It was meant to happen

Roughly two weeks after deciding to test fate and see if any parts became available, I spotted an ad in Craigslist.  The ad was for  two 235 Chevy engines, a '53 & a '54 along with a set of Fenton cast iron headers for dual exhaust and miscellaneous other parts.  I exchanged emails with the guy and confirmed the engine numbers.  I had some concerns about the '53 initially as that was the first year for Chevrolet to use pressure oiling and it was only on engines that came with Powerglide transmissions.  Those engines were also equipped with hydraulic valve lifters.  Beginning in 1954, all the 235's were pressure oiled whether with solid or hydraulic lifters.  The Fenton headers (really cast iron split exhaust manifolds) were a real plus to the deal as they are only made in reproduction form now and these are originals.  When I made the pickup of everything, I discovered the deal also included chrome valve cover/side cover kits for both engines.  The '53 used 2 studs thru the middle of the valve cover for hold downs while the 54 and later engines used a 4 bolt retention system that fastened the flange to the cylinder head.  The seller also threw in a new exhaust pipe and a couple of wheels (wrong bolt pattern for my car).  I rented a pickup truck from U-Haul to drive the 75 miles to Climax, Mi. and on the way back, I had an idea - call my buddy Dick at More Power!
     Dick and I have known each other for over 30 years.  He worked for a customer of mine and we had frequent contact back in the late 70's.  When I went on the road as a salesman in 1981, Dick's employer was one of my customers and we discovered a common bond in cars.  Dick had been drag racing while I was in Vietnam so we had never met at the track.  20 years ago, Dick and his partner Duane opened a performance engine rebuilding company called More Power.  They specialized in high performance drag racing, circle track, boats and any other form of performance engine building.  Their customers included championship monster trucks and racing lawnmowers!  Dick and I had reconnected when I started repairing computers 7 years ago.  He immediately became a dedicated customer of mine and I've serviced his computer and network equipment for several years now.  Sooo, time to call Dick.
   The question I put to Dick was this,  "I have two old Chevy 6's in the back of this pickup and I'm wondering if I can bring them to the shop so I can tear them down and determine which, if either, is suitable to be rebuilt."  Being the good friend that he is, Dick responded without hesitation, "Sure.  Bring 'em on up.  You can work on them here all you want instead of hauling parts back and forth."  What an amazing offer!  But, after all, Dick is an amazing guy.
    Six weeks later another piece of the puzzle fell into place.  I had been checking Craigslist and ebay for transmissions and rear ends when I spotted a new ad on Craigslist.  The ad was for a 1957 Chevy rear end complete from brake drum to brake drum with leaf springs and shock mounts still attached.   I had seen similar units on ebay without the shock plates and U-bolts for $250-500.  This one wasn't positraction but it was a steal at $75.

 Dick came thru again loaning me his pickup to go get the rear end.  That took care of 2 key parts of the drive line.  If you read my earlier rantings, I mentioned that I wanted to keep the stock wheels and tires on the car.  The 57 rear had the smaller 4 3/4 bolt pattern but I had an idea.  A quick email to Moser Engineering in Indiana confirmed an idea I had.  They would make me a custom pair of axles to fit the 57 housing but with the flanges to match the 41 wheels.  Problem solved.  The T5 transmission would be the tuffy - or so I thought.
    Just before Thanksgiving, I spotted a new ad on ebay for a T5.  I knew from memory the exact part number I wanted and I couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted that number in the ad!  But....the ad said the guy would be out of town for few days and couldn't ship it right away.  I made the buy for $280 plus shipping and waited for a week and a half for it to arrive from Nebraska.  It arrived in a big cardboard box that had once housed a large office chair.  I about cracked up laughing at the UPS driver as he carried this heavy (80#) office chair up my driveway.  I asked him if he knew what he had in his hands and he said, "Well, it's an office chair box so I guess that's what's inside."  His eyes got real big when I told him it was a truck transmission! 
     A couple weeks later I was on the Chevy Talk forums and was involved in a conversation regarding someone else's swap intentions.  One other sizable part was needed to complete drive line swap - a bell housing.  Another fella in on the conversation then sent me a private message telling me he had 3 of the exact bell housings I would need; a 1948-54 truck housing.  The price was right at $50 plus shipping. 
    There's a few more pieces needed to complete the drive line.  I still need a clutch disk, throwout bearing, shifter and custom driveshaft but all those items are readily available.  So, it looks like the 41 was destined to get a new drive line after all.  Call it fate or destiny, makes no difference.  The project was coming together.
    Coming up next, I'll detail the engine rebuild complete with pictures and tell how my heart sank when I disassembled the T5.  Stay tuned.

