69442C

Not much work was done this past weekend since there were a few house projects that needed attention. I did manage to finish assembling everything on the passenger side front seat and it's now in the car. Waiting on the new repop driver's side seat tracks to arrive so I can get that seat completed. The seat back, push button, lower side panels and headrest are new reproduction pieces. The headrest, upon initial installation, did not sit correctly on the seat back. After some bending of the rods, I was able to get it to fit correctly. I'll show a photo of this problem when I put the other seat together. The painted seat hinges are more visible in the last photo than what I showed when they were masked off for painting.

Eddie Hansen

Man Brian just when you think we have seen the apex of your restoration talents you push the envelope and set the bar even higher, man those seats look good, my car's seat backs have seen too much sun and need replacing, as does the rest of the interior lol I am assuming you used sem paint on the backs? Again awesome work my friend

69442C

Thanks Eddie. The seat backs are new repops and came as you see them. I just needed to install them. Same with the lower seat side panels.

As an FYI, don't ever waste your money on the reproduction A Pillar Pads. They are total junk and are made by Dashes Direct. They only have a small section of metal in them and only 1 of the 3 screws used to attach them passes through the metal. The other 2 just go into the urethane which is pointless. Once in place, the center of the pad falls away from the A pillar. Tried contact cement to hold one in place but the glue wouldn't stick to the urethane. The originals will be sent to Just Dashes to be restored.

Allan R

Brian, that seat looks like it just came out of the factory. It doesn't even have any dust on it. Your quality control and air monitoring is incredible.

Sorry to hear about the A Pillar Pads. Hope Just Dashes can give you the results you're looking for at a reasonable price and time window. From what you described about the pad from Dashes Direct I don't think they ever test fitted them to see if they work. Hope you can get a positive resolution from them.

I guess you are still waiting for the other seat tracks to come in to finish the Passenger side seat? (sigh, I'm still waiting for my expedited parcel that was shipped 2 weeks ago supposedly)

69442C

Just Dashes gave me a price of $250 to restore the A Pillar Pads. Not too bad I guess. The repops were around $80 IIRC and are total crap. I bough the repops through Fusick and from the name embossed on the back of the repops, they originate from Dashes Direct. Unfortunately, I bought these pads about a year ago when I placed a large order for
parts. Then came the engine issues which delayed the interior work. Doubt I can get any help now but I do plan to notify Fusick that these parts are no good and they should either stop selling them or place a note about the poor fit.

Seat tracks for the driver's seat will be here Thursday.

Allan, I hope your parts arrive soon and maybe you need to call ILT to make certain they did ship them and when they said they did.

442craig

Hey Brian,

Nice to see you are making great progress! I have been off the Olds reservation for a while. I was waiting for an A arm. Finally got it and started to put everything back together yesterday until the wife called "time" on me. I'll have a few pix later! Anyways good to get greasy and be back. Once again your work is impressive. I have my work cut out for me!

Craig

69442C

Thanks Craig and glad you made it back to the CO Reservation. Good to hear you found another control arm and I'm looking forward to updated photos of your car.

Brian

oldsguybry

Wow , the interior / seats are looking great ! I think you have the right idea about getting the old stuff restored instead of buying the repop stuff . It seems that every thread I read has bad things to say about repop stuff . It may cost more , but I'm a true believer of " You get what you pay for "

Allan R

Brian, about the repop A pillar pads. Do you have any pics of them? The A pillar covers in my 72 are metal, so I'm a little curious to see what these things look like.

Bryan? You are right - Generally, you get what you pay for. However, that also needs to be tempered with understanding the repop market still has to deal with copyright and brand infringement issues from GM. That's a large part of why repops are not always a perfect match, even licensed repops. For example, I have seen repop fenders (for reasonable prices too BTW) that are very solid and have proper bracing and mounts but poor fitment at the eyebrow. That is easily fixable though by someone familiar with welding and fabricating

Brian is fortunate that his build is sponsored by someone who can authorize certain expenditures. Otherwise I'm sure he'd have to rob a bank to pay for these little happy meals.

