57 Ford 300 sedan project, going to hibernation!

[Maineboy]

I have been working on this 57 project, off and on, more off than on, for several months. Had knee surgery and could not get downstairs to work on it for some time in early spring. The 57 300 post sedan I think is the prettiest looking (to me anyway) Ford car of the 1950's. Just has all the proportions just right. This is a build to represent a car that a friend of mine had in high school in 1965. It was built up for street drag racing. The nearest official track was a long ride away so many ran them on the street. Loved this car then, and still do. Color is Tamyia lt blue pearl and is very close to what it actually was. I am building the old 312 Y block with 2 carbs instead of the one the original had. Just couldn't resist.
DSCF0004 (6) by Nathan Pitts, on Flickr
Spokes of the mag wheels were done in Tamyia gunmetal with small brush. The 300 had little chrome trim, most on the rear fender. This trim on rear fender I did with a silver Sharpie pen, 1mm point, by hand. Not too hard if you practice a bit. I don't like bright shiny colors too much, I tend to dull things down thinking it looks more like in real life.

DSCF0012 (4) by Nathan Pitts, on Flickr


The old Y block. Ford made a lot of these engines for a lot of years.. The 312 had pretty good power but never could turn like a sbc for a whole lot of reasons. Competed with one of these on the dirt track in Ellsworth, in a 56 vicky hardtop and it could pull better coming out of the corners, especially if you had good low rear end gears. This engine has Tamyia panel line paint on the valve covers and carb throats and shading on the trans. Not done with that yet. Working on plug wires for it at the moment. I see that the red paint on the motor is just too shiny. Got a fix for that with some satin clear coat.

[Gary Davis]

Great looking car!! I really like the color. The engine looks very bad ass. Good detail paint on it.

[Olderndirt]

 Good looking build. Those old 292's and 312's could turn a Ford three speed into a hand grenade with one missed shift. My buddy in High School had a '58 300 sedan that we must have put a half dozen transmissions into in about two years. A little of that panel line detailer around the nooks and crannies of that manifold will bring the realism up another click as well.

  Olderndirt

[Maineboy]

Thanks for the compliments guys. Was looking for the right paint for a while. Had an order going to Hobbylinc and needed to throw a few more bucks in to justify the freight. Saw they had this color on sale. It is very close to the color of the car as I remember it.

Those Y blocks had a unique sound. They put a Paxton supercharger on that 312 motor in 57. Never seen one in the flesh.  I drove several 55's and 56's belonging to others and loved the sound. Ford used the 292 Y block in large trucks for years. I used to drive one and it was a pretty good truck motor for the time. Good torque for a V8.  I was (still am) a Chevy small block guy but admire many others too. Ford made a lot of really great cars and engines. All of the others did too in fact. I have a special place in my heart for GTO's, Chrysler hemi darts, Oldsmobile 442's, 63 Ford 2 dr/post with a 406 and lots of others. A good friend bought a 64 Ford Galaxy 500 XL with the 427 with two four barrels and a 4 spd, rated 425 HP from the factory! Blew the rear end right off quick. Guess the 9 inch Ford axle had it's limits back then.

Yes I have changed a few of those ford 3 spds, on my back on the ground of course. As youngsters that did not bother us in the least. In high school we used to think only girls drove cars with automatic tranny's. We did not yet know what people like the Ram Chargers and Dick landy did with those slush buckets to make them shift like rockets. I used to be able to shift a 4 spd pretty well in the 60's. Don't know if I would dare try it now or not. Had to shift that 4 spd 3 times but the torqueflite only had to shift twice. The difference was just amazing.

Didn't know that growing old would leave us with so many good memories of an earlier time.

Nathan

[Tom Birky]

Cool looking Ford. Don't hibernate it too long!

Tb

[David Bogard]

Never was much of a Ford guy but that particular model kit is pretty nice. I too like your color choice; nice and tidy looking.

[Maineboy]

This model is made from the 57 Ford "gasser" kit. When I bought the kit I had every intention of building this car. The gasser suspension is just too radical for a street car. This 1:1 car was around in 65-66. It rode nose low, no front bumper, just a short piece of pipe, painted white on the front as this one will be. Cops hassled us for no front bumper. That's where the pipe idea surfaced. Had to rework the suspension and fiddled with that for a while. Angle is bad in this photo but the nose is lower than the rear, but whole thing rides a bit higher than a stock 57 rode. Needed to be higher in the rear for bigger tires. Had to narrow the rear axle a bit to get these ones on it. Tight fit.

I have worked in building construction for over 40 yrs. I am working about 4 hrs/day now, lots of the time by myself in a custom woodworking shop I have arranged to use for my own work. I am recovering from knee replacement in March. Recovery is usually a year. They say I am doing much better than average. Still only has so many steps in it in a day. I do farming some and am busy right now mowing and baling hay. And will help a dairy farmer friend later. I wanted to put this kit aside so I can work on my 56 Chevy that a friend and I built and raced back in 1966. Got the kit and working on getting the chrome off and wheel wells cut out etc. Will get a pic on as soon as I make some progress so you can see what I am aiming at. I am extremely interested in modeling the type of cars I actually saw in the late 60's to mid 70's. Many do not have color photos so may have to go from memory a lot. Race cars were very different in different parts of the country so there is a wealth of info and photos to work from. I am fascinated by the quality of work I see on this blog. You guys have gone to places I would never have thought possible. Many of the full sized cars I knew were built the same way, by backyard engineers who did it mostly for the love of what they were doing. I was a NASCAR fan back in the days of Junior Johnson, Cale Yarborough, Petty and the rest. The "individualism" is gone out of it totally today. One car looks like another. My heart is still with the kinds of cars that show up here on STM.

Nathan