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2600 miles in a 1955 Chevy Gasser

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IdahoRob

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
I just returned from a trip with my 14 year old son. I bought a 55 Chevy sight unseen, and my son and I flew out to the coast of VA and drove it back to Idaho. Would have be cheaper to ship it, but I wanted to spend time with my son. He loves cars and what better way to spend time than fixing an old hotrod as we go. Most likely wasn't the smartest thing I have done but sure was fun.

427 big block, straight front axle, fender well headers (full exhaust), roll bar, ford 9" with ladder bar and coil overs, no carpet, no A/C, no radio, no spare tire, no wipers. We stopped at Sears and picked up some tools and a couple of sleeping bags and hit the road. I'll add to the thread in stages.
 

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Discussion starter · #5 ·
4:10s spinning 3200-3400 at 60-65mph. The car had full slicks on it when I bought it but had the owner put some street rears on it before I picked it up so the slicks went into the back seat for the trip. Had a 10 gallon fuel cell, so I bought a 20 gallon one and we swapped during the second leg of the trip.

I'm going to post in this thread as I wrote it down as it was happening, so please bare with me.

Scheduled arrival into Norfolk, VA was Thursday at 4 PM
1. Wednesday night 10:30PM first flight cancelled due to weather
2. My wife scrambled to find another flight for three hours, no luck.
3. Thursday morning 2:45am, I’m able to get through to the airlines and re-book a new flight plan.
4. Boise to San Francisco, San Fran to Newark, NJ and Newark to Norfolk

Rene (my son) and I are in good spirits during this leg of the trip, even though we had 3 delays, arrived 9 hours late to our final destination and our baggage is lost. I was running on just a couple hours of sleep but had a solid 5 hours this morning.

Good news is we picked up the keys and title to the car at 3am Friday morning. The owner had to be in another city by 5am, this is why we had the time crunch. Looks cool! Sounds great! Oh crap, what have I got us into????

We left the hotrod at the owner’s house and took the rental car and found a hotel. We’ll somehow drop that rental off and get to the hotrod and start the second leg of the journey.
 
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#8 · (Edited)
I'm running a 427 straight axle big block as well. they get decent gas mileage with the short stroke. not good gas mileage...but I'm pulling 15 mpgs when I keep it at or under 2500 rpms on the freeway with 275 60 15's., but I'm going to a tunnel ram real soon. I'm running 3.50's in the rear with a doug nash 5 speed, 3 inch cherry bombs, and a gear drive. got a 8 gallon fuel cell. so I don't get very far from gas stations. sounds like an awesome trip you guys are taking / took. a drag racing 55 cruising down the highway...sounds like a scene from two lane black top.
 
#11 ·
sounds like an adventure your son and you will remember for ever, thanks for sharing Rob. very cool ride too, congrats. :tu
 
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Thanks everyone, it was a blast. We started on Friday the 20th and had to be at a drag race south of Portland on the next Friday, the 27th.

I'll go through the days as they turned out;

Friday the 20th, Did some shopping and a bit of work on the car while waiting for luggage. it didn't even have an air cleaner on it, lol. Didn't get on the road until 3pm. 95+degrees ambient and a crap lot of humidity.

We drove about 250 miles until rain and a howling noise called it for us. I decided a good meal and a couple cold beers as well as a good nights sleep would be in order. Car ran well, averaging somewhere around 12mpg at 60-65mph. Rain-x is a great product but doesn't help with semi truck overspray, lol.

It is loud and hot, sure gets the attention on the road and everywhere we stop.

Coolant temps where good even in heavy traffic in the humid heat of VA.

I'll look at the rear end tomorrow, hopefully the rain quits. Here are a couple of photos of this stage.

My son is 14, but has his drivers permit and has been driving a lot back at the shop as well as putting in the hours on the road. He took a few turns at the wheel.
 

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Discussion starter · #20 ·
Day 2, Saturday; Sorry, this reads a bit weird as the trip is over but writing it as it flowed.

We went 494 miles. VA, WV, KY, and into IN. Still hot, cotton tee-shirts soaked in cool water help a ton. The race seats were getting a bit tough on the back side so we used the sleeping bags and pillows as extra padding.

We swapped rear end gear oil but the drive drain is still howling at certain speeds. We went about 100 miles and then swapped the 10 gallon cell to the 20 gallon cell with some help from some WV gentlemen loaning us a drill and some tools. Made it nicer to not have to worry about stopping every 100 miles.

We stopped of at a local Kentucky drag strip around 6pm but were too late to make any hits as they were deep into their eliminations. Watched for a bit and then back on the road, been running on highway 64 so far. Beautiful country and great people. Fire flies where giving us a show during the last leg. Good spirits and no major issues, happy days.

1900 miles to go.
 

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