Natedawg

My father-in-law for the past few years has been doing the American Pickers thing, finding old closed down dealerships, collectors selling their stash in bulk, etc., buying it all up and reselling it. He's come across some really cool NOS stuff, as well as this(cool to me) catalog of illustrations and part numbers. This has been coming in handy as my project car was missing several parts. Unless you have an example car right in front of you, it's a pain to figure out all the missing nuts and bolts. Very detailed. Now if I could just find a complete SolidWorks model...

joe_padavano

This document has been discussed here many times before. The parts books are a valuable resource, but they have limitations. The biggest limitation is that the books do NOT tell you what was on the car when it was built. They only tell you what replacement parts were in the parts system as of the date of the printing of a particular book. Many parts got dropped or superseded as you got further away from the production date. In the case of this 1983 printing, there is unfortunately precious little useful info in it for the 64-72 cars. For example, if you look up cylinder heads, there are only two listed for the BBO, the J heads and the K heads. By 1983, those were the only BBO heads you could still buy over the counter. The K heads are listed as the replacements for the performance applications (D, F, and H) and the J heads are listed for every other application. This does not mean that the J or K heads were equivalent to the earlier heads, only that they were the only functional replacement that you could buy at the time. If you are looking for a real restoration resource, you want a parts book with a printing date as close to the production date of your car as possible. I've got a Dec 1968 parts book and even it has substitutions for some of the mid-60s cars. There is a Jan 1972 parts book available on line also.

Natedawg

Thanks for all the info Joe, after a little searching around this site I've discovered the other catalogs that you mentioned. It's nice to at least have this physical copy close by as I've been looking through the illustrations for missing parts and found many. I'm not after a concourse restoration, but it's great to see what the original options were.

Charlie Jones

Here's a link where you can download ( for free ) a 1975 issue of the same catalog .
https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...s-catalog.html
Much better and more complete info for '72 and earlier cars .

Natedawg

You're the man Charlie, thanks!