It has been a crazy winter here, but now it seems the weather has finally broke enough for me to get the 52 back out and run it some.

About a week ago I went and checked all the fluids and everything seemed fine until I noticed I had no brakes… But I had planned to redo all that before I started driving it again anyhow. I put 4 new wheel cylinders and all new brake hoses on it that I got off of ebay over the winter. I kept trying to bleed the brake system and all I was getting was air and some fluid. After a little while I pin pointed it down to the master cylinder. Luckily, I had a spare NOS master cylinder so I put that on there and that fixed the problem temporarily.

I drove it one day and then the next morning noticed the brakes weren’t’ working again. The pedal was going straight to the floor. So I pulled the master cylinder back off, took it apart and noticed the cup on the piston was tore.  I had already ordered a master cylinder rebuild kit from Autozone (where I work) because I wanted to rebuild it anyhow. I honed the master cylinder and started putting it back together, but the new piston in the kit was just slightly too big and would not fit the master cylinder. I ended up using the old piston with the new cup off the new piston and finally got it put back together.

So far now the brakes are working great and I’ve managed to drive the car 3 days trouble free.

I also noticed I have a rear axle seal leaking also, so I’m going to have to fix that very soon also.

I didn’t get to do everything that I wanted to do this past winter to my car due to the very bad winter that we had, but nwo that the weather has broke, I’ve been gaining ground on the car and getting things done.

I’ve also put a set of bias ply wide white wall tires on my car. They aren’t “new” but they’re in good shape and I think it adds to the overall “look” of the car.

Here are a few updated pictures of my car with it wearing it’s new (older) wide whites.

This is Craig’s 1952 Pontiac Chieftain. He says it’s still a work in progress.

Here are the pictures of the 1949-1952 Pontiac’s as seen in the Pontiac Shop Manual.

THE 1949 PONTIAC 4 DOOR DELUXE CHIEFTAIN SERIES 27

THE 1950 PONTIAC 4 DOOR DELUXE CHIEFTAIN SERIES 27

THE 1951 PONTIAC 4 DOOR DELUXE CHIEFTAIN SERIES 27

THE 1952 PONTIAC 4 DOOR DELUXE CHIEFTAIN SERIES 25 OR 27

Well after dealing with a stubborn fuel issue (Which turned out to be my fuel tank) I decided to pull out the old Flatty out and drop in my rebuilt 268 Straight Eight and 54 Hydra-matic transmission. The new engine is basically stock, but it is bored .060 over to a 278. Over all the job wasn’t that bad.

I had the old one out in a couple of hours

In with the new, now this was a little bit of a pain. It’s not that the job was tough or anything, but my cherry picker fell over and the engine landed on my toolbox and battery – both destroyed. I pulled the ol’ s10 around and chained the cherry picker to it and finally got the new Flathead in and bolted up.

Besides the engine falling over while trying to put it in, the only other problem I had with this project was getting the drive shaft yoke to slide into the transmission. I like to never got that sucker in there. I actually had to take a board and tap it in with a hammer. I spent overall about 3 hours working with the drive shaft. I spent more time on that drive shaft than I did actually putting the engine in.

After I finally got it in, made sure everything was tight and finally fired the engine up… I put it in gear and NOTHING – transmission is locked up! Turns out the 54 Hydramatic is junk…

So I pulled the 54 transmission back out – had it out in 45 minutes!

I pulled the old transmission off of my old engine and finally got it installed about a week later since I had to order the torus gasket. That transmission is heavy by the way… It was everything I could do to get it slid under the car and raised onto a jack to jack it back up into place. I think I had the transmission back in in about an hour or so. Wasn’t too bad.

In all, I had the engine swap done in about a day, but it took me 9 days to complete the project since I had to order that torus gasket before I could install my old transmission.

I’ve put about 2,000 miles on it since I did the engine swap and so far everything is great. The engine runs smooth and the transmission… well…it shifts haha.

I have everything to convert it to a straight drive car which I do plan to do, hopefully sometime this winter if I get a chance to.

Picked her up for $1000. Came with 5 new coker white wall 7.10×15’s, a new master cylinder, wheel cylinders, shoes, and brake hardware. All the trim, the grill and bumper that is removed in the pic, was in the car. The engine has been machined, but not assembled due to the machine shop finding a cracked crank. There was a EGGE master rebuild kit in the car, along with 8 new EGGE .030-over pistons, new timing gears & chain, reground cam, oil pump, etc. Pretty much everything to put it back together, except the crank. The plan is to get the brakes put together, check out the steering, and put a 350/350 in it TEMPORARILY, until I can get the straight 8 put back together, so I can drive it. My previous employment was as the head tech in a restoration shop, and now I sell Snapon Tools, so hopefully I can get old girl driving in a couple good weekends of work.

Here’s an update on my interior… June 2009 – It took me about 4 years to get around to doing this, but I finally bought the materials to put together some door panels for the old Chief. I got the panel board from Lowes for about $12 a sheet (If I remember correctly) and I picked up the material from a local fabric shop. I got 4 yards of black and 1 yard of red Naugahyde which is more than enough to cover all 4 door panels, my kick panels and the rear deck. I paid $8.99 a yard for the material.

I stitched these myself, it’s not the best job out there, but I did it… It took me a while to do all 4 of these though as I didn’t use a sewing machine. I did it all by hand.

Here are the pics…

This was the first door panel I completed. I have about 3 hours tied up in each of these door panels.

The seat covers were found on ebay and are only temporary. Someone purchased them before me and tore them on the bottom cover for the back seat, not really noticable though. These were NOS covers, but age has an effect on them… I think. They didn’t quite fit like they should have, but they look good for now – better than nothing at least.

Here is the dash also… I finally got around to painting the lower half black. This will get sanded and repainted later also when I get around to repainting the whole car.

In all, I think I have about $110-120 tied up in my door panels, kick panels and rear deck panel. That’s not including the trim I piece I lost and had to find and repurchase… that set me back an additional $47

I still have to do my wind lace, headliner and carpet… and I need to have my seats recovered right. I’m collecting parts to get those things done, but it probably won’t be until spring 2010 before I get around to doing that.

1952 Pontiac "Flame Job"

Well, I got bored and drew out some flames on my car a few weeks prior to painting them. I drove it around for a while with the sketch on it until I finally got the nerve to mask it off and spray them. They’re painted on with Krylon paint (cans) and I think they turned out pretty good.

I basically made me a pattern on some cardboard paper and used that to keep both sides symmetrical… I think they turned out decent for my first time ever trying to paint flames…

It was getting dark out when I finished so these pictures are a little fuzzy.

1952 Pontiac "Flame Job"

Mattias’ 1952 Pontiac from Sweden.

Hi Dave, thanks for the reply. engine and tranny are in good shape,detail the engine and bay, interior needs to be totally redone I like the original maybe
vinyl,exterior i want to lower it 2 or 3 inches change the wheels(?) lake pipes
change some chrome bumper,etc,paint? That’s the plan for now the more I see this can change. I have another project 1972 buick skylark. so just collecting parts and idea for now. when i got my car and started searching the web i was excited to see this site thanks again Dave

Hi Dave.

Basically am selling my chev ute. and have found this 52. after looking at the net last night for some time, I found some nice accessaries. and was enquiring about purchasing in the future…….if I get this sedan. I did find stuff on eBay. but with paypal charges etc the fuel cover protector was dear. so may be looking for second hand stuff.

as I say im not sure on the purchase yet . as it needs a lot of cosmetic work, and brakes. also couple of things missing in eng.

but a very solid car overall.

cheers Tim.