After owning this poor 'vert for almost 15 years, I began the resurrection about 2 months ago, driven by my fiancée's love for the car. I have all the parts for the chassis and the engine rebuild (HA!), the machined block is on the engine stand, the rear end housing is being dunked (I hate hypoid grease), the carb is rebuilt, and the frame is at the sand blaster's. This will be at least a two-year journey, and I'll be ready to eat those words in 2026.

I would usually do my own blasting, but I'm 76 now, and the last frame took 19 hours to blast with my bucket blaster. It's amazing how smart you get as time goes on.. Yesterday I prepared a pile of small parts for blasting, and I'll be doing those myself since some masking is involved and I want them done right.

This isn't meant to be a show car, but I really can't help myself. I'm already planning to fill the rust pits on the frame when it gets back to me, hopefully next week.

So here are the initial pics:


Body on my homemade cart, waiting it's turn.


My crude but effective lifting scheme.


New quarter skins will be part of the build.


Had many snakes and mice living inside. Here's a nice remnant from a large black snake.


...and the trunk is pretty much a mess.

 

Ready to go to the blaster's.

So here is my first major problem. The blaster removed the frame from my trailer by inserting his forks above the rear cross bar and under the rear spring mount bar. The front of the frame caught on the trailer, and he may have bowed the frame. I need to check for frame damage. Does anyone know how far the rear cross bar should be from the floor when the frame is sitting on the floor? (This dimension isn't in the Fisher Body manual.) Or, is there another way to check? I really don't want to have to put the body back on right now. I work alone and it would take me a day to do that.

 

I've made quite a bit of progress in the last 3 weeks. Did some assembly on the engine, and the valves are now adjusted. Indexed the cam, and the deck height - corner-to-corner - is within a thousandth! (I had the block decked, but I didn't expect that!) The intake lobe centerline spec is 106 degrees, and mine measures at 105. I suspect that the align bore caused a slight looseness in the double roller timing chain (less then 1/4" deflection), which caused the one degree difference. Moving to the next keyway in the crank sprocket would retard the timing 4 degrees, which is too much.

Valves are set.

Yesterday it was 54 degrees here in Southern Ohio so I amused myself by touching up the sandblast work on the frame.

Sand blasting. Ugh.

Today it got to about 60, so I took advantage of one of the last warm days of the year by shooting primer on the frame and on about 30 small parts that had been 'blasted a couple of weeks ago. Looks great!

 

Not too much interest here, so I'm closing this thread down.

 

I just saw this thread. I live in Cincinnati. I have am all original 1969 442 ragtop. Let me know if you have any questions or need parts. I may be able to point you in the right direction. There is also a local Oldsmobile club, Southern Ohio Rockets (https://www.facebook.com/groups/694471718345902) that is very active. Members from all over the tri-state. Good luck with your build!!

 

Sorry for the lack of response -- I too just noticed this thread. Odd, because there are lots of '69 fans here. I myself have a '69 4-4-2 convertible and I always like to check out other '69s, so it looks like you have at least two subscribers now.

Great progress so far. Were you able to figure out if the frame was tweaked?

Keep posting and ask any questions that occur to you. I'm not exactly an expert, but there are a few roads I've been down before. If I don't know, I may be able to point you in the right direction.

 

Thanks for the encouragement! I joined Southern Ohio Rockets (SOR) last month, and I will continue posting on this thread. I see your name on the SOR roster. Small world. I lived in or near Cincinnati all my life.

 

I hope you do keep the thread going. Just because no one has posted doesn't mean people aren't following.

 

I was in Lebanon last night eating dinner with a good friend who lives on Waynesville Rd.

 

Ceasefire still lookin' good?

 

Thanks for the response! No, the frame is still on the rotisserie, and will be at least through Christmas. I still could use the measurement from the floor to the rear crossmember if anyone has a frame laying on the floor. Non-car stuff is getting in the way right now, but I am trying to button up the engine and get some more small parts painted.

 

I always admire the work people like you can do. I can build a motor and tear apart almost anything, but when I see the rust repair some people complete, and the full body off, frame sandblasted, paint every little part before it goes back on the car type of work, I'm in awe. Great job so far, I'll be following this.

