Hello everyone, I've been checking out the site and wanted to share my newest project. A very cool and fairly original 67 that spoke to me when we met. She sure looks rough with that rotted roof and nobody had the skills or desire to save her but me.

 

looks good overall and fairly complete...except for that roof ouch, the vinyl can be tough on them >

hows the interior?

 

Based off of random receipts and registration found in the glove box, I believe it has just over 96,000 original miles.

Fremont built car (which is where I grew up )
gold with black top
black interior
330 4bbl, 2 speed auto
12 bolt cover rear end (not sure on gears yet)
column shift
bench seat
power steering
no a/c
no pb

First things first, I am in the middle of fixing the roof. I have an original clip from a donor car that came with. Lower windshield panel and rear window to trunk panel ordered up already. Picking up a new windshield tomorrow. I brought the car home this last Saturday and I'm the type that doesn't waste time!

 

 

 

 

I see a lot of potential there.

 

So here is my donor clip that unfortunately is only 3/4 of what I need, but I can work with it. I will have to backtrack and fix the previous attempt at repair. Here you see I already have 3 sides stripped from the spot welds. I like to improve my metal skills and challenge myself, and with it THIS bad doing the clip from the spot welds seems best. More work in prep, but better results and perfect fit in the end.

The engine has 3944173 numbers and both heads are stamped 4. From my research isn't this the original?

The car is a real diamond in the rough and I can't find any bondo or rot worth complaining about. A small thin cracking bondo on the rear quarter and a few rust blisters on a front. It also needs the front and rear window lower metal. If I pull glass to fix those, the roof is not that much more to do! Floors and trunk are pretty darn amazing!

 

YES YES YES! It has dry rotted rubber and vinyl but that is to be expected for a hot weather California car. The previous owner put on a new hood, I saw the original sitting by the car it was rotted at the front trim.

It is a runner! She is running rich but damn she purrs like a kitten and drives nice! Stops and steers excellent. There are a lot of squeaks and rattles at high speeds and bumps but I think it just needs new rubber everywhere, based on the condition of all the other rubber and vinyl.

I see a clean dual exhaust H system and a rear sway bar in place. I want to keep this car original, but might do a different Olds color, not crazy about gold. Cragar StreetStar wheels? They look bad *** with decent BFG tires. The radio hole was hacked for an 80's Alpine tape deck. I ripped that out pronto, I have a new Sony a buddy gave me I can toss in.

 

 

Windshield is out and roof skin is ready to test fit

 

Welcome to the group... Another great piece of vintage Olds about to be saved... Good luck with the project...

 

Sure helps me on my 65 Cutlass it too has rust around windows. Now I see what is under the top roof but I'm not cutting that far back as yours maybe at the top where it heads down to hold the glass. I have parts car that is rust free but is hit on the driver side real bad but passenger side is good from door back. The black car is the parts car it has a complete tan interior with buckets and console to go into the brown 65 Cutlass. Take lots of pics some will help me I'm sure on mine.

 

Sure Gerald, I plan on posting more pics soon. Basically, I had to remove all the structure of the donor roof at the spot welds from the inside of it, and remove the rusty remains of my car's roof from the outside. It's like doing the same job twice, you just take your time and cut and grind away the part you aren't using.

 

Donor post
Donor post cross section

 

First I bent up the outer skin pillar lip...
Drilled out spot welds and cut the rest
Test fit the patch
Plug welds, butt welds then fold outer skin back in place. Hammered back to fit
Welds ground down and polished with a sanding pad

 

To complete the roof clip, I need the back window out. Before I get ahead of myself, I might as well finish the front side and lower channels.

 

Nice save... it's good to see people doing their own work rather than sending it out for someone else to do it. will be following along.

 

Made in USA repair panel from OPGI
I always test fit everything I can. The fit is pretty darn good
I was able to rip the original out mostly with pliers
The underneath panel (not sure what it's called) was super clean. I caught the rust here just in time
The remnants of the original panel are hardest to remove here, in the corners. I bent up the lip on the A pillar skin and ground it out.
Pre drilled for plug welds on my bench
Test fit.... it's excellent. Very happy with this piece. I was expecting the worst. Now I have a reference to cut the rot off the dash to butt weld.

