JCMC64

Another 3 coats, now just got to do Passenger side frame rail. I have already done the trunk support rail and rear rail. I can also now get the main fuel line out on Pass side, and replace with SS one I got.

Final Product:






Ive done all the inside and top of frame rails too, but too hard to get good pics. Spent allot of time doing this the best I could
including all the top of frame under the body. I havent missed anything, though it isnt as good as the exposed parts of frame.

Allan R

Jim, that's very creative! Nice going. However I have to say you're a very baaaad man for giving me something like that to think about on my car. Months you say...

JCMC64

Hey Allen,
Thx.
Just go for it! As for your ride, Nothing ventured, nothing gained... you only live once...just do it. That covers all the cliches.

I did wire wheel, sand by hand, clean and prep every inch of this frame. But i did it in the framework of tearing down most of the car. It's a little different if you're working around the car as is, little more work involved. How are the mounts on your car? If your bolts will turn ok, changing the mounts aren't as hard as it seems.

Allan R

Hey Jim,
I suspect the mounts are like yours - dried out. If I do elect to replace them though I'm not going to do the frame - it looks ok. What I MIGHT end up doing instead is replacing all the brake and fuel lines to the back. Thanks for the MAW suggestions; like I really need that! LOL

JCMC64

Lots done over past 5 weeks...

Started mocking up the tubular control arms. Lots of fun getting these installed. All the LCA brackets are too tight due to them bending inwards on old original style Control Arms. Lot of fun trying to bend the brackets back out. Major PAIN IN THE @#$ !! (Pics of Lower control arms to come)

JCMC64

SS fuel and brake lines and hoses installed:






If you note, I decided to undercoat the the body from outboard inward just as far as to clear the frame as down the road Im most likely going to be replacing at least the front seat floor pan. Front floorpan has some issues. You cant see them in these pics but Ive since used Eastwood Rust Undercoating Rubber encapsulator from Rails all the way inward to where I will eventually plan on cutting out bad metal in the floor pans, that way I dont have to lift the body off again to undercoat above the frame.

JCMC64

Before I painted frame and replaced fuel line, I decided to try and straighten a frame section where someone most likely jacked up thr car in this area bending the frame. Came out ok, definitely much better, but I think I will try and figure out to do it even better. I usd a 4x4 and clamps and then sandwiched the inner frame with wood and torqued it down straightening it:




How it came out:
(pic to come)

I also repainted Tranny cross member with Por 15-
Before:


After: (pic to come)

JCMC64

Repainted Driveshaft which was painted black by PO, but poorly done.

Before:


Prep:

Checkout original Green stripe-




Ready for sanding:

JCMC64

Sanded, and prepped with metal prep :




Finished with a clear coat too:

JCMC64

More:

JCMC64

Painted the Transmission with Engine Enamel.

Before:




After- I put old tranny pan back on so not to mess up new pan:






After:

JCMC64

After the frame and tranny was painted, I lowered the body back down on the mounts and buttoned her up with new SS bolts:




Thought I would post some pics of 40 year old mount deterioration compared to new ones:

RetroRanger

looks good will you add the driveshaft stripes too ?

JCMC64

More:






So, yeah good idea to replace these in your ride!

JCMC64

Hooker 3902 Ceramic Coated headers:

JCMC64

More:





OK, Driver side mock up went smooth...but on Passenger side, the headers are very close to rear lower control arm bracket, and they are going to hit LCA bolt. SUCKS! Probably means Im going to have to dent the headers here if I cant McGyver it some.
I dont like that it will be touching in this area either as rattling motor will only make matters worse. Will have to research this on the site to see how others overcame this.




My other cheapo original headers didnt seem to have this problem. I dug them out and going to hook them up to see the difference. These Hookers are larger diamater primaries, so this might have a little to do with it.

oldsguybry

You're doing great ! Now what about the inside of the frame ? He He

I do have an idea about this though .... I put some thought into this when I had a garage for a short period of time , and I was going to get some big pipe cleaning brushes , extend the handles so it would go into the hard to reach places inside the frame , and add the POR that way .

