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So after about 2 years of searching and saving I was finally able to get the car of my dreams. I have wanted a 49-54 chevy 4 door for about 4 years now. I have been looking off and on the whole time. I didn't want to spend a ton of money as I couldn't afford it but also I would like something that is roughly stock to start with. I went to look at a 54' in San Antonio it was mostly there but had been outside and not running for roughly 20+ years. That deal fell through and in my depression the 49' showed up on craigslist much closer to me and it was much more what I was after. It was the earlier year which I like more, and more importantly it had a newish interior. After speaking with the owner it turned out that he drag races a 54' 2 door in inline 6 club. He had lots of really cool pictures of his dads 52' 2 door from the early 60's when they were racing in Pomona and Bakersfield. He was a really interesting guy, and was super into getting the car to someone who had a interest in taking care of it and not chopping it up. A little history about the car. It was originally owned by a elderly man and came from California. He had the idea of restoring it, it seems but he was only able to get the interior started and the car painted before he passed away. At that point it was given to his grandson who attempted to drive it for a bit but had no real interest in it. He decided to sell it to Dan the guy I bought it from since he knew that he liked older chevys. Dan purchased the car in 1996 and daily drove the car more or less for about 4 or 5 years until he got married. The woman he married had several small children so he parked it at that point since they were to small to be able to ride in the car. It sat undriven for roughly 16 years that point until he moved to Austin as of a couple of years ago. He decided that point he wasn't going to do anything with it and put it up for sale. My plans are really just to get it running, finish redoing the interior, and lower it. I think eventually I will think about putting a small block motor in it but that will be later down the line. Most likely I will take the motor out of my truck and replace it with a LS motor and put the trucks motor in the car. Anyways enough words, onto pictures!     You can see my 67' C10 in the background here. It is lowered 5" in the rear and 3" in the front all done with new springs.    Here I hit the hood with some wax to see how the paint would come out. It made a huge difference so Im going to get a buffer and some polish and clean up the paint.   Dan also gave me a exterior sun visor that he got out another 49-54 chevy that he left in the trunk. As best I can tell this one should clip onto the drip rails on the side then grab onto the center post in the windshield. I attempted to lay it out on the car but it doesn't appear to fit. If anyone has any idea what it is that would be super helpful. It appears to be a stock ish one but I am unsure as there are no manufacturer markings on it that I can find.  
Valt fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Jul 27, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 03:28
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:You want to motorswap a nearly 70 year old car in THAT original condition??? Your car and all that but in all honestly that's one of the best restoration targets I have seen in years. It barely looks like it needs more than cleaning, given it looks amazingly straight and also ridiculously low in rust. It is neat and all that but the straight sixes are not some super special motor. They were used in roughly every chevy / GMC vehicle for like 20 + years. In fact my truck originally had a motor that was not at all that different from the one that is in the car. Putting a SBC in the car would not require much if any modifications to the car anyways. So if I wanted I could always go back to the original motor. Also these kinds of cars are not that super rare in Texas as it is. But I do understand where you are coming from, I would just like to be able to have more power plus I like the V8 sound.
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Jul 27, 2016 04:48
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88h88 posted:It's glorious. Also have you ever posted up photos of the truck? That looks like something I could get into... I have before yah but its been a while. Its a old ranch truck with a three ball hitch.    
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Jul 27, 2016 14:05
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This is what the truck sounds like on the inside. https://youtu.be/phPpGjpKGlg
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Jul 27, 2016 16:23
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So I'm getting a battery and new plugs this afternoon and trying to see if it will start. I am hopeful it will, however I am unsure how I am going to get the old gas out of the tank. I might need to get a safety siphon. https://www.amazon.com/Safety-Siphon-Safe-Multi-Purpose-Priming/dp/B000BG1X54
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Jul 28, 2016 17:35
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Enourmo posted:Make sure you've got the correct voltage battery, most if not all cars back then ran 6 volt systems. Yes the car is 6 volt and I bought a 6 volt battery. I am just going to hit it with starter fluid and pour some gas in the carb to see if it even tries to start. These cars have sort of weird glass filter that is near the carb. But it also has a newer inline filter right by the carb. I am going to take the fuel line off at first to confirm I have good gas in the carb though. I actually have no idea how much gas is in the tank, hopefully the fuel gauge works.
