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Picked this guy up 2/21/25 for $8500.Going to be a drive and fix as I go. stock 350 2bbl. As of right now it runs pretty good, brake lines need to be addressed before I feel comfortable on the road. Would like to do power front disks. Kind of thinking look wise period correct with some underlying upgrades. Performance wise unless I become rich nothing more than head/cam/intake/stall/exhaust one day. Will take a few years I am thinking to get to the point of paint. We shall see
Ram squatted a bit but drove 1hr back on the highway like a champ, trans never got above 122 degrees in 20 degree temp.
When I first got my '72 ragtop it was a well enough running car that I actually drove 100 miles home on a 90* FL summer day WITH working a/c!
So my initial thought was to work with what I had in the short run until a bigger total rebuild plan could be crafted
Basic plan I put in place for my 350 2bbl when I first got it was:
- complete tune up (plugs, wires, cap/rotor, belts, all fluids changed new hoses, t-stat, etc.)
- electronic ignition (originally went with the MSD p/n 8529 for that)
- 4bbl intake/carb swap
- dual exhaust (went with Flowmaster 40's originally)
the extended plan once all the basics were covered would have been water pump and timing chain...
In my case however plans changed when I removed the intake and saw 50 years of crud build-up inside the lifter galley - running or not, I pulled it for a full rebuild at that point.
But the basics I think are still a solid place to start if you don't want to go that far into the motor yet.
When I first got my '72 ragtop it was a well enough running car that I actually drove 100 miles home on a 90* FL summer day WITH working a/c!
So my initial thought was to work with what I had in the short run until a bigger total rebuild plan could be crafted
Basic plan I put in place for my 350 2bbl when I first got it was:
- complete tune up (plugs, wires, cap/rotor, belts, all fluids changed new hoses, t-stat, etc.)
- electronic ignition (originally went with the MSD p/n 8529 for that)
- 4bbl intake/carb swap
- dual exhaust (went with Flowmaster 40's originally)
the extended plan once all the basics were covered would have been water pump and timing chain...
In my case however plans changed when I removed the intake and saw 50 years of crud build-up inside the lifter galley - running or not, I pulled it for a full rebuild at that point.
But the basics I think are still a solid place to start if you don't want to go that far into the motor yet.
I got plugs, belts, oil and filter for this weekend if I can to start. I need to do seals (all of them) and brakes before I dig to far. I would LOVE to pull the valve covers to peak and the rockers but......for now I will pretend its mint? lol
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Last edited by oldcutlass; Feb 24, 2025 at 10:19 PM.
I didnt know when you hit the high beams that all 4 lights are supposed to go on. My highs dont work, plugs have power so I guess both lamps went out.
Next sunday is the plan for tune up, belts and oil change. Got a old sears dwell meter from ebay coming, $25. I will have to research idle timing for when we time it after the dwell.
And I did confirm the steering box does leak, and one of the steering linkages underneath has a missing bushing/bearing so steering has some play. All in due time!
Did tune up today, plugs, wires, oil, cap etc. Rockauto send me the wrong alt belt, to small and had to run to napa. Previous spark plugs one I unthreaded by hand, the rest were not even tight. Oil filter that was on there was a sears dual, never heard of it. I ordered points from summit but guess they ran out and I got refunded. Ordered from rockauto, acdelco gold and a condenser, car wouldnt start, no spark. After fussing with it for 30min, put the old one back in, sprayed starter fluid in the carb and after running rough probably because I flooded it fired up.
Hooked up dwell meter, was running at 20, got it to hit 30, adjusted idle and timing, she runs even better now. Took it for a quick run around my brothers block, now I understand the gutless cutlass joke LOL. Speedo dont work, cars front end floats like its on a cloud, which is ok because I want to do control arms etc but I wouldnt dare drive it on the highway. Trans shifts from 1-2, I dont know when its supposed to shift from 2-3 as I doubt I went over 35mph. Ordered door seals, drip rail seals, trunk and a window switch just to get the ball rolling.
But hey its a 1 wheel peel red wire spruced up engine bay right now!
I went to my brothers to look at a few things. I deleted the emissions mutli port temp sensor thingy with the 4 vac lines attached to it. Started to remove some drip rail seal and behind the seal by the door was white. This had me thinking.
I went to this place https://datatagdecoder.com/ and typed in what I could see. The TR 942 with the 06B in not 100% its a B but close enough. Apparently the car was born white, with a green painted top? If the 45 is a 45 looking from my picture. If in fact it was born white, there isnt a trace of white anywhere on the car, hood, fenders, behind door panels, trunk etc.