Allan R

Jim,
Lots has happened and looks good. Those old body bushings make me feel uncomfortable with mine now - thanks bud! Another MAW disaster in the near future I think. When I traced back the brake line on my car, I found one of the clips is secured onto the top of the frame, making it impossible to remove without lifting the body. (just before the upward bend of the frame). Since you lifted the body, I guess that was easy to do.

The rad support bushings look really nasty. Was that the one from under the battery tray?

Did you have clearance problems with the headers and starter? The one side of the headers looks too close to the lower control arm mount. How did you solve that?

JCMC64

Hey Ranger...thx.

Not sure yet on that. I go back n forth on some of these detail items. But Im not trying to make her stock at all, a restomod kind of thing. But who knows in the end. But she does look good as it is. It will stand out when its back on.

JCMC64

Yeah, thats a hard area to get to. There is this rattle spray can stuff that some on this site have mentioned that has a flexible wand with multiple nozzles that shoots heavy duty stuff in a 360 degree pattern.

I'll tell you what, if there is a next time, the body is coming off the frame completely, and I'm going to blast the frame, or dip it to get to internals. It is just so much extra work to do it the way I did. Had to McGyver so many things to get it done, awkward angles to paint frame, even though I did lift body way off the frame, which helped so much, still had so many nuances to get er done. it was a blast.

But Im done with frame for now...I still got the floor pans to look forward to!

JCMC64

Hey Alan...Actually, as I said before a while a go, bushings alone arent so bad, if the bolts can turn ok. Lucky for me mine were fine. You just got to jack up one side at a time. Of course my car was already stripped down to a degree...and of course there will be some things to overcome if your car is all together. Actually I did not have to lift body to get to both those bolts you mentioned. Both came out with flat box wrench, But it was tight. I wasnt originally going to do bushings, just the lines. So I took them off with body on. AS I went deeper, things obviously changed. You can get all the brake lines off without lifting body, but not the fuel lines. At least I couldnt (not without destroying it or cutting it, which I didnt want to do so I could figure how to get new one back on w\o taking body off. Eventually that all changed as the MAWs got deeper).

Not sure on the rad mount bushing...that makes me want to recheck the other one now.

Yeah, I meant to add my comments on those headers pics and explain that but my pc was and still is acting very bizarre posting pics and text last night. So I gave up and just posted pics for the time being. That is actually the passenger side and it is very close to the frame. Im going to have to do some more research on this. It is credit card width clearance right now on passenger side,and is going to be a problem once the control arms are back on (which has been another total adventure...I dont know how many more adventures I can take! I havent documented 3\4's of the headaches Ive encountered!!) The control arm bolts are going to hit on the passenger side. As of now, Im going to have to dent that one pipe in that area, and maybe have to get some ceramic paint to touch it up...I dont know yet. But Im not happy about it. As for driver side everything is good on my mock up, but havent got the starter up yet. I got some Remflex header gaskets which are supposed to be the best at fixing leaks...I got them when I was going to use my old headers that had leaky flange issues due to flanges being warped. Ive since bought new Hookers, but the Remflex are super thick if you notice in the pic. I might experiment with thinner gaskets to see how it effects the clearance on passenger side.

Never a dull moment. I am definitely going to Fiji for a vacat after this one...

Allan R

Jim,
just a thought on the header clearance. Any chance you can send that pic to Hooker and have them bend you a custom pipe there? I would hate like heck to dent a good pipe because of that CA bolt.

The other thing that comes to mind on this. That CA bolt has to go in from the front and the bolt ends up on the rear side. You're going to have to take the headers off just to get the bolt inserted. How much clearance is there between the mount and the side of the header drop?

Glad to hear I don't have to lift the body to run the brake line. It sure looks tight on that one I mentioned though.

JCMC64

Alan,

Yes I plan on calling Hooker to run the problem I have by them. But I didn't think about them bending a pipe for me, do they do that for an avg customers?