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Jul 28, 2016 18:04
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Well after putting a battery and new plugs in, it does crank. I was able to find out that the tank was mostly empty thankfully so I pulled the fuel line off the carb and threw some gas in it. After a little bit of cranking it started pumping fuel. However I am not getting any spark (this was confirmed by pulling one of the plugs and having it sit on the valve cover). I grabbed a new coil since I pulled the cap and it seemed fairly good looking. But still no spark at all, I did notice that when I pulled the cap the points may have been to lose. But even after adjusting them I was getting nothing. At this point I am really going to need a second hand with it as its hard to tell what is going on just by myself. I am going to grab a new set of points and a condenser because its cheap and why not but I am not confident that will fix it.
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Jul 29, 2016 12:15
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Enourmo posted:Check to make sure you're getting voltage to the coil. Yah I went and got batteries for my multimeter last night. The coil is definitely getting power as I saw the points spark when I was messing with it last night. All the points are doing is interrupting ground here so if they spark the coil has power.
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Jul 29, 2016 16:30
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Veeb0rg posted:Sounds like you need to pull, clean and regap the plugs and maybe change the plug wires and you should be in business. Have you tried a spritz of starter fluid into the carb? If fuel was allowed to sit in the carb it might be getting fuel but clogged up and blocked internally. I love old cars for the simplicity of them. I currently have no spark. As a general rule plug wires wouldn't cause no spark unless they were ancient which these aren't. Also gapping plugs is not super necessary and would not cause no spark and could tested without a plug. I am getting a new distributor cap as well just to rule it out. Edit: I should also note here that my plugs are brand new. Valt fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jul 29, 2016 |
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Jul 29, 2016 18:28
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So even after changing cap, points and condenser I'm still getting no life. I confirmed I got spark at the plugs, and confirmed that the rockers are moving. So just for shits and giggles I pulled and a plug and shot some starter fluid in it and tried it. Low and behold it tried to fire and that cylinder came to life. Of course directly after that my battery was to weak to turn the motor over. So I am waiting on autozone to charge it.
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Jul 30, 2016 02:39
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Enourmo posted:Sounds like it's probably time for a carb rebuild, yeah. I think more then anything it's a motor that hasn't started in 16 years and the volt system just doesn't have enough umph to get it going. It could also possibly have some stale gas in the carb.
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Jul 30, 2016 02:44
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https://youtu.be/ijBd6xv5BUM I got it running! I think the carb needs going over as it won't start without a lot of help from starting fluid.
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Jul 30, 2016 04:53
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Saga posted:Maybe auto carbs are different but leaving bike carbs undrained for only a few months can clog them up, even with no poo poo in the fuel system. A careful strip and clean will probably help no end. A couple of things here, one I don't know if there was gas in the carb when it got parked. Secondly it has been not running for 16 years. Car carbs are no different then bike carbs in the way they function as a carb is a carb. The basic principle is the same.
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Jul 30, 2016 14:23
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Got it running and drove to work today. I think it was mostly the old gas that was causing me issues.
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Jul 30, 2016 19:47
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Enourmo posted:loving excellent! Gonna post any driving videos? Kind of hard to take video and drive the silly thing but here you go. https://youtu.be/4DQ_ptg2ANY
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Jul 31, 2016 02:33
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So I have been driving it around for quite a bit now and some things that I have noticed. The car drives way better then my truck steering is much tighter, and there is actually very few rattles at all. We will see if that continues with it lowered, I'm imagining it will actually be fine then as well. It is certainly very underpowered, but that is how the truck was originally when I got it as well. It can get out of its own way but it could certainly use another 100 horsepower to be me normal. I still need to work on the brakes to see if I can get them working better, they are certainly better today then they were yesterday but they can be a lot better. I'm also going to see if I can mount the visor today as well.
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Jul 31, 2016 19:58
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So I decided to pull apart the front brakes today to get an idea of what I am dealing with. The brakes seem to be about 90% not working or when they do they stick. This is what they look like. The wheel cylinder is adjustable on each side which is what those spikey covers are. Underneath the covers is a piston and behind that a spring and two rubber gaskets to hold the fluid. On both sides the Pistons were completely froze. So I pulled them out and cleaned all the crud off. After re-assembling them they appear to at least sort of work now. However the master cylinder is leaking bad so instead of rebuilding it I am going to get a new one. As getting to it and removing it is its own nightmare. To give you an idea of where it is this is what it looks like from under the car.  It also has some nonsensical woodruff key that is near impossible to get out. I will try and actually take pictures of that since it is going to be full of heartache for sure.
