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I've been taking advantage of the nice weather this past week, highs in the upper 70s-low 80s, plus almost no traffic due to the stay at home orders so I have been driving the Cutlass to work. Sure is nice having the roads to myself and not sitting in rush hour traffic in the afternoons. Soon enough the Cutlass will go into hibernation for the duration of the 110+ summer temps.
Ready to reinstall after reseal, head work, cam and timing set. Dual exhaust manifolds from single. Exhaust system should be arriving any day now.
Paint from Super Cars Unlimited may or may not be factory exact but I like it.
It all looks great to me. What I would give to have space and a decent work area. I have a two car garage but my family wants to store stuff in it and it shares space with the riding mower, garbage cans and chest freezer and a Saturn Astra. I would be done with my project with a lift. Laying on the concrete saps me in a 3 hour day! Here's to the labors of love for which we all sacrifice!
Got the fuel pump replaced and the light switch rebuilt, now to work on the oil leaks, transmission and some other places that have not been determined as yet. Tired of paper training the Mistress, she looses her class messing up my garage like she does...... Lost in the fifties ...Tedd
Got the carb mostly put back together (waiting on a new float,) pulled one of the valve covers and started cleaning it and discovered that even dish soap was taking the paint off so went and bought some gold paint. Since I won't have the float till Monday I'll finish cleaning the valve cover and removing the old paint and will spray it gold again. Once that's done and put back in place I'll move to the passenger side valve cover. Also got some black paint to paint the air intake since it's rusting in some places. Need to finish getting all the gunk off the top of the manifold off and probably should do a once over on it as well though may not till I need to pull it.
I've been working on several projects with my car this spring. The list has grown to many, though most are small in scale. This weekend has been revolving around swapping intakes, from a Torker to a Performer. Have a bit of clean up on the engine surfaces and this might be on soon. I've been pondering a grey or cast like finish when I found this wheel paint in my collection. I thought why not, I like it.
Replaced my transmission mount since I felt a vibration on the floorboard and I thought it was worn. Boy did I underestimate "worn"
I had the same vibration in a 63 Riviera, jacked up trans and it hit the floor. Wound up using a giant ziptie to hold it together until I could get the mount rebuilt.
Humm, I have been trying to isolate a vibration and thought I had done everything, but checked the trans mount. Though it does sem to be coming more from the front, I'll check it anyway. Wow, that was super shot!!!
Is there a story that goes with 1970, 71 and 72 Cutlass? Will you get the full run from 1968 eventually or???
Each car has it's own story (gotta keep them interesting, right?) but there's no reason for having the three apart from those were the cars that I was in a position to buy at various times. Not many of them come up for sale in my area. The '72 has been sold and I now have a second '70 that has a few parts I want to put into my first '70 before the second moves on to a new home. I did inquire about a '69 for sale a couple days ago but it turned out to be too far away to be feasible.
A full stable of 68-72 would be cool but I'm not sure what would be in the shortest supply first - parking space, or wife's patience :-D
Here's the '70 with the "new" wheels, looks much better. It's sitting up there (im)patiently waiting for a 455 (instead of the 260 it came to me with) and black bucket seat/console shift interior to replace the current white bench/column shift.
Today was a planning day. I am waiting for boxes of parts to arrive; a starter and the bolts; accelerator cable, oil breather, speedo cable and checking for any last minute things that need attention. I am measuring and sizing up the fit to see how the S-10 seats and console fit. It is a remarkably nice fit. I won't be ready for installation until weeks after it is running and I can get the exhaust and other things finished up. I still have one pesky bolt on the PS bracket to get started, and one of the trans mount bolts needs a tweak. The gas line is done airtnd now I have buttoned up the vacuums, so what I have left is to hook up the manual gauges, the tach, the starter, and distributor wires. The battery has been on the saver since January so it should be ready to go once I get the juice to the rest of the car. I am not going to finish before my 68th birthday but I am going to be close! If anyone has a decent wiring diagram for an '80 G Body Olds, it would really help. I don't want to buy an Olds manual as the car is an El Camino, but the Olds engine has different plug-in locations than the Buick V-6. They are color coded, but not necessarily going to the same place relatively. Thanks goes to Adam Mead in TX for the info and for getting an S-10 console to me, no easy feat. When I am done I will get lots of pics and write an article for Bench to S-10 bucket swaps and the S-10 console in GBody. S-10 Seat Motor plug Need the female side from the fuse block
Yesterday I removed my Driveshaft and replaced the two U Joints with new Spicer parts
Original U joints with the Plastic/Nylon retainers.
I used a torch with Mapp gas and heated up the ends until the plastic came out, I next used my Ball Joint press
and pressed the end caps out.
worked really easily. Cleaned up the Yokes and pressed in the new Joints
The first one I did took a bit of pressing back and forth until I could get the two C clips installed and seated
one of the C clips didn't want to snap in so I used a small Flat Head and tried tapping it in and of course I ended up cracking the plastic seal cap
the second one went in easy peesy
Put the Driveshaft back in the car and took it for a ride to see if I had any vibrations, cleaned up and went in the house to order another U Joint at $26.00
Here is a picture of the one issue I found when I removed the front one
Can you believe it, went to a car show today all 15 of us. Just a cars and coffee affair and sparsely attended because of the virus thing. Most were respectful of distance and all went well. Man I sure miss the larger shows, that's where I get a lot of my socializing done. My car is pretty much done again and she ran as well as she ever has in recent memory.I think she received more compliments on the way there at each stop light than she did at the show. Made me think more about where I could go on a long road trip, miss the good old days of four months ago..... Lost in the fifties ...Tedd
Finally got around to changing that old signal light switch on my ‘66 Cutlass. I was getting used to holding it on while doing right hand turns. Just so much nicer to drive now. It’s been a while since I’ve been in the steering column. Forgot how it all comes apart. Must be the most complicated part on the whole car. Now the steering column is misaligned with the column. Screw holes or center hole on the switch housing must be drilled off center or something.
Installed new edelbrock valve covers and new gaskets. Had issues leaking .Went with the edelbrock gaskets which are not cork and thicker than the stock ones.
Replaced my Reverse lokout lonkage and positive batter cable. Then tonight will it was still light out Clay bared the hood and trunk area and applied a good coat of Hydro Selix Ceramic Sealer ! not bad looking for a 2005 paint job on a car that sits out in nature 8 months of the year !
tkcutlass , how did you get it open ?
My '70 Impala has the same problem .
After removing the door panel lubing all areas, beating the hell out of it to no avail.
I took the outside door handle off used a punch and hammer.
At one point the latch was freed up. Still no luck. beat the hell out of it more.
Then yesterday with a fresh look I made sure the latch was up (open).
Prying the door up from the inside bottom center, still no luck.
I flipped the pry bar over so the force was up and out and it popped right open.
TLDR.
Make sure the latch is released and pry up and out. (another saggy door issue )
Rebuilt front brakes, put in new lines and flushed all crappy fluid out. I don't remember it stopping that good ever.
It's crazy how much moisture the fluid absorbs over time.
Today I broke in the Lunati w31 cam on the Cutlass. Hearing it run for the first time in 3 years. 20 minutes of beautiful 2,200 rpm howling followed by 1 minute increments of additional 500 rpm's untill it got to 3,500. No leaks, all good until 1 minute after it stopped, the rad cap blew and sent coolant into the res. After it's all cool, I will refill and set the timing, adjust idle, vac advance.
Last edited by Orlando 1; Jun 2, 2020 at 12:54 PM.
