Hello all and thank you for providing such a wealth of information. Been approved awhile but with work and family, just now making my first post!

Restating the obvious, I am the owner of a 1972 Olds Cutlass S with a 350R, 2bl carb, and dual exhaust. I bought the car from a small car lot with 47k original miles on it, though they had no verification. That was over 11yrs ago and nothing I've experienced with it says any different. The only thing I've done RE: maintainance other than oil changes is replaced the water pump about 7yrs ago.

Whew! That was a tangent! Well I'll stop for now but I will be asking many ?'s RE: the restoration of this classic.
Thanks

 

Welcome to the site! Please post pictures when you have time.
John

 

Thanks for the warm welcome. I will post some pic's but first I have to explain... for the first 9yrs I owned it I didn't have a garage to protect it. So it sat in the sun, rain, sleet, snow when I drove it and partially covered when I didn't, and that did bad things to the paint & vinyl top(which is gone now).

What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't look like it did when I bought it(and didn't take pics). But the body still has NO rust spots and the top only surface rust. As son as I redo the exhaust and front disc-brake conversion I'll be rectifying that situation, too.
Thanks again fot the welcome.

 

Yep weather does bad things to good cars.

 

Hello and WELCOME!

 

Good introduction of yourself, we appreciate it. Welcome to the site and here's to your restoration.

 

Ditch the top ...

I did ...

 

Mine has the white top. When in NY was a target for every berry eating bird in the county. When i get the paint done going to be red with black top.

 

Welcome!

 

After almost a week I'm back to post some pics of the Cutty. Here she is! Don't know how to make 'em big like yours but you can see that there's not much to do RE: rust, paint prep, etc... That one rust spot is on the hood which seems to be some bondo from a previous paint. I've seen the W-30 ram-air hoods on ebay for around $600. Has anyone had experience with these?

RE: that orange roof... about 6yrs ago the original vinyl top rotted and when it ripped on the freeway at 70+miles per hour, I felt like Superman with my "cape" flying in the wind. After that I hand sanded as best I could and bought what I thought would be a dark rust primer from AutoZone. As you see, it wasn't what I thought but she still looks good!

 

Welcome to the site, bad color combo Looks like a straight car, and with a little work you'll bring her back to where she should be

 

Thanks for the welcome and the comments. I'm gonna have to redo that roof so that surface rust won't get any worse. I'm not ready financially to paint yet so I think I'll go with a black primer this time.

 

[img]properties/location[/img]

 

Man I hate to sound stupider(?) than I already have, but what are the properties that reside between the image brackets? The pics are stored on my computer. Do I need to upload them somewhere?

 

I use photobucket which will size and add tags for you or ...

r-click a photo and you will see properties listed ...

l-click properties and you will see location ...

l-click and drag to highlight ...

copy / paste / add img tags ...

 

Alright I think I've got it, I think. If so here's a pic of the old girl. If not..

JUSTNEEDTLC.jpg.

 

Welcome to the forum. The car looks straight from this side and I can't see any rust in the rocker panels. Looks like a fairly straight resto.

 

Thanks for the welcome. The other side of the car is identical except that the "Cutlass" script is missing. The paint and body is excellent, given the fact that it sat in the weather the first 7yrs I owned it. There is just a little surface rust on the top,
SURFACERUST.jpg

and some rust on the hood, which will go B-Buye if I can find a ram-air(W-30,W-31?) type replacement.
ONLYREALRUST.jpg

The only ding is just behind the passenger side door where the wife hit it with my truck door.
ONLYDENTONCAR.jpg

After the new exhaust kit and disc-brake conversion, I plan to take on the paint. As this is a daily driver I don't want to spend $3-4k on a paint job, but she deserves better than Maaco or Earl Scheibe(no dis intended). I'm hoping if I figure out the prep work myself, that will allow me to get a decent spray for $1-2k. What do you think? Here are a couple more shots(I'm hyped on these img tags)
HOOD.jpg

ORHERE.jpg

CUTTYS.jpg

Thanks for looking and helping!

 

All the bright work looks in good condition. About the paint, most of the work for a good paint job is in the prep and if you do all the prep work then you can get away for $1000. I did all the prep work on my 64 Dodge, stripped every piece of chrome and stainless off. Took the engine down to the short block and bagged the engine and stripped every wire off the fire wall and fenders so it would be easy to shoot the engine bay. I took Wenol in the red tube and shined up all the stainless, aluminum parts and the plastic lenses. That stuff does wonders, shines stainless and aluminum to look like chrome and takes the film off the old plastic lens. Then went a little overboard and paid $2000 for paint but it was show quality.

64sideview.jpg

64enginebay.jpg

 

That's a great looking paint job, they even sprayed your master cylinder and hood hinges! One question, did you strip it to bare metal? I've been wondering if that's necessary to get that so-deep-you-could-swim-in-it type finish.

 

Welcome to the site! Seeing your car gives me flashbacks to 18 months ago when I started my project!

I also agree that you're better off without the vinyl top. Those things are rust magnets.

