Perkolator

This will be a slow build thread, documenting the restoration of my 1968 Delmont 88 Convertible.
My Dad bought this car in 1996 and called it his "Red Sled". Unfortunately he didn't get to enjoy it much, so I will be restoring it in his honor and keep it in the family so we can all remember him.
My original intro thread is here: New guy with my dad's Delmont

Here is the car inside the shop where I'll be working on it. It's a great shop built at my in-law's house that was originally built for my wife's uncle to house all his tools. Unfortunately he passed and the shop never really got used outside of being a storage disaster. After some major cleanup efforts in the past few years, the shop is now mostly empty and available for me to use at my will since I'm pretty much the only person in the family with any desire to use or set foot inside the space.

Shop improvements will be required ASAP - the door/entrance layout for this shop is less than desirable given the topography of the property and The Sled barely made it into the shed due to the sloped hill in front. It's steep enough I may have to use a tow strap to get the car out! Going to consult with a shed company and talk with them about adding/moving garage door within this structure. I also want to inquire about re-configuring the roof trusses to see if head space can be gained - would allow the use of a lift inside some day, which could be a huge upgrade. A major requirement will be getting power to this shop - either run a service line a hundred yards to the house or get a big generator capable of powering a decent size air compressor and a small welder.
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So....my Dad already had another guy working on The Sled. He spent a ton of money with this "restorer" neighbor and I don't really see a whole lot of return on his investment. Sure there is some, but considering what was paid, there should be a lot more done IMO - or at least I shouldn't be dealing with motor issues or the unknown puddle underneath, which I discovered last weekend. Let's just forget about that guy and get on with life.

I've been thinking a lot about what needs to be done to this car and am hoping for a little feedback regarding where I should start. I know that at some point I'm going to have to separate the body from the frame, so I can do some metal work on the body. Also, it would be nice to clean up the frame since a lot of work has already been done to the chassis/suspension/drivetrain, but they didn't take the body off to do any of this. Where I'm stuck is deciding whether or not to invest in getting this car running properly before or after taking off the body. Could make sense to get it running good first and resolve the tip-in problems, but then again it's likely not to smart to be driving around with rotted out A-pillars.


A-Pillars/Door Hinge Pillars

Here's what the driver's side pillar originally looked like when I acquired the car:
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Last weekend I had some time to get in there and do some more investigative work to approximate just how much steel has been rotted away over the years. I found lots of body filler "patching" the bottom of the pillar and likely holding more debris and moisture in the area. It was painted red, so this had to have been done before one of the POs painted the car red - so minimum of 20yrs ago. Lots of debris that came out too and I was finally able to see how high up the rust went. Both sides are very similar, but I think the driver's side is slightly worse. I guess on the bright side, the innner kick panels seem to be fully intact and are not swiss-cheesed up like I expected them to be - perhaps it's what's keeping everything in place I did find a small hole in the floor of the passenger side too. I also removed the lower trim from the passenger side in order to get a good look at the whole rocker - it's not horrible but there is another hole under the B-pillar area.
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I think I'm going to tackle the body work myself, or at least do all the metal patching on my own. No shop can give me any estimates for repairing the A-pillars other than saying it will be a lot of shop hours and the cost will be high. I called up some salvage yards to see what it might cost me to get some cut-outs - about $500 minimum for both pillars. I'm thinking for $500 + unknown shipping costs, I might as well invest that money into a good air compressor and a power source for the shop.

I found this blog the other day (http://www.squidsfabshop.com/bodyw2/GTObody2.php) where a guy worked on a '67 GTO and did some similar repair work on the rockers. Made it look pretty easy when you fabricate your patches from separate pieces - I definitely think I can accomplish this type of approach given my current skills. I have a parts car that I don't want to extract this section from, so I can take templates from that one - but I think I need to still figure out what the internals of the pillar are supposed to look like.

Also, I think I'm going to build myself a rotisserie of some sort. Body has to come off anyways, so might as well. I looked at buying/fabricating a steel rotisserie based off of engine stands, but then today I chanced upon wood rotisseries and wood "rolltisseries" -- wow some people are inventive! I'm really diggin' something like the one below. It would allow me to jack up the car and make a wood car dolly for the body, but then I can add some more stuff to it and be able to flip the car on its side - um yeah!


So I guess with post #1 down - where would you guys suggest I focus first? Get it running enough to drive it to a mechanic who can tune the engine and resolve the tip-in issue, or just start taking her apart?

Perkolator

Red Sled is ALIVE!!!
https://imgur.com/xCBsk4g

oldcutlass

How is frame on that car?

Perkolator

Frame seems good actually, I didn't find any soft spots when probing around from above and when it was on the lift, all the rot is body related as far as I can tell.
Bottom of the a-pillars is the worst area and must have been going on previous to the 25yrs it's been in the family, because I found the Bondo in there under the red paint. A few spots on the rockers and then the bottom of the rear fenders.

Perkolator

The Red Sled is back!

Over the last year I've been working with a small local shop who helped me to get things baselined to where they are now. To my knowledge, pretty much everything works now except for the turn signals (broken plastic gear inside) and I don't think the parking brake is fully functional - meh.
They seemed to enjoy working on this project and were compatible with my budget -- so I had them do a bunch of stuff to chip away at the list of what needed to be done.
From what I remember them doing: new hoses in fuel system and clean out gas tank, better fuel filter, new fuel sending unit (Spectra FG106A), figured out what brake parts previous mechanic used for 4wheel disc setup, different size carburetor was needed, new alternator, new water pump along with fan clutch/fan/thermostat, removed abandoned AC components, new compact starter to clearance dual exhaust (Powermaster 9610), speedometer cable replacement (Dorman), longer wheel studs, new tires, transmission vacuum modulator, added gauges for voltage/temp/oil pressure, and last but not least -- somehow installed true dual exhaust around all that Driver's side labyrinth of steering and suspension obstacles (Summit 2.5" header-back universal kit w/25" Dynomax super turbo mufflers).

Now I suppose it's time to finally register and insure it, now that it runs/drives, haha. Then figure out how I'm going to start tackling the needed body/steel work without a garage/covered space at my place

2blu442

Have you repaired the rot in the A-pillar door hinge area yet? If not I may have some usable metal on this parts car. John

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...s-sale-143145/

oldolds88

I also have some parts,albeit not many,have most glass nice framew trans with 56k suspension ask and ill tell you if I have it.also not averse to hacking off parts for repairs