Rmsx327

OK! Well....where to begin??? This will be long. So you've been warned!!
This is my first car! And it is a 1972 Cutlass S. The original paint was Pewter Silver. It's a little faded, now. But it hasnt been re-painted. It has the numbers matching 350 Rocket, bucket seats, black top, and aftermarket rims. It was stored in a garage for around 10 years. The others, I'm guessing it was occasionally driven, and kept in a garage when it wasnt being drove. Considering if it sat outside, the whole body would just be a pile of rust by now in this state.
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The buyer was supposed to give us the original wheels (he never specified which ones they were) but we have yet to receive them. Sadly, we probably never will.
We purchased the car for...a cool $2500 Only 10 minutes after the ad on craigslist was posted, I called the man, and some older gentlemen called right after I got off the phone with him. He offered to buy it, but I had the first call. It was about a 2 hour drive, and a huge risk with the infamous deceiving craigslist photos. But she started up fine (for the most part) and purred around for a test drive.
It had 63k original miles when we found it. Added a few driving it back home. (~200 miles)
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Now, here is the painful part. Admitting her flaws. xD. As a typical teenager, not only was it perfect because it was my first car. But also, almost any classic car, no matter how beat up she is, is still perfect in my eyes.
As you probably already saw in the picture above, there is a tear on the driver side of the bench. That's to be expected with all the sliding it takes to get in and out. The passenger and rear were rarely used at all though, and a repair kit isnt that much!
There is also a crack in the windshield. a MAJOR one. More alone the lines of a broken windshield. We never got the story of what happened, but it must've been a hell of a hit, or just gradual cracking over time.
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There's usual surface rust, but barely any at that. Theres a miniature ~1-3in hole on both the passenger and driver side floor panels.
The only spot that's eaten away due to rust that is visible is located on the drivers side. Theres also rust in the trunk on both sides that's almost perfectly symmetrical.
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It came with the original manuals, and oddly enough, the payroll summary for the original owner when he worked at a GE plant down in Bloomington. It's the cool little things like these that make the car!
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The previous owner had been unable to open the trunk due to the lock mechanism being all hosed. Well! My dad thought we'd have to mess with the back seats to even get in there, but after toying with the mechanism for awhile, with a LOT of liquid wrench and WD-40, we were able to get her to open. What greeted us was....unexpected.
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There was a KFC drink, the rear passenger side marker, the original bumper jack, mud-flaps, along with NUMEROUS shotgun shells. One of which was spent.


I'll post some more in a bit!

cutlassjoe

Yea...I was afraid of that. It's like dejavu all over again. They all rust out in the same spots it seems. The good thing is that it's all stuff that can be fixed. There are a lot of guys on this site that can help guide you along. Over all a nice car.

Joffroi

For that price, seems like you got a really sweet ride!

Allan R

Nice story. Looks like you have your work cut out. BTW those body side rails are aftermarket too. You planning to keep it the same color? Looking forward to hearing about your plans for the car.

442_Mustang

Very nice looking project . Keep at it and it will be a beauty. Congrats on not buying a ricer

442_Mustang

Then again I'm a bit partial.tonthe 72 Cutlasses S.

Allan R

Just out of curiosity, what's the VIN on that 72?

lshlsh2

Looks good, What are your plans for the car.

Larry

Rmsx327

Thanks everyone!!! I didnt know about the rails being aftermarket. Hmm!
We were planning on going silver, possibly with black stripes. Price will be the only determining factor, though. My other option would be blue. We've been toying around with different color schemes, and pricing out a few things.
The rest is just gradually fixing the rust spots, getting some new rims, some new exhaust in my auto class next year, and the usual restoration things. My dad and I have already done quite a lot. So far, I only put the first days pictures up. When I get back tomorrow, I'll do some more. We've done a few things since then. .
I'm about to go to sleep because we have to get up early to get the clips for the windshield trim fixed. When we got it replaced the guys broke all of them. (Used to ricers, I suppose)
I'll get that VIN for ya tomorrow morning!! I had it written down somewhere but I seem to have misplaced it. Perhaps my dad has it. xD.

deejai35

Great find and good to hear about the father/son build. I too am intersted in the plans you have for it. Good luck!

Allan R

I'm partial to that combination...

Should start out like this: 3G87(HorM)2(letter)XXXXXX. It's under the front wind shield area just in front of the drivers dash pad. I'm curious to see if it's close to mine....

oldzy

Another Silver Pewter Metallic #14... nice. They will come from all over to see it.

Rmsx327

Here's the VIN! We already had this graphic made for our use later on. Saves you some time, as well .
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Rmsx327

Well, pictures incoming!