 

[quote=A72CUTLAS;84448]That's a great looking paint job, they even sprayed your master cylinder and hood hinges! One question, did you strip it to bare metal? I've been wondering if that's necessary to get that so-deep-you-could-swim-in-it type finish.[/quote

Yea, I told him to spray everything as it all looked like crap under the hood. I figured I could change it later if I wanted. About bare metal. No I did not take it down to bare metal except in a couple spots that need extra attention. But I did block sand the entire car. It's a little different here in Thailand as labor is so cheap that it doesn't pay to do it yourself. A good body man makes about $30 a day not an hour like in the States. The average day laborer makes about $6 a day. A college grad makes about $300 a month starting out. Of course everything is dirt cheap here. Just built a 1600sq/ft 3 bedroom 2 bath house with a 2 car garage for $58,000.

 

Welcome aboard. I'm a newb to the Olds too. You'll definitely find some of the nicest knowledgable Olds guys here. Good luck with your resto, you have a very nice ride to start with...

 

Oval steering wheel .?

 

You can resize to fit the page , about 350 by 450 ...

 

I yanked my vinyl top and the top trim ...

 

Love the car, colors gotta go.
FYI when I was looking through your pics, did you know that you've got the wrong front bumper on the car? It looks like its from a 1970. The proper bumper will make it look better and it will fit the reveal of the grill and stone shield better too.

Front bumpers for 1970 that are in good shape will bring a reasonable price on the market. Maybe worth shopping around.

 

Nice Ride...I see a lot of potential. Hang on to those wheels also...they look like old Ansens which are definitely old school and look really good polished...keep us posted of your progress.

 

I agree about the colors, it had a vanilla vinyl top but it went away. That orange/red color is what I thought was darker rust spray primer. I plan on going with a brighter gold with the W-30 hood and trunk stripes in black. I was contemplating a black vinyl top also but was persuaded otherwise (thanks mugzilla).

Thanks for that info RE: the bumper. I had no idea it wasn't the proper one for the car! What is different on the '72? I've always liked the cars that have the round parking/turn signal lights in the front instead of the rectangular ones I have. Could this be because that's what I'm suppose to have? Anyway, it's in perfect condition no pitting or dents, just the lenses need replacing due to discoloration. Will have to search foer the correct bumper, maybe a straight trade-off?

 

Welcome to the site and yes, your car should have the bumper with the round parking lights to fit correctly. I may have a good one, I will check and let you know.

You need one like this:

 

Yesss... I need a car like that! Excuse my drool... thanks for checking to see if you have '72 bumper available, I appreciate it.

That is an awesome resto piece! That being a true 442 I know it came with the monster hood, but are you aware of anyone making a replica? That would be the icing on the cake. I'm a long way from paint, but I think seeing those huge "nostrils" coming up from behind would scare the he77 out of these young ricers!

 

Actually, hate to burst your bubble on this. There was no such thing as a true 442 in 1972. You could order the 442 appearance package and handling package (W-29) and either a 350 / 350TH or 455 / 400TH for power. The W-25 Hood was an extra option you could get for $154.00. (It came standard if you ordered the W30 package and included the painted Special Hood Paint striping)

As far as getting resto W-25 Hoods? Yes, Tamraz and Parts Place make them ONLY AS FIBREGLASS, - pretty nice facsmilie but with fitment issues - not the bonded metal fibreglass that GM did. For a proper resto hood, you have to get one used, or pay Thornton's a cool 2399.00. You also need the special air can + setup under the hood for another 400.00.

The cheaper bolt on hoods? Yes they're out there for around 500 bucks or less but they're easy to spot because of fit and no functional air box, especially when the hoods up/ or off like it will be when you're showing off your beast.

Here are a couple of pics head on that show the differences between 1970 (left) and 71/72 (right) BTW the 71/72 use the same front bumper. I know my bumper looks a little low on the pass side middle. I just need to reposition the strut that's holding it and it'll be perfect.

 

You've raised a couple questions... Is there a diff between the W-25 and the W-30? And Also if I bought a resto from Taraz, etc... would the airbox fit? As far as car shows and such, really not my deal I just like to drive my car. I know it won't function as well, but I was thinking one of the K&N filters that have the filtered top might work. More thoughts appreciated.

 

W25 is specifically the OAI hood. period. You could order it as an option on (any ) Cutlass including the Vista Cruiser without getting a W30 package.

W30 is a package that is added at the factory that included the 455/TH400, FE2 Suspension, W25 Hood and OAI breather system, stripes ,442 badging and dual trumpet exhaust.

The fibreglass hoods from Tamraz and Parts Place DO HAVE a functional air box. But you'll have to change the hood springs to light duty ones to make the hood open and close properly. Apparently the weight of the steel liner on the original hoods + the attaching point being metal allows the use of normal hood springs. Be prepared to spend some time ( a lot) on making the hood fit as best you can. I've also heard that the chrome rear hood molding doesn't fit the fibreglass only hoods that well. Lots more work for you. Price from both of these parts houses is around 560.00.

If you go with an OAI hood, you also need to get the kit to hold down the hood. It includes the chrome lockdowns and the metal brackets that mount to the front of the rad support.

BTW I am not endorsing Tamraz over anyone else, I just used their web pictures to show what I mean.

 

I dont mind the painted hard top look,But if you take it off make sure to get rid of the chrome for the outline of the roof,All Olds peps relize that it was a VT car at one time and still has the chrome molding on....My .$02............Jerr

 

Besides chicks dig vinyl roofs!!!!!

 

Two tone factory paint had trim... (at least mine did)

 

Yeah... that's the only kind of car show I'm interested in!

 

 

Good reading on this thread so I am putting it in the Cutlass forum.