 

I get the impression that a lot of people will read the update posts but not participate with responses (guilty!). I've got a build thread going on my '70 frame off and I sometimes feel like I'm shouting into the wind after typing up a progress report, lessons learned and photos to no response...but I know people are looking.

Please do keep posting your photos and updates, they are appreciated. I usually learn something every time I check out these threads.

 

No problem now that I know you folks are out there!

 

...and I was in Vancouver 3 months ago, about to cruise to Alaska!

 

Then you were about 4 miles from my house.

 

Thanks, Dave. It truly is a hobby for me. I only work for myself. It took me 11 years to build that truck that appears in the pictures now and then, but this Cutlass should be a lot easier (I hope!).

 

Following along!

 

I'm always on board when I see another '69 convertible getting its just rewards. Looks like the original color might have been the darker gold. I'd like to know more about the history of the car and how you came to take ownership since it looks like you might be a Chevy guy at heart. Also, tell us a little more about what you have in the engine. Trans? Rear gear?

 

THE STORY:
I'm always looking for deals. I don't usually find what I'm looking for as far as cars go. Once every five to ten years however, one of them usually finds me. ...and thus begins the saga of the car whose future will be recorded in this thread.

One fine day in 2010 a Corvette buddy and I were at some car event, and I mentioned that I would like to do another project. We headed for home, and 2 hours later I got a call from him. He said that on his way home he saw an Oldsmobile convertible sitting on a front lawn with a for sale sign on it. Well, I'm a sucker for GM, for '60s-era musclecars in general, and for convertibles especially. I had also wrenched for a buddy of mine in the early '70s on his '68 442 E/Stocker, so I had an affinity for the brand.

An hour later I was ringing the door bell. I let "Franco" - the owner - tell his story. Franco - a Harley guy - apparently knew very little about cars, but he had a friend who owned a body shop. The Cutlass sat for 10 years in that body shop, and little was done to it other than a brake job, the addition of a collection new parts, a partial disassembly, and a wait for skilled hands to turn their attention to her. That last part never came. Unfortunately the body man passed away from cancer. The Cutlass found its way to Franco's garage, along with most of its parts. Then it rained...and rained. The garage managed to acquire about a foot of that rain. Franco gave up, and put the car out on the lawn, for sale. In the next two hours I whittled the asking price down to $2200. She came with a new gas tank, new radiator, two engines, new carpets, beautifully re-chromed original bumpers, near-new fenders, and receipts for about $2000 in other new parts. As punishment for getting me into this, I called my Corvette buddy and told him to get his butt and his trailer over to Franco's place. The poor girl was mine.

She waited patiently under a tarp for 14 years next to the detached garage. A lot happened during those 14 years, including my asking for a divorce. There were bright moments too, including meeting Kathy - the love of my life. Time marched on, we sold Kathy's house, and we merged our personal belongings and began to make my house hers. I built a huge sun porch for her as an extension of my old back porch. We passed the summer of 2024 working on our new life. Then in September of this year the Cutlass (yeah, I know she needs a name) was rolled into the detached garage between the 1955 Chevy truck and Kathy's 2002 Miata. (Yes, we had grown to 8 cars!) The rest of the story will be chronicled in this build thread, as I try to avoid my other 10 hobbies.

 

THE DRIVETRAIN:

The ENGINE is showcased a little above, but here are some more details. About 5 years ago, bored with winter weather, I decided to play with the #5 heads I had found, so I cleaned up the ports based on what I had learned years before. I stopped without "fixing" the siamesed center exhaust ports (why did they ever do that?), then turned the heads over to a buddy of mine that does trick headwork in his garage. (He even has one of Bill Jenkins' old valve grinders, and has 12 torque wrenches hanging on the wall. I've never seen so many precision measuring devices, many of which are dedicated to head work.) We added Ferea stainless valves, comp springs, some lightweight retainers, bronze guides, studs to allow valve adjustment, hardened seats, pushrod guides and a triple-grind. Spring pressures were tuned via spring spacers. I worked the chambers to 64.7 cc and then Bob touched up the surface to perfection.

