1955 Chevy 4 door build

[hotrod4dr55]

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
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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
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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...

[SonicRaT]

I always enjoy seeing cars with a history being built! Looks like you've had some challenges along the way, but it looks like you've got a good handle on most of the repairs. I'm hoping to see some more pictures, especially if you documented your floor swap -- I'm about to do the same!

[hotrod4dr55]

After the lost pictures....Here are the new rockers and floors done and sprayed with a couple coats of SPI epoxy:

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I used SPI epoxy and slicksand and several rounds of blocking while it was on the rotisserie

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Then, I reassembled the car back to the frame to do the final block sanding...plus we were moving.

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This the best picture I have, but after it was reassembled it was blocked a few times and sprayed with SPI gray epoxy for the final sanding later.

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I moved on to building a new engine and chassis:For the engine I went with a 350 4-bolt main block with vortec heads and a Lunati Voodoo cam 268/276 with beehive springs.

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Then to the frame. First, add a frame stiffener:

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Then I had it sandblasted and powder coated. Other than rebuild the transmission, this is the first thing on the car I had done by someone other than myself and it was well worth the money I spent.

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Rear differential rebuild- Eaton posi with 3:70 gears:

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Finally, the start of assembly.

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Body assembly will be next...

[55 Rescue Dog]

Looking great! Wondering if you will maybe have floor pan interference issues like sonic57 is having with the AM cross member?

[hotrod4dr55]

The floors were coated with SEM Rock-it liner in body color and the rear wheel wells were done in black bedliner. It is hard to tell in these pictures, but I also painted the firewall before putting the body back on the frame and painting the rest of the car:

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Prior to putting the body on I started and broke in the cam. This went okay until water kept shooting out of the radiator. I could not figure out what the problem was because it was a newly rebuilt engine with a new radiator, water pump, etc... I came to the conclusion I probably had a cracked head, so I just moved on from the frustration and went back to getting it painted. More on this later....

Main body painted

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Decided at the last minute to go with body color bedliner in the trunk:

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Back to the engine. Looked into it more and I really thought the passenger side head was cracked. After removing and taking them back to the machine shop they said it looked like the driver side head was leaking and the heads were slightly warped. Decided on a thicker GM performance head gasket instead of the shim gasket this time. It started and ran without issues this time. I have only ran it about 30 minutes, so still not feeling home free. It ran on the hotter side according to the gauge, but I was braking in the camand it stayed under 220. I may move the 195 thermostat down to a 180 to add a little comfort for now.

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Color sanding begins

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After buffing the car, the stainless and assembly of most of the trim:

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Interior next....

[WagonCrazy]

Nice job. In one post, you just covered what's taking the rest of us YEARS to finish.
Stay with it and keep posting those (motivational) pics.
Paul