This is my first post although I have been a member since 2014. Please bear with me if I make mistakes.
I have owned a 1970 442 W30 since 1986. This car was driven by me until 1990 and during one month of winter in that time period. After 1990 I parked the car and last started it about 5 years ago. The car is what I believe most people would call a day 2 car. It’s doesn’t have the original intake, carb, rocker covers, coil & air cleaner assembly. The motor, trans, rear end and most of the other pieces are original to the car. It’s a 4 speed car.

I have acquired the correct date code manifold, and air cleaner assembly for the OAI system, but have not started any work at this point. The opinion I’m seeking is if I should have someone document the car before I start pulling it apart to confirm it’s a true W30 as I cannot find the build sheet on top of gas tank or under rear seat. Please let know me your thoughts on how or whom I could get to prove this is a true W30. This will be a long project as money is tight due to a recent divorce, but I’m not getting any younger and I need to start picking at it.

Thanks

Don

 

Well first everyone is going to ask you to post pics so, might as well get that out of the way. And second, take a lot of pics to document before and during disassemly. You could pay someone to help document but as you said if money is tight that may be a secondary concern. If you post here regularly during this process it may be just as valuable. Also check out some othe threads like Jensen racings w-30 resto very helpful. Some things to look for first are the lack of floor insulation, Lansing built car and the broadcast cards (when found) are usually under the drivers side carpet. Good luck with the resto and looking forward to pics!

 

Thanks for the reply Resto. Pictures aren't great due to room around the car. I can upload more if you need details of certain parts.

 

There is a guy on this site who can help you document. I don't remember his name. You may want to make a post on wanting help to document. Cool car.

 

If I remember correctly, a 70 VIN will tell you if is a true 442. There is a thread somewhere here that decodes the VIN & body tag

 

Thanks wr1970. I may go that route if necessary. I'm going to look under the carpet for the broadcast card as Resto suggested (thanks Resto!) and see if that helps my cause. It may be next week before I can get to it though. Take care

 

Thanks Zeeke. I'm confident that it is a 442 and a W30 due to me buying it in 1986. I don't think they were cloning W30's in the mid 80's. The vin is correct for a 442, but it will not tell you if iy's a W30. This is why I'm looking for the broadcast card or someone who could document the car as a true W30. Take care

 

Spend your time now (and not your $) and look THOROUGHLY for the broadcast card.....you don't need anyone to tell you what you have.

1) Rear seat - did you check both the seat bottom AND seat back?

2) Carpet - typically slid under the carpet near the edge where the door sill plate(s) are BUT don't just peek under there and give up....maybe it's buried further in.

3) ANOTHER LIKELY SPOT (I've found a few in this location and one in a '71 W30 convert a couple weeks ago)....FRONT BUCKET SEATS - look up in the springs on the seat bottoms or MORE LIKELY, pull the seatback plastic panels and look in there (I found the '71 broadcast card there - in the D side bucket seatback hog ringed to the seat frame - pulled the seatback plastic out of the way and there it was staring right back at me).

 

I bet that thing makes a nice noise when it's idling....rumpidy, rumpidy, rumpidy......that 328° cam.

 

Very nice car and color. Which color gold is it? Like the 80's period correct bias-belted tires. Wish they would make raised white radial tires that have that bias-belted look, like they do in the white wall and red line styles. As Patton noted, many times the broadcast card is located behind one of the bucket seat's plastic covers, attached by a hog ring.

 

Wanna bet?

 

Thanks 70post. I forgot to mention that I did look behind the bucket seat covers. I'll keep looking.

svnt442, the idle is one of the things I really liked about the car besides it's looks and it being a 4 speed car!

anthonyP, the color is called burnish gold according to the paint code.

69442ragtop, you may be right about about the cloning of W30's in the mid 80's. This is why I'm looking for the broadcast card or have a certified expert look at it. You seem to know for sure they were being cloned...can you expand on this comment?

Thanks guys.

 

Wishing you the right outcome on your search. A W-30 gold strike will be a wonderful thing. Nice looking car.
Wayne
Medina, Ohio

 

You become the expert, Part of restoring a car is the research and documentation. Learn what makes a w car a w car and photgraph everything in detail. Understand, once you touch it Everyone will doubt the car, sad but true.
Without a build sheet or cert. card there is no way to authenticate an Olds definatively. Period!! The so called authenticators have no more information than you yourself are able to find/research.

