Body Restoration Begins

[Mongoose]

After owning this 65' convertible since 1985, I'm finally having a proper body restoration done.

The 455 is being trued up at the machine shop, and will soon be on the engine stand to start the build up.

[Jamesbo]

Keep us posted of your progress

Bye the bye your shop looks way to clean

[citcapp]

Like they say gotta start somewhere sometime. Good luck with the build and keep us posted. Good motivator for the rest of us. Might even wake Jamsbo up from his nap (he drools on the keyboard).

[csstrux]

Very nice...Would like to see some more pics of her.

[gearheads78]

Keep us informed of the progress. If you plan on making this an ongoing thing with updates a better fit will be the project section. If you want one of the mods to move it for you let us know.

[Mongoose]

Makes sense to me... lets move it.

[gearheads78]

done.........

[Mongoose]

BTW... dig your '66... I lived in the DFW area for 23 years... in fact, I bought my '65 from a professor at North Texas State. Now the Cutlass is at home in Indiana.

[gearheads78]

Originally Posted by Mongoose

BTW... dig your '66... I lived in the DFW area for 23 years... in fact, I bought my '65 from a professor at North Texas State. Now the Cutlass is at home in Indiana.

Thanks on the 66...What moved you up there?

[Mongoose]

A woman?

[Jamesbo]

Originally Posted by Mongoose

A woman?

Well there goes the neighborhood.

[Mongoose]

Fortunately she's almost as excited about the car as I am. Now she can't understand me getting excited about a new stainless steel front brake line arriving in the mail... but if she truely understood that... that would be scary... and probably just wrong.

[Snowdog]

Yes another '65. I washed mine yesterday she is like a cat,
HATES WATER! But I had to clean the top.

[Mongoose]

White is a most beautiful color. Mine is a Lt. Blue/Lt. Blue interior. I believe the paint color is called Lucerne... but that's thinking back to the late 80's when I researched it.

[Mongoose]

Here's a few more pix of the body work in progress...

[Mongoose]

Here's a couple pix as the car looked before I sent it off to the body shop. It was painted in '87 as a wedding present from my dad. It was painted by Maaco in an '86 Trans Am "Electric" Blue. It was fine at the time, but now it's going to have it done right!

BTW... it's going back to the original Lt. Blue (Lucerne Mist).

[Mongoose]

And he are a couple more shots I had my friend dig out while the car was stored at his house for 4 years.

[meoff]

looks like a great car to start withlooks like you have the bodywork going your way and am looking forward to seeing more pics of progress
keep up the great work!

[Mongoose]

Thanks! Yes, the car had been a Texas car through 2007, and has been in my garage and on the road only a few times since I moved it here to Indiana. Our friend who is doing the body work is an excellent body man (does it for a living)... as well as an Olds fanatic. He has a beautiful 70 442 W-30. He is very pleased with how little rust or major body work is needed on the car. It's was still pretty wavy, but he's been doing a lot of work and it's looking great!

I'll handle the mechanicals myself, along with the help of a few friends who keep asking when its time to start putting things together. Nothing like someone helping just because they think its fun!

I decided to tear the motor completely down after I discovered last fall that 3 lobes were damaged on the cam. I had been working on getting it running good again after bringing it up from storage at my friends house in TX. I couldn't get one particular tick out of the valvetrain (Crane roller rockers) after several attempts to work it out. We also found metal shavings on the magnetic drain plug on each of the 3 fill/run/drain oil changes. My eye finally caught that the #2 exhaust rocker arm sat lower than the rest of the valvetrain (that's when "uh oh" really kicked in). So I pulled the intake, etc, and that's when I confirmed that not 1, but 3 of the lobes were bad. #2 was actually worn ~ 0.150".

It appears the cause was excessive wear at the cam thrust surface on the front of the block, which made the cam ride too far back in the block. This now also explains why the distributor had been so hard to remove for the last several years (obviously the '65 had been driven very little).

Block and reciprocating assembly is supposed to be ready to pick up from the machine shop this week, and there are boxes of new parts (including Edelbrock heads to replace my ported "C" heads) stacked in the garage.

It's getting too late in the year to expect to have it on the road before winter sets in, so I'll be able to take my time through the winter getting it all put back together.

BTW... for you '68 lovers... my first car was a '68 442 turnpike cruiser. And I grew up riding in my dad's '73 Toronado, and it was one of the cars I learned to drive in. My dad also had a '65 Cutlass 4-door that I was too young to really remember riding in, except for when a large pine tree fell across the road in front of us and another car going the other way, and trying to avoid it we both jumped over the tree and side swiped each other (and flattened all 4 tires). He also had a late 70's 98, and a new '62 Jetfire with the turbo 215 and water injection that he kept for about a year.

So now that I think about it, it's no wonder I ended up being an Olds man.

[crzyjef]

What model is your 1965?
I am in process of buying a 1965 Jetstar 88 next spring. I get to store it in my Garage over the winter and tinker with it.. I can't wait to get it into my Garage. (I am buying it from a friend)

[Mongoose]

Cutlass.

[nonhog]

I've been trying hard not to tear into mine right now. Its not its turn
But its day will come!

[Mongoose]

The body shop work continues....

But in the meantime, I finally got started on putting the 455 back together.

[Mongoose]

Ok... this time it worked. I gotta hit all the right buttons!

[Mongoose]

More pix...

[Mongoose]

Ok... I know it's not time to put the heads on it yet... but I've wanted a set of these for at least 10 years... and my buddy helping me today really wanted to see what they'll look like on the motor...

[Mongoose]

We got a decent 3 or 4 hours in today... made good progress. And ate steak for lunch in between. Surprised we could stay awake!

Had to call it a day when 1) we decided that we need an additional 0.040" shim behind the crank timing gear to align it with the cam gear, and 2) I found that one of the two windage tray bracket had broken in two. Didn't notice the damage when I removed it, but then again I didn't look it over that closely either. Hopefully a friend can weld the bracket back together so I don't have to buy another one.

[HolidayCoupe]

Cool cars u guys, I just started on my 2 door 1966 Olds Delta 88, I'm doing a frame off resto, Only mods will be 4 wheel disc brake set up, Chrome Side Trim is coming off to be replaced only with the Starfire wheel well trim and a 400 L69 intake/carbs on the 425, should be a cool unit once completed. I like to paint the car a Black Blue Pearl and paint the engine the (Bronze Copper - Not sure yet tho)

[Mongoose]

While the body is in the body shop, I'm going to have the chrome re-done and the stainless polished.

What should my expectations be for the sections of the tail panel that have the satin finish? Can a chrome shop reproduce the chrome finish? Or these sections have to be painted?

[ronknop]

I'm also doing a 65 cutlass. Mine has a lot more rust though. Ihave to replace the frame.

[Eddie Hansen]

Thanks for posting really enjoying your progress!!!

[Mongoose]

Trunk's painted! whoo-hoo. Ok... I understand anyone else but me, including my wife, would not be excited. But this means progress is being made. And it's just cool to see a trunk that isn't filled with swiss cheese!