i was asked to post some pictures of my 98, which i will gladly do. i sadly only have a few of him on my computer. these were taken this past summer outside of a blues club that i play at. im the one on the left with the raybans on. the other guy is a fellow harmonica player friend of mine. having Lyle around for these pictures brought out our inner "blues brothers," haha.

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-Bob

 

Ya gotta love the Blues Brothers!

 

 

yes Zed, you really do gotta love the Blues Brothers.

69convertible, thats exactly the pose i was thinking of. im a huge blues brothers fanatic....that movie is actually the reason why i started playing harmonica, that and growing up around the city that is home to the blues. Lyle is a pretty good bluesmobile. i dont ever plan on letting him get that beat up, but driving through a mall would be fun!

-Bob

 

The classic mall scene : "new Oldsmobiles are in early this year".

 

Oh yeah. and you see an 80' delta lol.

 

haha, i wasnt even thinking about that line. ive used that one, like many, many others from that movie, on a couple of occasions.

-Bob

 

Bob, cool pics. I have a good friend that shares some interests with me, cars, beer and good music. He is a harmonica player as well and plays it and guitar in a classic rock band. He just built a tube amplifier to play his harmonica on, it sounds very smooth, rich and full through that amp.

 

Very cool! 71 98s are AWSOME!

 

thats very cool Oldsguy. ive been working on my harp rig as well lately. its a fender bassman reissue, which is a tube amp as well. once you dial in a tube amp, they are awesome for the harmonica, they just give you that classic sound.

and yeah, like, totally, 71 98's are like pretty much the awesomest! like....totally. lol

-Bob

 

About that sound, I would call it FAT!

 

"Fat" is what happens to a person when they retire from the Navy and sit around drinking beer for 13 years.

"Phat" is something entirely different.

Did you get these two mixed up?

 

Haha. No, he's right, FAT is the correct term. Basically referring to the bottom end of the bandwidth--sort of the "warmth" that comes with playing anything out of a tube amp, including a CD or preferably an LP.

Bob, I take it you use a bullet mic, yeah? Vintage or reissue? The vintage ones have gotten very expensive over the years (I'm bit of a vintage music equipment nut. well, bit of a vintage everything nut....)

Tom

p.s. Also noticed it looks like your car had a vinyl top originally. Are you going to put one back on?

 

ha, ha, ha I'm right, your wrong.

And that comment about drinking beer and getting fat..............I resemble that.

 

yes Fat would be the correct term here, you got it right Oldsguy.

and actually Tom, i dont use a bullet mic. ive had bullet mic's but as i said in an earlier post, i am a huge fan of Paul Butterfield and his sound, so in order to get a little of his cleaner sound, i use a shure 545s, which is the mic he used. it is basically a predecessor to the shure 57 mic's, but this one had a sort of "pistol grip" handle with a on/off switch in it. its definitely something different, and i cant think of any harp players today that use it, but i like it. and playing with it through my bassman reissue, i can still get a lot of crunch on it when i want to.

as far as the vinyl top goes...im sort of on the fence about that. ive seen a couple of 98's without the vinal top, and i like the cleaned up look that it gives. but it certainly doesnt look bad with one on. it all depends on when i have the funds to do something about painting it....i have a lot of grand plans for this car, but those tend to get hindered since im a poor college student. but when i do get to paint the car, i want to paint it a 1971 corvette color called lucerne blue...or the more modern version of the color which is found on this year's Zo6 vette, called jetstream blue. here's a pic:

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i think it stays true to the factory blue that my olds originally was, but there is an added depth and "pop" to it that i really like, and i think with a nice set of rims and tires, will really freshen up the ol' boy.

i'd like to hear what everyone thinks about my ideas for my 98 so far.

here's another idea....71 442 hood scoops. i think that with a little work, they would look right at home on the hood of my 98. ive thought of doing a factory looking "what if" with my 98. like if a higher up special ordered his 98 back in the day. sort of a 98 LSS. what do you think?

-Bob

 

Ah, yes, Shure SM57s. I've recorded with those in the past. Have you ever heard Butterfield's East-West album? It's pretty strange, but kinda cool.

