1951 Chevy Bel Air

[Andy Oldenburg]

I am getting real fond of the early ´50s and those 6 cylinder blocks. Started this classic Bel Air and have just gotten the engine finished. There are not many images of this car in the net but in those I did find, the engines all had a certain amount of patina. Very few had shiny restored engines, but the real spirit requires a used vintage look. The standard block color was orange, but there were a number of grey blocks built also. Which I like most. Here my block already has the mock spark plugs ( 1.5mm styrene rod) and some dirt of the decades.

The pulley part is deconstructed and the wheels are rebuilt with styrene sheet. The alternator is connected with a 1mm brass rod.

The distributor is home made with a 4mm aluminum tube filled with 2mm styrene rod. The ignition wires are glued into the gap. The plug boots are shrink tubes reduced to 1.5mm. Plus the coil, which isn´t a part of the kit, made of styrene rod.

The fuel pump was only a structure on the block, which I sanded off. I happen to have a pump in my spare box and so adapted it to this engine. Plus the fuel lines to the tank and the carb.

Exhaust and intake manifolds both got a good rusting. The original intake I lost while building (must be a black hole under my table...). So I had to cut up the 6x injection manifold for the drag version and carefully build myself a 4x carb manifold.

Here the carb is attached, the fuel line got a filter and the throttle cable is attached also.

The pulley belt is cut from a 0.8mm thin rubber mat. The filter box has a "filter" made of foam rubber. I added extra hoses for the AC. The radiator hoses will be attached when I drop the engine into the bay.

The engine has just the right amount of grime now. Next comes the body, which will be a bit more shiny. Thanks for watching!

[espo]

Great looking engine. You mentioned the engine color, and the ones I was familiar with were much like the shade of gray you have used. Chevrolet started calling their 6 cylinder the "Blue Flame" around the mid '50's and started painting the 6 cylinders engines blue, your families '56 Chevrolet was so equipped.    

[Joe Nunes]

Very nice start on your model project. I will enjoy seeing what you do with yours. 

Joe

Edited January 7, 2023 by Joe Nunes

[bluestringer]

Engine looks good. I'll be watching as I have this kit in my stash and hope to start on it soon. 51 is my birth year and I remember my Dad having this car when I was just a little squirt.

[TransAmMike]

Looking really good there Andy....lot of great work on that engine!?

[customline]

Love that stovebolt! Nice work, Andy, I can smell the oil burning from here ?.

[Calb56]

Beautiful detailing of the engine. A model in and of itself. 

[Andy Oldenburg]

Thanks for your kind remarks! Getting all that feedback makes me realize how old some of us already are. I am 62 now and came back to model car building about 2 years ago, after almost 50 years pause. Some of you guys have been building models for decades and have acquired sooo much experience and built hundreds of models. I humbly tip my hat to you! Your response really means a lot to me.

[Anglia105E]

Just like you Andreas, I am 69 now, but I came back to building scale model cars at the age of 63, having not built any models for 50 years. When I was a 13 year old boy I used to build the 1:32 scale Airfix kits and brush paint them . . . You have done an excellent job on your 1951 Chevy Bel Air engine, and those straight 6 cylinder engines are really interesting, compared to the more widely used V8 engines later. I have built some straight 6 cylinder engines in 1:24 scale for my 1950's Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud model cars, and also a straight 6 for the 1953 Hudson Hornet, which was a Moebius kit from an Ebay seller in Germany . . . You will enjoy building this Chevy kit, which I imagine is a 1:25 scale kit. The British and American motor cars from the 1950's are of special interest to me, so I tend to concentrate on the 1955 to 1959 period of automotive scale model building.

Well done  !

David

[Andy Oldenburg]

I´ve started with the body. I gotten hooked on hinges and with the knowledge of my last build I hope I will evade certain mistakes. So first I´ve cut up the body.

Next a good sanding. There are a few spots that need a bit of putty when I slipped with my scalpel. My first primer coat is a matt white. The windows are missing  a piece of frame, no big thing. But the front fenders are making me worry. They both have a heavy twist to the inside so that the bonnet won´t fit correctly. I glued a strut into the fenders to get it into shape, so I can test fit the bonnet.

