THE AUTO BUILDER

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In the ’50s, home-delivery baker Helms Bakery went door to door, delivering bread and bakery goods on the streets of Southern California. All you had to do was call and order what you needed, and the next day it was delivered to your door. You could also stop the drivers on their route to buy their goodies, and that’s how we remember the early ’50s Chevy Helms delivery trucks. We figured they must have a rather large fleet of them to cover the L.A. Basin. We aren’t sure exactly when it happened, but no doubt rapidly changing family lifestyles took their toll, and Helms stopped the delivery portion of the business. As a result, there were a lot of early Chevy panel trucks that went somewhere.

POPP TOP

“There’s no better sound than the high-winding pitch you get from a Kenne Bell supercharged 5.0L engine,” said Kevin Popp, a computer programmer and systems support specialist from Aurora, Colorado. And he should know; he owns one. We couldn’t agree more. The package makes very good sense, and we’re sure that once Popp gets to see his purple-flamed ’95 Mustang GT ragtop featured here, he’ll forgive the corny play on words for the sake of our article.

Whipple Supercharger Install

Ok, so you have your quarter-million dollar boat with twin 500 EFI Mercruiser engines for a total horsepower of just under 1000, but that just isn’t enough. What do you do? Well… there is one relatively easy way to dramatically increase horsepower, that’s right—a supercharger. On top of the power increase you get that cool unmistakable whine that will cause any wrench head to notice. This particular install is a stage 3 Whipple supercharger which will add approximately 240 hp per engine; in essence, we are adding a third engine.

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WHAAZZZZ UP

How To Install Power Windows in a ’55 Chevrolet Pickup

Author

Warren Boughn

Story & Photography

Adding power windows has long been a popular aftermarket option for restyled pickups, as much for practical reasons as for comfort convenience. Worn-out window regulators will give people fits, and replacement parts have become increasingly harder to find, not to mention the lack of availability or the cost of retro units. So, if the vehicle is to have smooth, trouble-free window operation, it’s often easier and cheaper to replace the old regulators with new electric ones.

In the past we adapted wrecking yard units into our vehicles, and this was great if you had a good background in window geometry and enough fabrication skills to get the job done. Still, there were problems: You didn’t always know the condition of the parts being used, even though they may have looked fine. But with today’s technology and the availability of well-engineered aftermarket parts and window kits, the norm for most fabricators is to go straight to a kit designed for the vehicle being built.

One such company is Specialty Power Windows (SPW). Not only are the company’s parts proven, but it also manufactures its own parts and offers a lifetime warranty along with the kits. The company guarantees them against becoming obsolete and will replace any parts with newer ones for no charge should any part become unobtainable. SPW offers a large assortment of power window and switch kits, available for all sorts of vehicles, and also offers two- and four-window kits.

These SPW kits come complete with all of the necessary templates, hardware, switches, brackets, channels, packing, motorized regulators and wiring harnesses. This helps make the installation easier, and an instructional video is provided as well as easy-to-understand instructions in every kit. So even if you have never installed a power window kit, it doesn’t get much easier than this. Follow along as we document the installation of one of SPW’s ’55-’59 GM truck power window kits in this ’55 Chevy, and see what’s involved and how straightforward it can be.

1. These are the parts you will receive in a Specialty Power Windows kit. We ordered this kit with chrome switches in GM ’60s-’80s style. However, you can order billet aluminum bezels with switches, black switches and bezels, early ’50s GM types, rocker types that are backlit, and so on.

2. Here’s a peek at the freshly chromed window frames and division bars, felts and rubber seals that we will be using. The old glass was replaced as well.

3. As you can see, we removed the division bars/windows/window regulators, inner door handles/linkage and upper panel. This is done for easy access.

There is a lower glass stop/gusset inside of the door that needs to be removed.

We used a pneumatic hacksaw and an electric drill motor to remove the glass stop gusset. Make sure to trim these pieces for maximum clearance.

This is the piece we removed from inside the door. 8. & 9. We measured and marked our window regulators in the top mounting hole 10-1/4 inches in from the rear edge of the door, and 7/8-inch up from the access hole in the door.

We measured and marked our window regulators in the top mounting hole 10-1/4 inches in from the rear edge of the door, and 7/8-inch up from the access hole in the door. The inner doorskin is double-walled in areas.

As we did above, we measured and marked the door 10-1/4 inches in from the rear door edge. This gives us a parallel line to work with. We drew a straight line between the two marks around 14 inches long.

We marked our second regulator-mounting hole 2-3/4 inches down from the access hole in the door on our 10-1/4-inch line.

The third hole was marked 12-3/4 inches down from the access hole on the same 10-1/4-inch line.

We drilled a 5/16-inch hole through our marks. When we hit a double-walled panel, as in the top two, we drilled a 3/4-inch hole through the outer panel and a 5/16-inch hole through the other.

The next step was to remove a 1-inch section of the original truck window frame for the SPW window channel adapter. To do this we used a pneumatic hacksaw.