 

Is the car original paint? Looks like it could be cleaned up and be very presentable. Cool car!

 

Back in 1971, there was a gentlemen who wanted to order a W-30 but got fouled up with the GM strike period and early ordering end date. When a search for a dealer ordered W-30 came up empty, he bought a brand new non-W25, air conditioned, Saddle brown w/gold stripes '71 442 off the lot. During the next few months he slowly transformed the 442 into a W-30 over the next few months with over the counter parts.

It must had cost him a small fortune in comparison to ordering a W-30 equipped 442 that year, but he wanted a '71 W-30. It would had also been less expensive just to order a '72 W-30, but he needed air conditioning. The first items he installed was a spoiler and W-30 intake manifold. Then the W-25 hood and heads. Afterwards he added every other item.

The car was sharp looking even while still a base 442 with it's very unusual at the time dark brown paint and gold stripes, and then really popped when repainted with the W-30 stripes. Recently tried to find the owner or car, located in the Verona NJ area at the time, but no luck.

This is the earliest completely cloned W-car that I know of. There had been a cloned '68 Hurst/Olds in 1973, but that was only paint.

 

Awesome looking car. Had a W-31 in that color. I sent this thread to someone you may want to speak with - he may be in Northern Ohio later this month looking at a couple other W cars in detail.

Terry

 

Regardless of W30 prodigy you still have a nice 442. Definitely, a solid foundation on which to restore.

Which plant was the car manufactured?

Keep in mind even if the car has all the correct date coded parts without solid documentation it's still considered a 442. So keep that in mind if you decide to sell it. It will only ever have 70, 442 value...which isn't a bad thing at all, though certainly shy of W car prices.

Even if everything appears to be correct all of it can be bolted on.

When you disassemble this car take careful pictures of everything such as close up pics of the holes where the W30 die-cast emblems are, any grease pensile marks, on the back side of the fenders, ink stamps etc...Look for signs of items which appear to be undisturbed and original etc. This will not prove W30 status but will help document many things that point in that direction.

As you've been told a line card, build sheet, window sticker, dealer invoice etc...is the only acceptable documentation to prove solid W30 status.

Enjoy what you have, it's desirable either way.

And don't EVER get married again!: eek:...unless she is filthy rich with a barn full of museum quality 442s and 90 years old!

 

x2

Without the card you are kinda SOL on a four speed car. You can get opinions but without the card or other documentation you can't 100% prove its a W30. You can prove its not. Another long shot would be to reach out to GM of Canada on the off chance it was originally sold up there. Their records are intact. Good luck. Either way looks like a nice car

 

This ^^^

clean it up give it any necessary attention and drive it as is! I would follow pattens and others advice look for docs but don't lose any sleep over it, a documenter may add a little weight to a no documentation w car but in the end no docs are no docs, it is what it is.

 

I looked at a '70 "W-30" in 1986 that had none of the specific equipment to distinguish it as a W-30 other than stripes and emblems, yet the owner insisted it was "the real deal" despite having black inners, a DIY force-air setup on top of what was likely the car's original 350 and an obviously non-original cheese slicer rear spoiler.

W-30s were sought-after performance vehicles back in the day, and as such commanded a considerable premium over garden variety 4-4-2s even when they were just used cars. The only difference between then and now is the level of sophistication of the counerfeiters and the number of zeroes involved.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies and compliments. The paint isn't terrible, but as you can see at the bottom of the passenger rear quarter there is some rust that needs addressed. Other side not as bad.

I know the documentation is needed to get the W30 type money out of the car, but I have no intentions of selling the car. I'm just trying to get it back to presentable and drivable condition so when one of my kids inherit it they will know what they have. It will be up to them on what they do with the car. Make no mistake, I am planning on enjoying before I kick the bucket.....hope it will be a long way down the road!

If I can not find any documentation I will still keep the W30 badges on the car if/when I get it repainted. I have a hard time thinking that someone would go through the trouble of making it a W30 and just throw on a torker intake and holly carb, but have the correct distributor and other pieces that could be easily overlooked by a buyer...especially back then. Either way I still appreciate the car and enjoyed it tremendously back in the day and I hope to do it again.