The block went out for de-rusting and overall cleanup, then over to Precision Engineering for magnaflux, deck, a .030" overbore and align hone. The crank got the normal .010"/.010" grind, oil hole chamfer and index. The Speed Pro flat tops checked in at 653 grams and the assembly was balanced. Pushrod length spec'ed out to 8.50" and the drive train was topped out with PRW rockers, which I've had good luck with on my GTO. The compression ratio was more than desired at 10.1:1, so I looked to Cometic for the solution. $145 per gasket? I don't think so. I bought a second set of blue Fel-Pros on Amazon for 18 bucks for BOTH, glued them together with Spray-a-Gasket, and doubled them up for a ratio of 9.6:1. (Now, before you purists go crazy, please realize that 425 HP '63 409 came from the factory with double head gaskets. Besides, it's not the end of the world to have to change the head gaskets. Let's just look at it as a learning experience.)

I had picked up a near-new Edelbrock performer for $60. I had a '75 Quadrajet in the attic. It is now rebuilt and converted to an integral electric choke, so it will top off the engine build. (Are there better carb choices out there? I suppose, but not for the price of a carb kit and a float. Besides, I know a lot about Quadrajets thanks to Cliff Ruggles.)

The TRANSMISSION is a 700R4 that someone had trashed by running it without a proper TV valve adjust. (Yeah, I know 200-4Rs are easier to slide in what with BOP cases and no requirement to change the driveshaft and crossmember, but I'm a sucker for additional punishment..) This trans will be good for over 500 horsepower, and will be an easy fix once I get it apart. Besides, I'm curious to see which clutch pack gets launched when someone does this. Goodies in this unit include a Trans-Go kit, heavy duty sunshell, Corvette servo, pinless accumulator piston, 29-element forward sprag, Alto red clutches and an unbreakable pump ring kit.

The REAR END started out life as an open 2.56, I believe. Due to some tough choices between cost and performance, it will be a set of Dorman 3:55s mounted onto a Yukon positraction carrier.

 

Subscribed! Looking forward to following along with your build. I have a 68-vert that I'm restoring as well. https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...ration-160230/
I'm in Cincy and a member or the Southern Ohio Rockets and the Greater Cincinnati Northern Ky Olds club.

 

You know, with the overdrive in that 200-4R I might be tempted to go for a rear gear with a little more dig -- maybe a 3.73 or deeper. You'll still have good highway cruising but with even greater launch capability.

 

Thanks for the details. Sounds like you've got the tools and talent to make it nice.

 

I would agree, and sometimes it's hard to keep the goal in mind. This car, however, is going to be my fiancée's cruiser. She has requirements like a back up camera (?) and good gas mileage. My '55 truck has a 700-R4 with 4:11's, and I love it!

 

We're gonna find out! Things have gone well in the past, but I'm not getting any younger...

 

This just show up in my feed. Very nice build, way back in 1977 after returning from a West-Pac I was driving by a stealership where they had a red 1969 442 with low mileage for $4800.00. It was sold within a week. I didn't buy it, I settled for a 1972 Hurst/Olds instead.

 

Time for an update. The engine is complete enough to put into the chassis once it is ready. I will put the starter and headers on before planting her though.


Ready to go into the chassis once the chassis is ready

All of the welding repairs are done on the frame and I'm applying a little body filler here and there to fill pit marks left over after the rust was blasted out. Just sanding with 80-grit now, with hopes of one good weather day to shoot high-solids primer, maybe a sealer coat, then the gloss black. Pretty soon I'll be taking the engine off the stand so I can use the stand to hold the transmission. I have a feeling the winter will be filled with rebuilds of the trans, steering box, wiper motor, etc. due to the weather hold-up on the frame.

 

Been working on her a little every day, but it's slow going. The weather got warm enough early last week for high solids primer and a guide coat on the frame. Nuthin' too fussy though. I'm 25% done with sanding that, then will wait for warm weather again before sealer and gloss black.

The 700-R4 is apart, and I'm trying to solve a excessive clearance issue in the 3-4 clutch stack. It's at .110", and I need to get it down to about .075".




I suppose I can either stick in a thin steel or use a thicker selective. I'll have to talk to someone with more experience.