69442C

Or two! But I guess it all depends on how much money one can carry as they flee the scene!

I'll shoot a few pictures of the A Post Pads and will post them.

Brian

69442C

Here's the pictures of the A post pad. Shown is an original next to the repop. The original is fully backed by metal all the way down to the end that sits down by the windshield. You can see how the vinyl on the original has cracked and fallen off of the metal in this bottom area. The repop is just urethane and is easily folded as I am doing in photo 4. This creates some of the trouble as that portion of the pad on the repop sticks up and doesn't sit down on the dash area. You can also see how the curvature of the repop pad is almost completely opposite of the original. In the last photo, the repop is laying almost flat on the floor while the original curves up away from the floor. If you look closely in the first photo, up at the top is just an indent where a screw goes. You need to drill or poke a hole through there to install a screw but it's just urethane all the way through so the screw has nothing to grab onto. I used an upholstery washer on the screw and may have stayed with it if the pad would have conformed to the A post as it should. Don't waste your money on these repops.

Allan R

So the entire pad is urethane? No metal structure in it all? To me that means that it might be able to be re-formed with heat and pressure, but ultimately why would you have to do that with a new part and what guarantee is there it would stay that way? Now I understand what you were getting at. I'd still try to return them though under the time honored tradition that full restorations means parts can stay in limbo for long term storage till needed. By any chance is the other one still bagged?

69442C

There is one thin piece of metal in the repop pad and it runs along the side that would be closest to the window. These bend very easily now, too easily, and they need more support (metal) to retain any permanent shape. They are somewhat soft and spongy so heating them won't do anything. If they had been molded differently and with a harder sub- structure maybe they would have been OK. Both of the pads came in the same plastic bag. Not even wrapped individually. Unfortunately, I have a few things like this that were bought and are junk. And I'm not charging the owner for parts not installed on his car so I get to eat these. Fusick will be told about it and not sure they will do anything given the time that has passed.

gearheads78

Just want to say you are doing a exceptional job on building this car. Since its coming home to my area I look forward to inspecting it in person.

69442C

Thanks Richard and I take that as quite a compliment coming from someone of your skills. Should be back in TX in April or May and you'll need to snoop around in the Colleyville area. I hope it's gets driven since his 69 HO that he had restored (now sold) was only driven 237 miles in 4 years.

gearheads78

What are you talking about. Your attention to detail makes my build look like hack work.

I want to do a full on build so bad and seeing threads like this kill me. One of these days.

oldsguybry

Apparently you have not seen what I've been doing lately

fjross

I had the same problem with my 71 a pillar pads. No contour, like trying to work with a dead fish. I sent my originals out to Just Dashes and had them recovered. I found the same issue with my pearl arm rest covers. No metal reinforcement to screw into. Close the door one day and it came loose on the way to a show. Nothing like original, but with the pearl interior, you sometimes have to settle for whats available.

442craig

Brian,

Checking in on my east coast buddies to see it you guys are ok from the storm.

Hope all is well!

Craig

69442C

Hi Craig,

Thanks for checking in. All is good here and we had no issues to speak of. Didn't lose power and no damage to the house or property. All in all we were very fortunate.

Thanks,
Brian

442craig

Glad to hear it... couldn't bear to hear about any damage to that beautiful car! (as well as the builder)

oldsguybry

X2 , I'm glad everything is ok !

hurstman1972

Beautiful project! I noticed the air cleaner has the color striped vac tube attached. Is that original?, or does someone reproduce that stuff? I'm finishing a 72 H/O and would love to find a source. Thanks!

Schne442

In Line Tube repops it

69442C

Thanks.

Yep, Schne442 beat me to the reply. ILT is where you want to look or Fusick aslo sells the ILT products for the same price I believe. Shipping from ILT will be much cheaper.

