Greetings!
Welcome to Doug's Drugs, the online glimpse into the shop activities at Desert Classics in south central Washington State. Gary's '51 Chevy is in pieces. I removed the gauges & switches as well as all the wiring from under the dash. I plan to re-use everything with the possible exceptions of the headlight switch and the wire junction plate. The switch has a broken link in the little half-circle spring that controls the dimmer function. That's something that's not feasible to repair, so a new one is in order.
Unfortunately, the gauges are somewhat rusty on the inside perimeter, so I'll try to get Gary to spring for a gauge overhaul. I don't do the gauge overhauls, but specialty companies do a fine job and have the decals to make the lettering look like new. I met a guy at the Portland Swap Meet this spring who gave me his card. I'll give him a call.
I've seen some nice digital gauges also, but since Gary's car is more traditional, and I went to all the trouble to make it look like a carbureted engine, I'm going to recommend he stay traditional with his gauges also.
Along with the gauges I pulled this mess-of-a-harness out of the under-dash area also.
The stock harness had been spliced into in several places and some of the ground wires were simply bare stranded wire ends wrapped around an exposed screw or bolt threads. The stock harness consists of cloth wrapped insulation that had lots of cracks and exposed copper wire. I'm hoping to get most of the wiring handled by the time the new gas tank arrives so I can start the engine.
Gary & Jason, the two principal decision makers in the project, have apparently settled on a 1st choice color and it surprised me. They had been talking about white with pearl or red, but they pulled this picture off the internet and thought it would look good on the car.
It's a yellow metallic with a pearl top coat shown here on a pair of Lamborghinis. It does look good on the Lambos, but years ago I was experimenting with pearl and decided to see what it would look like sprayed over a metallic base. I don't remember exactly what my reaction was at the time, but I decided to go a different route. I may get a pint of the two paint colors and spray a sample on something to show the guys how it looks in sunlight. Then again, if it's good enough for a pair of Lamborghinis, it's probably good enough for Gary's '51 Chevy coupe. There are a lot of graceful curves on the car and it might just look great.
I finished making a cover for the parking brake mechanism. I had to cut away some of the kick panel to allow the brake pedal to have enough travel, but I had to seal it up again to keep hot, dusty air from coming into the passenger compartment.
I'm going to finish up the body work on the inner fender panels and get them sprayed gloss black for their debut appearance around the bright red engine. Once they're painted I can also mount the core support and A/C condenser with the pair of electric fans. It's going to look so nice, Gary's going to be tempted to drive around with the hood up all the time.
Doug
Welcome to Doug's Drugs, the online glimpse into the shop activities at Desert Classics in south central Washington State. Gary's '51 Chevy is in pieces. I removed the gauges & switches as well as all the wiring from under the dash. I plan to re-use everything with the possible exceptions of the headlight switch and the wire junction plate. The switch has a broken link in the little half-circle spring that controls the dimmer function. That's something that's not feasible to repair, so a new one is in order.
Unfortunately, the gauges are somewhat rusty on the inside perimeter, so I'll try to get Gary to spring for a gauge overhaul. I don't do the gauge overhauls, but specialty companies do a fine job and have the decals to make the lettering look like new. I met a guy at the Portland Swap Meet this spring who gave me his card. I'll give him a call.I've seen some nice digital gauges also, but since Gary's car is more traditional, and I went to all the trouble to make it look like a carbureted engine, I'm going to recommend he stay traditional with his gauges also.
Along with the gauges I pulled this mess-of-a-harness out of the under-dash area also.
The stock harness had been spliced into in several places and some of the ground wires were simply bare stranded wire ends wrapped around an exposed screw or bolt threads. The stock harness consists of cloth wrapped insulation that had lots of cracks and exposed copper wire. I'm hoping to get most of the wiring handled by the time the new gas tank arrives so I can start the engine.
Gary & Jason, the two principal decision makers in the project, have apparently settled on a 1st choice color and it surprised me. They had been talking about white with pearl or red, but they pulled this picture off the internet and thought it would look good on the car.
I finished making a cover for the parking brake mechanism. I had to cut away some of the kick panel to allow the brake pedal to have enough travel, but I had to seal it up again to keep hot, dusty air from coming into the passenger compartment.
I'm going to finish up the body work on the inner fender panels and get them sprayed gloss black for their debut appearance around the bright red engine. Once they're painted I can also mount the core support and A/C condenser with the pair of electric fans. It's going to look so nice, Gary's going to be tempted to drive around with the hood up all the time.
Doug
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