Johnd

In the eighties and nineties, I owned a burgundy mist 1970 442 convertible. I sold the car as a down payment on my first house with the plans of acquiring another 442 as I got older. Well about two years ago I started my search for a burgundy 1970 442 holiday coupe. The only options I wanted on the car were ram air, dualgate, and gauges - no AC. For some reason finding this color was a needle in a haystack as I only found 3 advertised over the past two years, so when this car came up in May I was very interested. Unfortunately, the wife nixed the idea and the car sold for 2K more on ebay than the seller offered it to me for. Fast forward a few months, and the wife agrees to let me start looking for a car again. I reached out to the seller, found out the new owner (member of the board and a great guy), and the rest is history. The new owner bought the car, invested a couple of thousand in parts, and believe it or not sold the car to me at a loss. Below are a couple of shots of the car on the transporter:

Johnd

The car was painted white at one point and then someone sprayed it with primer. They went to a lot of work to do it to as it is under all the chrome moldings

Johnd

The worst part of the car is the trunk area, the lip on the bottom is rotted out, the floor is rotted, and the sail panel is toast. The car came with a new lip and trunk pan, and I purchased a sail panel from Desert Valley - they cut it all the way back to the rear seat, so I can have it seemed in at the factory weld points.

455Olds

Very nice! I'll be watching this one as I get prepped for the restoration on my own '70. Subscribed!

oldcutlass

And the journey begins.

Johnd

The rear quarters and roof are in excellent condition. The only spot of rust is on the drivers quarter about the size of a half dollar - other than that they are all original and exceptionally clean:

Johnd

Since buying the car I have been slowly gather the metal needed to bring it back to its former glory. I have already purchased new floor pans, doors, original rear spoiler, and sail panel. The only thing I need now are fenders and a trunk lid. The trunk lid and passenger fender that are on there are in decent shape, but I plan to sell to find better metal.

Johnd

When I bought the car, the previous owner had picked up what he believed to be the correct carb for the car (7040251), which I found out over the weekend wasn't correct. After researching the date code on the car and asking a couple of questions on this board I came across a rebuilt one (7040257) on ebay for $600 with the correct date code. I offered the guy $500, he agreed to $550 and is giving me back $100 for the 7040251 - so all in I got a rebuilt date correct carb for $450.

tru-blue 442

Excellent! And an a/c car to boot, sweet.
I will be following along as well.

dc2x4drvr

As 70Post says "into the abyss" rust repair done right is expensive, unless you the owner has the skills.

m455sx

subscribed

Johnd

Fortunately for me, I have a friend who is a welder and has restored several old mopars. He has watched me struggle over the past two years with 5 blown discs in my neck, and offered to do all the metal work for free, as long as I continue to work towards my recovery. He also has a friend who works at a body shop, and he has offered to do the paint work for the cost of materials, the rest of the restoration is on my. I am figuring about 13K to 16K on top of the 12K I already have invested.

Johnd

I worked remote today and on my lunch hour I decided to try to clean the directional housings, I started with the RH side which was the worst of the two. Unfortunately I didn't take a before shot but below is an after shot of the RH side and the before shot of LH side. Not bad for 30 minutes worth of work with an SOS pad, Brake clean (removed under coating), wirebrush, and simple green.

Johnd

Although the rust is pretty bad, the weld points on the top and bottom are all solid, so I should be able to seem the piece I got from DVAP at the seems.

Johnd

Below are the pictures of the sail panel I ordered through DVAP - they are cutting at the black lines.

Johnd

I also removed the front windshield today. Does anyone make a patch panel for the dash/cowl area - I have seen a couple of threads on here and would be interested in tips and tricks others used to fix this section. I have seen some people remove the dashpad and cut across the front of the dash, others have replaced just the 3" section, and I have seen people use fiberglass. Any feedback or suggestions would be really helpful.

foo

I have major rust in that same area

Johnd

DVAP sent me the following link of how they remove and install the dash section. http://v8tvshow.com/content/view/499/79/


I'm still debating what route to go when fixing it

DENT

Nice project .

dfire25

Cool video. The question is what did they do with the VIN tag?


There's also this piece from OPG.
http://www.opgi.com/cutlass/1971/she...hield/CH27865/

Johnd

Unfortunately, the piece from OPG doesn't cover the section of rust on the dash. The cowl section on mine has two small holes that can be repaired, so it really is just the dash, but to fix it right I was thinking of going with the piece for DVAP. As for the VIN, before buying the piece I am going to head over to the registry, and a body shop down the street to ask some questions.

dfire25

I guess the DVAP part is the way to go then. I didn't know if the dash was saveable or not.

Good idea checking with the registry first, there are a couple threads right now discussing the same issue. I think as long as your honest about it, and why wouldn't you be, and document it with pictures and such, I don't see the problem in drilling out the VIN and reattaching it. It's got to get fixed right?

Johnd

Had the day off today so I went to the DMV. From what I'm told I need to see the state police salvage unit about swapping the VIN to the new dash. The DMV gave me a number to call and I am waiting to hear back from them now.


In the meantime, I did a compression test on the motor today (cold) and the readings on all cylinders were between 150 and 160, so it looks like I can get away with a top end build, new freeze plugs, and gaskets.


I also started tearing the body down today. All the glass is out of the car, and the drivers fender and door are off. I plan to remove the passenger fender and door next week. I sold the doors, fenders, and old trunk lid and am on the hunt for better metal.

Johnd

I ran across some pictures of a 70 442 in burgundy mist. I sure hope my car comes out this nice...

