1956 Chevy 150 Complete Auto Repair Overview

This 56 Chev is really looking great but it didn't look so great. The very first time it rolled into this building. So Brent gave us a little bit of the overview. You were the one to find the car. You're the one to get it here.

So how'd she look from day one? It was, it was pretty rough. I mean, the body was fairly solid. It was a rolling chassis in 1956, one 50 the body was fairly solid. It had been restored sometime in the early eighties judging by the paint and the pin Stripe that was on there.

It still needed some work. I mean, some of the bodywork needed to be redone which we got the body main body done. We're going to show a little bit later. We're going to show how we got to this point but the interior is fairly solid. I mean, the floors are fairly solid.

The rockers had been replaced, like I say, in the eighties. And one of the things that was great news was the complex glass was all intact. The flat glass had to be replaced, right? Yeah the wind shield and the back glass was all in good shape. The two side windows were cracked.

I had a local glass guy make those for I think they were a hundred dollars for, for both of them. So, I mean, it was fairly inexpensive to replace the glass and all the Chrome was there. That's a big thing too. When you start looking at these older cars if the Chrome and the glass is bad, you can have you can tie up a lot of money in Chrome and glass. Now, as the work started Brent established a goal early in the game which was to make this not a show car, but a daily driver something that you wouldn't be afraid to just drive to the grocery store.

And what are some of the forks in the road that that created on the decision-making process? Well a lot of this stuff, I mean when you get there building the engine, I mean if you're going to do a show car you could build a high horsepower engine. Cause you're not planning on driving it on the street. It doesn't matter what you have to put in for gas. Any of the bodywork you might, you might, instead of welding in a complete quarter section, you might just weld in a patch over the area that that's affected rather than replacing the whole quarter section.

The there's just a lot of little things that to try and keep the costs down because you're going to drive it. You're not trying to win points whether you're not trying to win car shows with it just to be able to use it, to make it justifiable you tie a hundred thousand dollars up into this car. You don't want to drive it. you just gotta try and keep the cost of it. And as we turn the clock back and people are out there looking for their own rolling stock any buying advice for them on what kinds of things to shop for what kinds of things to stay away from?

Well, like I said before, glass and Chrome are very important. Because they're harder to replace. Yup they are. The nice thing with the, with the tri five Chevy's if that's what you're looking for you can get anything, it gets expensive. You know what I mean?

Like the taillights, I just looked at those they're almost $500 for a T so taillights but you can't replace it, but you know you're getting into some of these odd, well, oddball cars like a Packard or a Studebaker, something like that where they don't make replacement parts anymore. Make sure all those parts are there before you start, you know, going by it. And if you don't know cars have somebody that does know cars, look at it you don't crawl underneath and look at it and know that you're going to have to fabricate some parts. So it's basic advice would be stick with a mainstream vehicle on your first go around maybe. And then of course it's just intuitive.

The more that's intact when you get started the less work you're going to have to do. That's a good overview of where we started with the body on this car and kind of shows you where we've been and talks a little bit about where we're going.