Droldsmoreland, I agree with your approach and feel this is the way I will have to go. I also agree on the "Never marry again" Been there done that!

vette442, I appreciate you forwarding this on to your contact.

droptopron, I like your suggestion on contacting GM of Canada. Since I'm near Canada this is worth a shot. Thanks

69442ragtop, this is what kind of cloning quality I would expect on the 80's and why I think my car is more of what they call a day 2 car and not a clone, but without documentation it doesn't matter...I get it.

83hurstguy, I think it's original paint, but I'm not a paint guy.

68442, Looks like I will become somewhat of an expert by the time this project is completed. By the way, love the 68's. My older brother had one with an automatic and when I turned 16 he threw me the keys after showing me how to do burn outs or hole shots as I like to call them and told me to go have fun for the day! This is what sold me on 442's!

35tac, if you ever make your way up to the Olmsted Falls area, come on by and check out the car.

 

Don,
You anywhere near Cincy?

 

Sorry Rick, I'm on the other end of Ohio, just outside of Cleveland

 

Where is she manufactured? M in the vin? Or another letter?

How many miles on her?

If it will clean up then do that before ripping it apart...for sure. The body can be properly repaired and the OEM paint blended in. Im always one for preservation if its in good shape. Get into all the body seams and apply something to wick into them to preserve, LPS3 or similar or Zinc primer or both etc. Store it in a dry temperate facility(yours looks nice). It takes some attention to the details preserve a car. I do vettes too and they are always better off left original if they are in good shape. You should see some of the vettes that have won preservation awards. Cleaning and preserving is what the NCRS guys always recommend first. Go through the brakes, replace all rubber lines, do all fluids, belts, hoses, vacuum hoses, basically all the consumable items including tires and see how it looks and drives. Then make the restoration decision.

 

Here's the vin # with the last 4 digits removed. 344870M23

Here's what's on the body tag with last 4 digits removed.

ST70 34487LAN34
TR 930 58 58

Not sure if full vin and tag number would be safe to make public....probably just paranoid!

 

When you get a chance PM me your address. I'll take the 66 up RT 83 some time. Will you get a chance to make it to Alliance in August.
Wayne

 

Wayne, I sent you a PM with address. Hope you get it as I'm still learning all this.

 

droldsmoreland, I just realized you asked for more information than just the vin number that I posted. The miles on the car is around 70, 000. I'll have to look the next time I go out to the shop. As far as the preservation goes, I would not be comfortable making that call as I'm not a body and paint guy. When I get to that point I'll be sure to get a body/paint guys opinion on what direction the car should be taken. I hope I can find a guy that would be honest about it. Thanks

 

I'd wash it thoroughly and get busy with your hands.....use some white rubbing compound and a massive number of terry cloth rags/towels and have some fun. You might be amazed what it will do to the paint.

You could then follow up with a buffer and some finer polish.

You could also use a buffer with one of the heavier compounds but you have more "control" over the process doing it by hand....and your buffing pads will load up quickly with "dead" paint.

Fix and paint blend the rust areas......they are down on the low part of the body so any blend work won't be super obvious.

QUESTION: How are the front wheelwells?

 

This car looks very similar in appearance and story to a Astro Blue W30 I did a couple of years ago. Like others have been saying about trying to preserve as many original materials possible of your car, you might want to look through my thread documenting the resto of mine. It was fun saving some stuff that usually just gets replaced.

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...70-w-30-a.html

 

70post, I'm inclined to have someone else do the body work. I have attached some pics. One shows the heel of the front right fender that has rust. the same fender also has a dent above the stripe...see 2nd picture. The main issue is a dent at the pillar by the rear window. This happened when a bike that was hung on the rafters in my house garage was knocked off it's hooks and hit the car.....it was a bummer.

costpenn, I have done a quick look at your car and loved the story behind it. It's a beautiful car! Looks like your was more complete with the original items then mine. Nice find! I'll look into your thread a bit more when I have some time to sit down and enjoy it. Thanks for the link, I'm sure it will come in handy.

