calibones

Hi All, wanted to start a thread for my little restoration project in hopes it helps someone at some point

A little background: My fathers uncle bought the car new in Kansas City. After he passed his daughter kept it and drove it maybe once a year. Anytime we came to visit she would pull it out and drive it around. Finally she decided she needed to get rid of it and I jumped on the chance to own it. I found some of the registration paperwork. The car gained about 700 miles from '97 to 2015.

I attempted to drive it back to California from Kansas City. Made it about 500 miles before it broke down in North Platte Nebraska and had to tow it the rest of the way.

calibones

When I got the car back I realized there was a lot of work to do.

-Engine needed to be rebuilt
-Rotted floorboards
-Convertible top needs help to go up
-Stereo does not work
-Steering wheel badly cracked
-Inner Wheel well cover, pinch molding and outer wheel well trim missing

I soon realized how rusted out the floorboards were and decided to start here. The rear floor are behind the passenger side was so bad you could almost stick a foot through. Luckily I found some off the shelf floor panels from C2C Fabrication (they usually have a small sale around major holidays FYI). I was also able to find some floor drain plugs that fit perfectly as well. I cut out the space for the floor panels and had them welded in then spent a long time with a wire brush cleaning out as much loose rust as I could.

I ended up getting the POR-15 Trunk and Floor Pan kit to to hopefully stop the rest of the rust. I wish I had bought extra of the metal prep solution as there wasn't enough to cover the floor plus trunk but still worked well. Took a day to do the cleaning and metal prep and another to paint the floor and trunk. I think the silver looks better then the black but they tell you to do silver first and then black

calibones

As far as the stereo goes, I had the bright idea that I could find a little DIY circuit board that I could use to upgrade my stereo to the current age. I looked around for a while and couldn't find anything that fit the bill. Then I found the Aurora designs boards, only downside is they won't let you install it yourself. Found a local dealer to do it, took a while but I love having bluetooth and modern speakers with the look of my original stereo unit.

I installed some kicker DS35 3.5" speakers upfront and some Alpine SPS-619 6x9 speakers in the back. The kickers sound great but the jury is still out on the Alpines. I sort of had to wedge them in to get them to fit and they don't seem to add too much to the sound but we will see.

calibones

Current projects are

Installing new carpet
See if the in dash clock can be fixed
restoring the trunk lock cover
restoring the steering wheel

oldcutlass

Nice work on the floors and radio.

Olds64

Very cool project. Check it out!

https://www.clocksandgauges.com/

calibones

Looks like a great option to fix the clock! Have any experience with their DIY conversion kits or sending one in to get fixed?

76olds

The floor looks great, cool option for an original radio. The trunk looks very good as well.

Olds64

FWIW, I never bought anything from Instrument Services Inc.; however, I did contact them years ago about the conversion kit (the clocks in my 71 98 are dead). They had good customer service and a decent price, I just deployed and life got in the way.