'Glide - it hurt the 60 foot but it calmed the car down a bunch and we started winning rounds and a few races.

This was back when the car had the TH350 in it at Richmond Dragway:

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This is a .003 tree hit with me in the car at Bristol Dragway with the Powerglide:

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Back when I was running the TH400s, I had a 3000# '66 Chevelle with a 331 small block in it. The gear multiplication even helped to get the front tires on that thing off the ground - a little bit - but the last one I built, I think I raced it at least 3 years and then sold it to a guy that continued racing it. They are durable transmissions and except for upgrading the sprag in them, you don't really need to do anything else.

You are correct about the TH400s, it used to piss the Slowpar guys off when I said the tranny in my 10 second Camaro would be happy in my truck pulling the car to track with a convertor change. They used to spend a fortune on their Dorkflights.

[busterwivell]

My Dad was impressed with what I did with my first house (after my divorce). He asked where I learned to do all the stuff to make it livable. I told him necessity was the mother of invention, and when I couldn't afford to hire anything done, I learned how to do it myself.
Of course, this is the same Dad who said I would one day wash the paint off my car (I have). He didn't believe in washing cars, he thought that's what rain was for, and an oil change was adding a quart when the light flickered.
Love you Dad, but I disagree.

[chasracer]

My Dad could sell the proverbial snow to an Eskimo and he knew how to do a lot of stuff around the house but it wasn't exactly precision work - it was close is good enough work.

My parents gave me the old RCA set for my room when we got a new tv in the main room. With only 3 channels I would watch a few shows but the overhead light in the ceiling put a lot of glare on the old black and white set. So I had seen dimmer switches at my friends house and I went to a hardware store and got one. I read the directions and replaced the regular on/off switch. I guess the next day, my mom noticed the switch and about freaked out about it. She made dad pull it out and make sure it was right. He took the cover off, pulled the dimmer, looked at it and put it back together. Said it was good. I think I was 13-14, I had already done an engine swap in an old '62 Ford that he gave me to keep me away from mom's Chevy - I did that at 12 years of age.

About a 1/2 dozen years later, my dad wanted to upgrade the single light bulbs in the garage with fluorescent light fixtures. I had a friend in the electrical supply business and got everything we needed. I hung the fixtures, 3 in the garage and one outside in a storage area and ran all the wiring back to a switch box next to the door. Dad ran a new wire from the fuse box over to the light switch. I had to get home - already had my first son - and he said he would finish it up. He called me later and told me I did something wrong. Every time he tried to turn the lights on, the fuse would blow. I went by after work the next day and we looked at it. I knew I had the fixtures wired correctly. In the switch box he had connected the ground and hot side to the switch, when you flipped the switch it crossed and popped the fuse. He looked at it and said, oh well, I don't know anything about electricity anyway!

[BamaNomad]

the mark of a good man is to take all that we're given by our dads (and parents) and move forward... learning and doing more! Good job Chas... :)

[chasracer]

Made a good stab at the driver's side rocker panel. I didn't get it tacked in place yet, I thought about it and figure I had better bring up a door and make sure things fit and look good before going that far.

I did a little trimming on the replacement panel and just hung with some Clecos so I could start getting the rocker in place.

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I then needed to cut out the bottom piece of old rocker that was still in place under the door post. That took a fair amount of swearing but I finally got it cleaned out. The Goodmark pieces don't have what I would call nice, crisp lines but for this car I think they are fine. I had to do a little bit of hammer and dolly work but got the front part in place and put a couple of Clecos in it, then got started on the rear of the panel.

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Next was cutting back the inner rocker panel a bit more underneath the rear window to make additional room. Once again, I had to do a little bit of bodywork to get a decent fitment. I will have to do some more trimming on the replacement panel too but it's close.

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I also had to go searching for some TH350 parts for the transmission build. I found most of it but the gearset is still missing. I have an upper corner storage area in the garage and I'm going to have to dig a bit more in there to see if I can find it. I also ran across another 36 element sprag and drum which I had completely forgotten about. That was a nice find.

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[busterwivell]

you're making me tired with that much work all at once!

[chasracer]

you're making me tired with that much work all at once!

Ha! That's okay I have entire weeks where I don't get around to anything. I do have a goal though, I really want to make the first test and tunes with this car and those begin around here in March. That's only 6 months out and I have to build a complete chassis, wire and plumb it, build the engine and trans plus put some paint on it. Whew! Makes me tired just thinking about it.

[chasracer]

Had an interesting but kind of laid back week. Messed up and didn't get very much done on the '55 however I did manage to get the outer rocker panel and the replacement panel tacked in place. I checked things with the door before doing so and the lines along the rocker and door edge bottom looked pretty good. I am still not sure who made the doors but they're cool in that they are made in two pieces, the inner framing and the "door skin" are separate. This is going to make it easier to get the inner part hung correctly and when that's done all I have to do is glue the outer piece to it. It sounds easy but I can already tell that getting the inner part on there is going to be a real trial of my patience. I wanted to keep the original door hinges on the car but the doors also have to be setup so that they can be opened, lifted and removed from the car too. I also would like to use original door latches but I will have to obtain some new ones.

I keep batting around the idea of a Mustang ll frontend on this thing but without being able to sell off the front end stuff I have now, I am not seeing a way clear to make it happen. Using the stuff I have now is possible but to do so I need to figure out if I want to use the original frontend K-member or build a new, lighter one. Putting together something lighter would make it a bit more bearable but of course a lot more work.