I already took the headers back off, they were on just as a mock up to see how everything fit and cleared things. ( I learned that a long time ago on this project) I got you on the control arm bolt. I'm going to play with the header gasket thickness and every other thing possible first before even considering touching the headers. Believe me I don't want to have to touch these puppies.

As for the clearance you mentioned it's about a credit card thick clearance there, if that. It really doesn't make sense becauase both headers are designed and bent to take in account the control arm bracket clearances.

Allan R

Even with that being part of the equation, somethings not right here. Maybe give Shane (oldzzy) a PM and ask about his. He also got hooker comps for his 70. Don't know if he's done the install yet.

61reoldsman

Just a thought but can you reverse the bolts on the upper control arm so that the head of the bolt is facing the headers ?or use shorter bolts ? I would think that you probably don't need that much bolt sticking through.BTW Allan ,Shane bought American Racing Headers that he researched out and are supposed to be the best fitting headers for the A body Cutlass.He hasn't installed them yet ,has to get the transmission first .

Allan R

The bolt in question is for the lower control arm. It does in fact have the bolt head where the header is; not the other way around.
re: headers. That explains a lot, I thought they were Hookers. My bad. Wonder if he has dry fitted them yet to see if this problem will occur with them too?

61reoldsman

Sorry I thought the issue was with the top control arm Went back to the pics and saw the issue with the lower control arm ,that tube is very close ,wonder if the headers are for a different chassis or maybe the box was marked wrong ?Im sure the Hooker ppl can give Jim advice as to what to do I'd hate to see those pretty headers with a big ole dent in them to fit!

JCMC64

Hey guys,
Thanks for the input. These are hookers 3902s which are the comp version for the Olds 455. They are the correct ones. I thought I did a lot a research before hand... but maybe not enough.

I am definitely going to call hooker to discuss options. The downpipe in this area is straight down.... it seems to me that the pipe should have been angled more towards the front end of car. One thing to consider is the slope of the engine. It seems the more I drop the transmission Downward The more the tilt Of the headers should go forward. This is something I've been thinking about and will test this weekend. Of course the transmission crossmember Will dictate how far I can drop it. In my mock up Though, I can't drop it much more If any. Thus another dilemma. It really does seem the answer is with this down pipe At the third cylinder On passenger side. It sure seems it should be angled more towards the front of car.

Allan R

Jim, it would be a good idea to touch base with Shane (oldzzy) anyway to discuss. For your convenience I'm attaching a pic of the right side American Racing header he bought. Maybe you can do some comparisons with the Hookers based on the pic? Best I can suggest for right now. I have a set of Flowtechs out in the shed. Problem is it's all snowed in right now and they're handing at the back of the building. If I had a pic of them you could do multiple comparisons.

JCMC64

Thx ALan as always.

My laptop died, needs to have Windows reloaded. So ive been incommunicado (sp?) a little bit. Use my android phone and sons laptop when I can.

I called Hooker and they had no notes for this issue. They gave me the Cutlass Supreme issue which I gather is a myth from reading this site and doesnt apply to me.
His notes said Engine on older Olds are sometimes off center a tad bit to the passenger side. I think I read that debate too somewhere on here, that that is bogus info. Not totally sure though. Also hooker does no custom work for avg Joe, not even slight mod like I might need.

I mocked up my old header and it clears LCA bolt by a mile. So its definitely the hookers.
Here are my old ones (one in question is on the left)...notice the space between the 3rd and 4th down pipe...the 4th down pipe is the issue on the hookers:


I will take pics of both of them side by side so we can see what the problem is...but it seems the pic you posted is way different to either my old ones or these hookers. The hookers are very similar to my old ones on passenger side.
I have a feeling that the distance between that 3rd down pipe and fouth one is more narrow on the Hookers causing the issue.
Pics coming up.

PS...Im way further ahead in this project than this thread indicates, its hard to keep this thing up to date, especially wiht PC issues ive been having! It takes twice as long to post as my laptop was totally possesed the last 2-3 months, now its dead.