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Aug 2, 2016 22:42
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ExplodingSims posted:Be careful when working on those brakes. There's a most certainly asbestos dust inside the. A couple of things about that. These are not original pads and were most likely replaced in the 90s. Also unless I was working on these cars all day everyday the asbestos is not a concern otherwise every person that ever worked on one of these would have lung cancer by now.
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Aug 2, 2016 23:02
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So a little update on the car. I finally decided to tackle the job I have been dreading, replacing the master cylinder (as it was leaking very badly and in general not working well). A normal master cylinder replacement is not a big deal even on my C10. However on the 49' the master cylinder is under the drivers side floor board. Which in itself is not the end of the world. However what makes the whole thing much worse is the fact that the clutch and brake pedals are hinged through the front of the master cylinder. This is the view from the access panel that is in the back part of the drivers side front wheel well.  This is what you can see from the access panel. The big bolt you see on the front is actually a cover for the woodruff key that holds the brake and clutch arms in place.  The is the view from under the car where you can get a better idea of how the arms connect. There are just two bolts holding the master cylinder to the car. Those are easy to remove. Once you remove the woodruff key which requires the use of some kind of bent up piece of metal to hook it or just grab it with friction. In my case I used a coat hanger that I bent up and jammed in there. Luckily for me mine was fairly loose and came out easily. Once that was done we then had to try and remove the arms from the master cylinder. I at first just tried to pound out the brake arm. But after much frustration we found that unbolting the brake arm from its pivot (it is a two piece arm) that we can then just slide the master cylinder off of the clutch arm. The whole thing took about 4 hours of lying on my back covered in grease and what ever else was on the bottom of the car. It was a very finicky job but at least its done and the new master cylinder should be easy to get back in.
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Aug 20, 2016 23:36
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LobsterboyX posted:My name is LobsterboyX and I approve this thread - Yes the visor is adjustable as you describe. But regardless of how its adjusted it doesn't quite match the curve of the car. I think I could probably make new mounts for the side to make it work. I am not sure if it wouldn't just be easier to trade someone for the correct visor though. I am currently painting the visor black as it was all beat up and multi colored. I can get some more pictures of the visor if you think you can identify it. As far as the straight six stuff goes thank you for that link. Any motor changes are not happening for a while. I still need to finish building my motorcycle so it's going to be taking up a lot of my money and time. The car mostly just needs brakes gone through and the window seal leaks bad so it has to get replaced.
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Aug 23, 2016 21:53
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I want to keep this thread alive as I am still working on the car. I am currently saving up money to buy a new master cylinder. I am also probably going to convert the front to disc since a conversion kit is about $300 and would be easy to install. The drums up front probably need new wheel cylinders and pads and one of them needs a new drum. That probably adds up to more then the money it would cost to convert. As a side note I did some catering work out in the country and this happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwPZHaON8vQ
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Sep 12, 2016 03:12
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So I haven't been able to work on the car in a while but I got to it recently. I bought a re manufactured master cylinder from O'Reilly's. I was able to get it installed without to much drama. However when we went to go bleed the front brakes we got no fluid out of the bleeders out front. Apparently the rubber lines were clogged or rotted or something. I replaced them and actually had fluid at that point. I have been working 60 hour weeks with one day off so once I got it to that point I could only work on it once a week really. Originally we bled it but didn't really get it right and there was barely any pressure at the pedal at all. So today I bought a vacuum pump to try and bleed it myself. But that required replacing the bleed screws up front. The original bleed screws did not have nipples on them so you could not hook up self bleeder to them. After attempting to bleed them myself I did not get anywhere. So I had my friend come over and we bled the fronts a bunch of times and as best we could tell there was no air in the lines. We spent the better part of 2 hours trying to bleed the fronts and getting no where. What I had forgotten is that it is a single master cylinder. So if there is air in the system all the brakes will have air. So out of desperation I cracked the bleeders in the back and got nothing but air. So after bleeding the rear brakes finally they work correctly. What I can say after getting them working correctly is that they are worse then the drums on the truck. I did adjust them so they are probably about as good as they will ever be. So I will probably convert it to disc up front. Its only about 300 dollars and very easy to install. Eventually I will need to convert to a dual master cylinder as well but for no the single will work. What I need to work on now is the slow starting when hot. I have been told that the 6 volt systems really rely on the connections to the starter and the battery to be very clean. Otherwise there is not enough voltage to get through any crud. Right now it barely turns over when its hot even though the battery has plenty of charge and is brand new. I'm going to try taking the cables off and cleaning them to see if that helps.
