1958 Pontiac Star Chief: 2011

1958 Pontiac project

Welcome to my blog ! On this blog you can follow the progress on the restoration of my '58 Pontiac Star Chief 4dr HT. I bought the pontiac online in Vancouver WA. I was able to do this, without having to travel to the states, with the help of my good friend Dan. He helped me with money transfers, shipping,etc... Dan is also helping trough out the whole process with advice and sending over parts that i am missing or need to replace. So, a special thanks to Dan and Irene! I hope you all will enjoy my blog and feel free to comment!

To paint or not to paint?

I decided to have a specialist to come and remove the dents in the body work.

This person is going to "push" them out without damaging the paint work and so

there will be no sanding to be done and any filler to be used.

I am going to do this, because i want to postpone the spraying for another time

and first drive it at least for one season. As you can see on the pictures, the paint job

on the car at the moment is not that bad although it has a few mistakes in it.

The paint on the roof is very rough and will need some attention. But overall

it is doable and when it will be reassembled with all the trim work and chrome, it will look

totally different and fine. This way i can save a lot of money for now and i can

spent it on the interior which i find more important at the moment. Would the paint have

been awful or a colour that was hideous i would be thinking different. The more i see the

Pontiac in these colours and the further i clean it up and polish, the more i started to like it.

Anyway, have a look at the pictures and you can always give a comment.

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Considering colour options !

I am starting to think about colours for the Pontiac.

In the fifties, cars had mostly light colours and

often turquoise.

That's all nice and swell looking if you live in nice sunny area's

in the world. But for me unfortunately, this is not the case.

So, i am more thinking of a darker and less attention drawing colour, as the

car will already be a head turner when driving past.

I had in mint this dark brown and some vanilla colour in the arrow

on the side and maybe on the roof. I also like the colour of the original advert below.

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Completed the welding of the floor plates.

The welding of the floor plates is finely done!!

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Parts car in Canada...

Here is a picture of the parts car i bought in Canada.

My friend drove with he's trailer 2.5 hours to collect it and stored it

at he's place for me. A real car lover and good friend. I love these pictures and wish i had

one of these cars standing in my garden to look at. There is something i realy like about an old rusty beautiful shaped car to look at. It has a great history and was ones an icon of its time!

Its a piece of art!! Enjoy !

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Motor block

The motor block is completely dismantled. Seeing that the cylinder walls and the tops of the pistons where looking a bit rusty and all the cooling and oil channels where so full of gunk, we where not very hope full about the rest of the engine. But to all of us surprise, all the rest seemed to be in great shape. The crankshaft, main bearings and camshaft are even new! Everything looks like the engine has had a rebuilt and was then put away. Its a great shame that nobody has taken care of it for so long. If they had only started it up now and then or poured oil in the carburettor, it would have saved me a lot of effort and money. But, i guess these things just happen... and it happened to me !

Completely cleaned to be brought away for boring out the cylinders

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Cylinder heads resurfaced.

Cylinder heads are back from the work shop and looking great.

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Fitting new floor plates in !

My friend in Canada had warn me that the new floor plates would not fit,

cause they are made to fit in Canadian Pontiacs only. So, we had to make them fit by cutting

them into shape as good as it goes.

I know it will never look perfect, but i think because the welding is going to take place mostly on the edge, you wont see to much of the welding seam under the car. Which is not going to happen much anyway. Will see how it will turn out soon.

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Cleaning the floor inside the car to see the demage...

Good job i got the floor plates from my friend in Canada.

I will be needing them as you can see.

One of the previous owners had covered the rust holes with

fibreglass. It was quite a job!
I am not looking forward to the welding... :-(

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rebuilding the cylinder heads

Here my dad is working on the cylinder heads

and the valves. After this he has brought the two

cylinder heads to a workshop for resurfacing.

Ofcourse i will update as soon as it is done, to show

the result.

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Package from Canada !

A couple weeks ago the package that my friend Dan has assembled for me with the new floor plates and spare parts from the donor car, had arrived. Also, a service manual from 1958 for the old Pontiac !

Read More 0 comments | Posted by daimler280sec

Engine cleaning

Last week i brought the engine to a friend of mine who volunteered to rebuild the engine. Today i went there to pick up the valve heads, intake, exhaust manifolds, etc...
The parts are going in a chemical machine that can clean them completely. The next problem is the motor block. It seems that the engine has been stuck for a long while. Unfortunately, through the years of standing still, moist has been sitting on the cylinders, but that is just a matter of getting it cleaned off. The bad thing is, that
when we tried to start up the engine before, the cylinders came looser, but also left bad scratches on the inside of the cylinder walls. Now my friend and i are debating on what could
be a good solution. We could hone the cylinder walls and hope the cylinders will run smoothly or bore out to a next size up. So, from the original 370ci to 400ci. If the honing method
would do the job, we would need other cylinders and they are realy hard to find for an original 370ci and cant just be ordered out of a catalogue. Cylinders for a 400ci are easy to order. Anyway, we are going to search on line to see if someone else has had the same problem and going to contact some people for ideas.