The hose you saw on the 69 air cleaner did have that yellow stripe originally. I restored a 69 442 HT about 15 years ago and that one was also the same way. For this one, I ended up masking off an area on a new hose and I sprayed the yellow on there with rubber paint. I did ask ILT at the time if they had what I needed but they didn't. BUt now the repop the hoses for the 70-72 cars. Probably no yellow striped hose though for a 69.

Allan R

Striping kits are also available if you buy black vacuum hose and just want to add the stripes. Every so often I see things like this pop up on ebay. Use it 2X and it pays for itself. http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Master-Painte...#ht_500wt_1271

69442C

Been side tracked a little from the car as I was helping my daughter shop for a new car the past couple of weeks (my arm still hurts from all the twisting she had to do to it to get me involved) and also had a kidney stone blasted. And then the hurricane. But I did manage to almost finish the interior. I mentioned previously that the repop head rests meeded a little "adjusting" to sit correctly and here is what I ran into. The first picture shows how it was sitting up in the back as the front was hitting. I bent the rods a little and in the second photo it sits down much better. Third photo shows the completed driver's seat. Last picture is the repop seat tracks I needed for the driver's seat since the originals were worn out. Seat tracks were advertised as having a chrome adjusting know. ?? No matter, I had a new chrome one and swapped it out.

69442C

With the driver's seat installed, I finished the front seat belt installation and the sill plate moldings. Also installed the rear courtesy light lenses. Geez, I need to keep my dirty shoes off the carpet!

Just need to finish the work on the original sport steering wheel and get that installed, wait for the A pillar pads to be restored, get a new set of sunvisors and install the rear view mirror. It had a maplight mirror and I'm restoring that now and will have photos later.

Allan R

Brian
re: the map light rear view mirror. I know the wiring for that option runs under the head liner of hardtops, but where does the wire run for a vert? You got my curiosity going.

69442C

Allan,
Good question and I can partially answer that. The top of the windshield frame where the mirror attaches is hollow so the wire can run inside it. Unfortunately for me, this was fully removed by the other shop so I never saw the routing. The Assembly Manual shows the wire lead for the mirror and says that the wire was the responsibility of Fisher Body. I'll need to look at the Body Manual to see if that shows anything. I also don't know what windshield post to run the wire along. And there's a part of me that is still checking to see if a Maplight mirror was used on a conv. The car has a light next to the power top switch so to me, the maplight on the mirror seems redundant. But I also think that same light was available on HT and sedan cars too as part of a light package. I'll still put it in as I think it came with the car unless I can find something that says it should not be there.

OLD SKL 69

Brian,

This goes without saying but really nice work. As someone who has done 2 frame offs over the past few years, I can appreciate how much work goes into this. I kept a log of how many hours my 1st resto took, but I never added it up. Would not want to tell me wife either! Looking forward to seeing the completion of this and I am sure the gentleman that owns this car will be estactic when he gets it back.

69442C

Thank you Darrell. I think if we all looked seriously at the hours, money and efffort we put into these cars we would question ourselves. For me, they just seem to be a labor of love....most of the time.

Brian

Eddie Hansen

Brian, my vert has the map light on the mirror as well it is definitely original to the car I haven't gotten around to removing any of that yet if you need me to remove it and look , let me know

69442C

Eddie,

I would welcome any info you could share on the wiring routing and where it gets connected to the power source.

Brian

Eddie Hansen

Brian as we discussed on the phone the wire comes off the mirrior, then there is a not to keep the wire from being pulled through, then the wire goes into the header panel toward the drivers side, it then exits the top header panel, and travels externally on the inside face of the windshield pillar, it will be hidden by the foam pillar cover, it then ducts into the left side of the dashboard and into the back of the dash. from there it connects to a GREY wire ( looks to be 16-18 gauge) this then connects into a red double connection into the face of the fuse panel

Eddie Hansen

my car does not have a/c but apparently it has the optional lighting group, let me know if you need more info or need me to delve deeper into the wiring mess... hope it helps

69442C

I finally got around to completing the MapLight mirror. There was one in the parts bins for the car and I was able to find the small section of wire that connects the wire from the light to the main fuse block. The miror was all there but the mirror glass itself was bad and everything else was just plain tired looking. I also found that the previous shop must have purchased a standard interior mirro but it was slightly damaged and the mirror had become detached from the SS base. So I decided to use the new repop mirror for parts. The mirror was fine and the lever was better than the original one.

