1st time seeing the sunlight in Ohio. Keep in mind that the car has 264,503.5 miles on her. We originally bought her for 1,000.00 dollars as the motor was rebuilt at 100,000 miles.

The front seeing Ohio sunlight.

1st bath in 14 years. Car stay in California when we moved because we didn't have a garage. In 1987 though 1989, I overhaul the suspension system and installed H/O Racing Specialties. The old guy's on the forum probably remember them. This included installation of the 1 3/8 front and rear swaybars. All of the original part were saved and can be reinstall when I pick them up on our next trip to California.

Yeah this tag.

Special thanks to Olds 64, Vintage Chief ( Your posting really got to me)

 

Other side after the first bath.

Original marking on the hood.

Cutlass EFI, this old sailor finally got the pictures up. The car is now here with us sharing the garage with the Syclone and GTO. Thank you all for looking. Chapter 2 for the car is in the future. 40+ years of ownership of the W-30.

 

Welcome back. Sweet ride. It's nice to see them show up from time to time.

 

I love cars that haven't been screwed with much. One of my favorite colors on that car.

 

Glad you got her out of storage.

 

Getting setup to try and work with the original paint. Have since decided that it would be best base on my age and health issues to locate someone to fix body damage and repaint.

Great looking cars from the rear. Here you can get a look at the 1 3/8" swaybar. The car handles extremely well and stable at speed through the corners.

Still running with the original carburetor, however it needs to be gone through again because it's dripping fuel through the main discharge nozzles at idle.

the best view of the original paint. Paint code is marked as - - on the trim tag. Which I believe is Nugget Gold.

 

A W30 and a Syclone? Consider me envious!

Very nice!

 

Are you certain you are running the original carburetor? It may be the original carburetor when you purchased the car, but it looks like a service replacement to me?

Glad to see the car getting some attention, and good luck in your endeavors with it.

 

The prior owner was a friend of mine and the only thing that was change during the rebuild was the camshaft. For some reason he had a 350 2 barrel factory camshaft installed which came out after I bought the car. Interesting note was the car with that 350 cam was getting 20.3 mpg on the highway at 60 mph ( California at the time had a 55mph speed limit). We installed the W-31 camshaft in it because we wanted more than the W-30 auto/ac camshaft offer. The car currently has a Sig Erson old school (hi flow II) installed in a refreshing of the engine. This currently has about 10,000 miles on it.

Now that we are much older seriously considering taming it down somewhat because the Syclone is the brute now and the traction is so much better. Lol

 

Nice car. I got excited at first when I read Syclone, though it was a miss-type of Cyclone. I know nothing of Syclone but Cyclone was one helluva car in the day.



Syclone



Cyclone

I almost bought a Cyclone in 1972 when I was a Junior in High School. Dad wouldn't co-sign for it (probably wisely) so I ended up with a 1962 Chevy Biscayne. Don't ask how that happened.

 

That is a good looking car and a great story. I always wanted to put GTA wheels on my 72 Supreme, but in black. Are you running four fronts?

 

Very cool you kept her this long..Is that original paint and stripes? Love the survivors..

 

They are just the regular full set of GTA wheels. I will be completing the changes to identical wheels, however there are 17 x 8 available which will be used on the front and for the rear a 17 x 11 with a 315 tire will be installed. I chose these wheels because when I 1st decided to go the handling route with the car I was looking at using Enkei Gold Mesh wheels.

However being they were no longer available and GM created the GTA Wheels in gold really works well with the color of the car. Raising a family took priority over the car and then Commie - foria wanted 6500.00 plus interst and penalties to re-licence the car that I had put a non operational status on was ridiculous. I inform the State that I would wait until I left the state to do it. As a native Californian I will say that you need your head examined if you stay there. Lol I only wish that I had moved earlier.

The handling of the 442 is great as stock and when H/O Racing Specialties got into the A body handling business in the early 80's and their 64/65 GTO's were legendary in the events they were run in. They took the A body handling to a whole new level, I order the swaybars from them and using the Moog Spring catalog to order my springs giving the stance that you see in the pictures. I was wondering if anyone else had heard of them. I have kept all of the original parts incase I have a desire to return to factory.

 

Totally original paint and stripes, I was going to try and buff it out, however I came to the conclusion that while I'm very mechanical minded I know my limitations and everyone has them. Buffing it out or anything like that is totally the end of the line for this old guy. Going to find someone in the Northeast Ohio area hopefully. The hard thing is to find someone that you can trust with these cars. Any suggestions?