We cleaned out the trunk, and also sanded all of the surface rust off that we could. We strayed away from the sides to make sure we didn't accidentally go through.
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Next, it was fixing the taillights. Only one worked on the drive back home (miraculous we didn't get pulled over) The sockets were rusted to absolute hell! We almost considered an LED conversion. Which may happen down the road sometime, but we got everything working.

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The glove box was a little off, so we took it off and adjusted it.
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We started to ColorBack some of the paint. And it worked miraculously!
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We re-painted the headlight bezels since they were kind of worn and showing through.
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There was some tar on the rockers, so we got some engine degreaser and let it soak in, then took it all right off.
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This was the "battery tray" a wedge of wood, that would slide around everywhere.
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Here's after...
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I'll put some more up later today!

Rmsx327

I wanted to replace the steering wheel with one I felt was more classic, and more closely resembled the one I remember from my dads old '68 Camaro. Not for everyone, but I like the way it looks and feels more than the stock one. (We kept it with all the other original parts we've removed.)
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There was no working speakers in the car. So we opted to put some 6x9's in the back.
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We cut out the shape needed for the speakers from underneath, along with drilling the holes.
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We layed down the carpet we had cut, and set the speakers in and wired them all up. (If only is was as simple as I made it just sound)
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scooter123

Nice work so far....I like the look of the wheels on the car!!!

Allan R

Looking good. A couple of minor points
1. The VIN card you made up looks nice, but has some errors on it. H is specific - it refers to a 2bbl 350, not generically 'V8'. The code here H- 2bbl 350, M 4bbl 350, U - 455, X - W30 455 is very specific to the type of engine.

2. The first 3 on the 33687 is not the series of car. It refers to 3 - Oldsmobile division of GM. 3687 is the model (2 door fastback coupe)

3. Your VIN. The last 6 aren't the 'serial number'. It's the build sequence for the car at Lansing. That number will be completely different than the body number.

4. The BDY number is NOT the "body sequence number - internal GM". It is a number assigned by the fisher body plant. You're confusing the build sequence (VIN Last 6) with the Cowl tag body number.

5. A52 is a split bench seat, not just a bench seat. Although it may sound picky, the bench seat was reserved for the F85 Town Sedan and Vista Cruiser. The A52 was used in coupes because it allowed forward folding, to the rear seat. Not needed with a 4 door afore mentioned models.

That's a Cutlass S. Someone has swapped hoods on you. The hood you have is proper for a Cutlass Supreme with AC. The hood that is proper for that car should have 'faux' louvers on it. Could have been in an accident? replaced with what ever they could get....

Nice job on the speaker install and package tray upgrade.

Glad you got the tail lights working. Those sockets usually crud up with moisture. Did you put any grease in the socket to prevent future corrosion? That's what GM did from the factory. If you run into problems again and need a replacement? check out : http://www.wiringproducts.com/contents/en-us/p2283.html

Rmsx327

Yeah, we made sure that the sockets wouldn't get too much worse anytime soon. We greased it all up and took as much rust out as we could.
We realized someone had swapped both the hood, AND the trunk on us. The trunk has a little bit of blue paint underneath were there's some chips, which was a dead giveaway. And the hood, my dad suspected was switched just because we found a few specks of yellow. I didnt know about the actual difference in hoods!
This was what my dad used to make that graphic, which may explain the few errors.
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Rmsx327

We're replacing all of the brakes sometime this week, as well! I have plenty of more pictures that I'll put up throughout the week!

Allan R

Well at least it has disc brakes. Just wondered if you knew that your car was one of the last ones made for the 72 model year.

B964

My first car was also a 1972 Cutlass. I did alot of tinkering and learning on that car like you are doing now. Your lucky to have your dad helping you. Get it safe, roadworthy and reliable so you can drive and enjoy it while fixing the minor and cosmetic issues. A rolling restoration is much more fun then riding the school bus while your first car is apart in the garage getting a full teardown restoration. Ask me how I know.

Rmsx327

The grille was a little messed up, so we went about re-aligning it and fixing it up.
Most of the supports were gone, so we re-made them and epoxied them on.
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We painted them because they were a little faded. I plan on getting a new one eventually, but we dont have that much spare cash right now.
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Both of them were bent a noticeable amount, and were missing pieces. But we replaced them all.
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And ta-da!
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Also cleaned this up quite a bit, and sealed the cracks with epoxy.
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The previous owner also had the some of the driver side engulfed with primer. We dont know if he got spray happy, or stopped halfway through with the intent to paint. Either way, we decided to see what we had underneath.

It started with this...
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After taking it off there were only a few little spots of exposed metal. Nothing near what we expected with that much primer.
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oldcutlass

You guys are moving right along - I just love father n son projects!

Rmsx327

A lot of it is cosmetics for now. She runs amazing for having not been really driven for so long! Over the summer we'll actually have the time to do some major things.

