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Finished late last season, this 59 Impala hearse
debuted at the NASC Nats, taking two trophies. We
somehow doubt that they will be the last.
Words by Kev Elliott, pictures by Mike Key. |
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The perfect
car for those who would he late for their own funeral.
Though how long the flowers would stay on the roof is
another matter. |
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It's a huge
jump going from building a custom scooter to something as
outrageous as this hearse, but that's exactly what Grant, the
Australian-but-living-over-here owner of this Chevy did. A pretty
impressive first custom we think you'll agree. It wasn't all plain
sailing by any stretch of the imagination though. |
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The six year on-off-on again project started
when Grant and Tim Baggaley went over to Ireland to
view the RHD beast knocking the seller down from £800
to £740. We have to wonder if Grant would have bought
it had he known just how much he'd end up spending.
The journey home started badly, and ended even worse,
when the hearse broke down before they even reached
the ferry. With no choice but to call the breakdown
services, the car had been off and on more low loaders
than most cars do in a lifetime before they got it
home to north London. Then to cap it all the driver of
the final truck hooked his winch around the steering
rods to unload it and managed to bend the entire
steering system before scratching the left hand side
of the body against the truck. Still, the compensation
went some way towards the rebuild!
Rather than have the immobile behemoth outside his
house, Grant shipped it straight off to the bodyshop,
where it was found to be completely carved from filler,
having started life as a four door saloon. Anyone else
considering purchasing an example of Irish coachbuilding
should beware. The flat aluminium roof insert was
replaced with curved steel welded into place, the
blown motor was installed in order to cut the necessary
hole in the hood and the filler was removed before it
made another trip, this time up to County Durham to
have the black paint applied. |
Hydraulics:
hours of endless fun, though it looks its best on the
deck. |
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Now, what if?
Now, up until this
point the plan had been to install a blown small block in place of
the original straight six, and fit a set of wheels. That was until
Grant was introduced to Paul Burnham who, every time Grant asked
if something was possible, replied "Yeah. we can do that". The
hearse returned from he paintshop and went into Burnham Autos for
finishing, but one thing led to another, and as Grant ideas got
increasingly wilder, the whole project just grew, culminating in
the entire Burnham Autos crew putting in two weeks of 15 hour days
and an all-nighter to finish the car for the Nats. |
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The motor came back out again and the front chassis
rails were plated over to smooth them out, as the
originals were pig-ugly. While the engine bay was
empty the firewall was replaced with a smooth sheet
steel item, and the wiper motor relocated inside the
cab, as well as a polished SD1 power steering rack
replacing the bent stock arrangement. A US-sourced
disc brake conversion kit was also added. The Chevy
rear axle was outed in favour of a 9in Ford item from
a Galaxie, but before this went under the car the
pumpkin was centralised and the brakes were swapped
for Granada discs and calipers.
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A complicated system of cantilevers raise and lower the
coffin decks and tailgate, though with the stereo,
hydraulics, pneumatics and nitrous bottle under the
deck, there's not a whole lot of room left. |
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Pump it up
With the running gear finally in place Grant's
imagination went into overdrive and it was decided to
add hydraulics. DS Engineering happens to share the
premises with Burnham Autos, and, being hydraulics
experts, naturally got the nod to carry out the
installation. Try to stay with us here, as things
start to get a little complicated from here on in!
The
hearse no longer runs springs, instead they've been
replaced with hydraulic cylinders and accumulators.
The rear cylinders are single acting. Whilst the fronts
are double acting, meaning they can be compressed as
well as expanded, so the front wheels can be picked up
individually. All are mounted top and bottom.
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The nitrous bottle, subs and hydraulic pumps live in
the rear, along with four batteries in the quarter
panels. DS Engineering custom made the pumps to look
like coffins. |
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The accumulators
are mounted in the rear wheel wells and under the front floorpans.
For the uninitiated, these are steel spheres half titled with
hydraulic fluid and half filled with nitrogen in a bladder. As
nitrogen is compressible, it acts as a spring, with the fluid
travelling back and forth along the pipes from the accumulator and
cylinder, as the car travels over bumps. It's basically the same
principle as used on Citroens.
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Despite the hydraulics, those huge side windows have held up. So far. Billet Specialities 7x18in and 9.5x20in Viper Executive wheels fill the arches, wrapped
in 225/40/18 and 245/40/20 Yokohamas front and rear.
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The hydraulics are operated by two pumps situated below the rear
section of the coffin deck. These feature Stone No 8 pump gears
and hand-made headstone-shaped end heads, or manifolds, of Nickel
Chrome steel with two double acting solenoids and two check valves
in each. The oil tanks are polished stainless steel fabricated in
the shape of coffins. Each pump has been tested and produces in
excess of 6,000psi. A pair of Optima yellow top batteries located
in the rear quarter panels are wired in series to power the
hydraulic pumps at 24V, as well as the pneumatics.