Starting prep for next weekends work load. Behind and around original master was little rusty. Went to hf got a 110lb blaster tank, went to tractor supply got the fine coal slag sand. I taped things off and covered the entire bay, fenders, and windows with a cloth painting tarp and melted away the surface rust in minutes. It was awesome. Primed it and 3 coats rustoleum semi gloss. I like doing it so much I took the A pillar cover and blasted and painted that too HA. I have the front brake disk conversion, waiting on steering parts, control arms, shocks, springs, wheels, rubber and brake lines. Think thats all I ordered.....?
Car is back on the ground. Car sounds like it needs the carb tuned again, new fuel pump and I took away the emissions port thing by the front of the engine. Replaced vac lines with silicone lines, new trans pan (chrome with a drain plug because why not) and filter. Bled brakes, I still have a slow drip from under neath where the hardline meets the flex for the rear. Maybe I can mess with tomorrow. Gen lights on, running at battery 13 volts, maybe i touched something.
If they made the olds wheels in 15x8 I could have stuck with those oh well
Left 245's, middle 215's, right 295.
Little small querks to figure out but its road "worthy". Front end no longer feels floaty, and my god power brakes with disk fronts are so much better. Tracks straight, feels pretty good for just eye balling it.
Looked at car again today, no leaking fluid underneath from brakes, maybe the residual was slowing dripped from before. I reattached the high speed blower relay, 2 pumps of the peddle and she fired up super quick. Runs great now. I dont know if that relay was it (doubt it) or it had a bug in it from when I did the fuel pump. Start up voltage was low/mid 14's so all is well there. Watched it for 30min messing around, would dip high 12's to low 13's and stay for some time but the battery isnt draining so who knows. Lights on would be no lower than 12.7.
Forgot to post a picture of the power booster! I give the right stuff pre formed brake lines a B+. All fittings worked, most of the lines were bent correct minus the fact that they were all to l ong by a few inches. The front driver disk to master wasnt even close in shape so I had to bend that all different ways. The disk conversion was spot on, no problems there.
I found this today, no fuse in it, dont know what it powers. Guess I will worry about it later when curiosity strikes more.
Installed tac today, trunk weather seal and door seals, When it was painted green probably 600 years ago they filled in the underside of the door holes where the seals would go, so I had to redrill them. I will go out on a limb and say this was someones project car decades ago and never got finished and just sold off, then sold off again.
Tac replaced the dummy gauge, I cut out the gauge center so the 3 3/8 gauge had something to fit into. Im stuck with this size now so thats what the other 2 will be, but if I did it again I would go the 4.5" factory size.. Black/white during the day and blue with dark red needle at night. Lights are on in pic.
Wash the car today, more than likely will never see water again until its paint time. Windshield and back glass leak LOL, Oh well hopefully nothing to crazy hiding behind there when the time comes . Upon further inspection of the floors, the passenger side front I can see some fiberglass mesh peaking through, so once cleaned up I will have to patches to do.
Threw on a edelbrock rpm intake (EDL-7111) with quick fuel slayer 750 carb (QFT-SL-750-VS) and a 180 tstat.
Used summit fuel feed line SUM-G3110
holley throttle cable bracket hookup HLY-20-88
vibrant -6 nylon braided fuel line VPE-11956
summit hose end clamps SUM-220906-B
trans-dapt fuel filter TRD-9245
BMR chassis brace BMR-CB410R
front away bar BMR-SB008R
chassis brace was a pain in the *** to install, hated every second.
Chassis brace need rivnuts, couldnt find a 7/16 for my tool so saw a way to use it with a nut and metal plate
Throttle bushing was ***** inline tube ordered new bushing, sleeve and clip. Clip was way to fat to fit the quickfuel, tried using the stock clip but it keeps popping off. Might have to put a snap ring in the little groove to hold the cable and bushing on
Want to mess with timing next weekend and dial it in better after this, then Ill just drive it. Have nothing else planned to do to it this summer.
Iv seen people use this google geminii thing for cars thought I would play with it. No I dont know who the dam driver is, it took me out and put some ai fruit loop in their.
Lady booted me from the house earlier this year after 17 years so things will go slower than I wanted.
Brought the cutlass over yesterday, needed to add 1.5 quarts to the trans to get her moving without high reving. Looking under it today I have like 3 spots of oil dripping so I will have to look at see wtf.
Checked dwell, spot on, adjusted the floats, checked vacuum and added a fuel pressure gauge because I wasnt sure if this pump was putting out more than it should. Cold start it would need to have its throat cleared for 30 seconds before high rpm would take over. Also adjusted the secondary's to delay a bit to reduce bog. Gauge jumps around from 4-8ish so psi is good.
Think the trans is taking a ***** reverse slips bad. .