Next step was applying the lips (I think they are called so..) to the door, trunk and bonnet spaces. Last time I didn´t think about the paint layers that would add up. In the end, my doors and trunk wouldn´t close completely. This time I glued a 0.5mm layer of styrene along the edges, BEFORE I attached the lips. Hope that will make it fit and look better.

The hinges are attached to the body. The wires are still a bit long, but are easier to handle at the start. I will cut them shorter before I finally connect the doors. If you are thinking of making hinged doors, make it a habit to cut the wires to a slightly different length. It is much easier to slip the doors onto the wires later. 

Now comes the tricky part of getting the doors into the exact right place. I use a 1mm brass rod for the hinges. Quite stiff, but still soft enough to bend into the correct shape. These wires I insert into 3mm styrene tubes that happen to have a 1mm center. Get the wires aligned to the rockers or else the doors might sag when opened. I slip tubes onto the open pieces for the doors and get the doors and trunk lid into the right place, secured with tape. Now I glue the tubes onto the doors and hope that they will look fine in a few hours, when I have let them dry completely.

My next entry will show you how I get the doors into shape with the indoor panels.

Thanks you staying tuned!

 

[Tcoat]

On 1/6/2023 at 11:43 AM, espo said:

Great looking engine. You mentioned the engine color, and the ones I was familiar with were much like the shade of gray you have used. Chevrolet started calling their 6 cylinder the "Blue Flame" around the mid '50's and started painting the 6 cylinders engines blue, your families '56 Chevrolet was so equipped.    

The colour of the Chevy stovebolt 6 engines in the 50s seems almost random up until the Blue Flame made it's appearance. Most pre Blue Flames were grey but the 51 model year were often red. The blue used later on could vary from bright (almost Ford like) blue to a duller bluish grey. The grey eventually became the "standard" colour for the truck engines while blue was the cars. But sometimes you will see grey in a car and blue in a truck. As a modeler it is sort of a blessing because you can paint the engine different shades of blue, grey, red, or even black and someplace there will be a picture to support your choice. 

[Tcoat]

On 1/6/2023 at 11:07 AM, Andy Oldenburg said:

The engine has just the right amount of grime now. Next comes the body, which will be a bit more shiny. Thanks for watching!

Having owned a couple of cars with this engine and worked on a dozen or so more I would think that unless you are doing a factory fresh or recently restored car it needs a bit more grime down low. These thing were one of the best engines ever built but they leaked bad. That vent tube beside the distributer also spewed oily smoke that made a mess on the oil pan and tranny. Just a suggestion from experience.

This is my version of a CLEAN stovebolt six.

 

[slusher]

Engine looks great!  I am liking your build already!

[customline]

I love the smell of an old chevy burning oil in the morning. It's got that....that gasoline smell. ?

[KWT]

digging the build. Nice hinges

[slusher]

Nice hinges..

[Andy Oldenburg]

Hello Tony,

thanks for all that input! You definitely know much more about those ages and this engine than I do. I really learned a lot! And I like how you treated your stovebolt. Considering everyday use and age that looks very much like a greasy old engine to me. I can imagine it in a rusty Bel Air in the to do corner of a shop, waiting for the mechanics to turn it into a driving gem. My concept is a ´51 Bel Air who´s engine cannot disguise its history. But the owner spends many hours and tender loving care to keep the engine clean and running, and much effort to keep the body and chrome shiny. Loves to go cruising on a sunny day and meet his friends at the classic car meetings.??

But your nudge did work! I will give the pan some more oily smudge before i eventually drop it into the bay.?

[Tcoat]

38 minutes ago, Andy Oldenburg said:

Hello Tony,

thanks for all that input! You definitely know much more about those ages and this engine than I do. I really learned a lot! And I like how you treated your stovebolt. Considering everyday use and age that looks very much like a greasy old engine to me. I can imagine it in a rusty Bel Air in the to do corner of a shop, waiting for the mechanics to turn it into a driving gem. My concept is a ´51 Bel Air who´s engine cannot disguise its history. But the owner spends many hours and tender loving care to keep the engine clean and running, and much effort to keep the body and chrome shiny. Loves to go cruising on a sunny day and meet his friends at the classic car meetings.??

