MAW clean this mess up, blast it and get it P\C in the next batch. This kind of part needs P\C for durability reasons imo.





Getting the pull lever off was interesting. There is a rivot to grind, and then its design to have handle taken off to pull it out. I shaved the sides of the metal shaft down at the opposite end of handle enough to slide out instead. Couldnt figure how to get the handle off without destroying it. Probably should get a nice repop one if possible. Seen others out there do it.

Rearend off to get rebuilt by BPT.

 

Started top coating Tail Lights, Turn signals, tag light.

Primer (previously)-


Inside is Rustoleum Auto Gloss White




Outside is Rustoleum Aluminum Metallic...here is example on Tag light:



Just got to decide if I should clear coat all the exteriors of housings when Im done or not.

 

Parking lights

 

Here is current state of Dash metal. PO tried a lame facelift. Time to do it right...MAW right?!!






Im thinking of putting a tiny bit if metallic in the black here. Satin black is the trick, but thinking about about a little more pizaz since this is a resto mod. Risk\reward??

Dash was definitely green at som point...what were they thinking with that pea green color back then


Guess I wll start with some 400 first and see how that goes. Dont want to take it down to the green, but once I get going, who knows. ( I hope this doesnt lead to taking window out, serious strip down to metal, etc...Heavens above, step in and stop me now)

 

Removed all the Headliner trim metal. Going to get media blasted and P\C. One piece was completely rotted and came out in 3 pieces. Scott hooked me up with new one. THX SCOTT AGAIN! (Scott is a righteous brother...he is awesome in finding you parts, and wont take you to the cleaners in the process. HIGHLY RECCOMENDED! His handle is "oldspackrat")




Dug into the original seats. Stripped 2 sets of covers. Hiding underneath the ugliest seat covers ever seen was the original white pleather.
Rear bottom:

 

Have to repair this piece



The bottom burlap disentagrated. Its questionable if I can use the foam. Its not too bad, but not so hot either. The Upper rear seat is good all the way around. Could just use the seat cover. But I want to shoot both spring bases. Definitely the bottom rear, have to get creative to spray the upper one without getting paint all over the burlap.

 

Rear upper seat:



Burlap and foam is still pretty good.

 

Even the jute backing seems good on the rear upper seat. Maybe just add thin layer of foam over it as many have suggested.





2 piece consturction on the burlap


This webbing is still very good shape:



The front bench seat is next...I think. Im 50\50 on going to buckets (more like 75\25) although the wife wants the bench. The main reason is I have a achy back these days that can go out at any time. I dont think the crappy bench support is the ticket, and Im leaning in the direction of after market buckets of some sort. The cost of rebuilding a nice set of 71' buckets is so high, and it leaves you still with so-so back support and no lateral support...and being 6'5" I need the reclining capabilities too. I also want to fool around with extending the front seat leg room.
Would be really nice to have some retro cutlass seat covers on modern buckets... Havent seen that attempted yet.

 

Btw- Im approaching 700 pics posted which might be some kind of record around here.
Everyone loves pics here, so Im aiming to please!

Also, my rearend is done, going to pick it up today.

 

....and are appreciated! TY

Ted

 

Nice work on the pods and tag light. Waiting to see how the shrink wrap you were thinking about will turn out.

When you spray the dash, the original paint was not gloss. It's a very low satin - almost flat look.

IDK, if you're going to all the trouble of turning this car into a beautiful machine? Why scrimp on seat backing. Do you know about Ben R? He can hook you up with 'fresh' foam, jute and burlap that doesn't need to have farts beaten out of it. Old foam will likely break down faster and you'll wish you had replaced it when the seat was done. Just my opinion. In case you're interested maybe even discussing with Ben, he runs a seat resto company, here's the link: Classic Seat Restorations

 

Looking good !

 

Thx guys.

Alan, my shrink wrap idea is a backup plan. Im trying to hunt down some oem ones, and I think I might of found some. Will post if I do.

As for old farts...LOL.But dont you think that old vinyl deflected them?!!
You are right. Ultimately it depends on cost. Ive heard you guys mention Ben's shop, and I will certainly look into it. As you can see by now, I hate to rig\ half-*** anything. But the costs are climbing! I got to choose where to take short cuts, and since I will NEVER sit in back seat, that seems good place to save some coin. Thanks though for the reccommendation and i will look into the cost.