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Oct 3, 2016 08:50
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Veeb0rg posted:Chances are at this age you might as well replace the starter to battery and ground wires. Internal corrosion has probably made them look ok but not work well. I'd suggest at least a 4awg wire replacement, certainly can't hurt anything. I doubt very seriously these are original cables. More likely the connections are just dirty and it needs a good clean.
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Oct 3, 2016 20:37
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Yu-Gi-Ho! posted:Is the starter near the exhaust at all? If it is, maybe wrap the nearby sections in header wrap, or slap a heat shield together? The starter motor is on the other side from the exhaust. I replaced the cable and messed with it a bunch this morning. But it would not even start. Finally I took the battery to autozone to test it. Apparently it would not hold a charge so they replaced it. After that the car started both cold and hot. So hopefully that resolved that problem and now I await the next problem.
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Oct 5, 2016 04:55
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In todays adventures in old broken stuff I bring you the tale of the slow start. So I have been fighting this ever since I got the car running. The car will sometimes be very hard to start when it has been running for a while. As far as I know this is normal with 6 volt cars. However recently it would not start at all and I had to bump start the car. I went and had the battery replaced as it was older and they ordered me a new one. After installing the brand new battery the car was very hard to start cold. I drove it like this for about a day then that night it would barely start and in fact the solenoid got extremely hot. At this point I pulled the starter and brought it to a starter repair shop who completely rebuilt it. Meaning new windings, pinion gear, armature the whole deal. They also put on a new 6 volt solenoid, they tested that it was working and gave it back to me. Thinking that I had my solution I went home and bolted it on the car got everything hooked up and *Click* the solenoid engages but the starter motor would not. Below is a picture of the wiring for the starter so that you can understand what I am talking about.  So what I have found is that if I jump the hot lead to the switch terminal on the solenoid the solenoid will engage and the starter will turn. The following is what I have done to try and isolate in the car. -Removed the starter switch and tried to go hot lead to the ground on the switch -This results in the starter motor sometimes engaging but more often then not just a click. -Removed the actually lead that comes from the solenoid into the car from the dash. -Hooked this lead up to the switch with the ground that goes to the solenoid. -This results in the starter motor sometimes turning but again more often then not I get a click. -Tried to touch the two leads together in the car (again these are just the other ends of the leads that are connected to the solenoid on the starter). -I just get a click here. -Hooked a longer length of heavy gauge wire up to grounded switch lead. -Tested for resistance on the switch lead to the solenoid. -No resistance found. -Repeated this same process but for the hot lead. -No resistance found on this wire either. At this point I am seriously at a loss and more importantly I don't know what to test at this point. I should point out that at all times during my I had 6.3 ish volts on the battery and the hot leads at all times. Also if I jumped the hot lead to the switch terminal on the solenoid I can always get the starter motor to run. Anyone have any ideas here? I really don't want to bring it to someone but at this point I have wasted a week on it and I feel like I farther away from a solution.
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Nov 24, 2016 03:19
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Breakfast Feud posted:Get a wire brush and clean absolutely every connection. If that doesn't work maybe try hooking up an ammeter inline before the solenoid, and after the solenoid and take readings while you turn it over. It should show you if there's a drop somewhere in the system. I think the battery can be ruled out at this point because when you jump it to the switch terminal it turns the motor over. Clearly the starter isn't getting enough juice to turn over. I think I should clarify here. The diagram posted above shows the wiring coming into the car from the starter and ignition. So there are only three wires that come into the car that involve the starter and ignition. There is a hot lead that brings power to the car, there is the switch wire that goes only to the switch, and there is the power wire going to the ignition. Something that maybe isn't super clear here is that the starter switch and the ignition switch in this car are two different things. You don't start the car with a key, you lock the ignition with a key. But otherwise if the ignition is on you just press the starter button and it starts the car. So What I did to try and isolate was just take the switch lead and touch to the hot lead in the car. This results in a click and no start. I tested for resistance and grounding on both of those wires and found none.
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Nov 25, 2016 17:46
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angryrobots posted:If you have a good battery and a good starter, somewhere in the circuit is a connection with high resistance. With a 6v system you are more susceptible to resistance issues, which can absolutely be cumulative. If the ground was a issue it would persist no matter what I was doing. When I say there is no resistance what I mean is that there is no measurable resistance. Also there is no fuses involved in that part of the circuit.