Eh? What pneumatics?
The tailgate and the front and rear sections of the coffin deck
are all pneumatically operated on cantilevers, all running from a
five litre storage tank located between the stereo amplifier rack
and the sub-woofer cabinet under the coffin deck. A 24V compressor
feeds from this tank through three control Solenoids, all operated
from the control box with the hydraulics as per normal lowrider
practice. |
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Dead cool
Still with
us? Good, 'cos were got the stereo installation to go
through yet. Seeing as the hearse was rapidly becoming
insane, what better for the next step than a mad stereo
system? Installed by Big Mark, there's a remote control
Alpine head unit and CD multiplayer under the front
section of the coffin deck, with two 600W Pioneer amps
bridged to provide 1,200W to the Kenwood sub-woofers in
a custom made box. There are also two more amps bridged
for 700W and 400W. Under the centre of the extremely
crowded coffin deck you'll find a pair of Sin three-way
Pioneer speakers, two 6x9in three-way Pioneer speakers
in the kick panels, and a 5.5in mid-range speaker in
each door, along with 1in tweeters.
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The control box features four
controls for the pneumatics and four for the hydraulics,
giving total control including freewheeling. Oh, and
that's a real shrunken head. Certainly beats furry
dice for effect! |
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All this runs
through Power Connector Cables and gold plated terminals, including
the battery terminals, via a 300A gold plated fuse. To keep this
little lot cool there are a pair of fans under the coffin deck, and
another pair of Optima yellow top batteries in the other quarter
panel, wired in parallel for 12V, providing the power. If you think
all this can be run from one alternator, you'd be very wrong; this
monster runs 12V and 24V alternators to supply power to all the
electrical systems. Frankly we're surprised it hasn't got its own
electricity sub-station under the coffin deck. After all, it's got
everything else. |
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Blown Job
After all
that wizardry, you'll be glad to know the motor isn't
nearly so complicated, just your basic blown, nitrous
injected small block Chevy. Bought as a ready-built
unit, the engine previously did duty in a Cortina race
car, and as such Grant isn't too sure of the internals,
though he does know it's got a steel crank, forged
pistons, roller rockers and hydraulic lifters. Keeping
the whole shebang cool is a four core aluminium rad
from Brise Fabrications, along with two 14in Magnelli
fans.
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The 6V71 blown 350ci Chevy has a
colour-coded block to match the purple anodising found
throughout the engine bay, along with custom fabricated
stainless headers. |
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That blower is a 6V71 GMC, not a 6/71, the
most obvious external difference being the angled bolts
on the sides, with a pair of 650cfm Holleys. The one-off
pulleys were machined by Steve at DS Engineering, with
Paul Burnham fabricating the polished 2in stainless
steel headers, feeding a 2.5in twin stainless system,
culminating just under the rear bumper in the most
violent pair of flamethrowers we've seen. They're more
like rocket afterburners, and sound like it too!
A brand
new Art Carr Turbo 400 trans is equipped with a
2200rpm stall converter from Kent Transmissions and a
B&M Megashiffer, while connecting it to the rear
axle is a JW Engineering propshaft.
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Even the upper control arms are
chromed and detailed with anodised panels. The original
steering column leads to a Rover SD1 rack, polished of
course. |
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Bodysnatchers
It's easy to forget
that all this work went on in and around an already painted body,
though after the smoothed firewall was completed, the engine bay
was painted by CC Racing, as was the fabricated tailgate and
modified radiator support panel.
Body detailing
includes hidden Nissan indicators behind the grille, all-new
woodwork by Allan the Troll, ally bullets added to the grille and
billet coffin spikes courtesy of DS Engineering, as well as a
billet brake pedal (connected by rod to the master cylinder behind
the driver's seal) machined to match the aftermarket throttle.
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If you thought we'd got away with not
mentioning John Reid in a feature for once, it's not to
be, as he supplied the Budnik steering wheel and Moon
instruments. With the exception of the MkII Escort
seals, the rest of the interior is stock 1959 Impala,
albeit retrimmed in black leathercloth and brushed
nylon by Keith Andrews at Burnham Autos, who was also
responsible for the new carpet and headliner. The
genuine shrunken head isn't stock Chevy though, it must
be said! |
If you don't know what a stock
Impala grille looks like, this will be lost on you, but
each of those bullets was machined from billet ally.
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As already mentioned, Grant debuted the hearse at the Nats, and as
with any new car, it has experienced a couple of minor teething
problems since, but these should be sorted by next season, when we
fully expect him to clean up, unless he meets some stiff opposition.
Bollocks, nearly made it without any 'death' jokes.
Grants thanks go to
'all the old tossers down at Burnham Autos for their
professionalism, everyone who has picked up a rag and polished it,
and anyone else who has done something towards it, as well as my
fiancee Jane for her patience. And Tim, if you wanted a drive in
the car you didn't have to go to that extreme!' |
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