As for dash, yes Im aware. Got tons of pics of Cutlass\442 dashes for reference. I want to experiment with maybe making it stand out a little more. I will have to research all the restomod dashes out there. I want to keep it pretty simple, but not so stock simple. I like the Aluminum metallic on my Dirveshaft and tag light above. (Its not as dramatic in person as above pic as the camera flash really makes it pop. Its more subte in person)....So Im thinking of trying some similar mellow metallic black, min gloss... min metallic. Just an initial thought. I like the clean flat black too.

Pics of the Rearend...time to paint pumpkin Aluminum. Didnt want mechanics mucking it up. Today through rest of weekend is rear end pasint, prep and install, fingers cross... along with new UMI rear control arms, SS brake lines, SS hoses, etc. All been waiting on the shelf for this day. Time to rock:





Drive pattern looks pretty good.


Coast pattern not too bad either

 

New UMI poly bushings:



Broward Power Train in Ft Lauderdale. If your in the area, talk to Mark the owner, terrific guy. His laborers, not so much, need some basic lessons in PR, typical...but they do top notch work which in the end is all that really matters.

 

Mocking up the brake lines:




Axles going in:

 

Im baby sitting my sons bearded Dragon today, Princess Leia keeping me company as I work.

 

First coat of Aluminum Heat Por15. Same stuff I did the Tranny with:




Man, I can remember when it used to look like this!


As pumpkin dries, Im going to install upper control arms:

 

Should look great with this TA cover I had on it before:





Finished pumpkin - Filled with Lucas 85-140 and Trans X Posi Additive

 

You are doing some really nice work.

 

Nice work there Jim. Princess Leia?? She sure has changed from what I remember her looking like.

Hmmm, where have I seen that aluminum looking pumpkin before??

Your axles look fantastic, and I'm glad to see you got the carrier / gears done to your satisfaction with a decent price. Keep 'er up!

 

Yeah, I saw your "aluminum" pumpkin, and decided that was what Im going to do too.
It really looks as good in person. You know how much time goes into prepping this thing, so all I did at the end was use Eastwoods "Pre" which is great stuff to use right before painting (given you did all the prepping first, "Pre" good for the very last step). The Por15 just bonds so well to metal with lots of pores.

And yes, BPT ended up doing the diff at the minimum $ range I told you...so it was even better. Who actually does it at the minimum anymore when they give you a range $ wise?! So I was very happy with that.

Took off all the Felts on the doors while I wait the 24 hours for Por15 to dry.
All total garbage. Going to redo the felts on the window guides using super high tack adhesive felt.




The rear window felts were just as bad. I removed one felt above for a template pattern

 

Hey ya remember where the part with the red arrow pointing to goes ? I'm trying to avoid taking the other door panel off to figure it out . I've been out of internet access since I moved into my moms basement . I should be up and running by monday hopefully ... Thanks in advance .... BTW nice job !

 

Those felt guides go on the outer side of the window, inside the door hollows area, and behind outer felt strip that goes along the top edge of door. You got to take off the felt strip, which to do that you have to take door panel off, and loosen bolts for the window stop bumper. Those slide down allowing you extra inch or so to get the window low enough to access the screws that hold on the felt strip. Kind of hard to describe, but once you see and get it, its a breeze. But you got to take off door panels to get to those window stop bumper bolts. I can take pics this w\e if no one else beats me to it.

 

Thanks .

 

THX 69.

Did allot of stuff over past couple weeks as I finished the rearend up and now waiting for some rear diff braces to come in so I can install rearend.
Was going back and forth on what type braces to get, finally went with OEM versions.

I finished the steering column in meantime, and restored all 3 instrument gauges using Robs thread as a guide. But I took it even further than he did.
Took allot of pics of each unit. Pics\ details coming.

Steering wheel...Horn contact a bit rusty




Hit it with steel wool -

 

Make sure I lined up all three alignment marks:

I darkened this first one with a sharpie



Good shot of all 3 lined up


Also line up the marks on retainer plate...I marked the steering shaft with a sharpie when I took off the orig sw. I think I might use a dremmel for a permanent alignment mark on the shaft when I make sure everything is perfect. New horn contact too here.


Repainted this cover that no one will ever see.