 

Don, sent you PM reply.
Wayne

 

Many people would look to a former owner as a form of documentation and those letters would be solid gold to a lot of people. You've had this for over 30 years and kudos to you for holding onto it. The muscle car craze was in inlts infancy when you bought your W-30 shiftright. Don't want to pry out of you what you paid but I bet that was a nicer original car for even back then. But again if the miles are original then it wasn't a super high mileage car. May try some painless dent repair on some of those of you find one of the better techs you may be surprised even if the results are not perfect. I use a local guy whenever I can he's always up front with me if he doesn't think it's possible. Keep posting!

 

I figured you might be having the bodywork done....just find someone that will do the rust repair the "right" way. If the fenders need rust repair I would pull them off myself and take them the fender and it would be real nice if they would remove part of the backside brace so they can access the whole area on the bottom where they rust.

I agree with "brddg".....see if you can find a good PDR tech person to take a look at the dents. My bet is the "falling bike" dent is too deep and the metal has been too stretched to be successfully removed via the PDR technique BUT who knows......it never hurts to ask someone what they think.

Funny thing.....I read your story about the dent up on the sail panel and thought to myself "Man, that sounds familiar!". I had a "garage incident" with my '70 W30 hardtop as well many years ago (1979-80 period). I had the car up in Lubbock, TX parked in the garage of a rent house some buddies of mine were renting.

This was a real cheaply built house (perfect for renting to college kids so any damage would be cheap to fix and believe me, there was PLENTY to fix after they vacated the place!)...many of the walls inside were just sheets of some type of hard material board...no studs, etc with the traditional sheetrock. The garage was fine but it had some "iffy" garage doors on it (as I was to soon find out). I went over there to mess with the car one day and pulled up the garage door on the side my car was in. WHAMMO! - one side of the garage door decided to exit the tracks and there is the door crashing down onto the crest at the top of the P side sail panel. I was yelling REAL LOUD (a few choice words brought all my buddies running out of the house to the garage).

I got "lucky"....I envisioned major damage would be present once we got that side of the garage door up off the car but fortunately the door (cheaper and LIGHTER apparently) hit right on the crest of that body line where there is some strength. It did put an odd small dent below the crest and scuffed up and slightly dented the rear window stainless but nothing massive. Passenger side quarter panel.

Sorry to go off on a tangent on your thread but when I read your "bike dent" story I was reminded of my garage dent story.

 

brddg, I made some attempts at locating the previous owner by doing some internet searching. The only document have with his name and address was an exhaust repair receipt. He doesn't reside at the property anymore. I did a general search of the area of the property and had about ten hits on the name. I have thought about sending the ten addresses that came up a letter about the car and see if I get any responses, but have not done so at this time. I may still pull that trigger. I'll PM on what I paid for the car. We'll talk paint when I get closer...may be awhile.

70Post, That story of your garage incident rings very similar to my story. Sorry to see that happened to you, and like you, I was also swearing like a sailor! Thanks for the front fender advice as that will be very useful information when paint and body work discussions start taking place.

 

Don, it was great to meet you at the Northern Ohio Chapter OCA meet in Alliance. Great iscussion about your car. Has to be exciting. BTW what is the color on that car. Wife and I had a 70 Cutlass S in that color I believe. Black interior with a bench seat. Keep in touch.
Thanks
Wayne

 

Hi Wayne,

It was great meeting you and seeing that beautiful 66 you have!

My car is burnish gold. I hope to get back to it soon, but I'm currently waiting on some activities which will help decide when to proceed with the car. Hopefully in another week I'll be able to start with some work to it. I'll post pics as I go.

I hope you have recovered from working the car show. I appreciate you and all the other guys for sharing their cars. They are great cars and great stories that go with them and the people associated with them.

Please let me know when you are going to attend another show and I may join you if time permits.

Don

 

Don, thanks for stopping by. Great weather sure helps a show. I will be keeping up on your research mission for your car. I am going to Columbus on 9/17 for the Mid-Ohio show but won't be taking the 66. Taking some pictures of a 66 if one shows up. Keep in touch.
Thanks
Wayne

 

You do realize the VIN is visible through the windshield anytime the car is parked, right?