Allan R

Jim, I'd send those back to Hooker and get your money back. I have a set of Flowtech's that look very similar to the design of Shanes American Racing ones - only not SS. If you're still having issues with fitting them, I can go pull them and shoot a couple pics. Just keeping your options open on this.

Whew! for a second I thought your post said you called a hooker.....hmmm, not a bad idea since it appears you're getting 'screwed' anyway.

JCMC64

Good info on Suspension Torque specs from CSM:



Also :

http://www.oldsmobility.com/old/torquespecs.htm

BTW- Finally got rid of those incorrect elbow 90 deg spark plug wires:

Allan R

Yup! Same as the specs in the 72 manual. You'll find conflicting info in the CSM about the torque on the rear control arms though. Go with the higher number.

hee hee, wanna hear something dumb? When I was checking the shock nut torques I cross fired with my eyes and saw line for the 'lower' ball joint torque. Guess what that means? If you said " you stripped them and had to put in new bolts and nuts" you'd be right.

JCMC64

Its funny you mention conflicting info...I had to write down all the varying numbers I found just to make sure I at least got the average. I have an old original Chiltons I had from the Olds Ive own over the years and it too had conflicting numbers between the illutstrations and the text!

As for the Hookers, I talked to Hooker and Summit, and they sent another set which came in today. I looked at Flowtechs and other brands but went with these. The Hookers are definitely a level above the other affordable ones. So far, Summit has been amazing in their Cust serv. They got some of the best agents Ive ever dealt with. They never give me any issues with returns, or nick picking trying to get out of returns, giving the benefit of the doubt on discounts and conflicting prices every time, always go extra mile to help, etc. But I know some have horror stories with Summit...just not me so far. They've even given me free stuff when things went bad and they didn't want to ship it back to them at their cost.

Going to examine this 2nd set and see if they are the same, my gut says they will be then I have to decide what to do. Here are some pics, and I measured the spacing on the down pipes in question. The hookers are one inch narrower, thus the problem.

Comparison of passenger side:



You can see the problem here with naked eye:


I reinstalled old one, it clears by a mile:



And here is the issue- 6 inch width

JCMC64

...vs the hookers which are only 5 inches.


Nice shot of the differences in the flange thicknesses:



The problem with the old ones is although they dont hit the rear LCA on pass side, they hit in multiple areas on both sides. ALTHOUGH the new motor mounts helped at least one of those areas. 6 of one, half a dozen of the other...

At least I dont have to install the 2nd set to know if it will work or not, just need to measure.

JCMC64

New Brakes system finally installed...went with a set authourized by GM as "original look". Im not fond of the square M\C look, like this better since this is a restomod:


Slight upgrade...





In case your wondering, I went with SS brake line setup that moves the prop valve up along the m\c to avoid the Headers. I prefer the underneath the m\c prop valve look, but I couldnt find the line kit for that in the config I was setting up, so I would of done some bending and flaring my self.

JCMC64

JCMC64

New Gas tank.



New SS Sending unit



Wasnt happy with the finish, so I cleaned it real well, and then shot it with Eastwood Metal Satin Clear.



Steering Column
Rag joint
Steering Gearbox
CA's
Springs
Rotors
Calipers
Tie Rods
All Installed. Pics coming.

Notes to self
Rearend
X-member
SS dipstick

oldzzy

Looks like your doing a really nice job! Damn headers eh! I originally bought Flowtechs, but after reading about so many people having issues with the flange sealing properly, hanging to low, and just all around cheapness of them, I started researching on the best headers with the least amount of troubles. I was going to go with the same ones you have now, but i also didn't want to move the dist block. The American Racing headers that Smitty sells are supposed to fit the best from what i have read, altho you do have to use a Powermaster starter. That's fine with me if i get a great fitting header that will never rust. I ended up going with the 1 7/8". I haven't installed them yet, as the motor isn't in the car yet.

gearheads78

Nice... One of the best not quite frame off restorations I have seen.