Rmsx327

Here's some misc photos if anyone is interested. Just for the hell of it! Sorry for not posting in awhile! Finals were this week so I was really busy. I'm going to put some more pics up right after this of the work we did this past week and a half.

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Allan R

Just a quick note: You've got the headlight bezels on the wrong sides. They have specific slots to also align the headlights. The spacing between the bezel and the bumper should be uniform. Take a look at this 72 and you'll see what I mean:


Did you do the tail lights yet? I'm impressed with the job you did on those grills.

Rmsx327

We had brake fluid leaking because of a cylinder breaking, so we decided to go and replace them, along with the brakes. Which actually ended up being in better shape than we thought they were.

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After all the brake stuff, we decided to mess with the inside, and see what was under everything. (We also were running some wires for speakers/subs)

We took the seat out to also put a seat cover over it properly until we can get the repair kit.
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I havent gotten the ones of the back seat yet. We just removed it today.

ziff396

Nice project. From what I see on just the exterior body, not the lower firewall etc. Once you start the body work, be prepared for the worst and hope it is better. Anything can be repaired or replaced. Just alot of work.

GAOldsman

I think it's neat that his is three weeks newer than mine but 13,289 cars later on the Lansing assembly line and 36,613 later on the Fisher Body #

Looking great Rmsx327 keep up the good work.

Rmsx327

Oh hahaha xD. Well! They were one way when we got the car, and we switched them around. The front end is a little crooked though, and we had to rebuild parts of the grille to an extreme amount, warping everything a bit. Did you mean the bezels should be facing the other way? Because I remember flipping them, but we just didn't know which way was correct.

Rmsx327

Thanks guys! .
I'm taking an automotive class next year for my senior year, so I'll be doing some major work then. Also over the summer. There just isn't much my dad and I can do in a tiny garage on weekdays with school and all.

Allan R

If you look at the bezels, there will be a half circular cut out on the outsides of the low beam, and a half circle cutout ABOVE the high beam light. That's how you insert the phillips screwdriver to do alignment.

That's some serious rust on the floor pans. You can see right through to ground. You can buy replacement floor pans fairly cheap. Cut out the old and weld in new if you have those skills. Actually there are lots of aftermarket sheet metal parts for this car, including rear inner wheel liner, patch panels for those lower front fenders, etc.

TheBigBlueBoat

Good looking car. Reminds me of my 1st car/project.

Where in Indiana are you? I'm down in Columbus.

Allan R

Great project car for that. BTW, you'd be surprised what you can do with a tiny garage if you clean out any other cars that don't belong in there when doing a project Go ahead - ask my Mrs. She had to park outside for 3 1/2 months last year.

Rmsx327

Well I'm in the "child" dilemma. What she says goes. lol!
Most of the garage is filled with storage crates for holiday decorations and such. We get the garage for the car, though. Theres enough space to get what needs to be done and all.
I live in Fishers. Although I'm right on the border of Noblesville supposedly. The zoning is so messed up here it's not even funny.

We havent yet decided what we're going to do with the floor pans. But we'll devise a scheme! This week we're working on wiring for subs, speakers, and the stereo. Along with cleaning the carpet a bit, fixing the seats up, along with the possibility of doing the front brakes.

droptopron

What ever became of this project?

If you can fit two cars in its not a tiny garage.
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Rmsx327

We got her in good shape, so I've been driving around. School got out about a week or two ago. We havent replaced anything or worked on her considerably since my last post. But there will be more posts throughout the summer! Just got to come across some money to get some of the big things done. The extent of my work has been cleaning it religiously every other day lol. I'll update the second I start working on her again!

Rmsx327

Ok! So, now is the first time we've had to actually work on it since getting her in shape.
- Went out to the movies with my friends and made the classic rookie mistake of leaving my headlights on! Ever since, she's been finicky, and the battery appears to not hold a charge(withholding various details for the sake of readers). We tested the alternator to make sure everything was good. It was. We got a replacement voltage regulator, thinking it was the problem. Turns out it didn't make a difference. Today, we're going to get the battery tested to see if that's the issue. If not, then it's probably wiring related.
It's been awhile since I've shown her off, so here's a video I took 3 months back. .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-yi_yccRCw

Creativeindy

Considerable amount of rust under the carpet when you pulled it back, Did you get your floors cleaned up and repaired yet or just a temp patch? I live in Indy as well (Beech Groove Area)so if you need a hand or if I have any spare parts you can use give me a shout. I'm in the process of gutting and restoring a 71 right now.

Rmsx327

We got a temporary fix! I'm about to leave to get the battery tested real fast. I forgot that I did have quite a bit I never documented on here. xD. So I'll put the pictures up when I get back.
Thanks! I'll keep that in mind! Same goes for yourself. I got a few spare parts. Not many, but you never know what someone else might need that you just have laying around!