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1954 Chevrolet BelAir
Convertible
Accessories added for :
Ron and Faye Gibbens
By:
Ron was looking for an early 50’s Chevrolet Convertible and found this one in Florida.
The car came to use to go over and add a few things such as: Vintage Air Conditioning, cruise control, suspension repair, install original gauge packs and redo dash to appear stock and generally go over the car.
We started on the car in November and have worked on it on and off until March. The following pages detail some of the work done and why.
Enjoy reviewing the project.
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This is Ron's convertible as we received it. The aluminum instrument panel, no Air Conditioning and the lower dash needed some paint. |
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We ordered the largest unit from Vintage Air and tried to get it to fit. The culprit, the firewall tunnel for the distributor/engine |
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We determined that the tunnel needed to be reduced by at least 1" for the radio and AC unit to both fit. |
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After much gnashing of teeth, the firewall modified and the AC unit fit. |
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You can see the line below the distributor where the cut was made. Plenty of room for the distributor. We also closed a lot of holes and smoothed the firewall some. |
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Fire wall painted and hoses and dryer mounted. Note the condenser and fan mounted in the front. |
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Another look at the engine compartment. Cruise control is mounted on the driver fender. |
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Inside the dash was prepped for a full red dash. |
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The completed dash with the old style dash with fully working gauges, shift indicator above the column and Vintage air control on the lower dash. |
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The additional wiring included brake relay for the cruise, fan relay for AC, shift indicator control and circuit breakers. |
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The rear suspension also had some problems with bottoming out and a very rough ride. The shackles had very little clearance. The springs were rebuilt to raise the car back to stock height. |
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We fabricated a lowering block with the pinion angle built in to correct a very bad angle. |
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Now the pinion angle is with in 2 degrees, not 4 degrees the opposite way. |
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To assist the cooling in a convertible we had a removable liner made that snaps in and out. It was too much bulk to fold up with the top, but did help on those really hot days. |
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The convertible at the Toppers Car Show, took a second in class. |