I also ripped my sandblast cabinet apart to make it so I can see in again. Waiting on tear-offs that are coming on the 27th.

 

I've been sanding on the frame off and on for about 3 days in anticipation for today. It got to 60 degrees, and I got the frame sealed and painted:

 

Further work on the transmission showed that both the 3-4 apply plate and the backing (pressure) plate were cupped due to the heat from the fried clutch pack. The trans parts place didn't have either of them in the thickness I had, so I bought two other ones, added a .060" steel and solved my problem. I'll probably be back on the trans tomorrow.

 

Following along,
At the pace that you're going, you should make your 2 yr goal.
Unfortunately, I thought that about my project 2 and a half years ago.

 

I spent 11 years on my '55 truck, but that was a lot of amateur custom work.

Day 1

Swiss cheese

Hinge pillar


Frenched C5 tail lights

Built from swap meet picks

Nearing the end

Almost done! (Tail pipes look terrible here, )

 

Wow, once you get started, you really get started. Keep it up!

 

I'm still trying to do a little something every day, but two rounds of snow and the cold weather have slowed progress on "Twlight" (our new name for the Cutlass). The sand blaster needed some work, so I ordered some tear-offs for the glass. During disassembly I realized that HF didn't put a seal in the window frame, so I added one. I also have added a JET Dust Collector to my setup that I found on Craigslist, and it is a GAME CHANGER!

(
Absolutely zero dust in the shop after adding that beast, and no sand leaking out of the cabinet anymore..

Since I can't work out on the driveway (what with the snow and all), I took the steering box to the basement and rebuilt it:



I never did a '60s power steering box before, and it was interesting. Amazon had a Sunsong kit, and it was perfect. There also are a couple of very good videos on YouTube by "BFH Garage" and "Craft Customs', the latter being pretty humorous in places to boot.

Yesterday I tore apart the power steering pump, but it'll be 5 more days until the kit gets here. The external parts are now sandblasted, and I might get them painted this afternoon. It will be an easier build than the box.

While I'm waiting for the pump kit I'm going to tear apart the proportioning valve, which will be next. Hoping for warmer weather so I can get back on the chassis by blasting and painting some of the bigger suspension parts.

 

Knocked out the power steering pump over the last couple of days:



Also bought the hoses and painted the brackets, so I'm done with this subsystem.

 

Time for an update. It's been cold, but I've been working in the basement, trying to do a little every day. I've restored the alternator, regulator, brake distribution block and the wiring harnesses. I know I did some other small stuff too, but here are the harnesses, hanging in the attic.




...but the big thing was the upholstery. The bucket seats that I had found had been in a fire, but the springs and bases weren't affected. This first picture shows some of the fire damage, but I didn't take a good pic before I stripped them:


Fire damage.

After that came the repair/replacement of a few springs:


The two black springs are the new ones. Don't laugh too hard at the cable clamps, but those really work! I used lock washers and loc-tite on them as well.

I installed new burlap, and a felt perimeter:



Then came four layers of 1/2" dacron:


Dacron before trimming. Slots cut to access listing wire.

...and, the final product!


One seat bottom...

...and the rest.

No steam has been used yet, but I have to look hard for any wrinkles.

 

Nice work! I'll have to get my seats recovered soon. Not something that I'm looking forward to doing!

 

They really weren't too bad to do. Legendary Auto Interiors has some great YouTube videos to guide you along:

Thanks!

https://www.legendaryautointeriors.c...llation-videos

Also, this guy (Craft Customs, YouTube) does a good job on many of his videos, and this one has some great tips:


His tip on the dacron led me to try 4 pieces right off the bat, and it was perfect (although you'll swear the vinyl will never stretch that far!). Also, his tip on covering Lowes 1/8" steel wire with masking tape worked pretty well too. Those kept me from needing to buy the expensive cotton and "paper coated listing wire" (as the guy says 50 times in the Legendary videos), and saving me some serious beer money!

 

Great job on the seats Bob...love the color!
Was that your first time doing upholstery? There's a shop down the street from my office that has instructional classes. You pay for 2-3 hour blocks and bring your stuff in to be worked on while you learn. I may just try it myself and see what happens.