When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Dam Josh at the rate you are moving it will be on the road for summer! Nice repair work.
Test fit the windshield. Now is the time to adjust if needed.
Definitely going to do that! And I don't think we have to worry about me moving that fast. My ambition is gonna quickly catch up with my wallet! I might need to cash in some RSU's soon...
@droldsmorland I went with your suggestion and started vectoring a stock '68 Convertible to use as a base to do some appearance testing. I didn't bother doing the wheels since I know I won't be using stockers, but here it is!
Next on my project list was to fix my rotted out core support. Like a lot of these, the mounting holes were totally rusted through. My also had the luxury of being rusted through where the battery tray sat as well. I believe this was likely due to battery acid leaking on it for the past 50 years, as the other side was in great shape, but who knows for sure?
I started by cutting out the rusted areas using an angle grinder. This was pretty straight-forward on the mounts, but a little trickier on the pinch welds. A little creative grinding, a punch, and a hammer ended up getting it sorted.
The mount spots were just normal squares I cut in some 16 gauge sheet. That seems to be around the same thickness of the stock support in that area. The other repair used 20 gauge sheet, as that material seemed to be much thinner. I only had one bend to make, which was pretty simple on the bench brake.
Finally, it was just a matter of welding in the new plates, grinding it back, and hitting it with some weld through primer. After that had a day or two to dry, I did a serious rust removal job on the core support, hit it with some rust converter, and then to end it off a spray with some semi-gloss enamel.
@droldsmorland I went with your suggestion and started vectoring a stock '68 Convertible to use as a base to do some appearance testing. I didn't bother doing the wheels since I know I won't be using stockers, but here it is!
Yes, Josh thats nice. Now add the 68 only OAI scoops? They are thinner/wider vs the 69s.
Wonder what it would look like with the 70 OAI scoops and the 68 bumper scoops? To busy or may bust it up too much? Normally, I (we) don't like the 70 hoods on a 68. The center lines don't mix. The chin spoiler may be whats breaking it up just right?
Not sure what to tell ya for paint schemes on the unaltered 68 hood. I've never really observed a 68, 442/Cutlass "S" two-tone hood that I liked. Not even the 68 HO. Something subtle perhaps... thin pinstripes or inlay gold into the twin hood loovers?? Gold can be overdone really easily.
I do like the 70 faux hood gold. I do like the W30ish gold down the sides.
Normally I prefer the peak stainless left in place, but it looks good without it. Same with the 68 wheel arch stainless. The gold W30ish side stripe blends well and doesn't make it look naked without the wheel arch SS trim.
Get crazy and leave the hood alone as shown and cut out the areas above and below the parking lights and do a 67 W30. The housings look similar and the core support is out. The 67 scoops are available last time I looked and may fit with a bunch of modifications. It would be one of a kind.
The slam you have is just right IMO...not totally in the weeds. The tires should have some sidewall, not rubber bands & hoops. I have not ever observed a 68-72 A body with hoops that looked right(ghetto)...but I am old school.
The wheels on the gold/white car are nice. Maybe find a new skool wheel with a similar look/scheme of the 69 HO and do a gold center or even the argent would offset the white/gold body.
Both renderings are classy, not cheesy. 68 is a tough body to mod. Wheels n tires...that's a tough choice. They will make it or break it.
I am really enjoying spending your money...lol
Steve
This week I tackled the first of one of the hardest rust repairs on the car, the front lower shoulder area. Unfortunately both sides are toast and rusted through everywhere, but I started with the drivers side first. Here is a reminder of how bad it looked:
The first thing I did was to cut everything out. In hindsight that’s not the smartest thing to do… but luckily it worked in my case. Once I got everything chopped out, it was just a matter of putting in the new shoulder panel and fabricating some 16 gauge steel into the bottom fender support. I’m leaving out the holes for now so I can drill those to match once the new fenders are in, but otherwise I think we’re pretty solid for now!
Dam son you are going balz out on this one. Hurry up I want to see the finished product!
Working on it!
Btw, here is my attempt at what you suggested earlier. I don't think the bumper scoops would be visible here so I didn't put them in, but this is with a normal '68 hood and a little different stripe design.
Humm...It's nice.
The under-bumper OAI would be nice.
But I have to admit I like the 70 OAI hood which I normally don't on a 68. Just do the tops of the 70 hood in gold(IMO).
What about losing the mid-body line stripe and adding it to the tops of the fenders? Do a hockey stick on the front fender and run it along the same line the stainless. I like the 68-69 verts upper rear quarter lines.
Nice CAD work.
