A few pics of some of the lights. I disassembled the backup lights, cleaned and reassembled. Disassembled the license plate light and re plated. Also sent out the back of the taillights for plating.

 

Before and after of the shift handle sent for plating at tri city. Very happy with their work.

 

Sent the horns to Gary at the horn works to be rebuilt and tuned. He completely disassembled them, cleans, tunes and reassembles them with the correct rivets. They look and sound great!

 

Good stuff!

 

Restored the grilles and headlight bezels. Very tedious and time consuming but very happy with how they came out.

 

Another one of my least favorite jobs was the inner fender wells the insides were coated with undercoating, which was good and bad. The bad part was getting it off, the good part was they were real nice once it was off. I always saw the threads about the hours and hours it takes to recondition them and all I can say is it is so true! I didn’t think it was going to ever end… I called in some reinforcements. That’s my little girl who loves to spend time in the garage with dad! I love every minute of it and am so glad she is into cars!

 

What silver paint did you use on your grills? I have used Krylon's dull aluminum in the past, but it does'nt appear to be available anymore.

 

Thats what I used. Had to buy it online…

 

Nice work Sir..

 

thank you.

 

A few more details. Hood hinges back from plating, a restored hood light from Scott Winn and found some nos static collectors for the dust caps.

 

Here are some pics of the finished trunk. I used the Gm trunk spatter paint and then sprayed matte finish clear over it in case it gets wet.

 

Fantastic work on an exceptionally beautiful car. That blue is the best color they had. A couple of questions:
1) Is that spare tire cover an option I'm not aware of? I know that was a typical feature on Buick A-bodies but I've never seen a reference to it for a '69 Olds A-body.
2) I see you left the 'horn' section of your front upper control arms a natural steel or silver color (where the upper ball joints are located). Did your originals have this pattern? I've done 2 sets of original '69 cars and haven't noticed this but maybe mine had too much age and road grime to reveal the detail. I've never seen anyone else do this so I'm curious.

I'm sure you're enjoying it. Great picture with your daughter lending a hand! Can you provide any history of the car and how you came to own it? I'm assuming you were driving it in high school in the early '90's based on that mirror sticker.

 

Speechless amazing restoration
Alain red W-31

 

Yes I am enjoying it very much and my daughter as well. My father bought the car in 1983. I was eight years old at the time. My brother first drove it to high school then I did next and kept it from there. I took my mom and daughter for a ride. We put my daughter in the middle of the bench seat (where I used to ride when I was little). That was pretty cool. My wife took a neat picture from the back.

 

Thank you Alain!

 

One of the things I restored with before pics but neglected to take the finished picks was the steering column. Here are some before pics and some pics disassembled and cleaned.

 

Here are some pics after paint in the booth. First with just base coat then with clear.

 

That is one hell of a paint job, I wish I could say that about the one I have. You really have done an amazing restoration on the car.
Steve

 

Thanks Steve. It was a ton of work but I am very happy with the end result.

 

I really enjoy seeing the final paint because there is so much work to get there. Nice work

 

After paint I took the body off the temporary chassis painted the bottom and switched it over to the restored chassis. It was so exciting seeing them together for the first time.

 

Very true as you know. Thanks

 

Absolutely beautiful car and what amazing craftsmanship you have. I'd like to ask what you used to clean the undercoating from the plastic fender wells? My car had a Ziebart coating at some point and it appears they chose to coat the top side of the plastic fender wells for some odd reason. At least they never rusted!

 

Thanks for the kind words. For the thick stuff I used a heat gun and plastic scraper. Be careful not to get it too hot. After that I used lacquer thinner on a rag and wiped it until it all came off. It was literally torture and hope I never have to do it again lol. Greg.

 

Here are some pictures of our long time family friend Nelson Medina hand painting the pinstripes on the hood and trunk. He has been doing this stuff for over 40 years and is world class. I went with black pin stripes and very happy with subtle look it gives.

 

Beautiful restoration! I love seeing the old school hand painted pinstripes, too. Outstanding.

 

Thanks Jimmy. By the way I love the new addition. Good luck with it!

 

Here are some pics of the finished stripes.

 

We polished the fenders prior to installing them since the molding and emblem have to go on first. This was my first look at the paint after polishing. It was exciting!

 

Really nice looking paint!
Question:
Did your guy just pinstripe over the clear or was it scuffed a bit? Any clear after? I'm thinking for down the road.

 

Some pictures of my friends Louie and Al polishing out the car. These guys watched me for the last six years working on the car and really went the extra mile for me sanding and polishing the car. Came out awesome.

 

No scuffing. He just wipes it down with a wax and grease remover and lays the stripe down. He does seem to add some solvent to the paint before applying it but never asked what it was. No clear after, he said let it dry for a couple days and apply wax over.

 

Here is a cool pic of a motorcycle tank that the pinstriper did. The letters look like a decal but they are not. He does it all free hand. The crazy part is he will have a conversation with you while doing it! As I said he is world class…

 

Amazing job, he is World Class for sure. They did a beautiful job on sanding and buffing the car out.
Steve

 

Here are some pictures of the interior coming together. I went back and forth with putting dynamat on the floors and very happy that I did. I feel it definitely made the cabin quieter while driving.

 

Absolutely on the mat. Gotta do something to keep the noise down useing that 6.00 gear.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHA Funny guys south of route 40.

 

I wouldn't have put it in just for the sake of originality. I mean really, is this going to be your daily driver where it would make a difference or just a nice weather cruiser?

 

To answer your question is this going to be a daily driver? No, I am fortunate enough to have a new Tahoe to use as my daily driver however, I plan on using this car with my family as much as I can. I have also spent a lot of time and money on the a/c system and feel the dynamat will help with that as well. For as nice as I have tried to make it and the long hours I spent doing it I am not going to sit back and just look at it and not enjoy it. Not saying I am using it in the rain and snow obviously.

As far as the originality goes, I hope you can see in this thread originality is important to me as I spent many hours of research and effort to make it as correct as I could. I guess you can say I took some “liberties” by adding dynamat but in my opinion it is something that after it’s installed it will never be seen after the carpet is installed. Not sure if you have an old car but I guess what you are also saying is that if you rebuilt the motor and bored it, changed the nylon timing chain with a roller, changed the Valve seats with hardened ones or changed to camshaft for a modern grind that would be taking the originality away as well… I guess for me there is a fine line on upgrades.

BTW if you user name has anything to do with Grand Nationals, I love those and miss mine dearly. My advice if you have one keep it!