 

My Syclone was near the end of the production time. Still has the stock rims on her, I did however make her as pre production status to ensure reliability because of the changes that the factory did to ensure the Corvette remains dominant. For example all testing and calibration was done at 47psig fuel pressure, however the pressure regulator was change out to a 37psig unit before selling to the public. The exhaust downpipe from the turbo was 3" into a 3"cat with no muffler because the turbo quieted it down enough to go to production. GM noise police (paper pushers who have to justify their job) said that the exhaust had to be 3 decibel lower. The fix was a 2.5" downpipe to a 2.5" cat into a 2.5" Y pipe to 2 from the factory 2.5" Dynomax Super Turbo Mufflers and 2 - 2.5" tailpipes exiting on the right side beyond what you might call a back bumper.

I returned the 3" downpipe and exhaust and reestablish the 47 psig fuel pressure in addition to a 255 walbro fuel pump and GN regulator. Why would anyone tune a vehicle that is boosted at 1 pressure and then intentionally make it run lean. No wonder they are in the shape that they are in lol. My truck has been using GPS 0 to 60 in a light rain at 3.9 sec. Not bad for an old truck.

 

That is a service replacement carb. It is of a known replacement build date see this post in the 7040258 carb thread 7040258 (70 W30 Auto) Date Codes vs Vehicle Build Date - Page 2 - ClassicOldsmobile.com

 

Recommendation on repaint - DON'T! If that is the original paint, you would be shocked how easily you can bring it back to life. Honestly, you can make that old lacquer paint look almost wet with very little effort. I know because I've done it. Either invest in a good DA buffer or find a local shop with a good reputation. After cut, polish and wax you will be amazed at the results.
I see little, if any parts of that car that need real attention in terms of repair. Without question I would stick with that original paint. Just my $.02.

 

There are a couple of places that need to be fixed that you can see just behind the passenger door and passenger side front fender has 2 locations. 1 in the usual lower left fender and the other at the front of the fender. On the driver side 1 location in the usual lower front fender. The paint is very crazing looking on the hood although no repairs have been done therefore I assume that it is an age related thing. Around the sharp body lines the paint is a little thin and not sure what you can do with it. The biggest problem is finding someone that will do the work like trying to buff it out. Everyone wants to do a 2 stage paint on her( must be dollars signs going off in their heads). I myself would like to save the existing paint and willing to pay for it, but I know that it's beyond my capabilities.

 

Sure is a cool car. Cool that you still have it. Please share more pictures. Interior etc. Dual gate car? What GTO do you have? Thanks for sharing.

 

I don't have pictures of the interior yet, the back seat and front passenger seat are original (The 1 part that I have to replace on the passenger seat is the strap that limits how far the seat back travels forward to let back seatpassengers in. The plastic covering the steel strap worn-out. I haven't been able to find 1 yet)and ok in shape, the driverside seat desperately needs a full restoration. The interior carpet is totally worn out at the front of the driver seat. Are you beginning to see a picture yet lol? The interior color is gold. While the car is a console floor shift, it's not a Dual Gate Car.

Which is a bummer because my 72 Hurst/Olds introduced me to the shifter. Best shifter ever put in a factory car. That 1 of 2 car's that I had regrets selling back in the day. Pontiac also used the Dual Gate Shifter in the earlier GTO models. I have 1 of those however they are more like the 68/69 Hurst/Olds.

My Sweetheart daily driver when the weather is nice is a 2004 GTO 6 speed that we brought new. Such a great car built wrong lol. Montana and the open range is the only place to drive that car. 90 mph will return 37 mpg, they should have offered better gearing in that car.

 

Very interesting and thank you. Our car was built in 03-70. Wondering what happened to cause the replacement.

 

Here are some interior pictures, in the last 1 you will find out where most of the time was spent lol.

Obviously the passenger side was used more than the driver side for getting in and out of the backseat.

Not alot of wear here.

Original backseat. Notice the window crank.

Obviously the window crank was use more on the passenger side.


Passenger side carpet and seat showing it's age.

Looking at the driver side showing the rubber mat covering the totally worn-out carpet.

Well not much to say about this picture, other than obviously most of the time was spent here.

 

If Cleveland isn't too far of a trip, I'll suggest Joe Streibel for refreshing your paint. He's the VP of the North Coast Rockets club and has owned a body shop for years; He just finished a beautiful 442 and a Hurst/Olds found locally, and they're stunning. If you want his contact info, send me a PM and I'll connect you.

 

I agree, Instead of a restoration go for a “ Preservation”. Paint jobs are extremely costly and things often go south. On top of that you’ll start replacing things that don’t look good with the new shiny paint. As a fellow member says
“ Welcome to the Abyss”. Clean it up and fix what you need to, it will garner more attention like that and you won’t be so nervous with it. Save some $$$$ also. My 2 cents also

Matt

 

Any updates on this car?

