jonwinn

I decided a proper street rod needs a 4 speed Hurst shifter not a standard 3 speed column one so I drilled a hole and added it to the interior tub.

I got some 2000 and 3000 grit sanding-polishing sheets. It seems to work good. I am almost ready to paint.

I have the left side sanded and the right side "holes" puttied. I need to get some wet -dry sand paper from 2000 to 6000 grit to get rid of the fine scratches, sorta polish my mess up a bit.

Not to go off topic but here is a 1955 2 tone green and white 1955 Chevrolet 210. My wife's father had one around 1958-59 and she said as a little girl she remembered the "half door" for the passengers in the back seat. Her dad was a mechanic at the local Chevy dealership in our town back then. I have looked all over for a model of one to build for her, no luck so far.

An hours worth of knife work then wet sanding from 120, 180, 350, 400, 600, 1000, then 1500 grits. I still have a ghost line from the rear of the door to the tail light and 2 holes I need to putty where I went too deep with the knife. I need to redo the finer grits then maybe go from 1600 to 6000 grits. Lots of small scratches.

Now to the not so fun part, removing the body molding. I did this once on a '65 Galaxie. The best way for me is to trim as close as I can with a sharp Exacto knife then sand starting with 180 grit to about 1000 grit wet dry sand paper. I am only doing the molding that runs down the side of the car, front quarter panel, door and body, and rear quarter panel and bow tie on the trunk. Tedious but effective. I am very cautious with the Exacto, ended up in the emergency room a few years ago for stitches in my thumb. That was less fun than sanding!

Interior colors done. The kit comes with an arm rest for the rear seat. From all the images I have seen there was no arm rest of this style on the Bel Air, it did exist on the 1955 Chevrolet 210 model however. The brown interior below is a 1955 Chevrolet 210.

The interior color will be similar to this photo.

The interior is started. I assembled the front seat and painted the blue, then painted the tub and rear seat blue. I need to buy some beige to do the white areas that were masked off. The front seat is not glued in yet.

Engine almost done, headers go on during chassis assembly.

I think I figured out the header thicknesses. On the box cover's side panel is a picture of the header, it seems the flared exit is centered so that the extra thickness is divided equally to either side of the header, like so. Not all to one side as I had it originally.

I have a start. The fit is challenging to poor. I put the exhaust headers together and something is wrong. The pipes coming off the engine do not match the small flared exit pieces. I do not remember them fitting this bad plus this kit has a LOT of extra parts. It seems to have tons of parts for a "Funny Car". It seems to have lots of chromed rails and wheelie bars that this kit originally never had. There is no mention in the instructions where these extra parts go. The instructions have either "stock" or "street rod" instructions with no mention of a "Funny Car".

I started with de-chroming the parts that need to be painted, I used my trusty oven cleaner. These were molded in black plastic unlike the white ones from the first kit.

I am restarting this, I am missing parts so I bought another kit and got it at 50% off of what I spent on the original. I was never impressed with the original build, so I will do a total "reboot". I have a nice can of Tamiya Pure Blue to spray it instead of black. It will still have a gloss white roof. Hopefully I won't loose interest or parts this time.

On hold.....looking for rims.