Re: 1956 Clipper Hot Rod

Posted by Allen Kahl On 2009/1/7 14:01:51

Well things have been a little slow. Back in Novemeber I got the carbs back and it was not until Dec. that I had them put back on and hooked up. The weather has not been much help either, as well as other things getting in the way. I am going to have to get cracking on it because as soon as I find a body and fender shop that does not think I am the sucker de jour I have got to get it to that shop to get them started on it. My wife and I have decided to skip Branson and set our sites on Gettysburg next year. So I have a whole 1 1/2 years to complete this project. I have done a little patch work on the floors. I also have 99% of the chrome off and piled so all I have to do is take it to the chrome shop to be done. I just got back all of the brackets for the front and rear bumpers from the powder coating shop and they look good and it was not expensive. I am considering having the whole car sand-blasted but I am holding off on that because I have heard some not so nice things about that process. I have also heard about a new process called soda blasting that I will have to look into. Since I last posted, I have also had the brake booster rebuilt and it is installed. So we are down to body work. I had a guy come over this morning who must think my name is Rockefeller or Astor or something like that. He looked at the car and quoted my $8,400 to sand and paint it. To me that was a "I really don't want to do it but if your dumb enough or rich enough, I'll do it for that" price. so I will just keep on looking. I still have to shell out about $500 for the correct seat material from SMS. I swore I would not pay their exorbitant prices, but the rest of the material is in such good shape I don't want to change the whole pattern. So that is about where everything stands at the moment. It's slow going especially when you consider the economy. This really is not the time to be doing a major restoration, but sometime we really don't get to chosse that do we??????????????

P.S. In my initial post I had reported on finding some very nice grey upholstery material with some unique
Fleur-de-lis designs thru out. I thought it would look great, however there was not enough to do all of the seats so back to SMS for the correct stuff, OUCH!!!!!!!