Supernaut72

It's been a while, but after four or five months, I've finally gotten my Olds out on the road. She's a 120k mile survivor, unmodified except for the installation of a cheap tape deck (original radio was included with the car though) and a couple of trashed speakers in the rear package shelf untold ages ago, and a recent upgrade from a 3-row to a 4-row radiator.

According to the previous owner, the car hadn't seen the road in about twenty years, and it showed. Every component of the cooling system was shot; Water pump, radiator, heater core, heater control valve, you name it and it was leaking coolant after years of sitting. The owner wanted his crummy, dingy Dayton wheels back after I bought the car, so it sat for a while as I tried to scrounge up some money for rims and tires after spending a pretty penny on parts just to get the car ready for the roadways.

Under the hood rumbles a modest standard-compression 2-bbl. 425 Super Rocket, which now runs pretty smoothly aside from the occasional one-off misfire and noisy rockers. Still trying to get to the bottom of that, but it's a huge improvement over the car's initial habit of running for a minute or so then stalling and backfiring through the carb, or its later habit of refusing to run under about 1100 RPM.

I still have to hunt down the axle code or jack up the rear wheels and do a manual check to know exactly what differential gears the car has, but she sails down the road very leisurely at 65 MPH, so I'm willing to bet they're the standard 2.73, or at least no lower than 2.93. At those speeds, it's a pleasant, quiet ride in sharp contrast to my Chevy fullsize sedan daily driver with its 3.55 gears. Now that the car's street-ready, I can say for sure that I'm very glad that I joined the Olds crowd.
There's a lot of work yet to do but I'm taking it one day at a time and enjoying the heck out of the car every step of the way.

Oldsragger

cool car, nice to have it on road and cruisin

what more plans you have?

oldcutlass

Very nice, glad to hear you got it going.

Oldsmaniac

The 67 Delta Custom is a very cool car with the xtra lights in rear bumper and that wide side trim that looks like a carryover from the 66 Sfire. You probably need to change out the rockers as there is no adjustment and they do wear causing noise. Your timing chain set probably need attention too if original. Lastly i recommend dual exhaust, it will really wake up that 425.

CreepyOldGuy

Great looking car. Keep up the good work.

ent72olds

Very cool! Does it have buckets and console?

Supernaut72

Thanks for the kind comments, everyone!

My current plan is to fix all of the car's little rust and body damage issues as necessary, maybe get some sort of UV protection on the windows, but otherwise I figure I'll run her the way she is for however many years until the drivetrain starts to actually wear out. Hopefully by then I'll be able to afford a major restoration project.

Thanks for the tips Oldsmaniac, hopefully I'll be able to swap out those rocker arm assemblies in the near future. The timing chain should be fine for a while, since then engine's timing seems steady and I don't really thrash on this car, but I've put a checkup on my to-do list for sure. Dual exhaust sounds like a good idea, think I'll look into that a little way down the road.

In answer to ent72olds, nope, the car doesn't have buckets and console. Just the six-way power "stratobench", but I like it. The center fold-down armrest is actually quite comfortable.

Supernaut72

Came across a weird issue with the brakes today, I tried to empty the lines to get fresh fluid in there but the bleeder screws just wouldn't squirt out any fluid. Turned out the driver's side screw was clogged up, but the passenger's side one wasn't. Even while the screws were completely out for cleaning, we couldn't coax any fluid out no matter what we tried. Reinstalled the screws, used a vacuum pump to suck the old fluid out of the master cylinder and cleaned it out, then added new fluid. Something in that process eliminated an issue with the brakes pulling to the right, but we still didn't see any fluid at the bleeders. Brakes worked wonderfully when we tested them, but I think I'm still going to have the brakes looked at this week.

I would suspect internally collapsed brake hoses restricting fluid flow, or maybe a plugged up proportioning valve, but the way the front end dives when we tested the brakes and the way the rear wheels have never locked up on me tells me that the fronts are doing their job just fine.
Since it's working a little better than before, it doesn't seem wise to go messing with it any more until I can have a trusted mechanic or gearhead relative take a look at it and give a second opinion.

In better news, I gave the spark plugs a two or three-hundred mile checkup to make sure everything's right inside the engine, and I was very happy to see no oil or dry carbon fouling, the latter of which I had seen on every old spark plug while replacing them. Pure white electrodes on most of them, slight beige coloring on the rest. Gave each mixture screw a quarter-turn out to a total of 2-1/4 turns each after seeing all the white electrodes, seems she was running just a tad lean.

Oldsmaniac

I would recommend the rubber brake hoses at each front wheel and the center rear brake line be replaced if they have not been already. It is good to blow the metal lines clear with air but sometimes they are so crispy and rotted it is better to replace them. Wheel cylinders should be replaced as well. You can rebuild them but most times they are pitted inside and it is better to replace. If you can bleed brakes you should be able to handle all the rest of the brake work on the car, it is pretty simple. make sure they are no leaks thats all... The metal lines are easy to form with your hands if they need replacement. The only probem you may have is if a line needs flaring, a special double flare tool kit would be desired.

matchek

Like the two-tone look too. Looks mean.