 

Thanks man, I save a lot of money and this way I learn skills and know it will be done right. I ripped the rotten front carpet out so it wouldn't ignite and wow the floors are awesome from what I see so far.

CAUTION: make sure if you attempt this that ALL the insulation and carpet is out of the way! That brown fluffy stuff burns very easily and smolders really hot. Don't burn your ride up

 

Cowel panel final test fit
Windshield test fit

 

A little more work and i can move on to the back window area, finish the roof and put glass back in.

I used weld through primer and compressed air to keep the metal from warping. After welding, I used 3m strip caulk and squeezed it into the seams under where the plug welds are. Even without the cowl screwed down, it fits pretty good.

 

Nice work

 

Great looking work so far... I'm sure you feel good about the progress so far... You appear to have the DIY confidence which is sometimes necessary in this hobby...

 

It’s very gratifying making these repairs. I only have about 10 years under my belt with metal work. Once I got a little older and learned more patience, it became easier to dive right in. If you enjoy problem solving and working with your hands, cars make great projects. You just learn how they are put together and reverse engineer it in your head.

I wouldnt recommend a roof and window channels for a total noob, lots of tricky curves and very visible repairs. Screw up some easy practice projects like an old bicycle or something

 

Pretty rough but the channels themselves are excellent!
Some old school speaker hacks

Looks like they pulled the windows when they did the red paint job
Windshield upper channel almost ready for new skin

 

Great work, I'll be following you along. I have lots of window issues with my 70 Vista which I plan to start on this winter.

 

Getting the the clip to fit perfectly on all sides. A little trimming at the corners is all that’s needed.
I repeated the process at the upper rear seam, removing the last of the old roof at the spot welds
All the prep work is finally paying off. Nothing fits like an original panel.

 

At this point, it’s pretty straight forward. You spend a ton of time removing unnecessary layers of sheet metal so the replacement clip will pop right in place on all sides. The curves are perfect and correct. No huge sections of sheet metal to patch together. Very little risk of warpage to an extremely flimsy sheet of steel.

Next, I’ll pull the clip off one final time. All welded areas get wire wheeled clean and weld through primer applied. Holes need to be drilled for plug welding. All rough edges get smoothed out. The headliner is sagging some at the rear, but the sleeves that attach to the bows are all mostly torn away. The previous owner used wire to keep it in place for a little longer, I think I’ll do some more of that.....

I was surprised that the roof is not actually welded to any of the crossmember structures that criss cross across the top of the car. So, to keep it from rattling I’ll be replacing the original jute padding (that holds moisture) with some butyl sound mat. Instead of trying to coat it in one giant sheet and risk falling down on the headliner, I’ll just run strips across and copy how it was done at the factory. It’s really thin and waterproof, so it’s a win win for the car in every way except a little bit heavy. I’m doing the new carpet kit anyway since I had to rip out the dry rotted stuff during the welding process on the dash. All the extra sound mat can go on the floors.

 

Spot welded in the rain gutters like the factory did
Rear window flange plug welded


Windshield channel plug welded. The corners are tricky. Lots of layers come together here and there’s a lot of brazing inside. I thought it was best to avoid cutting and welding in this area, so I just butt welded to the original top of the pillar.

 

Now, don’t let me fool you into thinking this is easy work. It sucks. It’s tedious. You might **** off
your neighbors with hours of noise.

I used Noico 80 mil sound deadening mat from Amazon on the underside of the roof skin. Make sure you have some help to put it on the car if you go that route, it will make it weigh a LOT more and it’s prone to bend and cause a crease on the drip rails. Now when you tap on the roof it sounds nice!

