1956 Chevy Pro-Street Build

[Advanced Design]

You and your Dad's big grins are contagious! And the video sounded grin inducing too. Awesome!

[mud.man.rj]

Nice video, just a beauty. I like the "kid" part, always be the kid hey. Really nice to have your dad around still and take him out, pretty special.
Mudman.

[lower50's]

Get her tuned up and remember tires are cheap fun

[Nut Case]

ptc

great sound, but......oh yeah "needs more cow bell"




NC

[Kim57]

Very nice.
Kim

[_Ogre]

saw your hood latch thread where you mentioned that you had put the 58-59 hood on the 57, very nice mod and done well

i could have used this back when i was a teenager and rolled my first 58
those front S-pillars fold like a bad poker hand when a tf truck goes on it's roof

[ptc]

Originally Posted by _Ogre

saw your hood latch thread where you mentioned that you had put the 58-59 hood on the 57, very nice mod and done well

i could have used this back when i was a teenager and rolled my first 58
those front S-pillars fold like a bad poker hand when a tf truck goes on it's roof

Yeah -you can see how the geometry of the roll bar forward bars are exactly opposite of what the GM engineers came up with for support!

Amazing what a difference a year or so can make in the look of an interior!!!!

[joedoh]

what a fortunate father and a thoughtful son! hope you guys have a wonderful holiday

[ptc]

Originally Posted by joedoh

what a fortunate father and a thoughtful son! hope you guys have a wonderful holiday

Thank you Joe! --- To you and yours also - Merry Christmas!

[ptc]

Ok so i finally got around to fixing my brake pedal design problem and redid the whole thing... somewhat. I left the hydroboost inplace and all that part, but just deleted the cab floor pedal design I had come up with. Originally I wanted the pedal to be part of the cab so that if it was separated the pedal assembly would go with the cab and not the chassis. That didn't work so well due to assembly "issues".

Heres all my parts I had to play with in getting this all together





So now I took a brake pedal arm that was on the bracket and I cut it up to fit the frame and chassis where I wanted it on the other side of the steering column where the clutch would be. The pedal side is welded onto the shaft end and can be totally removed with everything around it in-place.







Using the "clutch" assembly idea I drilled and put two flange bearings into the frame rail on either side and ran a 1/2" shaft thru it.






The other end I re-used the same billet alum lever I previously machined that is keyed onto the shaft end and just re-drilled a new hole in it. I made a new rod to connect to the hydro plunger. It has male and female rod ends to make adjust easy.



The pedal on the interior side of the cab was made of flat steel and rounded and then I welded a 5" long 1/2"-13 bolt to the back of it. It screws into the pedal arm on the other side of the firewall.

Then I found these billet pedal covers to put on both the pedals to make them match.



Yippe Kay YEA!!!

[Kim57]

Nice work.
Kim

[ptc]

Been a long week of holidays and truck de-bugging.... had a couple issues spring up after doing the brake pedal remake, brakes didnt work at all afterwards! - great remake right?

Well after chasing my tail with the hydroboost thinking it was all messed up I found a leaking residual valve, this brake line fitting was not tighting down enough to stop the leak so I just had to remove it.



Bleed out both front brakes for awhile to get it all working again and its all good. Had to lengthen the brake pedal rod into the cab as it was too short.



Then took it on a little shakedown cruise and just had a little fun with it. This truck is insane..... it has so much 'unnecessary power' (is there such a thing?) that it is just crazy trying to keep the power down on the asphalt and keep it going straight down the road. It is crazy torqey and just wants to run wild when you stab that throttle down and it gets going fast REAL quick... Boost is immediate! - you nail it and 10-15 lbs right now on the gauge!. Its reading direct at the hat. I cant wait to see what its pulling on the chassis dyno. Ive never had this much power before on the street.

My speedo aint exactly working right, its just doing a bouncing thing but it is counting off miles, So i dont know how fast Im going, but it cranks up before you know whats happening.

I need to go on a little longer cruise, stay off the pedal and get everything dialed in. The speedo is an elect-digital and I think it has to be programmed? Need to do that, not sure if the fuel gauge is working correctly either... maybe it just really goes down that fast!

Ive got a few little leaky places I need to get figured out too. Just annoying little things.

[Roadkill58]

Nice way to spend the new year!

Good to see you driving the truck. It looks good too.

I'm working at driving mine by spring.


.

[lower50's]

Your truck sounds like it would be so much fun!! Glad your enjoying it. When it brakes loose driving down the road is it easy to control?

[ptc]

Originally Posted by lower50's

Your truck sounds like it would be so much fun!! Glad your enjoying it. When it brakes loose driving down the road is it easy to control?

Thanks Bob,
The rear follows the front pretty well if I let off easy to straighten it out and keep it controlled, Im sure if I just kept it WOT it would probably swap ends real quick.... and like I said the speed part happens very quickly so it could be swapping ends at 70-90mph very easily with these big fat tires...

Once I get it on the chassis dyno (in a controlled situation) Im sure we can try and tune some of that suspension stuff better. Im sure there are some HP parts of the equation that are just going to be beyond the capability of the "rubber to ground ratio", so I will just have to live with that until I can get a set of BIG TIRE slicks and go do some track time and see what kind of reaction I get from that. I just have to get a feel for this truck and what its driving tendancies will be. (I look forward to it!!!)

Our local drag track is home to the famous CA Street Outlaw Racer "BODIE" and his crew. So if I get an opportunity to go out and do some "No-P" track days it might be fun. The NHRA rules there most likely will NOT let me run with their 'regulars'... so the outlaw events will be the next best thing.

For now Im just gonna do plenty of shakedown drives and show it to friends and family that have been watching the build for the past 3 years and make sure that everything is good and tight and ready to do some serious speed runs (in controlled conditions) at events and such. Might even try an autocross!!!

[mud.man.rj]

May have been a long weekend of debugging, but look what your working on, man must be a treat to have it that far along now, good for you.
Mudman.

[ptc]

Originally Posted by Roadkill58

Nice way to spend the new year!

Good to see you driving the truck. It looks good too.

I'm working at driving mine by spring.

Thanks Jim, hope to see everyone soon down at the pizza place for a truck meet.... We'll have to get the word out again.

[BC Toy chest]

That's just awesome man, gr8 interior too.

[55 Chevy Dave]

The truck looks great and sounds great! Congratulations!

[ptc]

Originally Posted by 55 Chevy Dave

The truck looks great and sounds great! Congratulations!

I fast tracked it these past few months and just did alot of stuff I would do differently with more time.... Just feels like my time (overall) is running out.

But hopefully I have 'time' to do little side projects along the way now thats it running and going down the road and I can do 'special stuff' now to detail it. (Like maybe change out the Home Depot House Carpet for Real LMC Overpriced car carpet!!! lol) - My carpet job cost $13 for materials. And I even had a choice of Black or Gray!

Thanks Dave!

[idbeast]

Looks good!!!

[Kim57]

Very nice.
Kim

[lower50's]

Wow

[mud.man.rj]

So clean yet good access to parts under it like the pump, you were thinking way ahead, nice work, as always.
Mudman.

[ptc]

took a little video of truck running down the road (about 80 miles through Lodi wine country).... shakedown drives getting a little funner.

Needs a new speedo- on the way, needs some trim parts completed... more more more....

https://www.facebook.com/paul.christ...5151735605162/