1967Supreeeme

That Bus looks like a good cruiser Copper. My problem is my Bus addiction is for split windows, so I may never be able to afford one ever again after the $230,000 Barret Jackson 23 window destroyed the hobby market for them.

I bought my 60 truck a few months before that sale in 2009 and all of a sudden, you could find NO Bus parts even here in dry farm area central California. It took me months to find a windshield that didn’t have to be shipped. Took 2 YEARS to find a tail gate that was rusty, but fixable. I try to use original parts when I can find a good deal and condition is ok but wow it kills me. I can’t pay $20,000 for a clapped out, rusty pre 67 Bus. I’m glad I love me a sweet Cutlass and it’s refeshingly affordable compared to say a 69 Camaro, 70 Chevelle, 67 GTO..... And a 67 GTO was my favorite muscle car forever, but the Cutlass is so similar that I basically own 3 of my all time favorite classic cars.

coppercutlass

The bus has a been fun. I got it to run on really crappy fuel. atleast for a few seconds . rebuilt the carb, cleaned the tank and in a few weeks fire it up and hopefully get it it idle. I kinda fell into oldsmobiles by luck. My mentor in the body shop was and is a hardcore olds drag racer i bought mine from him as i had mentioned i had a 79 malibu i was gonna stick a buick 350 into. chucked all that and got my 72.

1967Supreeeme

1967Supreeeme

Lots of test fitting and trimming so all the seams will match up before I can even think about welding.

Flanges will be clamped together from inside the trunk, above wheel well. I think I’ll be able to lay in the trunk and spot weld it. I’m hoping I can reach the tongs up in there or have to come up with another idea.

1967Supreeeme

This is the hardest part about fixing the rust so far. The inner fast back panels have a fading cone shape that I don’t have the tools or experienceto make in one piece. Instead, I used the original scrap and shaped a new piece to match. Stacked them like pancakes until the shapes matched and welded the flange to it. A real pain but a huge cosmetic thing to get right. I refuse to sculpt this out of bondo and take the easy way out.

1967Supreeeme

After hitting this panel with a wire wheel, it looks surprisingly solid
Etch primer
Sound deadening to replace the old jute padding
I sprayed the weld through primer on all the panel joining areas. Here you can see exactly where the plug welds need to go
This corner was longer than the other side and needed to be trimmed about a 1/4”. When they stamped this panel, the top and side edges had a lot of extra metal that is folded over. After cutting all the excess off, it drops in almost perfect. Very little adjustment needed. For a Taiwan panel, I’m very impressed.

1967Supreeeme

Spot welded like original
Plug welds complete

Greg Rogers

Damn nice work!

classicmuscle442

Following along, nice work, those sail panels look very challenging.

1967Supreeeme

Hey thanks guys! It’s been very gratifying so far. Yesterday I was able to make the passenger side sail panel in one piece. I just changed my approach and it wasn’t too difficult. These are my favorite kind of cars to do metal work on, because I cant possibly make it worse than it already was. THAT is what you need to get confidence up. One step at a time. Today, I’ll try to
get the rest of this area finished. If that goes well, everything else should be cake.

1967Supreeeme

Removed lead filler to expose the last of the spot welds

1967Supreeeme

Sail panels tacked in
I was able to jam my spot welder from inside the trunk after I took off the handle
I have a patch to do under the windshield still. After that, all that’s left is to button up the roof and sides. I ordered up some more body tools too.

Greg Rogers

You got mad skills!!

1967Supreeeme

Thank you very much. I hope to be a master one day, I’m pretty critical of myself, I have a long way to go. If I can get the hang of TIG welding and get my hands on some more shaping tools I will be happy.

1967Supreeeme

Taking a MAPP has torch, I kept heating this area to make the steel “sweat” as much of the lead work as possible.
The lead goes all the way into the window channel area. I’m not used to seeing this kind of primitive factory work lol! It is what it is.... And appears to me at least, that the assembly line work just beat any protruding areas with a hammer and caked on a ton of lead. Someone else caked a bunch of bondo as well, it’s been a challenge getting to clean steel.

