My name is Russ and I am rebuilding the engine and transmission for my fiance's Cutlass, a car her late husband had and is promised for one of her sons. Her husband passed a couple of years ago and it had sat in a garage for almost 5 years with a blown transmission seal. I volunteered to fix the trans but once I got under it I found a 1/4" layer of oily dirt on the bottom half of the engine so I jumped-in on both of them.
I came here looking for input as I am an LS man and haven't worked on an Olds since I had a '77 442 in high-school. I found a post that helped me reinstall the P/S brackets that I thought I had photographed - hah!
Thanks for the help!!!
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Oh, and here is what it looked like when I pulled it out! lol
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Welcome! Looks great!

- Eric

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

Welcome to the site! It looks like you got all your questions answered, but if anything else comes up just make a post! John

 

Welcome. Very nice job. I love those 72 Cutlasses.

 

Welcome to CO, nice work and a commendable thing you are doing by the way.

 

Thanks guys, I appreciate them warm welcome!
I am running into one issue, I cannot i.d. the resistance wire for the coil. I know it should have a fiberous casing, the 2 leading to the coil both have plastic casings. I would just hook it up as I found it but I added a Pertronix kit to the distributor and need to find a switched positive 12V line to tap into. I am digging in a little deeper tomorrow and cleaning the harness, hopefully I'll locate the wire!

 

You want the big pink wire out of the ignition switch.

I doubt anything already in the engine compartment will be appropriate, unless you want to do it the fancy way and find where the reisistance wire is crimped into the fuse block plug, pull the connector, and attach it there.

- Eric

 

Ok, the engine and transmission are done, in the car, ready to go, then I got to installing the starter... HOLY CRAP!!!
I bought generic replacement battery cable (positive), BIG mistake! Obviously a factory repro is the only way to go to get the correct angled terminal with relay wire! I tried to get creative and add a relay wire of my own to the starter terminal - FAIL!
Then there were the leads for the solenoid that I had re-terminated after the original terminals nearly fell off, the shrink tubing that I put on them made it impossible to reinstall!
Good grief! I spent nearly 5 hours trying to wrestle the starter into place, protect ancient wires from manifold heat, and on the first hit of the starter shorted one or two wires!!!
Sooo, new battery cables on the way from Inline Tube (they carry a shocking amount of Olds resto pieces!) and an engine harness from Year One!
Until then, the engine sure looks pretty! lol
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Nice job looks good! Your photos will help me finish hooking up brackets on my motor!

 

Purtyful!!! Good job!

 

I think you did a real nice job!

 

A little update....
The Cutlass has been on the road now for a couple of weeks, the boys are just so happy to have Dad's car again. Neither of the boys could drive when their Dad passed and now that they can it makes it even more special for them...
The car has no leaks, no squeaks, everything works (except the A/C which they weren't worried about) and drives incredibly well.
Thank you to everyone who has helped answer Olds-specific questions I've had and for the warm welcome to this forum. To see the boys faces while they are driving it you know it will be cherished forever, it's been one of the most satisfying projects I've ever done.
There are only details to be taken care of for now - fender/hood alignment, A/C repair, getting radio functioning, trim dent removal, etc... For later we are considering some updates - the one boy who actually owns it wants to put a lightning-rod shifter and console from an '84-85 Hurst car in it along with the seats from the same car, we shall see how that goes. We may also put a TH200R4 in it, the gas bills cause the only moments of not smiling so much! A disc-brake upgrade has been on my radar from the start, that will certainly happen.
We took it to the Car Craft Summer Nationals this weekend, which they used to go to with Dad, and their Mom said they were on "cloud 9" being able to do that again with the car. We stopped by the Porter Muffler booth to let them hear the new stainless steel mufflers we bought, they asked if they could display and occasionally start it for people to hear! We left it with them while we checked-out the show and apparently it got a lot of attention and they sold a bunch of mufflers with it! They gave us t-shirts, gas money, and some sweet billet exhaust hangers! Very cool, great folks!
Thanks again, this has been a fun car to build. I'm now getting back into something more along my style, an LSX powered 1970 Firebird pro-touring car!


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Very nice!!

 

You done good.

- Eric

 

Welcome! Nice car and great story.

 

awesome job

 

Very nice indeed. I can completely understand the desire the boy has for changing the interior and shifter; when I was younger I went through that stage as well. Now I prefer a closer to stock appearance. I think I finally realized that every custom modification that is put onto a car takes it one step farther away from the most desire-able resale value. Not that a project like this one or probably most of the ones on this site are wholly for a financial gain, but it is nice to know that some day when it comes time to sell and move on to another vehicle then it will fetch the best price.

 

It's good of you to keep someone's dream alive.

 

You did the right thing. I hope if I die one of my kids gets to drive my beast. Your a good dude. Major points.

 

Thanks guys! Seeing the looks on the boys faces in that car makes it all worth while!!!

 

wow, great looking car, nice job on a really worthwhile project. Thanks for sharing this.