Getting an education

The first thing I did after purchasing the 41 was read everything I could find on the Internet and in the books that came with the car.  The owner before Dennis was an older gent that had passed away.  He had all the reproduction manuals for the car including the owner's manual, body parts manual, service parts manual, sales brochure and a thick, hard cover book on how to rebuild the 216 cu in 6 cylinder engine that is in the 41.  I quickly realized the original drive line was great for shows and parades but not much good for driving any great distance or with any regularity.  Turns out the 216 has Babbitt bearings in the rods and mains instead of insert bearings as is currently used.  The 216 doesn't have a pressurized oiling system either.  The bearings are lubricated by a "splash oiling" method whereby dripper tabs on the bottom of the rod caps pick up oil from the oil pan and "splash" the oil on the crankshaft.  These engines do not employ any type of oil filter either.  The transmission is a vacuum assisted 3 speed with a column shifter.  The service and sales manuals refer to the 3 speed as synchronized but it isn't anything like the modern synchro systems with brass blocker rings.  These old Chevies didn't use an "open drive line" either.  The driveshaft is encased in a tube that is rigidly attached to the rear end housing like a long tube.  The rear end floats a bit and this torque tube system keeps it in line.  Because these old 6 cylinder engines didn't have much power, the rear end gear is quite high to enable torque multiplication in order to move this 3100 pound sedan.  The rear end gear ratio is 4.11:1 and the engine with it's 1 barrel carburetor is rated at 90hp.  The one in my 41 is actually a 52 engine and is rated at a whopping 92 hp! 

I found several forums and web sites dedicated to the restoration of old cars or the building of customized hot rods and many references to the swapping of the 216 engine for a later model 235 cu in engine. http://www.inliners.org/Jack/t5_page.html  http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/engine_swap_216.htm The 235 is physically the exact same external dimensions as the 216 so swapping is easy.  Further reading indicated the easiest way to get rid of the torque tube/4.11 rear end issue is to replace the rear end with one from a 55-57 Chevy.  The lengths are the same with the later rear having a smaller bolt circle for the wheel bolt pattern.  The 41 is a 6 bolt, 5 1/2" bolt circle while the 55-57 rears are 5 bolt, 4 3/4" bolt circle.  None of the info I found discusses the diameter of the centering hub on the axles but that is certainly something to consider when making this swap.  The other item to go from the stock driveline is the 3 speed transmission.  The preferred trans to replace it is a Borg Warner T-5 5 speed w/overdrive unit originally used in the Chevy S10 pickup trucks.  The shifter location on the forward part of the transmission tailshaft housing places the shifter just in front of the bench seat in an early Chevy sedan like mine.  Another consideration is the speedometer.  T-5s made after 1987 or 88 use an electronic speedometer system while the earlier units are cable driven like the 41.  I found a chart showing the different T-5 part numbers and gear ratios and determined the most desirable one for me would be a 1985-86 unit with a 3.76:1 first gear. http://www.inliners.org/Jack/t5_page.html  The one factor to this swap that made me gulp a bit is the need to cut or remove the existing transmission cross member and fabricate a new one to fit the T5.  I didn't like the idea of cutting this original car at all!  I wanted to approach any modifications with the idea that anything I did could be easily undone and the car returned to it's current restored condition.  I also wanted to keep the existing look of the car with the 6 lug wheels and stock hub caps and wide white wall tires.  So, I decided to let fate take it's own course.  I would keep an eye out for the parts necessary to perform the driveline replacement but I didn't plan to run any ads or go out of my way to locate these parts.  Little did I know how easily the needed parts would fall in my lap! 

Some background

Seems like I've always had a love for cars.  As a kid, building model cars was great fun.  Next was the magazine phase - Hot Rod, Car Craft, etc. - and always dreaming of owning one of those beauties adorning the pages.  Grand Rapids had a "cruising circuit" running through the downtown area and once I got my driver's license in '64 the circuit became my favorite hangout.  Right out of high school ('66) I got a job in a small factory for the summer.  Expert Coating Co. made parts racks for the plating industry and several of the employees were into drag racing.  The racing conversations that summer along with a couple trips to the races made the car juices flow more than ever.  College lasted for one year then it was back to Expert Coating for another summer before joining the Army and fulfilling my military obligation.  6 months of training plus 2 years in Vietnam and I was back on the street with a brand new Chevy Nova, 307/2bbl/200hp/3 speed econo ride.  The Nova looked cool but fell far short of the performance cars of the time.  My dad had convinced me that all I needed was "transportation" not a high performance ride.  He had no interest in cars and thought dress up parts like mag wheels were a total waste of money.
     The Nova became my race car and street car that summer and I began winning at the local drag strips.  I raced throughout the '70's winning a local points championship and a class win at the US Nationals in '76.  My cars were often pictured in magazines and National Dragster.

