Recent Pictures

July 30, 2022

Here is a picture of my car at Superrun 2022 in Brandon, Manitoba.

 

Here is a sky view of the car show!

 

I had overheated my car about 3 times in 2 years and the last time in July, I developed an oil leak in the head gasket. I decided to change my motor with the GM 350 that I had won at Rodarama 2022. I got Summit Customs in Headingly to do the swap. They did an excellant job and were very affordable! Here are some pictures with the new 350 installed. So far I have put 300 kilometers on my car with break-in oil. Will put on about another 1000 before I change the oil and filter.

 

 

May 1, 2022

Here are some pictures of my car at Rodarama 2022. Go to "Rodarama 2022" under "pictures" for additional pictures from the show!

 

 

 

February 24, 2021

It was a balmy +5 Celsius today so I took my car out for some fresh air! Did not drive it anywhere, so it stayed clean.

 

April 22, 2020

Finally took the car out of hibernation. It has been a cool spring. It finally got up to 12 Celsius outside.

 

 

 

 

February 20, 2020

Changing my web hosting to a new IP address.

December 11, 2019

The car is put away for the winter! Today it is -24 Celsius outside and +5 in my garage.

 

October 7, 2019

I was having cooling problems and I discovered that the 40 amp breaker that fed the push electric fan was operating and turning the fan off. Apparently it was too close to the headers and the heat operated the breaker. I ended up covering the breaker in a spark plug cable boot guard as shown below.

 

 

I also covered all the spark plug boots with the same boot guards.

 

 

June 15, 2019

MCAAC Show and Shine at Headingley

I entered my car in the MCAAC show and shine in Headingley at Jim's garage. I managed to snag a prize for "Best Post War" entry. It was the first car show that I have entered and the first prize that I have won since the car was finished! Great cribbage board that was made by the emcee's son!

 

 

 

May 19, 2019

Cruising with the Black Sheep

Jill and I went on our first group cruise with my car yesterday (group of 15 people). Went to Carman, Morden, Winkler, Morris, and back to Winnipeg. Visited the Morden Fossil Museum and the Pembina Threshermen’s Museum in Winkler. Had lunch at the Bella's Castle Cafe in Morden and dinner and beer at Santa Lucias in Morris. It was a long day! I now have over 300 miles on my car.

 

Excellent food and service at Bella's Castle in Morden, Manitoba!

 

 

Cam took this picture of us going north on highway #75 going about 65 mph. It was only 5 degrees outside and my heater is not connected yet. We were a bit cold by the time we got home!

 

October 19, 2018

Big day! I registered my car for the first time since 1963.

It will take about 3 weeks for the Classic plates to arrive.

 

October, 2018

I drove the car outside so that I could do some painting on my center console inside the garage. The outside temperature is now around 5 Celsius and getting colder. While it was running, I took the video below.

Items on my to-do list:

    • get the defrost and heater working (install center console)
    • get the sun visor from my upholsterer and install
    • get the arm rests from my upholsterer and install
    • paint the rear ashtrays and install
    • install the front emblem
    • fix the trunk handle (see the problems drop-down menu)

After the above items are complete, I will get the car appraised and get plates (the safety has already been done).

 

I installed 3 sets of seat belts in the backseat this week. Although the car did not come with seat belts, they are required since I modified the car to a street rod. The front bucket seats came with seat belts already installed.

 

August, 2018

 

The picture above shows the car back from being polished at Dr. Shine. Painter put on some of the stainless steel. I will do the rest.

May 28, 2018

 

The picture above shows the front of the car with the headlights, park lights, and grill installed. The grill installation involved about 35 bolts and screws attaching it to the splash pans, fenders, fender baffles, and top cowl. I am leery on closing the hood in case I will be unable to unlatch it!

April 26, 2018

 

The picture above shows the headlight wiring. Next up is wiring for the horn, then mounting the grill in order to finish the park and turning signal lights (which are mounted in the grill). The original wiring attached to the top of the radiator, but I didn't like the look so I ran it at the bottom and hidden.

