looking at a 69 cutlass, needs paint and vinyl top repair, but i was thinking about removing the vinyl altogether and painting the whole thing solid. any tips on how to go about this, or what to expect? thanks

 

Welcome to our site. You might find quite a bit of rust underneath, perhaps some pretty bad stuff, but more the reason to reveal it now are correct it. If you remove the vinyl top and reveal underlying rust then it would be like any other body repair. If you re-paint it you would have to grind down the studs that the stainless trim mounts to and fill any holes left by damage or corrosion. You might also just remove the back and front glass and repair any corrosion in the channels surrounding the glass while you are at it. Often the lower corners on the back glass channels corrode all the way through and leak.

 

Rust around a vinyl top is no joke. I plan to do the same on my 72 Supreme. When the glass man came to replace my windshield, he told me (over the phone as I was at work) that the channel was so badly rotted that he could not warranty it against leaks. The top was replaced once and the pillars were put on AFTER the top giving water a channel into the metal. And yes, in a good rainstorm, it rains inside too. Good thing the floor is rotted a bit to let the air circulate and dry the carpet

The rear window where it meets the trunk is about gone right at the corners. They dont make replacement panels for that area. It is a custom job that I have to find a good lead man (as in the chemical element Pb) to fill it, OR learn the art myself.

I'll just say that I am SCARED as hell to remove that top until I got 3 times as much cash as the body man tells me it will cost. And I am thinking it will cost....

Just my .02

 

Well I am not sure what you will run into but I just walked in from removing the top from my 69. It started out pretty well, I removed all the trim from around the windows and doors. I removed the trim from around the bottom where the top meets the rear quarters. I then used a putty knife to start the actual removal of the top. It only took about 30 minutes once I got started but it has unvield many hours of work to come. The worst areas, on mine at least, were where the rear quarters and top meet. I have large pitted areas and in some areas it has pencil size holes. I do not believe that I want to take on this kind of repair...now I must look for a good body man, but better to fix it now then wait on it to eat completly through. My 2 cents

 

That is EXACTLY what I have experienced and seen in the past.

 

I want to replace floor pans for front and rear. can anyone help find them JC Whitney said they had them then cancelled my order after their supplier quit stocking them... Ugh.

 

I never knew of any after market sheet metal for cars like ours. I would try yards down south and out west...TX, AZ, CA, NM, etc. You're probably safest with original sheet metal besides.

Is your car a convertible?

 

I put my top back on because of pitting, I just painted it with POR 15 before I got the car painted and then had the painter put a coat of blue over it then put the vinyl top back on. Would have been difficult to get it to look right with paint but it came with a vinyl top so I kept it to match the trim tag. I think it looks good too!

 

My burgundy 98 still has its original vinyl on it and it's looking pretty rough. It's dried and cracked and there is definitely rust underneath. I have a brand new top waiting at home but I know there's plenty of work to be done before I can put it on. I'm hoping to do the work next fall/winter.

 

No. I am thinking of taking a sawzall to it and makeing it a ragtop!

Are there any convertable kits out there?

 

I feel your pain , this is how messed up mine is at this point..... had to remove the vinyl top around the back window (it was toast) and there was all kinds of rust under there , by the time I was done sanding and wire wheeling there was a considerable amount of pitting and there was about a dozen holes or so. The back window leaked so I siliconed around it to stop that.... I imagine there are rust holes in the window track on both windows , because the windshield also leaks. The rest of the vinyl top looks ok , but it has to go and I dont know if I want to replace it or not. gotta love my plastic tape covering up the holes where the trim pieces went.... oh yea .... it was real fun sanding the bondo around all of those studs sticking out of the sheetmetal back there... the bondo is just temporary until I can afford to have the right thing done