Johnd

The sail panel I ordered from DVAP today came in today and it looks great. I had it cut at the welds from the back seat to the top of the quarters, so it should fit perfectly when the body guy is done with it. I also pulled the passenger fender and door today, so the car is pretty stripped. I wll take some pictures tomorrow.

My friend the welder is coming one night this week to begin cutting out the trunk floor, interior floor, and sail painel. I can't wait for all the rust to out of the car and new metal in.

Sampson

Great looking project. I will follow along

Johnd

Well I had the day off today and decided to work on the car. I pulled the inner fender wells, and both of them are broken and need to be replaced. The 4 new tires that are on the car look new, but must be 10 years old as they are completely dry rotted and I wouldn't trust driving on them. I snapped a few pictures of the car and will post them tomorrow. It is pretty much down to the roof, rear quarters, and engine. I am hoping to get the engine and tranny pulled next weekend. I wish I didn't like burgundy, I could have found a much nice project for less money.

Johnd

With all the water leaks, just about every switch, bulb, and fuse in the car needed to be replaced. I spent the last few days trying to track down why I had no directional, and why the parking lights wouldn't come on, but thanks to Eric and Alan everything is sorted out. Even though I am tearing the car down to the frame, I wanted to make sure everything worked, this way I know when I put the car back together what worked and what didn't.


I will take some pictures tomorrow of the car without the front clip, doors, and interior. I am really hoping to start cutting the floors, trunk pan, and rear sail panel out next week.

Johnd

Below are a few pics with the front fenders and door off. Overall, the car is coming apart really easy, and I have been taking my time to label and bag all the nuts, bolts and screws.

Johnd

Below are some pictures of the floor pans, the passenger side rear, and under the passenger sear are the worst. The drivers side is in pretty good shape with the exception of a small hole under the gas pedal. I have had a couple of people suggest I just weld the new floors over the old, but I plan on having the old ones removed.

Johnd

Here are a few pictures of the rust free sail panel and trunk lip I have for the car, they are leaning up against the new floor, and trunk pans. The only problem I have now is figuring out how to treat the surface rust on the inside of the roof, quarter panels (inside), front kick pan area. It is light surface rust, but I don't want the car rotting from the inside out after putting all the new metal in.

Johnd

Well the guy came and picked up my old fenders, doors, and deck lid on Monday. As wells as a box of miscellaneous old chrome that I didn't plan to reuse. In total I got a little over a grand, which will go towards new fenders when I find them. I am heading down to Florida in April and plan to hit a bunch of old junk yards. It is supposed to be 50 this weekend (live in MA), so I plan to finish gutting out the interior, and taking the back bumper off.

Allan R

John, that's just about always the case. What's going to take time now (especially since you're taking it all down) is going to be the refitting of the new / restored parts. The new metal from DVAP looks pretty nice. One of the guys up here just picked up a nice 72 with no rust to speak of, just it had been rolled. Still had a lot of good parts, but it's now been sold.

Keep up the great work on your car. I love following these threads.

Johnd

We I spent the afternoon today taking apart the rest of the interior, with the exception of breaking the drivers side window channel that attaches to the roof things when pretty good. There is some light surface rust under the sound deadener and the headliner rails need to be replaced. By buddy the welder was over Wednesday, he is finishing up another restoration, and plans to have my car transported to his shop the 1st week of May for the floor panels, trunk floor, and rear window section. The plan is to strip down the quarters and roof while it is there and then transport it back here so I can pull the body off the frame and begin work on the brakes and suspension.


In the meantime, I scored a great deal on seat covers from Mike (Vader) and plan on starting to redo the seats. I ordered new spring for the front, and new front and read seat cushions. I also picked up some decent seat backs and headrests, so they should look nice when they are done. I will snap some before shots over the weekend.

Johnd

While at the place I buy parts in RI yesterday, I spotted a trunk lid in the box from the Parts Place. I asked the owner if he could unbox it so I could see if it had the new style rings and it didn't. The only difference between this and my original 1970 trunk lid is that it has the holes predrilled for the spoiler on the inside (bonus), but not the other circles that came on the later 1970, 71, and 72 trunk lids. Seeing that I bought an original spoiler already (3 studs), I decided to purchase it. I will post pictures once I unbox it.

Johnd

Well after several months of collecting parts, the car is on its way to my buddies shop to have the interior floors, trunk floor, rear sail panel, and trunk lid put in. After all the metal work is done, I am going to have the car transported back from NH to MA. to start work on the engine, brakes, and suspension. I am in the process of recovering the seats now. RAMBOW (Ben) on this site has been a big help on installing the covers. For the front buckets, I ended up getting new upper and lower springs, foam, and covers. I have the rear seat, top and bottom finished, and have finished one of the lower halves of the front bucket, and hope to have the top finished over the weekend. I will post some pictures once I am finished

Johnd

Well I finished the rear seat about a month ago and started tackling one of the front buckets last weekend. The original seats were so far gone I had to replace the springs, pads, covers, and tracks. I also replaced the chrome trim, headrest pieces, and seat buttons. After about 15 hours worth of work I am overall very pleased with the way they came out.


Thanks to Vader for a great deal on the covers and to Ben for answering all the questions I had. Tomorrow I am off to the welders in NH to start cutting out all the rust.

RetroRanger

Nice work john those look great.

Johnd

Thanks RetroRanger. I am hoping to finish the other seat sometime next week. I can't wait until all the rust repair is finished and the car is back home, so I can start work on the brakes, suspension, and engine compartment..

Boilerz25

John,

Seat looks great. Who made the covers? They look really good.

Sean