So while I'm thinking about all of this I'm also trying to collect my fee for building that last transmission. I understand that sometimes things come up and there are setbacks but I also see times when someone wants something right away but then doesn't want to pay for it in the same fashion. I do very good work and if there's any issue I will make it right but I'm also not a business in the general sense of the word. Anyway it took a couple of trips but finally got that taken care of and of course there is always "something else". It was decided that they wanted to have a transmission temperature gauge which is always a good call if you have plans to lean on it pretty hard. So, had to take the aftermarket pan back off of it and bring that back to my shop. Drill a hole, tap it and put the temperature sender unit in. Now it's another trip back to their place to deliver the pan and put it back on the trans. Just makes my day ya know?

Had a couple of our regular rides that needed some normal maintenance work and just in the last couple of days finally got the right parts for the repair work on a customer car. Getting parts is really turning into a struggle lately, I ordered stuff close to 10 days ago and one part, an alternator showed up but was the wrong one. So here we go again trying to get that straightened out.

I also have a broken race car that I am trying to get repaired. I had a starting line accident in it at Summerduck Dragway. Car went out about 45-50 feet and then turned hard right into the wall. Busted up a lot of fiberglass and bent the right front wheel. I had some issues before with the car moving to the right on launch and had triangulated the chassis to set the rear end square in the car - what I found out this week is that was a bad mistake. I got some information from a guy down in S.C. about a different way of squaring the chassis and what I had before was off quite a bit. It took about 6-8 hours of work spread across a couple of days and I'll start with some slow launches to be sure it's right before applying any serious power the next time I get to take it out.

So next up for this week is looking at that front end stuff seriously and getting the inner rocker panel in place on the left side. The back end of that is going to be tricky as the wheel tubs are going to run into it. I think I will end up just tacking the last 12" of it in place until I know exactly whether any of it needs to be removed. I also need to clean out the left side air duct area - it's full of debris and I need to clean up the sheet metal at the foot board area a bit.

[BamaNomad]

Ha! That's okay I have entire weeks where I don't get around to anything. I do have a goal though, I really want to make the first test and tunes with this car and those begin around here in March. That's only 6 months out and I have to build a complete chassis, wire and plumb it, build the engine and trans plus put some paint on it. Whew! Makes me tired just thinking about it.

The longest trek begins with the 'first step' and follows with the subsequent steps.. one at a time.. :)

[chasracer]

The longest trek begins with the 'first step' and follows with the subsequent steps.. one at a time.. :)

Isn't that the truth?

[chasracer]

So, I've finally made a decision about the front end on this deal and it'll probably be one that I end up regretting but hey, nothing ventured - nothing gained - right? Please tell me that's right....

To rehash a bit, I have tubular a-arms, lowered spindles, disc brake setup, etc for this deal but as I moved to a 2x3 frame for it the whole Mll thing sorta took hold but as I said, trying to sell what I got seems to be a negative right now and I need to make the best of it. What I decided to do is build my own 2x3 front clip, using all of these parts that I already have on hand. Yep, this should be interesting. One of the reasons that I decided to go this direction is that I can't get over the original front K-member and how much it weighs along with being, well, kind of flimsy really. I could do a lot of cutting and beefing on it but that probably doesn't help the weight situation and I just figure if I build my own clip, it'll end up cleaner and lighter to boot. Right now I am shooting for a 25" frame width and somewhere around a 7.5 -8.0" Z from the base of the frame to the top where the upper a-arm will mount. Of course going with a manual rack and pinion so need to pay attention to the bump steer issue too.

I provide part-time child care for my 8 month old granddaughter normally 2-3 days a week. This has been a 3 day week so it's been a bit tough to get much accomplished. I have started working on some small, side projects that need to get done and at least getting them out of the way now will help me out later on. One was a mini starter that went south on me. I have actually gotten pretty good at repairing these starters and like anything else, the more you mess with them the less frustrating they become. I still remember the first one that I ever put a new starter drive in - I didn't think I would ever get it put back together. Now it seems like child's play. In this particular case, it needed a new pinion plus a couple of the motor brushes had gotten stuck. I thought about getting a new brush/plate setup but after looking at it, I was able to clean up the old one, get the brushes sliding nicely and saved myself a few dollars. Putting the pinion gear in isn't too bad except for the c-clip which can try your patience sometimes. So, got all of that wrapped up and done and I have a practically new mini starter for the engine for a bit less than $20.

Next was a mini-alternator that we had replaced on one of the other race cars. It's just been sitting in the box for a couple of years now and it's one of those East Coast units. The thing had just up and quit charging one weekend on us. After pulling it apart, most of it looked to be in great shape. I cleaned up the commutator, polished it and made sure that they was plenty of brush material. The bearings were in good shape too. The only part that needed replacing was the electronic regulator. I have a rebuild shop in the next town and I picked up a replacement for it - another $20 but it's back together and ready to go on the engine.

I did pick up one idea from that 30 Day build project and that was the ignition switch. On all of the racers that we have, toggle switches and push buttons are part of the normal starting routine. I normally mount the ignition toggle next to the starter button so that we can spin the engine over, then fire the ignition. It makes it a little bit easier on the starter motors. I thought that it would be cool to have an ignition key switch where the original was located and the push button on the other side of the steering column. It's a minor thing but again I just thought it would be cool to do.

And last is the fuel tank. I just got started on it so I have a lot more work just yet but here's the gist of it. The rear part of this deal is a ladder bar rear clip with a 9" Ford rear and coilovers. The outside measurements of the rear clip is 25.5". I have a new mid-60's Mustang gas tank. If you didn't know it, the tanks on those cars also served as the trunk floor. I'm going to do the same on this car. But of course the tank is quite a bit wider so it needs to be sectioned to fit so that the mounting lip of the tank will fit on that rear portion of the frame. I am also adding an aircraft style filler cap on top and a tank sump to the bottom of it. In addition it will be getting a #6 AN connector to the top of it to connect a vent hose.

I'll try to update this with some pictures in the next day or so.