March 22, 2018

I got all my glass installed by Speedy Glass at 460 Pembina Highway. The glass was all new and tinted except the rear window. It is curved and hard to replace, so I took the original and had it tinted to match the new windows before it was installed.

 

The front windows had a green tint (cannot be grey because of restrictions) but when they were installed in the car, they looked grey. All the other windows have a slight grey tint.

 

The windows look much lighter with the garage door open!

 

 

December 6, 2017

The car is home at last after ~ 2 1/2 years! The tow truck driver opened the door to take the car out of park and never quite closed it before I took the picture.

 

December 4, 2017

 

 

 

December 2, 2017

The car is almost ready to ship home. Just the hood and trunk rubber left to install!

 

November 28, 2017

A lot of time consuming body work had to be re-done to satisfy Doug's standards. Doug wanted to make sure he knew what the body repairs were before he covered it with paint.

 

 

October 23, 2017

Finally! My car is now in the process of getting painted and I am starting to see results. After getting the bodywork done in St. Andrews, the car was taken to Anola Custom Collision and Glass which is owned and operated by Doug Newton.

Here are the first pictures that he posted on his Facebook page.

 

 

 

 

To see Doug's Facebook page go to:

https://www.facebook.com/Anola-custom-collision-and-glass-890455577661272/

 

 

May 5, 2017

The picture below shows the car after the first coat of high build primer.

 

April 21, 2017

Basic body work complete. High build primer to be applied shortly, then the block sanding begins!

August 1, 2016

Huge disappointment! My painter/body man has had the car for over 8 months and has not done anything. I have now enlisted my friend Joe's body man (Bob Keller) to finish the body work and arrange for painting. The car is now at his place in St. Andrews.

October 23, 2015

My painter/body man said he will try and find room to finish painting my car. He came with his enclosed trailer, so I did not have to cover the car with a tarp or make sure all the windows were sealed.

 

After he got home and inspected the car, he informed me that my body work was not up to standards. He said he could bring it back for me to correct it or he (and his staff) could do it himself. I told him to fix it up and make it perfect!

 

 

October 19, 2015

I got my car back from my upholsterer, Omer, in the first week of October. The interior is about 90% done, but he wanted me to get the car back because he is going to be laid up for a month. He will come to my place to finish up the interior. These include panels for the trunk, a battery box, sun-visor, and inside door panels.

 

 

It looks great!

I tried to change the color of the plastic seat accessories for the bucket seats using a paint from Spectrum Coatings. The result was not even close. I shall try again using SEM paint from Rondex.

        

 

March 8, 2015

Changed the size of all my pictures so that the web pages load faster. Moved to Adobe Dreamweaver CC 6 on the Macbook.

February 12, 2015

I finally got an opening with my upholsterer in February in Fannystelle, Manitoba. I used Dr. Hook to get the car out there. I did not want to trailer it out there myself because I would not have any public liability insurance. It will cost me $200.00 each way.

 

 

The car sitting in Omer's shop in Fannystelle. I put the old windows back in for the road trip. I put the windshield glass on from the outside (it is normally installed from the inside). This glass was cracked in several places. I have all new tinted glass except for the rear window. I will install them after the car is painted.

 

July 13, 2014

I spent 2 days installing the doors on my Chevy. They each weighed about 6o pounds (without windows) but felt like 100. Took a while to adjust them to close properly. Will have to do more adjustments once I install the rubber weather-stripping.

Before and after pictures.

        

I took the inside door handles off about 10 years ago, but I can only find 1 so far. The other one is some place in my garage! One thing I found out from an Ebay seller is that the shafts for the door and window handles for Canadian made 1947 Chevy cars are different than those of American made cars. If I have to buy one I will have to be careful on where it comes from.

 

April 21, 2014

Up and running in Windows 7.

 

November 1, 2013

Added transmission cooler to front of the car. Used a Tru-Cool LPD 4454 cooler. I ran poly-armour hard lines from the transmission to the front of the car, then used rubber hose to the cooler.

