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When it came time to bleed the brakes, I brought in my son to give us an extra set
of hands. At this moment he became the 4th generation in our family to work on this very car, as my grandfather helped
my dad install a replacement engine in 1980. It was a special moment, and I'm sure it won't be the last time
my son (or daughter) helps with the car.
We then buffed the trunk lid one last time before we put the stainless trim
on
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Many of the parts we are using for this car are not reproduction parts, but
rather NOS, or New Old Stock. That means they are parts that are as old as the car, but have never been installed on
any car before. Here's the Aluminum inserts for the side when we opened a 52 year old package for the first time.
They shine just like it's 1958 all over again |
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It's very satisfying putting all the trim on. It is what makes
cars of this era so special. Real stainless steel moldings secured to the car with steel clips, not glued on like the
cars of the last 30-40 years.
In March we put the engine and transmission in, which was a nice step to
get behind us. It took a little bit of wrestling to get both the engine and transmission in together, but Dad has a neighbor
named Tim who was nice enough to led us a hand. Thanks Tim!
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We then put the exhaust manifolds on and then the exhaust pipes.
On the last day of April, the very day we took the last
pictures on the previous page, we came very close to losing Dad. He fell in his driveway late
at night, hit his head on the pavement, and nearly died. He spent the next days, weeks, and months
recovering as much strength as he could, and thankfully he has recovered well beyond
where the Doctors gave him any chance to. The car's importance fell off the
radar, but I looked forward to the day when we could get out there again.
Between his health issues and the
oppressive Texas heat, basically nothing was accomplished on the Impala for months.
It wasn't until mid September that we started bolting more items onto the engine block, and going through
box after box inside the house, separating the things that we would need in the future
from the items that were duplicates of parts that we had already put on the car.
 We slowly
assembled everything that has to go on the engine, including having issues with the fuel
pump, and having to rebuild and clean the carburetor. Please
click the link below to see what happened after we rebuilt the carb and tried starting it
for the first time. What a great day this was!
We spent the first part of December
installing the front shocks, getting the suspension ready for the road, and we captured the first footage of it driving on
the road for the first time in a decade. Two great moments in the last month.
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