myolds72

Well I've been dreaming about this project since I bought my car in 1984. I drove it over to my friends shop (not a body shop) to start disassembly. My 72 olds vert is pretty nice now. Not perfect but nice. I'm not taking it off the frame but it will be disassbled down to close of that. Including removing the engine (58k original). I've ordered new seat covers, top, carpet, boot cover just to start. I've got about $5k to spend on parts and I don't think I'll need that much. I'll be taking pictures as I go and will post a link to photobucket. This will be a total winter project since it be a few hours here ad there. Hopefully I don't deployed during this project. I'm paying my friend $15 an hour to help me. He is the painter/body man and I am his apprentice. We have done 4 of my other cars together. I'm stroked to get this started and nervous at the same time.

Jamesbo

Great, Keep us posted of your progress with pics.

p.s. Thank you for your service to our country

citcapp

X2 Have fun with the project and be ready for next summers cruising

oldcutlass

Enjoy!!!! Hope everything goes well!

Lady72nRob71

Congrats on the start and best of luck with the resto!
All of that 5K will be needed, along with another 5k or two of them. Ask me how I know this............ It will be worth it tho.

Allan R

That car looks cherry right now as it sits in the sig pic. If you make it nicer, no one will ever be able to touch or sit in it! Only 57K miles?? Wow! I'm going to say X2 on what Rob just posted. $ has a way of developing serious holes in your pocket when doing this kind of thing, and it sounds like you're serious about doing the best job on it. Be looking forward to the updates.

myolds72

off to a running start. we started to disasemble my car. We have the front end off and started striping the paint off the fenders. I found some rust at the bottom of each front fender, so I think I'm going to order some patch panels. So far everything else looks good. We are going to work our way to the back of the car. Getting the front ready for paint first. I need to figure out how to remove my top and then I can get to the screws that hold the chrome piece the the boot slides under. Here's a link to some photos I took so far. The pass word is "olds72".
http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r...lds%20Project/

myolds72

We got both front fenders stripped yesterday. We found that both had been repaired back in 1979 when the car was last redone. Whoever did it used a lot of filler at the bottoms near the doors. My patch panels came in today for the fenders. This will take care of the 2 lbs that was used before. I'm going to buy a portable soda blaster to strip the rest of the car. Chemical stripping is a pain.

RALLYE KID

Good luck !!!! keep us posted

Pacecar

If you are taking the entire top out of the car including the frame, it is not bad. Mostly a bolt together deal and you can leave the top cylinders in the car if you want. Hardest part is probably the tack strip that holds the back part of the top and the well liner togehter. It is all screws or bolts but fits in the well very tight. That will also give you better access to the rear trim. Good Luck

myolds72

We got one patch panels welded in yesterday. I wish someone stamped the inner support. for the fenders. We used what was left of the OEM one.
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More pics at http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r...lds%20Project/ Pass word is "olds72"

Allan R

You could probably get the inner support from one of the guys on this site that regularly parts them out. How much damage was on the inner support? I know which part you're describing, but can't remember how it is bonded to the fender. Thought it was tack welded.

myolds72

You can see on the photo how much of the support was damaged. We tacked it all back in for now. The bottom piece we'll use as a guid to drill the hole for the bolt. I would like to replace it, if I can.
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kitfoxdave

looks like a great project!

myolds72

Deffinately a GREAT PROJECT! I've wanted to do this for 20 years. I should be done by spring time.

oldsguybry

yea they are spot welded in about a dozen spots around the inner fender support , Im gonna have to remove mine from my fenders in order to get to all the rust and one of my fenders has a decent size hole in it that I covered with bondo years ago .... im sure it will be a big PITA to remove , but most of welds are in an area that you wont see anyways so since I dont weld I was going to drill 4 holes all the way through and put some small nuts and bolts with lock washers to hold back in place after removing the rust until I can get it spot welded back on.

myolds72

progress has been slow. we have about 32 hours in so far. We put the front fenders back on to see how the lower patch panels fit and I'm pretty happy. We'll pull them back off and apply some eurathane filler over the welds. I got all the carpet out and found some rust on the driver footwell and along rear floor brace. I'm ordering new flloor pans. Hopefully we start stripping the rest of the paint soon so we can start blocking. I need to replace all the weather stripping too. I think I'm going to run over budget!! More pics soon.

myolds72

I picked up my floor pans today. My buddy should have them welded in this weekend. I bought them from clasic2current in Redford MI. I'm going to grayling MI saturday for a night of fun with my brothers. It's a 5 hr drive.

scubastever

MORE PICS! (please & thanks )

myolds72

Things are going very slow. I had a problem finding the correct center floor support. I oreded 3 of them and all of them had the seatbelt bolt holes in a different spot then the rusted OEM support. We ended up moving them to the correct location. The passenger side floor has been patched in. I am putting in the complete drivers side pan. Today I got most of the engine ready to pull. Just need to unbolt the engine mounts and P/S lines, pull the rasiator.
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myolds72

well we finally got the floors finished and I pulled the engine out. I have alot of the paint removed. I got over a grand in labor so far and my buddy isn't charging me very mutch. I did notice that one of the floor plugs was installed wrong at the factory. I going to leave it that way. Now we can concentrate on the body work.