Note to anyone else out there doing repairs: do not try to graft in a new section of the rocker. The replacement panels do not have the exact same curve, and it will look wonky.
That was my experience anyway. After replacing only the front section of my drivers rocker, I had to buy another outer rocker and replace the whole thing. This was a lot more work as there are about 9000 spot welds to drill out along the floor pan, but it came out much better!
The only thing left to replace on the drivers side now is the rear quarter, which will also probably be the most difficult as it has to look perfect.
My drivers side floor pans were in pretty horrid shape. You can see from the above picture that the drivers side was swiss cheese, and what you can’t see is the back had large rust holes as well. The passenger from has rust holes too, but not nearly as bad – and none on the passenger rear. For this week, I set out to repair the drivers side.
This repair was actually pretty straight-forward compared to the others. After chopping out all the rusted sections, I flanged it and put in a cut-to-fit replacement panel. It was all easily accessible on the rotisserie.
The rear drivers section wasn’t as straight forward due to a variety of compound curves as well as going over a floor brace, but it wasn’t too bad. Same general procedure as used for the front, but this time instead of flanging it I chose to butt-weld. That was MUCH more time consuming, and I will save that for panels that are visible in the future.
The quarter panels on my Cutlass were, unsurprisingly, some of the worst hit by rust on car. As you can see from the pictures below, they were completely eaten through both in front of and behind the wheel. Additionally, the drivers side panel was full of bondo from a previous (and really poorly done) repair.
As usual with these cars, the disassembly consisted of drilling out a ton of spot welds. In this case, it also consisted of marking off and cutting out the panel around the perimeter. I did this with some painters tape about 1″ away from the edge all the way around, except for the rear bottom where it was so rusted out that the whole thing needed to be removed. Once the panel was off, I also found out that the drip railing for the convertible top was rusted through, so that had to be repaired. I also needed to rebuild the rear bottom of the inner wheel well since it was completely gone. I sanded all the interior metal down, and hit it with some rust reformer to stop any further oxygen aggression. Post those repairs, I went in with a bunch of seam sealer where the worst rust was. The car will rarely if ever see the rain under my stewardship, but I want it to be done right just in case.
Now that the internal repairs were done, I welded in a lot of backing strips around the perimeter. Since I planned on butt welding the panels back together, this gave a good base to prevent punch-through. Then it was just a matter of tracing the old panel I removed out on the replacement panel, and cutting everything out. This left me with a nice panel that fit well in empty space. Once I was happy with the fit, I started tacking the repair in and slowly welding around. This was a very slow process to avoid warping the panel with heat. I also took this opportunity to weld up the quarter panel peak trim holes, since I won’t be putting those back on the car.
Now for the final part of the repair. I mentioned before that I was not a fan of the indentation around the wheel wells on the ’68 cars, and had been trying to decide how to best deal with it on my car. I finally made a decision. It’s one that’s not going to make a lot of people on the site happy, but since I’m paying the bills I think it will work for me. It also goes along with the pro-touring and more modified look I am eventually going to end up with!
Hey Josh. One thing I see that could be crucial is not enough bracing in the interior of the car to prevent body flex while your cutting things apart.
You need lateral and cross bracing. I see the door jamb brace. You could run into a nightmare getting the final panel gap and alignment right.
Hey Josh. One thing I see that could be crucial is not enough bracing in the interior of the car to prevent body flex while your cutting things apart.
You need lateral and cross bracing. I see the door jamb brace. You could run into a nightmare getting the final panel gap and alignment right.
Hey! I haven't removed or modified any of the floor bracing, so I thought that would be enough combined with the rotisserie supporting the body on the body mount points, but you might be right about cross bracing. I will look into it, thanks!
Been a while since I've posted as I've been watching my kids 24/7 while working from home. Has limited my time to get car stuff done. I've come up with another change of plans as to the appearance! I know some won't like it as it's a bit more "mod" than "restoration", but we'll see how it goes as I get more of the build done.
I love the white and gold rendering but, with the changes to the fender flares, I understand the change in paint scheme direction. The yellow is a bold choice as long as it works for you.
It's been a really long time, but I'm basically "done" with my other frame-off restoration. That means I'm back on the Cutlass full time! Should be lots of new progress/videos coming out until it's finished in a year or two.
Fender flares on a 68 Cutlass?! Let the flaming begin!
I found some generic metal flares on eBay and decided to give them a go on my Cutlass. I know this is probably going to upset a lot of folks, but hopefully not as much in this section of the forum.
January 18th, 2020, 07:31 PM
I might need to cash in some RSU's soon...
A Pillar & Underbody Repair