But your nudge did work! I will give the pan some more oily smudge before i eventually drop it into the bay.?

The top of your engine isn't bad. The bottom was just so, so, SO clean that It kept me awake at night.

My engine is for a very specific project that did indeed have a greasy old engine that stayed that way no matter how hard I tried to clean it up.

 

Edited January 11, 2023 by Tcoat

[ewetwo]

That engine is awesome looking. 

 

[customline]

I just want to comment, Andy, on your door jamb construction. Adding .5mm before the jamb lip is a great idea .  I wish I had been aware of this just a little earlier ( I wish I'd thought of it) The thickness of a coat of paint must not be ignored. I hope I remember this method the next time I open anything (but probably won't ?)

[espo]

All this talk about the Chevrolet 6 cylinder does bring back some memories, mostly having to do with its reliability as long as you didn't try over revving the engine all the time like it was a Formula I car or something. The basic reason for all the oil leakage isn't necessarily that there is anything wrong with the engine so much as the type of gaskets being used at that time. The Valve Cover, Side Push Rod Cover, and the Oil Pan all used a cork-based gasket, and it would dry out and crack with age. Most owners would just tighten the screws holding the "Tin" panels and this would actually cause the gasket to crack even more and even move out of the grove in the panel designed to hold the gasket in place. One old timer told me to soak the cork gaskets in water and then apply lube grease to them before installing new gaskets. This seemed to work for a time, but the gaskets would seem to dry out from the engine heat, I think.  When they started offering a form of rubber gaskets the problem with leaks all but went away. You still had to resist over tightening the screws that attached the panels since overtightening would again distort the gasket and allow leakage.  

[Tcoat]

1 hour ago, espo said:

All this talk about the Chevrolet 6 cylinder does bring back some memories, mostly having to do with its reliability as long as you didn't try over revving the engine all the time like it was a Formula I car or something. The basic reason for all the oil leakage isn't necessarily that there is anything wrong with the engine so much as the type of gaskets being used at that time. The Valve Cover, Side Push Rod Cover, and the Oil Pan all used a cork-based gasket, and it would dry out and crack with age. Most owners would just tighten the screws holding the "Tin" panels and this would actually cause the gasket to crack even more and even move out of the grove in the panel designed to hold the gasket in place. One old timer told me to soak the cork gaskets in water and then apply lube grease to them before installing new gaskets. This seemed to work for a time, but the gaskets would seem to dry out from the engine heat, I think.  When they started offering a form of rubber gaskets the problem with leaks all but went away. You still had to resist over tightening the screws that attached the panels since overtightening would again distort the gasket and allow leakage.  

Exactly. The cork gaskets, very long panels with few bolts and light materials all conspired to leak. They did just keep chugging along though. It is easy to forget that cars back then were built to last 3 or 4 years and about 100,000 miles at best. The fact that any survive at all is truly amazing.

Sorry for hijacking the thread there Andy!

[Andy Oldenburg]

Hey guys, I don´t mind a bit about your comments but find them extremely interesting! Imagine what I have learned about the model I´m building right now just through this thread, GREAT!

@ Tony, sorry to have kept you up sleepless?

 

[NOBLNG]

You’re doing some really fine work on this old Chevy Andreas! Can’t wait to see what follows.??

[Tcoat]

15 hours ago, Andy Oldenburg said:

Hey guys, I don´t mind a bit about your comments but find them extremely interesting! Imagine what I have learned about the model I´m building right now just through this thread, GREAT!

@ Tony, sorry to have kept you up sleepless?

 

Glad you are OK with it! I grew up with these early 50s cars as my playground through the early to late 60s. My father would buy some old beater for $20, drive it for a bit and when it completely died park it in the back field with the rest. The list of cars that rotted out behind the barn would make many here cry. At around 8 years old I would take a bunch of tools out and start pulling engines apart just to see if I could. Not many went back together again I am afraid. It did pay off in later years when I myself drove old cars though.