fjross

I purchase this car back in 2004 from a local guy that had a 72 Hurst Olds hard top. He purchased the convertible in the pics and cloned it into a convertible sister car for his number matching H/O hard top. He removed the interior, painted the car white, dyed the door panels black and replaced the front buckets and rear bench with a black interior from a scrap yard. After doing some home work, I found out that the car originated as a viking blue, pearl interior 442 with white trim. The engine was numbers matching to the car but the trans had been replaced. The deal in purchasing the car was that a complete set on GM sheet metal (door skins, fenders and quarters) was to go with the car. This is where the fun began, since the interior was removed, not all the fasteners made it back and unfortunately the build sheet was not found since it was probably in the pearl interior that was gutted. The restoration took about six years while remolding my home and various other projects. Here are some pics the day I towed it home.

fjross

These are pics while disassembling the car where you can see the original viking blue. Any rust that was in the car was replaced with either NOS or non rusted OEM metal such as the rear valance, windshield header and dashboard frame.

fjross

Engine went to the machine shop and had a mild cam installed while being balanced and blue printed. the other engine in the pic is a 68 GTO that my brother was doing at the same time I was restoring the 442.

fjross

Body seperated from the frame and sent to sand blast.

fjross

Frame was sent out for powder coat with 45% gloss. I was able to powder coat most of my own parts that fit in my welding rod oven. Suspension was replaced with all Moog parts and fuel and brake lines replaced in stainless steel.

fjross

Panels starting to be replaced at body shop.

fjross

More body shop pics

fjross

Body in paint waiting to cure to be polished out.

fjross

Starting to re-assemble. The last pics are the day it came back from the body shop.

bulldog

Looking very nice going to be a sweet ride when finished,keep us updated with lots of pictures.

Schne442

Very nice, love that viking Blue.
Gary

fjross

Steering column installed along with interior wiring installed. Engine compartment complete with air cleaner. I polished all the bezels on the rims and installed them with silicon so they don't rattle. I also installed the tires using Dyna-beads so I wouldn't have to install weights on the rim.

fjross

I purchased a PUI interior from one of the Olds venders. After reading post regarding the quality of Legendary Interiors, I ended up selling the PUI interior and going with Legendary. I stripped down all the seats, sand blasted and painted the frames and had them recovered.

fjross

Installed rugs along with tape deck and dualgate as well as starting to fit the new Legendary panels. I ended up putting the original 8-track with housing into moth *****. I purchased a re-pro housing from Randy and installed a Kenwood deck. I ran 3 sets of RCA jacks as well as a power supply from the front of the car, under the rugs to the trunk area. I eventually plan on installing an amp with sub into the trunk. I installed Polk 6" speakers into aftermarket kick panels. I have since painted the speaker grills black to match the interior so they are not so noticable. I also plan on installing a pair of Polk Atriums (book self speakers) on the back seat so that I can remove them when I want. I was very happy with the Legendary interior. The stiching, color and customer service was outstanding.

fjross

These pics where after the first road test with beauty rims installed. I ended up having a trans pan that develope a leak that I couldn't stop. I replaced the stock pan with a B&M pan with drain plug. I did this to make future maintance more user friendly as well as installing a rubber gasket which did stopped the leak.

fjross

Pics of interior installed. I also had some extra pearl material from Legendary and made new door pulls after following Rob's interior makeover thread. I ended up having the shop that did my convertible top sew the material to the rubber inserts by machine instead of hand stitching. Then I used 3M Spray 90 to assemble the material around the pulls.

fjross

Finally the finished pics of the car with top installed. Unfortunatly, these are not the best quality pics and the weather has now turned to crap here in the north east. The car will stay put until snow and salt are off the road.

1971 442 convert

Nice looking car man.
Reminds me of mine lol.
Had it appraised yet?

kpl70sx

That car came out beautifully. I love that color combination! Looks like a nice, quality restoration. How long did the whole thing take?

fjross

I purchased the car in 2004 and just finished the car before Christmas. During the 6 year period I remodeled my house including two bathrooms and a kitchen. I picked up a 77 Toyota FJ-40 Land Criuser and did some odds and ends on that. I also did quite a bit of side work that helped pay for the restoration of the 442 during the 6 year period.

oldsguybry

very nice , I had a question on the frame , looks like the part that runs under chasis is full frame , not open on the inside like mine......was the full frame only on the 442's or was that part modified ?

fjross

Convertible frames are boxed from the factory to give the frame strenght do to the fact that there's no roof to stiffen the body.

Tom Bilse

I've always liked the Viking blue color. Very nice resto!

gearheads78

Very nice finished product. I bet its driving you crazy not being able to enjoy it right now.

1969w3155

Well done, looks great.

VikingBlue

we'll have to coordinate this year else our twin cars will be at Whiskey on the same day..