1967Supreeeme

Now, I hope I shouldn’t have to tell you, but I will anyway. Lead is toxic! Wear your respirator and try to use heat and scrape it out in chunks and put as little dust in the air. Also, it’s in the paint for you youngsters that don’t know.

My dad actually died from many many years of auto painting without wearing a respirator from lead poisoning. It’s hard for me to work around it and not think about it.

1967Supreeeme

1967Supreeeme

Now, I wanted to make these sections out of one piece of steel, but it’s a complicated shape. I knew realistically I was going to have to do at least 2 pieces. Hopefully not 3...... I think I can do 2.

I figured I could make it easier on myself if I joined it all together where the factory did. Except I’m not going to cake a 1/2” of lead over it like they did. I’m thinkingI might fill that gigantic seam with sheet metal and skim coat it with fiberglass filler. I hate working with fiberglass, but I don’t feel any need or desire to invest in a bunch of lead working tools when I don’t like using fillers anyway. I respect the art of using it, but a small can of filler and tube of hardener is much more convenient.

Something else worth mentioning, ALL of my sheet metal patches (except the 2 from OPG) are original GM metal. Same thickness and welds pretty sweet actually.

1967Supreeeme

1967Supreeeme

Upper passenger side is done

1967Supreeeme

To finish the lower sections, I neededpoint of reference to make the real sharp corner in the sheet metal.
I welded this piece of narrow but thick steel on the inside
Clamped my new sail panels to it and welded it together
And welded it under the corner where all the sheet metal meets up at the trunk
Using hammer and dolly, I folded the excess metal over to make a real crisp edge like it had originally
Now the excess is trimmed off. Once I make the last outer panel I have a nice edge to weld to. Doing it this way seemed easy because I have tons of access to this area with the rot cut out

1967Supreeeme

This piece was actually part of the “old” botched roof. The sharp curved area is the same shape or really close to the original section I cut out. When I layed it on top, the contours matched pretty nice. Even if isnt a 100% perfect match to the factory panel, at least both sides will match.
Here you can see I had to make relief cuts to get the curves to line up at the bottom of the panel. First, I tacked the long crisp edge. Then tacked my way towards the front of the car, and down the drip rail. Those 3 sides line up with no issue. When I went to tack the bottom edge, there was a big bulge. That’s when I did the reliefs.

1967Supreeeme

I’m happy with what I was able to accomplish so far. I need to touch up some of the welded areas because rust was contaminating them and causing blow outs. Ugh. I left the welds on the slices intact so I can reference them to copy on the passenger side. Before I do any filler, I’m going to shrink the bulges with a torch and cold water and pull the low spots with my stud gun.

oldcutlass

Really looking nice.

1967Supreeeme

The passenger side went much faster since I knew exactly how to approach it

oldcutlass

Sweet, you made that repair look simple.

1967Supreeeme

I don’t think the metal repairs themselves were the hardest I’ve ever done. BUT, the grunt work was really trying my patience. Wire wheeling, cutting and grinding while hunched over... That feels like the real challenge.

I always tell people that being a gearhead is 90% mindless hard work and 10% skill. It can be very rewarding, but if you’re wanting to get into the hobby you better be prepared. It’s not as glamorous as TV makes it look! It truly is blood, sweat and tears and hopefully your neighbors like you despite all the massive noise you make lol.

RAMBOW

Amazing fab work. Some of the best I've seen in a while!

Excellent quote too!!! I'm stealing it! LOL!

nonhog

Anxious to see it in primer. Love when a rough one gets saved.

1967Supreeeme

I know, I know! I’d love to see it all primed up. For now, I just need to shoot all the window channels and roof first. The clear coat will need some time to gas out before I glue on the new top. I just got it in the mail the other day. It’s from Legendary and it looks pretty sweet. I would just wait until the whole car is painted, but I won’t have time to do it before the weather gets bad. The more I poke around the car it obvious it needs to be taken down to bare metal and parked outside all winter-not gonna happen yet.

