Burning Rubber with a 53

[John N.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Russ
Chevrolet used a Sun tack on the #6 team car at Sebring in 1956. I believe this was at the request of Max Goldman a driver. There was a battery available a few years ago which would work. You might try that first before you have your tach converted. Let me know how this works.
Regards

[Stuart F.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

My first car was a 50 Chevy Coupe in which I installed a 55 V8 (in 1956). A buddy of mine had a 50 Chevy 4-door with a hopped up six. We used to race every now and then, and the cars were about equal until I dropped in a 56 Vette 240hp engine (and later a 58 Fuelie). But the point I wished to make is that my friends' 50 Chev would break axles like crazy where my V8 powered car never did. I assumed it was the difference in torque (modified 6 vs. V8).

On a related note, if the first Vettes (53 thru 55) were built from the parts bin, so to speak, how did the 53 happen to have an open drive shaft where the passenger car didn't get one until 1955?

Incidently, John, it was nice chatting with you at the recent winter meet here in Orlando. Your 56 SR1 is BOSS!

Stu Fox

[Tom P.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Russ, I love it.
My very first major engine project was a 261 with the Vett carb setup in my 51 Chevy (which is STILL my daily driver).

[Joseph T.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Thanks Joe.

Found a Williamson's Instruments in Google and Hemmings. Among other things, they convert battery driven Sun Tach's to a batteryless operation. That must be the place.

I have a couple of old Sun Tach's for the Bob Dye race car too - I think including Bob's original Tach. I wonder if Weilliamson's gives a quantity discount.

I didn't realize Sun made Tach's in late 56 early 57. I thought Sun Tach's were early to mid 60s type items.

Thanks for the heads-up about Williamsons.

Russ

Russ..below is a picture of the sister car to mine. Notice the Sun tach on the column. This picture was taken at Daytona/New Smyrna Feb.1957. GM has a blueprint showing the tach and a GM part # for the SUN TACH.

My tach is in the dash. The brain was attached to the heater delete block off plate.

Joe

[Steven B.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Do you know what the Sun or GM part numbers are for the tach and sending unit? The tach on the column in the picture looks like the '61 Impala SS tach.

Thanks again for the great pictures!

Steve

[John H.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

I didn't realize Sun made Tach's in late 56 early 57. I thought Sun Tach's were early to mid 60s type items. Russ

Russ -

Lots of Sun tachs in the 50's - photo below of my '53 (with Buick "nailhead" V-8) was taken in early '59, and I had Sun tachs on several cars prior to that one.

[Stuart F.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

The first Tach I used in my 50 Chevy Coupe with the V8 was a Stewart Warner which had a sending unit that was a spacer between the distributor body and the cap. As I recall, it was a type of yellow
/tan bakelite. You had to use cap clip extensions. It was nice looking, but very big and only mounted in a panel like the in dash units on the first Vettes. I replaced it with a red dot Sun in 57. Later on I used a W&H Dual coil distributor which required that I get a 4 cylinder sending unit. Nver saw much advantage with it, other than it looked cool with the dark red cap with aluminum housing, and extra wires all over the place. I seem to recall that changing between the 8-cylinder and 4-cylinder sending units required some adjustment on the sender - I recall a big screw??

Stu Fox

[Stuart F.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Does anyone recall the "Rajo" heads used on the Chevy sixes? I believe they used a second intake manifold above the first. It made for a very busy left side of the engine.

Speaking of sixes (sorry), but for 6 years I worked over in Thailand and bought a new 67 Vauxhall Cresta (English GM). It had a six that had only a three main bearing block, yet it had a 12 port head with a big 2-barrel carb and dual exhausts! It beathed very well. It was 201 cu in., and I used to love to surprise BMW's, Mercedes and Audi's with it. My big advantage at a stop light was my previous drag racing experience plus they would always shift into neutral and let their clutch out at a stop light, then clutch and shift back into first only after the light changed to green. Well, this American boy sat there in first with the clutch in, adding a few more revs to get a good burn out for impression sake. The thing would come off the line like gang busters, but run out of breath at about a 130 clicks or so. Had fun though, even if I didn't play by the King's rules.

Stu Fox

[Joseph T.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Do you know what the Sun or GM part numbers are for the tach and sending unit? The tach on the column in the picture looks like the '61 Impala SS tach.

Thanks again for the great pictures!

Steve

It will be this weekend before I can get to it..but I believe the GM blueprint of the Sun Tach is included in the back of Ken Kaysers book on Fuel Injection. Maybe another member has the book handy and can post it.

Also..I think if you go to the williamson Sun Tach rebuilders website..you will see a picture history of Sun Tachs.

