Classic Auto Restorations …well the ones I own
While my Chev is at Als getting a Turbo 700 fitted I’ve borrowed his coupe to give it a detail since it’s up for sale. The car drives very nicely, although the driving position in a coupe is a bit different to a 4 door sedan. There’s more headroom and rear leg room in a sedan although you do get a bigger boot in the coupe.
Click on the pics for high res photos
This weekend we swapped the Turbo 400 3 speed auto in the Chev for a Turbo 700 4 speed giving me an extra gear and hopefully better fuel economy and quieter highway cruising. I bought the 700 off my mate Al who’s also installing it - thanks Al!
The swap was fairly straightforward just requiring the transmission cross member to be modified as the Turbo 700 sits slightly back more. Some fiddling around with the kick down cable to hook up to the current accelerator cable was also required. The transmission came with a Lokar dipstick and kickdown cable. Eventually I’ll be replacing the current accelerator gear with a lokar one as I’m keen to put in a Lokar Midnight series accelerator pedal.
I’ve just sent the tailshaft to be shortened (Knox Driveshaft Services 9758 4015) and waiting on my shifter to arrive. I’ve ordered a 8 inch floor mount Lokar shifter, again in the black (the new Midnight Series).
Forgot my camera when were doing this but will post some pictures when we fit the tailshaft.
Price: $64,000 (Australian Dollars)
My good mate Alan is selling his 57 Chev Bel Air Sports Coupe. The car is a very tidy example of the popular 2 door coupes, and has been updated to be a daily driver with comforts including power steering and 4 speed auto (Turbo 700).
He recently purchased a very nice 57 Nomad which means now the coupe has to go.
Alan is pretty handy with the tools and has down a lot of tidying up and improvements to the car to make it a reliable and safe cruiser. The car is driven regularly and fully road registered.
Driveline Specs
350 engine with 4 bolt mains, reckon putting out about 350hp at the flywheel
Edelbrock RPM Hi Rise Manifold and carby
Block huggers with twin exhaust
Re-built Turbo 700
Diff is a 10 bolt salisbury
Interior
Original Bel Air interior. New seat trim kit put in.
2 speed wiper motor conversion concealed under dashboard
Speedo converted to klm’s
Original Bel Air steering wheel reduced to 14inch diameter
Lokar pedals
Central locking and Alarm with immobiliser
Exterior
Paint: Matador Red
Wheels: 15*7 front. 15*8 rear
Rubber: BF Goodrich white walls 215 front, 255 rear
Suspension and Steering
2 inch drop spindles with Pedders Sports shockers
Front end sway bar
Power Steering - new 605 box
Brakes
Front discs, Rear Drums
Polished booster and master cylinder
Other bits
110 litre stainless steel fuel tank
Space saver spare under boot floor
Safety
Third brake light, 3 point retractable seatbelts for 5 people, middle front is lap sash.
Indicator lights have been moved to reverse light position (originally the brake lights were the indicators)
Price: $64,000 (Australian Dollars)
If you’re interested give Alan a call on 0418 363 656
I first started the Classic Garage website in early 2002 to document the restoration of a old Vespa I bought. I also had a HT Premier at the time that I’d owned for about 10 years which I’d also done a lot of work to. Not many blogs were around at this time, especially about classic cars.
I haven’t updated for a while for a couple of reasons - running a business, young kids, hassle of updating because the software I was using. The site was originally handcoded in HTML/CSS but I switched over to City Desk a year or two later as I’m an avid reader of Joel on Software since about 2001. I also switched to a Mac about 1.5 years ago so running City Desk on Windows was a pain, hence the infrequent updates.
Well here’s to a new start using Wordpress, some new articles on the Chev and me ranting about other things that I’m into.