Here's a neat modification that would wow gas station attendants if there were any still around. Rocky Hinge's taillight gas door kit for '55 Chevys upgrades them with a feature normally found on '56 and '57 Chevys, and helps clean up the quarter-panel in the process.
The kit came complete with the wiring harness, motor plate with motor, filler neck and mounting plate, and new taillight socket and bulb.
The new-model-year blues have hit more than a few car buyers when they came to realize their car wasn't the latest and greatest anymore. It's a dilemma that has been going on since the beginning of automotive time, and one that has always helped sell new cars. This was particularly true in the '50s and '60s, when model year changes were much more significant than they are now.
Chevrolets from the '55-57 era provide a good example of how much a basic body design can be updated from year to year. Many consider the '55 model to be the most pure of the three, but both the '56 and '57 had at least one feature that was superior from a style sense--a gas filler hidden behind a taillight instead of inside a not-so-attractive flap-style gas door on the quarter-panel. Not only was this a cleaner setup, it was also a clever novelty for gadget-loving '50s car buyers.
It's a little surprising, then, that it took 50 years for a company to think of offering a similar taillight gas filler door conversion kit for '55 Chevys. That's just what the folks at Rocky Hinge have done. They not only developed a kit to relocate the gas filler behind the taillight, but also made the taillight open electronically with the flip of a switch from inside the car. We took a short trip over to Firehouse Fabrication to watch owner/fabricator Brett Maxwell make this subtle modification on a customer's double-nickel Chevy. Check it out and see what you think.
After removing the taillight assembly, Firehouse Fabrication's Brett Maxwell cut out this horizontal brace. There's a vertical flange below the taillight opening that also needed to be trimmed a bit.
Next, "part A" was bolted to the motor plate. Our kit came with stainless hardware, so we used anti-seize on the threads.
The taillight opening lip was trimmed so that "part A" would replace it once it was welded in. When fitting and trimming, Brett's goal was to establish an 8 1/8-inch measurement from the outside bottom of the taillight opening to the back of the motor plate.
With the filler neck plate attached to the motor plate, we could see how it fit inside the quarter-panel. With both sheetmetal pieces fitting well and measuring correctly, "part A" was tack welded in.
We had to figure out a way to anchor the top of the filler neck plate to the quarter-panel. Brett made a bracket from a piece of angle iron, welding it to the quarter-panel and drilling the filler neck plate for a mounting bolt.
The stock taillight socket had to be removed since it would interfere with the gas filler. Then the kit's template was used to mark and drill a hole for the new taillight socket.
Bingo! In went the new bulb and socket. There was a plug in the kit to block the old hole.
The trickiest part in mounting the taillight housing was locating the precise spot to drill the blind mounting holes for the motor plate. Brett cut the heads off two bolts, screwed them into the motor plate, leaving about 1/4-inch exposed, and sprayed paint through a piece of 5/8-inch tube onto the exposed ends. Then he put the taillight housing in place and planted it firmly on the motor plate. That left two paint spots on the taillight housing indicating where he needed to drill the mounting holes.
Brett bolted the housing in place and hooked up some temporary power to the motor to perform a test run. Not bad for the first run, but it still needed some trimming--specifically the two tabs at the top of the opening.
After more trimming, Brett slid the new filler neck through the mounting panel, leaving the cap on so he could check for clearance on the back of the taillight. He made sure the filler was on a downward slope toward the gas tank. With that looking good, he marked the flange position on the filler neck and took it all apart.
He had to come up with a way to connect the new filler neck to the old filler pipe going to the gas tank, so Brett got a 2-inch mandrel U-bend from a local muffler shop and started cuttin' and fittin'.
All cutting was done "long" so there was room to trim more off if needed. Naturally, everything was trial-fit before being welded together permanently.
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