 

When my son, Mitch, was born in 1980, the shoestring budget I raced on just wasn't going to let me remain competitive so I parked my race car and worked at US131 Dragway for the '80 season.  Instead of working on my own car and racing I concentrated on working on other guys' engines and manual transmissions.  My 4 speed rebuilding helped support the growing family and a daughter, Kelli, was born in 1983.  By then I had started selling off parts of my Super Pro Championship winning Nova (the same 1970 Nova) and seldom visited the local race tracks.  A divorce in 1988 drove the final nail in the coffin for owning any cars as toys.  I walked away from the auto world and became involved in Cub Scouts, fishing and the kids' school activities.
    Getting married to my current wife in 1990 and buying our current house in 1999 finally gave me a garage space where I could once again tinker with a car occasionally.  Mitch picked up a rusty 90's Z-28 in the late 2000's and we worked on it in my garage for one summer.  Rebuilding the engine rekindled some of the long forgotten car love.
    In 2004 a new cruising idea developed locally.  The 28th Street Metro Cruise gave car owners and car lovers a venue to show and share their cars.  Stretching for 15 miles along one of the area's busiest cross-suburban streets, the Metro Cruise was an instant hit.  Over the subsequent years, several friends tried to coax me into attending the MC but I always had the same excuse - "I don't dare get around great sounding engines.  It's like heroin to a junkie and I can't afford to get the itch for a race car".  My wife wasn't much into cars even though we had attended a couple of NASCAR races at Mich Int'l Speedway in the early 90's.  Then in 2009 we were invited to go to the MC with a couple that had become good friends, Butch and Jan.  Again we passed but these folks really enjoyed the cars of the past and Butch and I had a common bond.
     In the spring of 2010, my wife and I were invited to a Cajun style shrimp boil at a new doctor's building in Grand Rapids.  A couple arrived right after we did driving a gorgeous brandywine colored '57 Chevy 2 door.  It sounded like a race car with mufflers and all I could do was stare as it rolled in and parked.  I was amazed to meet the couple driving the car and discover they were old friends, Dan and Rose, from the mid 70's racing days. Listening to that sweet 355 small block Chevy really got my juices flowing!  Jump ahead to Aug and once again, Butch and Jan asked if we would like to go with them to the Metro Cruise.  This time I agreed and a few days before, I called Dan to see if he and Rose planned to be there with the '57.  He said they were and that his car club, The Road Rodz was sponsoring a car show on Friday before the cruise began.  The show would be a fund raiser for cancer research and Dan invited me to stop by.  Then I called an old friend that was still drag racing and had been a street cruiser back in the late '60's.  I wanted to know if Dennis would be at the MC and sure enough, he was planning to be there with two of his cars.  We talked a bit and I told him I "have an itch I can't scratch!  I really wish I had a car to play with."  He never hesitated and answered, "Wellllll, you need to stop over and see what I have in the front yard for sale."  Dennis then directed me to a new listing he had just put up on Craigslist and that was the first time I saw this two-tone green, 1941 Chevy 2 dr.  The first thought I had was, "wow!  That's a car that won't go fast and get me tickets and still looks cool enough to drive around and have fun!"
   It took a little convincing to get my wife on board with the '41, but the deal was done on Wed before the MC and I picked it up on Thurs.  I had it licensed and insured on Thursday afternoon and drove it to The Road Rodz car show.  I knew nothing about the innards of the old Chevy at that point but it ran good and was fun to drive.  Butch and Jan were shocked when we picked them up on Sat afternoon in our new ride.
    So, that's my background story and how we came to buy this '41.  Next came much reading and research to learn about this old timer and the rediscovery of my long lost mechanical love of playing with cars. Stay tuned.

Why a blog?

It's now Jan, 2011.  In Aug of last year, my wife and I acquired a nicely restored 1941 Chevrolet 2 dr sedan.  Once I found out the old style 216 cu in engine and enlcosed/torque tube driveline really limited the use of this car to driving in parades and short trips, I began an internet search on ways to improve the reliability and performance of my new toy.  I now have nearly all of the parts necessary to begin the driveline replacement.  Many personal and forum friends have expressed interest in the progress on this project so I figured creating a blog would allow others to follow along on this adventure.  I'll post pictures and progress reports from time to time.  My plan is to provide some background info on my involvement with cars and the story of how we came to own this beautiful 41 Chevy first.  Next will be a photo update to bring the project to it's current state.