Creating a solid foundation, the chassis ~ Photos

July 28, 2009

Last weekend I got the body off the chassis with the help of some friends and moved into the garage. Since then, I've gotten the rear suspension torn down and will be moving to the front end next weekend.

This past Saturday, I got the time to dismantle the rear suspension. That was fun. It turns out that the Impala, being a much larger car than the coupe, uses larger fasteners for the suspension; go figure. Well, I don't have a very big selection of those larger wrenches so to save some time and frustration; I just cut the bolts off with a cut-off wheel. I'll replace them with new bolts and nuts, no biggie. This is how the chassis sits today.

Another thing that I discovered while tearing into this chassis. The transmission cross member will need to be replaced. I knew there were a couple thin spots, but not like what I found. There seemed to be a lot more rusted then I thought. I was standing in the garage tipping it back and forth for several minutes and with each tip, more crap came out. Here is the underside for the cross member. Since I can't seem to find anyone who sells NOS type crossmembers. I'm prolly gonna end up making my own taking my lead from these guys. These look really beefy.

I'm sure as the days go by, I'll find more and that should be enough of a teaser for you to check back.

The NEW Project, a 1966 Chevrolet Impala ~ Photos

December 1, 2008

Call me nuts, I don't care. Below are photos of the newest acquisition by the ViolentLee family. Here's what happened; Early last week, I get and e-mail from my wife at work asking me if I knew anyone who might be interested in an old Chevy that needs restoring. I sent back this; 'DUH!!!! ME! Are you kidding? ME!!!' . Apparently and very sadly, her boss's brother died a couple of years ago and his now widow wants his old project car GONE. Her boss didn't know then what it was, but would find out. We exchanged several more messages until the one when she finally found out what it was. It was a '66 Impala Sport Coupe! Moreover, the price was pretty good too. FREEEEEE!!!

Here's more of what I found out about the car from the son, (uber cool guy, by the way). Joe, the previous owner; bought the car in '86 and drove it as a daily for the first couple of years while he worked on his truck. After putting about 10K miles on it, he parked it and started tearing it down. His intent was to restore it to its original glory. Joe's first car was the same model and color! During the last seven years of Joe's life, his work schedule was so tight; it left very little time for the Impala. Therefore, during this time, all he was able to really accomplish was tearing it down to the level shown here. Joe's widow was looking for someone who would actually do something with the car as opposed to scrapping it. I'm here to be that person.

The first eight photos are of the car the first time I laid eyes on it. These were taken when the car was still in a fenced in area to keep the neighbors quiet and the day after a light snow. The next thirty-one are of the car this past Friday, (yeah, it was my Black Friday deal... Beat that Best Buy!). On that Friday, I brought home all the loose items. As mentioned above, Joe tore it down almost completely. So I brought home all the things in this group of photos. The last couple dozen are from the next day... Saturday. This is when Stevo hauled home the body and chassis and me and Dave hauled home the engine/trans. It's the OG 293/Power Glide and it's staying unless a good 396 or 427 shows up.

Yeah, I know. it's ROUGH to be polite. But it was free. I'm gonna keep it and I'm gonna rebuild it. Let's call this my 'long-term project'.

Click on each of the below photos to see a MUCH larger-scale photo.