Joe

[John N.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

It will be this weekend before I can get to it..but I believe the GM blueprint of the Sun Tach is included in the back of Ken Kaysers book on Fuel Injection. Maybe another member has the book handy and can post it.

Also..I think if you go to the williamson Sun Tach rebuilders website..you will see a picture history of Sun Tachs.

Joe

Prints for the head and cup for a Sun tach are on page 522 of Kens excellant book. The tach is 5000RPM and has the football like on Johns car.

Tach Chev. 3738899
Cup Chev. 3738900

Sun tachs were part of or were a option on 62 Chevys ie 409s and I remember some 327s that had them. They were fastened in the 9 oclock position to the steering column which had two threaded locations. The 380 and 409 was redlined on the tach face at approximately 6000 and the 300 was redlined closer to 5000.

I used a 8500 Sun on my 57 pass with factory 270. Shift points were 7200 to 7400.
Regards

[Joseph T.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Russ..I just noticed your polished fuel filter. Very cool! I believe I have some NOS 53 fuel filters in storage if you ever decide to restore.

Joe

[Troy P.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Russ, looking forward to meeting you in SJ and checking out those hot wheels.

[Tom D.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Sun/Chevy Factory Tachometer was included in my 62 Impala SS with 327 and 4-speed trans. You should have heard me in 1964, attempting to explain to the Iowa Highway Patrol that I didn't install it myself. He had called me "just another speeding hot rodder who added a tach." (I got the ticket for sure and later had to drive 40 miles each way, to appear in court.)

[Tom P.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Does anyone recall the "Rajo" heads used on the Chevy sixes? I believe they used a second intake manifold above the first. It made for a very busy left side of the engine.

Speaking of sixes (sorry), but for 6 years I worked over in Thailand and bought a new 67 Vauxhall Cresta (English GM). It had a six that had only a three main bearing block, yet it had a 12 port head with a big 2-barrel carb and dual exhausts! It beathed very well. It was 201 cu in., and I used to love to surprise BMW's, Mercedes and Audi's with it. My big advantage at a stop light was my previous drag racing experience plus they would always shift into neutral and let their clutch out at a stop light, then clutch and shift back into first only after the light changed to green. Well, this American boy sat there in first with the clutch in, adding a few more revs to get a good burn out for impression sake. The thing would come off the line like gang busters, but run out of breath at about a 130 clicks or so. Had fun though, even if I didn't play by the King's rules.

Stu Fox

MANY years ago (60s), I made my own "matching factory" tach for my 51 Chevy (which is still my daily driver). The 51-2 Chevys had 2 round openings in the dash. One was the speedo, the other was a cluster of 4 gauges (back when idiot lights were unheard of). I pulled a speedo from the salvage yard (when old Chevys were a dime a dozen), removed the solid center chrome disc from the gauge cluster and put it on the speedo to cover up the odometer slot, then had a local speedo repair shop re-calibrate to a tachometer. I had rounded up a Vette tach drive dist to put in the 283 (which is now replaced with a 350) which is what drives the matching tach.
I removed several factory 51-2 clock cases from the salvage yards, tossed the clock guts and installed Stewart-Warner gauges in the clock cases and mounted them across the left side of the dash. All this was done in the 63-4 time frame, and those S-W gauges and the home made tach are still working just fine.

[Stuart F.]

Re: Burning Rubber with a 53

Tom;

You're my kinda guy! Those were the days when you made something out of practically nothing. That's like when I put the 55 V8 in my 50 coupe in 1956. There were no articles in any Hot Rod magazines about how to do it or what to expect. That was fun; I learned the pickup truck tranny bolted up to the 55 bell housing and the torque tube drive shaft all through my own investigation; how to change a 6 volt electrical system over to 12 volts, how to rebrace the fire wall after cutting out the vertical supports (had the front of engine moved back to the front wheel center line), how to devise a heater/defroster system using a Pontiac under seat heater, a shift linkage, an exhaust system using aftermarket 53 Chevy P.G. duals, etc, and the list goes on. That, to me, is the way you learn about cars.
My only regret was I never figured out a good clutch linkage so I ended up converting to open drive shaft with a Vette 3-speed and using a reworked V8 clutch relay lever which pulled from the clutch pedal rather than pushed. It worked great.

Those were great times. All toll I had 3 different engines in that car - the last being a nearly new 58 Fuelie (in 1958) - whistling around town with a 57 Air Cleaner on it and just one script lettering "Fuel Injection" from a 58 mounted on the body below the trunk lid. What a blast. (and the car still exists today in S.E. Wisconsin).

Stu Fox