I'm personally a big fan of vinyl tops. Some people hate them, but to me I like the retro look of them. I'm putting mine back on once I get the body work and paint back on my 442.

That's a cool color. However, I also like the original color of your car. So, either way, I don't think you can lose. I think you'd be surprised how much work you can do yourself on a limited budget. I've pretty much taught myself from scratch and have been able to do quite a bit. Bit of advice--make sure you get rid of all your rust to start with (if you have any), because you'll just find yourself doing the work all over again in the near future.

 

yeah, i have all of Butterfield's albums...like i said, im a really big fan. when i was younger and more interested in straight up blues, i wasnt as fond of east-west, but now as ive grown as a player, ive come to really appreciate the leaps and bounds he made on e-w, so i really enjoy it.

yeah, i certainly like the look of vinyl tops, but i think for now, my plan is to get rid of it once i paint it....but that is a little ways down the road, so i could change my mind again. i like the stock color too, but i just think the added pop of the jetstream blue would look even better...but again, its a ways off, so who knows what i will decide. all i know is that im not going to paint Lyle black. for a long time, i really wanted to, and even now i think he would look good in black, but then he wouldnt be "Lyle." the color is part of the personality of the car, so i want to stay at least pretty true to that.

i would love to teach myself how to do a lot of the work on my car, as those are skills ive always wanted to have, and one day plan to learn, but it is pretty tough since im a full time student and dont have any room to keep a car down in the city, and there is no garage space at home (the garage is filled up with my Dad's 1964 buick electra and 1972 chrysler town and country wagon!). i know these are nothing but excuses, but theyre all true for the time being. if i have the extra cash flow, im going to try to rent some space for my olds for the winter months, and maybe give me a chance to work on it a little bit.

-Bob

 

Cool, man.

Tell me about it. I actually had to ship my 442 out to my parents house as I live in the City and have a storage unit in NJ that houses my '69 Camaro which is also in complete pieces. So, I'm rushing to get the 442 done so I can give them their garage back. A little hard when they're in AZ and I'm in NY. But, gotta perservere....

In any event, just make sure it doesn't rust out sitting out in the harsh Chicago winter. You'll get to it. Just gotta be patient. Coming on the site here actually helps ease the pain of waiting....

 

wow...now i have no excuse to not work on my car. i may not have garage space, but im not across the country from my car! lol.

my biggest concern right now is like you mentioned, keeping it from sitting outside this winter. my grandparents had a summer place in the del webb retirement community in the suburbs of Chicago, and my Dad and i could always store our cars out there when they left for florida in the winter. but now they are going to live in florida year round and theyve sold their place here. so ive been working on finding some cheap but safe storage for the ol' boy for the winter.

and thats another reason why im excited about this site...watching other people's work will influence me to do more of my own, and at the very least, help pass the time, as you said, until i can work on mine.

-Bob

 

Bob, you mentioned that you are a college student. Does your school offer any auto tech classes that you could sign up for? If so you could do some work on "Lyle" and get college credit for doing it.

I did the same thing in college. The school I went to offered an Automotive Technology program.

While you are on a budget you might consider primering "Lyle." Oldsguy did this to his 46 and it looks pretty good. It is amazing how good a classic car can look in primer. If you decide to put the vinyl top back on make sure all of the rust is fixed. My 98 never had a vinyl top but I am partial to them, especially on a full sized car.

 

Jesse, sadly my school doesnt offer any classes like that. the community college out in the suburbs where i grew up does though, so i think this summer im going to take courses there and get more serious about fixing the ol' boy up, and just learning the basics.

as of now, i do have the roof and trunk area primed. luckily there was basically no rust to speak of under the vinyl top. but since Lyle had sat outside for so long, the weather affected the paint, especially on the trunk lid. it was faded all the way to the grey primer, and if you touched it, you would get the chalky residue all over yourself. so i did sand it and the roof down enough to cover it with a nice coat of cheap primer. it doesnt look too pretty, but its protecting the metal underneath, and thats all i care about.

like i was saying, im kind of torn as to whether or not i want to put a top back on my car. i certainly liked how it looked when it had one, and i agree that i like the look in general on full size cars, but im still on the fence. but i have time to decide, because i dont see the money for paint and bodywork coming any time soon! lol.

-Bob