[Marc Bitler]

This is my first time to post anything, and just wanted to introduce myself. I am an old Kansas boy, did a lot of drag racing about 30 years ago and got out of it to do other things. I am now about a year away from retirement, and decided I wanted to build a street rod as a project. I found an original Std 85 '40 Chevy coupe in Dallas, and hauled it back to KS, disassembled it, sandblasted the frame and body, replaced the straight axle with a 74 Mustang II front suspension, mounted a 67 Camaro 4:10 posi rearend under it. A buddy in Dodge built a 355 inch small block for me, and I mounted it and a 700R4 tranny in the frame. The body was pretty straight, but the floors, front cowls, rocker panels, rear quarter panels, and tailpan all had to be replaced. Since I had never done any welding, I bought a Lincoln MIG welder and taught myself to weld. I now have all the rusted sheetmetal replaced in the car, and am now finishing up welding the floors. The coupes have the gas tank behind the seat and I didn't like it inside the car, so I used a '38 tank and mounted it between the rear frame rails, and had to raise the trunk floor to do it. I had the original radiator re-cored to cool a V8 with a/c and a tranny cooler tank installed in it. I have also installed a 89 GMC tilt column. So far it's been a real learning experience and I'm surprising myself what I have accomplished.

[Mrwood]

Post some pics so we can see what you have done. And welcome to the best site there is.

[Marc Bitler]

Here are some pics of the car. The pic of the tranny is before I fitted the floors, still had the braces on the body.