 

October 8, 2013

Looking for a spot to install a transmission cooler. Deciding whether to use hard lines or rubber. May use both. Depends how good I am at bending steel tubing.

        

This picture shows the transmission adapters for the transmission cooler.
I will probably install the cooler under the front splash pan between the bumper brackets.

 

 

October 1, 2013

What not to do!

1. Do not run the engine several times without fluid in the power steering pump. Result: New power steering pump on order. Hopefully the rack and pinion is not damaged.

2. Do not put transmission fluid in the tranny when the transmission cooler is not connected. Result: Transmission fluid all over my garage floor.

 

September 24, 2013

Eureka - the car is running! For the first time in about 45 years my 47 Chevy has a running motor. My friend, Jeff Soviak came over and we had the motor running smoothly in about 2 hours.

Problems that we encountered:

Fuel - When we turned the key, we blew the fuse to the fuel pump. After sitting for about 8 years, the pump had frozen up. We tapped it with the handle of a screw driver, put in a bigger fuse and away it went. Several loose connection between the pump and the carburetor had to be tightened and a couple of male to male adapters in the fuel line were in backwards.

Oil - The oil sending gauge was in the water jacket (I followed instructions from a garage that specialized in rebuilding engines - he was wrong). A loose bolt was in the spot were the sending unit should have been - hence a lot of oil spewed out.

Water - I put the heater hose in the top of the water pump and missed the hole on the left side. As a result the water gushed out as fast as we put it in. I moved the hose to the side and capped the top with a plug. The thermostat housing was leaking were it was bolted to the manifold. Put in new gasket.

Distributor - My new spark plug cables did not have the spark plug ends on so to save time, we used the old cables that originally came with the motor. My timing gun would not fit properly on the number 1 spark plug, so we timed it by ear after finding top-dead center on number 1 cylinder. It took us about 6 times taking the distributor out and putting it back in until we had the proper vacuum advance and the motor started and ran smoothly. It was the first time I had heard this motor running (see power train link to see what it looked like when I got it). Jeff said it sounded good!

 

 

September 3, 2013

Loading the car up and taking it to Minute Muffler on Main street to get a complete exhaust system installed. I borrowed the car trailer from my brother-in-law (farmer with all the toys). It has an electric hoist along with an electric winch. It is a long time since I backed up anything this long. When my nephew Colin brought it in last week, he backed it up between the flagpole and the tree on the front lawn on his first attempt (about 4 inches clearance on each side). I have no intention of parking it back there! It will stay on the driveway.

 

I put the front and back bumpers on to aid in tying down the car on the trailer.

 

The whole process worked well. I took my friend Mike Kostanski along as a photographer (and someone to blame in case of an accident happened).

        

We got lots of stares going all the way down Portage Avenue and onto Main Street. While I have the trailer, I should take it to the Pony Coral for their Sunday evening car show!

 

The picture below shows the the car with a finished exhaust outside Minute Muffler on Main street. Loaded back on the trailer in 5 minutes!

 

Almost ready to pack it up and send to Minute Muffler on Main Street to get an exhaust system installed!

 

        

 

June 29, 2013

The pictures below show the Heidt's power steering rack with the 2 blue adapters and the power steering reservoir. One of the adapters is (part # ps-050) 5/8 X 18 thread to -6AN and is for the low pressure return line between the rack and the reservoir. The other adapter is (part # ps-030) 14mm X 1.5 thread to -6AN and is for the high pressure line between the rack and the power steering pump. The other large connector (-10AN) and flex hose that is already attached is a low pressure connection between the reservoir and the pump.

        

 

June 20, 2013

Lots done today:

    • installed the dash
    • connected wiring to dash (ignition switch, gauges, light switch)
    • installed steering column and steering wheel
    • applied power
    • turned the motor over
    • tested the radio
    • tested the electric fan

Missing somewhere in my garage: knob for tilting steering wheel, wire to connect horn to center of steering wheel.

 

June 2, 2013.

My 5 year old granddaughter Skylar. Hopefully I will finish the car before she gets her driver's license.