Sampson

Hello, My name is Steve and I am a Mopar Addict. I am attempting to rehabilitate myself. I just sold my 70 Dodge Charger in Oct. It had been my baby for 20 years. My wife and I had been looking for a Cutlass Convertible as a project to take its place. After looking all over the country wouldn`t you know my wife found this nice Vert on Craigs List 5 miles from home. The bad: The paint is 10 yrs old. The engine compartment was restored with rattle can gloss back. The bottom of the doors and the lower trunk lid have visible rust. Seats are not origional and bolted to the floor pan. Car has undercoating all over the chassis. The Good: I drove the car a couple of weeks to assess the condition and it drives tight, does not smoke or burn oil and shifts good. They are origional to the car. The odometer reads 83000 mi and I believe it is accurate. Seats and interior are in pretty good condition. Floor pans and trunk all are solid origional. Overal a nice place to start without needing a lot of metalwork. My plan is to build this as a nice 442 clone driver. I know I just lost a lot of you purists but I will never represent it for anything other than what it is. I was not old enough to order one of these cars new so now is my chance to build one as I would have ordered it. I ahve spent the last couple weeks tearing the car down and hope to have it to the painter after Christmas. It will be Black with White stripes. I plan to reseal and regasket the engine with some mild performance upgrades. I also plan to install front discs. This will be a frame on resto but I do plan to replace the body mounts. As I said I am a Mopar addict and need help from you guys. I am amazed by the parts availability and have found Fusick OPG and the Parts Place. I need some resources for correct finishes, tried and true performance upgrades (bolt on stuff. I do not plan to tear the engine down). Also parts interchangability. I am also very impressed with the Oldsmobile build quality vs Mopar. This will be a nut and bolt resto except for the car coming off the frame. Any pitfalls that I should look for? I look to learn from your experience. This should be fun.....Steve

OLD SKL 69

Welcome to CO Steve. Looks like you bought yourself a nice Christmas present and a great new project.

Eastwood has many of the correct finishes you will need to refinish your project. I sprayed my frame and floorpans with Eastwood Extreme Chassis Black Semi Gloss. Results were excellent.

oldcutlass

We are never fully reformed Steve, lets just say we are old car junkies. Looks like your well on your way to great car, keep us posted on your progress.

2blu442

Welcome to the site Steve! What part of the country/world are you from? As you read through the various threads you can see what we've members from all around the world on CO. There's a forum for major builds, you can learn a lot from others by reading through their builds. Rob (Lady72nRob71) has some extensive photographs of his convertible restoration work. If you've got the time, please create a build thread of your own to keep us posted on your progress.


John

hinz57

Welcome. You have come to the right place. This is the best website (IMO) for Oldsmobiles that you will find. The people are knowledgable and always willing to help. There are tutorials, pictures and the like for nearly every project you are about to undertake. A lot of the questions you have along the way have likely been covered in previous posts. You may have to plug in several key search words and sift through the vast array of info here on the site. Best of luck.

Diego

You should buy the FC7 4-4-2 convertible someone here owns. You'll then have the best of both worlds.

gearheads78

Welcome to the site. Looks like you did not waste any time to drive in. Keep us posted of the progress. You might want to start a thread in the project section and we can all follow along.

Jrod

Nice car welcome

stressed1

A question for you all and the OP.

How much horsepower is acceptable or good for a "Daily driver"?

I have a 70 chevelle SS with a 540hp 540ftlb that I suspect is higher now because of parts added after initial dyno and yes, it requires maintence much more so then a normal stock V8 and likes gasoline, a lot more then a stock BBC. It's a full roller motor I built for reliability, as I didin't want to adjust valves and wanted to run pump gas. So it's built to start right up after a winter sitting.

But is that too much for a daily? Just right? To me, it's not fast enough. IOne diesese I have, it once I see a certian power and speed, it is no longer acceptable and must be faster. Out of everything I have ran on the street I have beat it, put the last race I only beat the car by 3 car lengths, which is unnacceptably slow to me.

Now I have a 71 roadrunner clone with a 318, should I keep that stock as the 2bbl 5.2L may yeild close to 20mpg. But you can never race anyone or roast the tires, because you will see how pathetic it really is. How about exhaust, you want a muscle car to sound mean correct? Will it have exhaust? Headers, 3" and X pipe?

I'm just curious what others think. What is right for a daily?

oldcutlass

Horsepower is a personal preference. On the mopar, I would change it to a 440, beefy torqueflite, 8 3/4 rear with 323's and build on it from there. On the exhaust, manifolds or headers, 2 1/2 is plenty with an H pipe and a set of exhaust cutouts. But thats just me.

rocketraider

All that says is that someone else has a near comparable car. Unless you're just into dominance at all costs and the anguish that entails, put the Chevelle on the track against a clock and find out how quick the thing really is. Then figure how quick the car is that you only got three lengths on him. Then don't worry about it or you'll drive yourself and everyone around you crazy.

Undeniably too much for a DD.

Daily drivers and toys are mutually exclusive. For a DD you need a POS Honda/Toyota or similar that will get you where you want to go with minimum fuss and get 30 mpg doing it. When it's used up, junk it and get another one. That way you concentrate on the car that is fun to you.

Hurst/Olds 73/74

Weird! My name is Steve. I am a Mopar addict. I sold a Charger (1973 440 Rallye pilot car) earlier this year and bought a 1971 Cutlass Supreme convertible....just weird.

Sampson

Want another coincidence Steve? I used to have a 1973 rally charger 440! Hey Stressed. I've got a nice running 440 builder for you to put in that 71 Runner want a be. Been making good progress on the Vert the past couple of days. lmost completely stripped down. Will post some pics of the progress this weekend.

Hurst/Olds 73/74

OK, gotta ask...my '73 Charger Rallye came from down south around 1990. What was the original color combo on yours and do you know the VIN? Not too many U code 440 Rallye's made that year. I'd love to trace the history of my old one back to the original owner. It was likely the first Charger built that year and was build for the press preview, according to the build sheet.