 

It's still out in the garage, haven't been able to work on it due to death, settling the estate, buying the farm. You know the normal things that often get in the way of life when you have something that you want to do. I did get it up on jackstands before everything went to......

 

Well good luck with your health etc. I kind of get it. I got mugged from behind almost two weeks ago. Still healing.

 

Sorry to hear about your mugging, health is fine with me. We had to deal with a ( death ) of a relative and settle the estate which required ( literally buying the farm ). Now that fall is here in Ohio, l hope to get started with it. I will post pictures from the work as soon as I get started. The 1st task I plan to do is the front wheelwells and front suspension. I will be looking for any factory markings and getting pictures of them as well.

 

Dry Ice Blasting seems all the rage these days in the cleaning and preservation of original cars. Not sure if you watch Dennis Collins and his Coffee Walk channel on YouTube but he just had an in-depth show on this process cleaning a 17,000 mile Mercedes. It's a pretty interesting technique.

 

Started working on her and ordering interior parts from Legendary Auto Interior making use of the 25% discount. However I encounter my 1st problem. The car has the gold interior and Legendary said that they don't have the gold headliner at all and not sure where I can go to find it. Can anyone help?

 

I would try SMS. No personal experience, but hear they are the go to for interior fabrics, though also have heard pricey. Not sure what code Gold is, but you can search here:
https://smsautofabrics.com/pages/headliners

 

Removed the passenger side fender well for cleaning.

As you can see it has alot of road mile dirt.

 

A little (or a LOT) of elbow grease and those inner fenders will clean up just like new!

 

It's a slow start however this is after 45 minutes of scrubbing it.

Letting it soak overnight in Dawn soapy water. Had to stopped clean when my Sweetheart brought the Wheelhorse back for repairs. On a side note I was able to save all of the original staples for the skirting or shields for the upper control arm.


Just a small update, still trying to decide whether we should try and save the original paint or pay to have the car redone as we are not getting any younger. If I could find someone locally that would like to try and save the original paint, I would like to go that route.

 

I'd save it if possible.

My brother bought my 1972 442 from the original owner in Houston in the early 1980's. I always thought it had a complete new paint job before he bought it?? In around 1997-8, I bought it from him and it had sat out for maybe 10 years in Ohio on his asphalt driveway (uncovered) before I did! When I started stripping it down to paint it a few years ago, I found that the only spots that weren't original paint was just about the first 3 or 4 inches of the W25 hood (repair) and the first half of the passenger quarter panel (dent repair). The rest was original. The original paint wasn't too bad so, had I known, I might have tried to save it!!
It's really cool that you and your wife are together and you still have this iconic car you've owned FOREVER! And, it appears very nice after all these years.

 

Thank you for the kind words. When we got married 42+ years ago we had an agreement. The garage is mine and the house is hers. What goes in the garage is with my approval and what goes in the house is with her approval. 6 months after buying the W-30 she came to me and said I don't care about anything in the house if you need to sell it but you keep that car. That was the very moment that I knew that I had a keeper for a Sweetheart. It's better every year.

 

Started working on the car again. My orders from Legendary Auto Interior arrived. The bucket seats and the rear seat along with the carpet are getting replaced. A couple of questions for those who are willing to help. 1. What is the best way to clean the seat belts? The rear seat belts were never used and the front lap belts were used whenever we were in the car. 2. Where is the best place to buy the seat belt cover for the drivers side? Being that it is gold in color I imagine that finding an original would be next to impossible. Thank You in Advance


Removed both bucket seats and the rear seat to get rebuilt with Legendary Auto Covers.

Sure is dirty after removing the seats.

All of the interesting things found after removing the bucket seats, most of this was under the driver seat.

Rear seat area on the passenger side after removing the panel cover. The 2 pieces of vinyl I believe are from trimming the side panel on the left, they were under panel.

Rear seat area on the driver's side, I found it interesting that the factory didn't use all lof the cable hold down metal straps.

This is the panel that covers the rear seat area with the cut-out for the seat latch at the front of the seat on the passenger side.

Same panel showing the driver side.

 

Nice, they look really good on there.

As a G-Body guy we were relegated to 4 fronts IIRC in order to not have issues. Don't recall ever seeing them on this era of A. The gold spokes contrast to the car paint always bothered me on most G-bodys but blends so well on your car... love it.

 

Just bringing this back to the top, Does anyone have a recommendation for the questions in post #37.

 

I guess my thoughts are:
1. Replace all the carpet so front and rear carpets match.
2. You might be able to clean the seat belts with a mild detergent.
3. After 55 years, I wonder if the strength of the webbing and stitching has deteriorated. I would have them "restored" by a competent source.
Joe P has recommended Jesse Grooms in the past.