Thread: Everybody that is currently building a car...

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My name is Zak I'm 15 and just yesterday I found a 1948 Chevrolet Style Master in a ditch in the back of my Grandfather's pasture. I was told it has been sitting out there for 30+ years. The body is a little beat up and it has some surface rust. I want to rebuild it back to original, but the motor is gone and the interior is gutted except for the steering wheel, seat frames, dash, handles, and window cranks. The exterior is in ok condition considering it's been out there for a long time. I would say 80% of the original chrome molding/emblems are still on it.
Zak

I got to give it everything last weekend, and the result was I broke the transmission. A replacement is on it's way, and I should be ready to do it all over again on June 10th.

Radiator shrouds are easy to build, Don. Just takes a bit of aluminum and a sheet metal brake. Got to build one for my pickup soon, will take some pics for you....

OK Dave, any pictures would be helpful. I found one site where a steel shroud was made for e '32 but aluminum should be softer. Brickman's point about spacing the shroud so the blades are half way through the hole when not flexed is worth the price of admission, thanks! I was going to go with an electric fan but Brickman seems to be right on the edge of working with only a 13" flex fan and I have a 16" flex fan so maybe I can get it to work along with a max flow water pump. Here is a steel shroud for a '32:

http://home1.gte.net/wgmumaw/shroud/shroud.htm

A comment to Zak above. After messing with trying to build a whole car from parts, even a very rusty '48 Chevy looks good to me and Zak, you are never going to have more energy than you do right now at 15. The old problem is that funds are hard to come by at that age but with care looking around at junk yard parts and studying the "Trading Post" in your area you should be able to find a motor, trans and rear pretty cheap. The dividing line for me and my advice to you is to look at the frame. If it is rusted through, forget that car. Being down in a ditch may have rusted things pretty bad underneath and that would be very hard to fix, even with a body off project. I opted out of a project on a rusty '41 Merc convertible because the whole X-member was metal lace and it looked like a LOT of tough welding to bring it back to safe condition so that is why I am building a repro-roadster. At your age a rolling car would be better but check out the rust situation under the floor if you can. Maybe there is no floor and you can look at it directly but that is the dividing line in my mind. If the frame is OK then it will be amazing what a person your age can do. I bought a '31 Ford Fordor at age 15 with paper route money and added sealed beams, dimmer floor switch and painted it with a brush and ran it for a year before I figured out that it was an anti-magnet for girls and then it was time to move up to a '47 Ford convertible! Then there is the problem of a title?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder.

Well I have bothered folks here a lot and I have received a lot of help so here are some latest results on painting the upper body of my '29 by Haskin's Body Shop In Ashland, the painter is "Kenny" and the color was selected after much deliberation as a PPG m8237a which is supposed to be a dark metallic maroon with clearcoat. I don't know the name or what cars have it but we might just call it "Haskin's Merlot". In the darkened shop it looks like a metallic maroon with just a touch of purple, but under the flash it looks like a dark red, anyway I am pleased with the color and painting the Bebops floor-fenders is next. The polished stainless bumpers ought to look good with this color! I'll attach a few pictures as soon as I scale them down to the 390 Kb limit of this new Forum format.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I can't wait for pics Don, sounds like a great color. I think that you won't have any problem with overheating after you put a shroud on either. Make sure that your radiator is totally good. Good luck bud, I hate having overheating problems. You can make a shroud real easy, bend a few tabs and put a cross gusset high in the center to hold a round shape. I just wanted a chrome one.

Thanks DennyW, I resized four pictures but will only send two. DennyW may recall the color he painted on my picture about a year ago.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Here's the firewall, it looks much more like red under the flash, those are not scratches just some dirty handprints on the cowl.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Thanks DennyW, you have been a very big help along with some other foilks. For Brickman and Dave, I found the listing under Cyclone shrouds in the Speedway catalog for some black plastic that will fit a '29 radiator as long as I can cut out the round hole. Brickman, the comment about putting the blades out of the hole part way is a valuable tip. Thanks.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Wow..........really great looking color and paint job. Chrome parts are really going to pop against this color. Looks a mile deep, too.


Don

looks great! don i can see you going down the Blue Ridge Parkway now. with me trying to keep up.

Great color for the roadster, Don, excellent choice!!!! It's really going to be a gorgeous car when you get it put together.....

That Is a very cool red, it has some awesome depth.

LT1s10, you are jiving me. We went to see Biltmore, the huge restored Vanderbilt mansion in Ashville NC, and I was just trying to say that to go thorugh Raleigh-Durham on I-40 is almost as bad as going to DC on I-95, but the shorcut on I-77 past Lynchburg in your neighborhood after the turn on I-81 was really nice. I'm lining up the second part of the paint job on the fenders and running boards for later this week. It is clear that I had to farm out the paint work but it looks good so far. The sprayer's name is Kenny Bishop and he has done some nice work on Mustangs in the past but apparently not many early cars. There are a lot of restorers in this area but they go strictly by the original color charts. The shop owner is Haskins Ramos and he has done excellent repair work for me on insurance claims in the past and they do an occasional sports car like a blue Corvette they recently finished, but this week he put my car body out front to attract business. Funny thing is in the daylight the car looks just like a dark red/maroon but not as dark as in the shop or as light as with the camera flash, that paint will definitely look different in different light. Now I am going to have to work this summer to pay for the paint job, but that is OK, I do what I know how to do and Kenny does what he knows how to do.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/Teen Rodder

Don
Is there pearl in the paint? That usualy is what makes it change colors with light. I put it in every car I've paint