When that time came I wanted to do a 4l80e, but I dont have time to do all that and wait for a driveshaft to be made. Buy things to tinker with, its letting me tinker alright. Maybe look at carb internals too, somethings got to be leaking internally for it to run that rich and need its throat cleared on cold startup.
Messed with timing today trying to mess around. Set it to "12" per oem (I had it at 22ish)and ran worse and almost took my face off with a fire ball shooting up the carb. So I kept cranking the timing up and up while reving and ran better and better great response. Put it at 34, but it didnt like trying to start that high so I dropped it to 30. Could probably drop another 2 degrees but I will leave it there for now. The 53 it is reading is with the advance hooked back up. The part idle bog I have been fighting since day 1 is just about if not gone once warmed up. Drove it around and it was great, just slow as ***** my truck would kick this things ***. I started it a few hours later and as of right now dont have any of that cold start "having to clear its throat" before high rpm kicked in.
Fuel gauge needle is now rock steady and not bouncing around.
Dog doesnt know what to think of the cutlass, thinks it is weird, and doesnt like the noise it makes. Trans still slips in reverse, I dont think there is anything I can adjust, forward gears are strong and normal.
Took the old exhaust and manifolds off today. Tried to install the passenger with filter removed and I could only get so close, 1 port off. Took bolt off mount and tried to lift engine, nothing happened so I will pull the other side bolt and see if it goes up...... BUT i lost my stupid compact 1/2" electric impact. It was in my hand then 30 seconds later gone and I cant find it anywhere..................
Fun seeing stuff on the car, the starter says 71 olds 455, neat. To bad I got stuck with the 350. The R wire was never connected, it was taped off on the starter, yes I have points.
Sad to say it took all dam weekend for headers. Passenger side got in, trans lines kept getting inthe way so I kept bending them. 2nd primary tube from the firewall the bolt I had to hit in with a hammer because the primary was in the way to get the bolt in. That 1 bolt took me 1 hr to get in, and taking the header off twice to do it. pos
Driver side I had to smash the bottom of 1 tube because it was hitting the engine frame crossover. I replaced the engine mount on that side, looked fine but I was there. I had to cut the corner off on that mount to get the header to sit lower down, I have to finish torquing those bolts, I said **** it and ate dinner. But everything else clears easily all around, both sides. I have mini starter to install and rewire, AF gauge, oil filter adapter and the 3" exhaust . Oh and if I havent mentioned these are ebay special long tubes.
I lost 1 engine mount through bolt (seems to be common to loose things now) so I went to the store got new grade 8 for both sides and grade 8 header bolts as the ones supplied were not even the correct thickness.
Oh and Ill need 1 new dipstick tube. Not sure if Ill skip gym this week and finish or wait until next weekend, Depends how tired I am.
I dont expect anyone to respond but I need PICTURES<-------- of how to mount the 2 strap rubber hangers and rear hangers to the pipe. The instructions are not idiot proof for someone that learns via seeing.
Exhaust i cut off wasnt OG and want mounted near the factory location so I am working with a blank slate.
Anyho, mini starter is hooked up with 1/0 ga wire. Ran the diode inside the car since I have seen people have them fail from the heat. Engine spins up so fast and engine has n o hesitation firing up, its great.
Batt cable
R terminal hook up
Green wire is the battery to starter, best way I thought to keep it away from the header heat.
This pic should give you an idea. One side of the strap bolts to the front side of the cross member and the other bolts to the rear facing side.
Make sure you get the correct course threaded bolts with big washers on them to secure the straps. The frame should already have the holes drilled.
Maybe I did it right I dunno, ill post up pics tmw. Think I have everything done, just have to wire in the AFR gauge. The exhaust really does dip down towards the headers, dumb bb headers. Hopefully the ground wont be to much of a problem for me.
Dunno what a short is and why it went to a short video but whatever.... atleast it runs. the 4" tips look tiny.....
IMO its not that bad of a weld with a 110v fluxcore and havent welded this much in 10-15 years? Will need to get a solid wire with gas one day to practice on sheet metal for when that day comes. The collector doesnt look as pretty
Thanks for that pic. Ok so maybe I did it right and maybe I didnt. But it works? ha
Passenger side, outside straight, inside"C" bend to the front. Driver side the "C" bend is towards the rear.
I thought 4" tips were going to look big, this *** makes them look small.
Puppies hang low, it does annoy me how the exhaust has to slope, but what can ya do. Drove it around for 10miles, over train tracks and nothing hit so I should be ok.