I just have the Harbor Freight 110 volt spot welder. I only need it so often and does the job well, BUT it’s tricky and will test your patience using it on used metal. All new panels, no problem. Make sure the metal is clean clean clean! Wire wheeling or blasting is sometimes not enough. I take a cutting disc and grind off a very small amount of pitting to get to clean metal. Even then, you’ll only get 1 out of 4 spot welds to get good penetration and stick. Just keep moving the tongs around until you get some good welds.

Another thing important to mention- as you plug weld the window channels, make sure you use a body hammer to keep the metal layers flat. The last thing you need is wavy metal keeping your windshield from sitting flush. I’m glad to get the roof clip off the ground and out of my way. Can’t wait to see the upper quarters and decklid filler panel done.

 

Rear decklid filler from OPGI fits pretty close on the first try

 

Following this with interest - thanks for taking the time to document your work and share it with us here.


Also cool to see another Olds/VW enthusiast...early '60s sunroof with a sweet roof rack hiding there?

 

Ha! That’s funny because I thought I would be the only one on this site. Really, I’m a fan of all classic cars. I don’t really care what the make, but my favorite American cars are usually GM and favorite import brand is VW. I really wanted to get another Bus for family cruising but prices have gotten pretty insane. So, I decided to get some American iron with a lot more bang for the buck fun. I drove an 83 Cutlass as my first car for about 10 years and it was very dependable. I always wanted something from the muscle car era and that’s how I ended up with another Olds!

The Beetle is a 58 sunroof resto custom, you can check out my build here:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/vi...er=asc&start=0

I also restored a 60 Single Cab pickup you can check out on thesamba.com as well

 

nice youre really going at this car I appreciate the how to of sorts as well very helpful !

question in areas like the rain gutter or window channels what is used to seal the area after welding seam sealer or something else ?

 

So far, I’ve only used weld through primer at buttwelds and where the rain gutter is spot welded together. There looked to be some sort of seam sealer at the front cowl originally. Basically right under where the wiper pivots are and meets up with the cowl. I just layered the panels on top of each other after using the primer on both sides of the panels. After I finished, I squeezed 3m strip caulk into the same area that originally had seam sealer.

When the factory put the cowl on, I think they ran a bead of sealer on the lower panel, and layed the entire metal portion of the dash on top, then spot welded it at the lower windshield channel. So, I believe it was originally just 2 pieces with only one seam. Now, it’s 3 pieces since I basically cut out the middle of it all the way across. I feel I did the best I could trying to prevent corrosion with the special primer and strip caulking. I’m not too concerned though because 90% of the backside of that panel is exposed to interior. Sealing from the outside and preventing holes is the important part so water doesn’t run down to the carpet and hold water.

 

All the welded areas exposed to water will get a thin coat of fiberglass based filler to waterproof them where the vinyl goes back on the roof. The hood, cowl areas, roof, A pillars, decklid filler panel will get taken down to bare metal, etch primed, 2K sealer. I will probably shoot the roof with black basecoat and 2K clearcoat. I think a nice quality clearcoat will do a better job sealing than some average goop. If I focus on getting good coverage in the places where water sits, it should do very well.

Thats what is nice about doing your own paint work, you can customize it to the car. When a new car gets a factory paint job, they don’t spend time and money getting perfect coverage where you can’t see. You can see the factory gold paint that was under my drip rail trim was very thin. They didn’t care if the car lasted 50 years, but WE do. I can purposely lay the clear on heavy in the drip rails and basically glue them shut. A new vinyl top glued to a properly clearcoated roof
should last decades.

 

Great work. I could have sold you a full top but you are way past that now.

Looking good.

Larry

 

Dude im a member on the samba. helping my GF's brother inlaw's westfalia bus 73 get back on the road. Good stuff. Nice work

 

Thanks, I’ll keep you guys in mind next time I need stuff. Possibly some electrical, some things aren’t working but I see an old Clifford alarm under the dash. Horn, turn signals, parking lights are inop, so I bet the wiring needs to be put back to stock. I might need a new trunk lock mechanism too, but I’ll have to investigate that more when I put it back on the car.