My '55 Bel Air build

[mgrinshpon]

Originally posted March 8th, 2009.

Originally Posted by mgrinshpon

Yesterday, first work began on the '55. I started by draining all the gas out of the tank and charging a battery outside. One of the 20-some-odd year old 4 ply tires was flat thanks to a busted valve so I bought 4 fat base valves for $2.83 and went over a tire place to have it repaired after removing the bead and previous valve myself. The owner of the place, ETD Tire Direct or something like it was nice enough to put the valve in the tire and blow it up for free.

So at the end of the first day (I had to call it quits early because of a family gathering), I smelled like 1 year old gas but the car was on all fours and the starter worked, along with the left turn signal! Everything else though...

The second day began at a leisurely 11 in the morning and lasted straight through 8 in the evening. I didn't have enough gas to pour through the carb so I decided to pry apart all the wiring and prepare to put in the new dash & forward wiring kit the previous owner gave me. It's a rat's nest of crap in there!


I started by removing the speedometer and hidden underneath it was the original paint scheme of the interior- dark blue and white instead of turquoise and black! I think it'll look much better in stock colors than the horrendously bright green blue.


To get at the clock, though, I had to remove that gigantic vacuum tube speaker and AM radio, both of which aren't going back in any time soon because they're heavy and impractical. Light weight=better mileage and acceleration.



All the dash wiring was disconnected at the end of the day, with the firewall forward being taken out next and the wiring kit being put in at the same time.

Originally posted March 11th, 2009

Originally Posted by mgrinshpon

It's outta there!


Victory over the wires.

Originally posted March 23rd, 2009

Originally Posted by mgrinshpon

So I've decided that since I have another harness already, instead of spending 500 for a modern harness with a fuse box/circuit breaker/fancy electrical doodads, how hard could it be to build my own?

Here are the two harnesses side by side. New one is closer, old one is further. You can see the age of the old one's connectors. They smell even worse than they look.


Unlike the old harness where everything was fused at one location, near the generator connections if I remember correctly, this one had two seperate soldering points across the length of the harness. Cut here, it said to me.


And here it is, all cut. The large red wire will be broken off at a later point, at the other fusion point in the harness.


I also took out as much as possible from the dash to test for shorts and broken pieces. At the end of the day, here's how the car sits.