When I removed the light assembly, I found the bulb had a metal cover over the top portion of it to reflect light downward through the lens. Made me wonder if the bulb was the original one. I cleaned everything up and decided to spray the plastic parts with gray plastic paint since they were faded. They were also very fragile so careful handling was in order. The color is a little darker than original but this was all I could find locally. I did find that the round plastic insert that goes on top of the mirror and accepts the power wire was cracked. I dealt with that upon reassembly. I screwed the SS base of the mirror to a piece of wood and used my buffer and polishing compound to restore the shine. Turned out very well.

Photo 008 shows the repop mirror and photo 010 shows everything cleaned, painted and polished and ready to go back together.

69442C

The problem with the top round plastic insert being cracked was that this is used to retain the metal plug on the end of the power wire. The crack allowed the piece to open up slightly and thus it would not retain the metal prong on the end of the wire. The placement of this metal prong is important because it needs to sit against the top of the long brass lead that is part of the light asssembly. When the light is slid over to turn it on, the other side of the light with the short brass lead touches to mirror base and completes the electrical ground. So the wire lead on top is always in contact with the longer brass lead. I was afraid to epoxy the crack for fear of epoxy getting into the center and closing off the hole slightly. Cleaning the dried epoxy with a drill bit also worried me due to the fragile nature of the plastic. Instead, I used a piece of heat shrink tubing that was barely the size of the bottom of the insert. When I shrunk the tubing down, it did pull the gap from the crack closed but even better is the little bit of tubing that was below the plastic insert shrunk even smaller. I trimmed it so there was a very small section of tubing that remained below the plastic insert. This worked perfectly to act as a retainer for the round connector on the power lead. Now the heat shrink tube was holding the wire lead in place more than the plastic was. With the light assembly back in place I used epoxy on the back of the mirror and attached the SS base. It turned out very well and it functions perfectly.

Thanks again to Eddie Hansen for his assistance with the wire routing and the photos showing what was involved to connect the wire to the fuse block.

Brian

69442C

I was also able to do the necessary repairs to the original sport steering wheel so I can cross this one off the list. The wheel was very sticky so I completely disassembled it and spent a lot of time cleaning it to get rid of all the crud on it. It took a little while and several cleanings but I did get it nice and clean.

The first challenge was one of the metal tabs for the center cap was broken off. This metal is a hard spring metal so I gave it some thought as to how I should fix it. For whatever reason, I happened to think the shape of this tab was similar to the metal tab used to retain a disc brake pad into the caliper piston. Same metal too. I had a few laying around so I dug one out and sure enough, there was a section on the caliper clip that matched almost exactly to the profile of one of the two remaining clips.

69442C

In order to weld the new section of the brake pad clip in place, I needed to drill out the rivets on the cap so I could take everything apart. With the metal insert removed, I was able to tack the new secton in place with the mig welder. It's not the best looking but it worked. I gave it a quick coat of paint and put everything back together and installed new rivets.

The other area that needed attention was one of the cast metal inserts for one of the spokes was broken at the base. The small section that the screw passes through had broken off of the main part so JB weld was used to put it back in place. You can see a little of the JB Weld in the second to last photo. I think I'll install the wheel but leave the cap off until the car is aligned. That way I know the steering wheel will not need to come off anymore. At that point I'll snap the center cap in place. I don't want to tempt fate and have to remove the cap for any reason once it goes on.

While everything was apart, I took the opportunity to clean all the contact points for the horn button as they were all very dirty. I still need to install the wheel so hopefully the horn buttons function correctly and with little effort.

Brian