<VV> Fwd: Early 50's Chevy-no Corvair

[Rick Norris]

It's a cold, gray rainy day here so, here's my story.

I didn't own a car untril after I was married and in the Air Force.
I bought a 59 Ford two door with a six cylinder and three on the tree for 
$500.
The Sgt. I bought it from let me make payments on it!
It just so happend that all the flightline vehicles were Ford sixes so, I 
had tune up parts.
I got to be friends with one of the guys in the motor pool and we traded 
items as it were.

During high school in 1961/62 I had friends with cars that didn't know how 
to fix or modify
them but, being a budding gearhead and hot rodder I was willing and able. 
More willing than able but,
I was working after school in a service station and I had Chilton manuals at 
my disposal.

My best friend at time had a clapped out 57 Chevy two door post car with a 
sick 283 or so we thought.
His dad said he'd help pay for a short block so we embarked on our most 
ambitious project to date.
He and his family lived in a garage apartment so we used the convienient 
support beam to hoist
the old motor out with a come along. About the time we got the full weight 
of the motor on it the wood beam cracked like a gun shot
and sagged about three inches. His mom came running down the stairs to see 
why her floor had sunk!
We assured her the house was not falling down but she was not real confident 
in our assessment of the situation.
We managed to get the motor out and apart. However, when we took it back to 
the NAPA store
where we bought the short block we learned it was a 265, not a 283.
My buddy who owned the car was not very mechanical so we religated him to 
cleaning parts which he was doing
with a bucket of Varsol. His dad came by to check on our progress and noted 
he shouldn't have taken all the lifters completely apart!
We got them back together and it all worked. It was my job to set the 
distributor which, I'd never done before but,
with the trusty Chilton book I stuck it in. When it came time to fire the 
motor no one was more surprised than me that it started right up and ran!
The lifters rattled and we didn't know how to adjust them so we decided to 
take it to the local Pontiac garage and have
them do it. When we tried to engage the clutch to back out of the garage it 
squealed like a stuck pig. It would move some so we
decided to drive it the two blocks to the garage. The old mechanic knew 
right away what we did wrong. He said the
clutch disc was in backwards. Who knew! He was right as we didn't know any 
better and didn't notice the printing on the disc
that said which side faces the engine.

Later on we added dual exhaust with glass packs. The carb was a two barell 
and one day while we were at the local dragstrip some guy wanted to trade 
his four barell for our two including the manifold. The carb was already 
mounted to the manifold when the trade was made so later that evening we 
went to the local
Texaco station where another one of our friends was working and used the 
wash bay and his tools to change the carb out. I did the install and when he 
turned the key it fired right up but sounded odd. It made a loud hissing 
sound and was back firing. Needless to say we didn't know anything about 
tuning one but, I discovered the origin of the hissing. No gasket under the 
carb! We didn't even think to check it!

The last project we did on that car was to replace the three on the tree 
with a Drag Fast floor shift kit. The only tools we had to cut the floor out 
was my buddy's dad's electric drill. We had no idea how to accurately 
measure the tunnel for the cut but that didn't hold us up. We started 
drilling holes and cutting between them with tin snips. On the last hole we 
smoked his dads drill! That thing really stunk and his dad was none to 
pleased. We ended up with a hole you could stand in but, the shifter fit! He 
had one of those large one piece floor mats so, we punched a hole in it for 
the shift lever and thats how we covered the opening. No shift boot would 
have been big enough!

Rick Norris





> My first car was also a 50 Chevy in 1958.
> It was a 2 door fleetline(fast back). All black
>   I lowered it, shaved and decked it, and removed the taillights and
> put them in the bumber via Buick bumper guards.
>    The engine had dual carbs, pop up pistons, and a split exhaust
> manifold with dual steel packs.
>    I also had Oldsmobile spinner hub caps.
>   All thing that were right with the times.
>        A 55 Chevy Belair 2 door hardtop with V8*, stick and powerpack
> was next.
>
> Warren.