Got the AFR gauge hooked up and installed. Proves my point, she pig rich at idle, goes between 9.7-10.2 Cant lean out the idle screws to much or she starts to bog when you hit throttle. If I understand correctly I go up in idle screw bleeders(brain fart right now) things to allow more air and less fuel at idle.
Ok now that I am done with this exhaust project, I LOVE how it starts so easy and quick now. I cant say because it has the R wire hooked up now, a starter (power master 9510)than spins super fast or all the above but I love it.
The exhaust sounds great, wuss at idle, but no cam so its expected. The cruiser and nailing it is just awesome, its perfect. Exhaust incase anyone missed it is
-ebay chinese headers
-pypes 3" stainless tubing H crossover
-flowmaster super 44 mufflers
-jones 3" in 4" out 45 degree slash stainless tips
Hopefully the trans dont take a crap sooner than later with it slipping pretty good in reverse, I just let the engine rpm back it up or very light throttle. Oil pan leaks, trans leaks, power steering leaks, ah the joys, Atleast the gas dont leak (lines look original..... **** shouldnt have said anything)
Right now I would like to focus on getting the air fuel ratio closer to perfect, and some led bulbs going on.
Drove it around today after messing with the idle screws. Got it to read high 13's low 14's at idle for the most part. at a stop light the rpms want to bounce a bit and doesnt stay steady like it did super rich. So maybe she wants more fuel.
Was hearing a rubbing noise while turning, was hoping it wasnt the rear end, turns out the exhaust pipe was rubbing the tire. After parked it was about 1/4" away from the tire, I can move it back over 1" so maybe Ill have to strap that side to limit motion. Should probably pull a plug and see how they look being pig rich all this time.
Will have to still figure out this slight off idle bog, AFR pegs lean when it does it, if I slowly roll into it its fine. AFR cross the board seems to be acceptable now for the most part.
The purpose of the 'R' wire (terminal) is to supply full battery power (voltage) ONLY during startup. After startup, the 'R' wire is taken out of the loop. The 'R' wire is not a requirement to turn over the engine. Think of it as a starting aid. A PO might not have known its purpose or for any number of reasons didn't know why/how to hook it up. Having it hooked up (correctly) helps to increase/maintain life of the starter.
I noted (somewhere above) you mentioned your battery voltage w/ car running. A fully charged car battery should read ~12.6VDC - car off. With car running at idle & no accessories (AC, heater, headlamps, etc.) you should read between 13.8VDC - 14.4VDC. This is a measurement of both the ALT & the external voltage regulator (VR) supplying voltage back into the battery to maintain the charge (voltage) on the battery while engine is running. At ~2000RPM you should have a steady 14.4VDC measured at the battery. If you don't have a minimum of 13.8VDC wiring (somewhere) is suspect &/or the VR. Just some food for thought to assist as you move forward. The voltage at the battery (car running) should never exceed 15.0VDC.
Ya I havent checked the voltage in over a year I think, since I got the car. Keeps working so I wont bother for now.
Richened up the idle screws 1/8 turn, she likes that better.
I put the accelerator pump cam lobe in the #2 position just to see, cars bog went way worse. To even get off the line I had to feather the feather until it cleared up. Im still trying to learn what the hell all this means but I will figure out out. I am thinking I need a stronger shot at #1 hole.
Pulled some plugs they are tan. This is fun, $110 for a tank of fuel IS NOT.
Did the rear diff fluid, fluid wasnt horrible, dark amber I would say, god knows how old it was. Not much draining out, certainly not 2 quarts worth that I put back in. Gears do show their age.
Scooping out the fluid by the pinion, yummy
No idea how you get a gouge like that on the inside
Wally gear oil and a pumper
I cleaned, wire brushed, cleaned, primer and painted the cover because I cannot just leave things alone.
Also put led lights in the parking light and the front 2 turn signals. Will have to check them soon when its dark out to see if they really are twice the brightness. From Diode dynamic
Also still messing with this fuel gauge crap. Took the gauge out, found there were 3 loose pins in the back for the harness. I took a needle nose turned the pins a bit and that made them solid again. Now the dummy lights work when on accessory. Ohm'd the sender, came back at 70 so probably 3/4 tank. Grounded gauge, went to E other than that it would instantly go to peg max full. Last month I took the ground wire to the frame and ran it into the trunk latch. Now if I did it right I took the meter for continuity and stuck it in the ground wire then grounded to metal, and got nothing, no beep. So if I am thinking correctly the ground wire is shot on the sending unit or something correct?
Was talking to quick fuel about the slight bog and they recommended a bigger squirter. Stock is .032 so I put in a .035. Didnt drive it around yet but just sitting there it did help a bit while jabbing the throttle. I have a cam assortment so depending how it road tests maybe I will throw the next step up and go from there.
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