Resto: What A great Day Working On The Chev

G'day,

Out of all the Sundays over the past 10 months that Ray and I have been working on the restoration of my old Chev, today would have to have been the most rewarding by far in terms of visual appeal, Monty today looked like a car again with the installation of the side running boards and valances, plus the front and rear guards and after 9 hours of solid work we both agreed that it was a great day and fantastic to see it like this again for years to come....

By 8.30am Ray and I were keen to start and by that we first had to jack up the timber body off the metal chassis to install the webbing material down both top sides of the chassis, this stops the squeaks from the two surfaces rubbing together over time.
With that thought in mind all week prior I also thought of dad and of all the years that we watched and helped him shift and relocate buildings all over the countryside, and I thought the best way to jack up the car body nice and smoothly was with a couple of house jacks, some chocks and good header boards on each side, so I called by dads factory and grabbed some gear to do the job, to easy and see photo below.

   
With the body up off the chassis we installed the webbing, lined the 6 x bolt holes back up again and then lowered the body back down into place..... SIMPLE!.
Next a valance on each side (long black panel above the running board) was slid in under the body and bolted into place loosely.. Ray's Rule: Bolt everything together finger tight first to allow for movement and then come back later when all panels are installed and tighten them up :)

 Valance panel installation

 The old original running boards were next on cards to go on and after a bit re shaping out of some dents along the bolted edge and with many thanks to my grandfathers old bloody heavy blacksmithing anvil they both came up looking great and we had them installed in no time..

 The front guards and front headlights went on next and up to this point every existing hole, nut and bolt lined up perfectly, there was nothing out of line and it was becoming a bit of a joke between us both as we went along throughout the day, it was all perfect considing we had rebuilt all the timbers as well, that makes you feel very rewarded that a great job was being done..

\

The two rear guards were next, on they went and bolted up to the tub and along the back edge of the running boards, this was the only spot that needed a little tweaking but all in all, again it went together well and it was at this point that you could stand back and see Monty all togther again.... I smiled, I loved it, I has been bloody worth it!!..... Dad would be smiling also :)

With all this completed we now had to re-bolt and postion up all the things that I had undone throughout the week so that the body could be raised:
The steering coloum under the dash, the fuel lines, the dash guages, the front floor boards and throttle linkage, the oil filter lines, some wiring harness locations, the hood bows and then all the newly installed nuts and bolts were tightened up...

We would of liked to have installed the windscreen but it was now pushing 4pm and a drive around the block was looking like more fun to end what was a great day, and considering that I had a new windscreen cut out of laminated auto glass earlier on in the week and Ray had brought up from Melbourne some new windscreen rubbers, we decide that leave that job for me myself to do through the week and I backed Monty out of the driveway and pointed him down the street for a lap or two and I can tell you that it feels very solid and sturdy on the road..

 Thanks Ray for all your help today, we killed it :)