 

Jim,
Couple of questions.
1. Are those brake lines on the axle going to fit? They look awfully short in the mock up.
2. When you took apart your e-brake foot assembly, what are you going to use to re-attach the pull release? It looks like you ground off the stamped rivet that was holding it?
3. Did you press in the diff bushings or did the shop? They look quite a bit different from what I'm used to seeing.

Nice write up and detail shots of the steering column/wheel/hub line up!

 

Steering wheel attached but not torqed down. Need to take it off again when I paint the dash and to pad dash pad back on. But it looks good.


Now just have to figure which way to go here...insert or complete horn button. Boiled some water and dropped the horn button in and softened up the rubber enough to carefully remove. Tedious.

 

Inst gauges time


First up is the Tic Tock Tach. Problem with these as Rob has documented is poor illumination caused by:
1) Tach case is not painted inside, just overspray
2) Bezel that reflects light onto the tach faceplate is black when its supposed to be painted sky blue
3) wrong litebulbs. Mine were 158s, which arent right at all. Rob reported the 168s work the best. (attached is the wattage chart of the bulbs)

 

Can clearly see part of the problem here. black does not reflect well!


Found a good match spray paint called Liquitex. I'll have to update the exact number\shade of it.



Pretty close

 

Now the tach case



Here is the paint I used


Now onto a maybe slight controversial mod for you purist out there.
I always wonder why the original Rally tic toc tach made the tach needle indicator an extremely washed out color. I always thought it was white or creme until I actually had one in my possesion and took it apart. Its actually a very washed out yellow. I always thought it should be like the fuel and speedo gauges the Neon Orange. SO....



Its a Neon Orange needle paint I got at an art store. I compared 5 different Neon orange paints and this was as exact as possible. I tested it on a spare speedo and it you cant tell the difference when I painted half the needle for a comparison. Its also flourescent so should really pop in the dark.

 

I did a comparison on the actually tach face with so painters tape, and cutting into a crude version of the original needle. I showed it to 5 people as a comparison and it was 5-0 in favor of the Orange needle. Since I already wanted to do this, that was all I needed to convince me to go for it.
Which do you like?




Here you can see the color of the orig needle is light yellow. I also considered a Neo yellow, but it doesnt match the other 2 needles in the speedo and fuel gauges. Why didnt they keep it uniform? I thought it was due to the redline area being in that hue a little. But your so rarely ever in redline, your 90% + below redline so dont understand it.


Here is how it turned out

 

Tach down, Speedo and Fuel gauges to go:

Disassemble-



Typical crappy case. I'll be going to floor shift soI got this floor shift speedo.


This floor shift speedo has a pretty decent face. The all seem to corrode at the bottom where I guess moisture settles. Out of the 3, this was the best shape overall.


I hit the case with 150 and 400. Going to prime it with Auto primer, then hit it with a light top coat of flat white to lighten the sky blue that will come next.

 

Orange needle....

Wow!, have you ever done a pile of good work....congrats!

Ted

 

 

Time to put it all back together. The first thing is the little gasket under the turn signal tunnels. These are usually a disintegrated mess, as you can see.
The gasket material reminds me of the old window or wall style room Air Conditioning filters that you clean every month. It has a shiny thin backing on the foam as you can see. The fuel gauge has exact same material and fortunately it is perfect. I thought of going to home depot to find something similar, but I got some similar thickness foam with a backing that is very tough. I collect all kinds of nick knacks like this for just this type of thing. It will work fine.

Original mess


shot of the backing material on the top


Taped it to keep it together for a pattern

 

Rubber gasket here is perfect.


Speedo cable clip


Little tip...if your Hi beam lens is scratch where it vibrates on the speedo faceplate so that when you put it together, all the scratches scream out at you, just flip lens cap around 180 degrees like below.

 

Hit the cirrcuit board with 400



These just pop out, and back in again



Steel wool cleaned these rignt up

 

Install a new lens along with above bezel and shes done



I used a couple small pen lights to just get an idea of what it would look like. A couple 168s should light this right up

 

And finally the fuel gauge:

This fuel gauge was in great shape. I could of used it as is with just adding a new lens. But since I did other two gauges all the way, going to do the same here to keep it uniform.



Remove the resistor by lightly prying blue housing off, and self explanatory from here




The blue housings just lift off with gentle prying


The foam gasket also should just come out. But they are usually disintegrated and slightly melted on. I used flexible thin razor blades to very gently pry. This one was barely stuck on in just a couple spots, came right out. Its in great shape so I can reuse with no problem.