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Nov 25, 2016 21:54
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Breakfast Feud posted:That makes a little more sense. I'm also going to veer towards "resistance issue" if you can get the starter to fire every time you jump it directly. The wiring in the car is new. I'm going to hook up the switch with wires and see what it does. If that doesn't work then I don't really know. So I wired the switch up external to the cars wiring harness and it still just clicks and won't turn over. I bypassed the switch and it still just clicks so the switch isn't the issue. At this point the only thing that could be affecting anything is either a ground somewhere or the solenoid itself. But that being said I don't understand why it will turn over when I jump the solenoid with a big gauge cable. *Edit* For clarification when I say a ground somewhere there are only two grounds involved here. The ground on the battery and the ground to the starter. Which the solenoid grounds to the starter which is itself grounded by the connection to the motor. Valt fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Nov 26, 2016 |
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Nov 26, 2016 19:43
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Breakfast Feud posted:Okay, so let's take apart your circuit piece by piece. I took a video showing basically what I have been doing so that you can see whats going on. Also it should be noted that even if I touch the wires without the switch I get the same result. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kPgWMptmFY
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Nov 26, 2016 21:11
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cakesmith handyman posted:If you use the switch or touch the wires and only get a click, but using aux cable starts, it's your cable, new or not. Try switch through aux cable. Thats fine and all but this is how the car was setup and had been working. The only thing that is new to the car here is the solenoid. The big old battery cable is probably just giving me a lot more amperage then I would normally have at that point. Normally the hot lead goes into the car and ties into the harness. The wire that goes to the actual switch is no bigger then the ones that are on it now.
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Nov 26, 2016 21:34
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angryrobots posted:At this point I would have a helper bump the starter button while I observed voltage at each connection point starting at the battery until I found where it dropped. I know you said it was good but I kind of suspect the battery or terminal(s). Either the solenoid isn't getting enough voltage to close, or the solenoid is weak. What I am guessing is actually the problem is the pinions engagement to the ring gear is much tighter then it used to be. I am getting around this problem by hitting it with way more amperage then it would ever see. When I can get the car to start it sounds very much like the pinion is getting stuck engaged.
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Nov 26, 2016 22:28
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angryrobots posted:Just going back to this, and the order your issues happened in. I know you also said that voltage was good on the new battery, but were you able to observe it while cranking? Battery voltage does not drop below 5.8 while cranking. The battery that they ordered was new specifically to get around the problem you are describing.
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Nov 27, 2016 09:19
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cakesmith handyman posted:Okay so I read back to make sure I knew what was what, issues as you say started after fitting the rebuilt starter and you suspect it's meshed too tightly. Is there any adjustment on fitting the starter to set pinion to ring gear intermesh? If not going back to the shop that rebuilt the starter and explaining the symptoms may yield better suggestions. Yah that is what I am going to do on Monday.
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Nov 27, 2016 16:17
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clam ache posted:Does it not have starter shims? Most chevys do And I imagine its not to new of a technology to maybe have been used on the starter. If not just measure the starter and cut some sheet metal shims. I bought shims and tried to shim it but got the same result.
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Nov 28, 2016 00:18
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shy boy from chess club posted:No shims on that old boy. I just went through/still dealing with 6 volt fun and Im racking my brain right now. Nothing yet but Ive got this thread in my mind. It really sucks because I have isolated it to the starter at least. But I don't know what the solution is.
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Nov 28, 2016 01:33
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So what the starter place told me is that it is the correct pinion. However is most likely very tight because it's new. They are going to try and find my old pinion as it has some play in it which would make it work.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:41
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kastein posted:Unsure if this has already been mentioned, but: All of that makes sense. Electrical is not the issue here, what ever the problem is mechanical with the pinion. The starter shop let me know they found a old core and pulled a used pinion off of that one.
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Dec 1, 2016 04:02
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So I brought the car to the shop down the street yesterday. He basically told he has this exact problem with every rebuilt 6 volt starter he has gotten locally. So he just gets them from some place online now. So I brought it back to the starter place and told them what was going on. They basically told me to bring the car to them. So I brought it to them and the old guy touched a wire to the positive on the battery and the switch post on the solenoid. It just clicked as it had been doing. At that point he told me the starter was bad. So they have it again and I am supposed to get it back on Monday. The saga continues!
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Dec 2, 2016 18:50
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So the shop replaced the solenoid with a old stock one and now it works without issue. So awesome waste of roughly two weeks of my time.
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Dec 7, 2016 03:29
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Oh well it's not like it's a car I drive all of the time. But we didn't get to take it out on thanksgiving when it was beautiful out. Which really bummed me out as that's what I got the car for really. It's great for cruising on nice days, if I had to drive actually I would certainly have a bad time with it.
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Dec 7, 2016 04:09
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