Trying to prioritize things first. Finish the roof, vinyl top and reinstall all the trim just to get it all complete for the time being. I’ll get to a stopping point and switch to going over the mechanicals so I can drive it. The carb appears to be leaking internally and I can see the accelerator pump is leaking at the top too. Thinking about swapping it with a Street Demon, redoing the pump to carb metal line, all the hoses, oil change, etc. They look like poo. It runs really rich, the exhaust and the oil stink. It struggles with cold starts and doesn’t have a working choke.

I haven’t even put a timing light on it, but I now see it has a Mallory Unilite, coil and wires. I was expecting to see a stock points distributor.

There are some rotten looking air shocks in the rear, might explain some of the noise at speed. The winter seems like the perfect time to address these easy mechanical issues before I dig farther into the body and interior.

1967Supreeeme

1967Supreeeme

1967Supreeeme

The worst is now officially over! One solid round of cleaning everything down to bare metal and it’s time to squirt some paint. Weather has been pretty amazing here with 70-90 degree temps most of the month. I’ve been pretty lucky because a storm is coming in less than a week. Normally, you can’t rush the paint stage but it doesn’t need to be perfect. I’m just going to hit the roof right in the driveway without any worries about bugs, dirt and sand scratches.

I’m stoked I can start addressing the mechanical issues. First on the list is a horrendous banging sound from the rear suspension. The obvious place to start is replace the ancient air shocks with rotten rubber for some standard gas shocks. Another thing I noticed is the rear sway bar is there, but not boxed control arms. I’ll probably just unbolt it for now until I get a chance to make it right.

After that, I might pull the heads and have them checked out. I think I have the start of head gasket leaks. I did a quickie cold compression check and 6 cylinders were around 170-175. One cylinder in each head were 140 and 145 though. On cold starts with morning dew air, it seemed like the left tailpipe had more vapor during warmup. Cranking the engine with the plugs while cold, a noticeable amount of water came out of #5 IIRC. That cylinder was the low one and actually filled the compression tester hose with what looked like coolant. No need for a hot compression check... Hard to tell but I believe a very small amount of bubbles were coming up in the radiator neck.

BUT on the brighter side, I found a metal tag riveted to the block behind the fuel pump from a previous rebuild so I don’t expect to find anything else catastrophic. Hopefully everything checks out good. Tag is labeled POWER-PAK from a place that used to build engines out of the Bay Area.

RetroRanger

Fantastic work and great picture thread thanks for posting I look fwd to the paint pics!

oldcutlass

Turned out sweet, also looking forward to paint.

CRUZN 66

Superb workmanship from looking at the photos... Also looking forward to your paint efforts...

Koda

Good stuff.

I can't recall at the moment if the 67 has the thermal flapper in the exhaust crossover, but I THINK you're going to see more vapor out of one side on the exhaust while cold because of this. If it has it, and if I'm not mistaken (both are dubious propositions, to be sure.)

1967Supreeeme

Thanks for the compliments guys, it’s been a real kick in the ***. I finished the roof with the time and effort I expected, but the sail panels seemed to take much more time than I hoped. A bit more prep and masking and I think I should have the top half of the car painted in the morning. I picked up some fast hardener for the sealer so it will be dry by night time.

1967Supreeeme

OK, I won’t just rip it apart yet until I do a little more homework on it. If it fails a coolant pressure check, I’ll pull the heads. I was quoted $500-750 locally at a well know shop to rework the heads based on what they find. Also, I like to be really prepared and have a new manifold, gaskets and possibly boil out the radiator.

I have a bung ready to weld in my exhaust so I can hook up my wideband, but I don’t want coolant in the O2 sensor. Now that I know the engine has been redone, I’m curious to see what kind of camit has in it. Seems a little “lumpy” at idle. I have no experience with what a stock 330 runs like though. It just seems like there’s a mismatch somewhere and a Performer manifold will help. I have a new Street Demon installed and I’m not going to bother tuning it until I swap the intake. If I pull the heads off, I can work them a little along with seeing what pistons I have and try to get the compression to match this combo. I don’t smell raw fuel in the exhaust anymore, but it’s still rich for sure.

1967Supreeeme