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Allan R

Can I make a suggestion about posting pics? Can you post them vertically instead of horizontally? Maybe insert 2 then hit return, repeat till done? It's easier to see them all without having to drag the slide bar across the bottom of the thread.

myolds72

It's been awhile since I updated my progress. We got the floors finished. I POR 15 the under side of the floors today as well as the trunk. My car is about 95% stripped of paint. While stripping the paint off the rear quarters I found some terrible patch work. So my friend Tim cut them out and repatched them. They came out great! We have the rear quarters in primer. 4 thick coats so we can block sand them. Tim added some red to the primer so they look pink! Then he dusted them with black so we can find the high and low spots. I've been working the under side cleaning so I can POR 15 the frame. Next thing to do is remove the front suspension. I've been ordering pieces little by little. heres th elink to my photo bucket The password is "olds72" http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r...lds%20Project/
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Intragration

Looking good on the progress. I love to see clean patches, strange how you almost never find good old patches on older cars when you restore them, it's like the technology didn't exist before. I wouldn't worry too much about the budget, it doesn't matter how well you plan, you always look back and think how silly you must have been to think that's all you were going to have to spend. Thankfully, by that time the car is almost done, and you're too happy about that to worry about the mountain of cash you just spent.

myolds72

I've been pretty busy working on painting the front of the frame and suspension parts. I'm going TDY to Andrews AFB tomorrow for 30 days. So everything will come to a crawl. My friend will continue working the body. He just needs to re-prime the front fender and start blocking the whole car. If anyone is near Andrews AFB in MD hit me up. I'm going to be searching for parts while I'm out there.
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myolds72

Progress continues on my car even though I'm not there to do anything. It's been blocked to 320. We have a little work to still to get it smooth as glass and more blocking. It should be close to paint when I get back home. My friend said his arm are like rubber from all the sanding. I still have a bunch of details left on my punch list. But we should have paint on the car by April.

myolds72

It's been awhile since I've updated my thread. Mainly because the AF has been sending me all over for different things. But I should be home for a month or so and today I finnally got back to the shop to do some work. Pulled both doors off so I could strip the inside of the doors and jams. At first I was going to leave them on and paint them. I just figured this was the best and only way. I put new front springs, replaced all the bushings, ball joints and painted all my suspension components. This was all done before I left in February. Today I worked on the firewall. I POR15 the whole thing after prepping it. I had an after market A/C system for the car and pulled that out early in the dismantle process. Today I welded the holes where the hoses came through the fire wall. All I need to do the the body is block sand it one more time and it should be ready for paint.

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Allan R

Coming along nicely. Did you find the firewall stampings on the car?

501Paratrooper

Looks great!

myolds72

I'm not exactly sure what I would be looking for?

Allan R

My guess is you've lost them already, they look like this:

myolds72

Those are definately gone. This fire wall was painted by the previous owner. Along with all the wires. Which I spent some time today cleaning. Can I put the numbers back? How?

Allan R

Sure. I'm going to make my own stamping pads out of bike tube and use a template from the computer to make the stamps. Couple bottles of Testor's model paint and I'll have them back on my car too.

You can buy the stamps if you want them. I find that's just a bit pricey though. Here's the links
http://www.ebay.com/itm/69-70-71-72-...4#ht_670wt_913
http://www.ebay.com/itm/69-70-71-72-...#ht_651wt_1026

costpenn is also looking for these detail stamps. Maybe you guys could start a rotating stamp share....

myolds72

how does one dertermine the correct stamp to use?

Hot 442

Great job on the project.

Good question on the stamping. I too am planning to put my stamps back on the firewall. Someone else will know better but from what I have read online it seems like some of the stamps were just inspectors letters/numbers at the plant....

Mine is a 72 442 (non W30) and had a green C stamp only.

Seems like a waste to buy it for $26 just to stamp it once!!

Allan R

Good question. That's why I started a thread where everyone could document their stamping for others to see. Just for situations like this. I'm lucky; my stamping will be the same as the one I posted. Not too many have posted. Hope it helps a bit.
https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...ing+pad+thread

myolds72

I'm tryin to do this car as correctly as I can. I would like to put the stamps back on, now that I know they existed. You said that car has the same stamping as yours, how do you know? What was the tell tale sign?

myolds72

Found the following from the Yahoo Hurst/Olds group:
Dave Bunch - former Lansing Assembly Plant exc. employee in Product Reliability and Engineering. 1968-73.
These stamps were applied right after "body drop". This is when the body is mated to the chassis at the end of the "chassis build line" at the assembly plant. In the body drop pit are usually 4 workers who install the rubber body mounts just prior to full body drop. Then after the body is positioned properly over each mount, then the body is completely dropped on to the chassis and all body hardware is installed and tighened to a specfic torque. Then they indicate that this is completed, the "Body Drop Station Inspector(s)" stamp the firewall with their stamp letter(s). This stamp letter(s) is assigned to a specfic inspector, indicting the full name of the inspector is. This is both a quality control and safety issue. If the body is not aligned properly the rest of the front end assembly will not be accomplised according to the assembly manual. As a safety issue, this is the fact that the front end/ body will or may not meet design spec in a crash

Allan R

It was built at the same production plant: Lansing. That's close enough for me.

myolds72

I need to find out where mine was built. It will be a guess on the stamps though!