Good afternoon,
I joined the forum a few months ago and though I have enjoyed reading the posts from everyone, I havent made time to write one of my own.
I have a 79 Hurst Olds. I bought the car back in November from a gentleman in Indiana, and though it was relatively solid, the car was in need of lots of TLC. The person I bought it from purchased it from the 2nd owner, a gentleman in rural Illinois who bought the car in the mid 1980s and parked it in a barn by the late 1980s. The gentleman I bought the car from found a genuine barn find as the car hadnt seen daylight in 26 years.
I ended up paying double for the car than the guy I bought it from which I discovered when trolling the Classic Oldsmobile forum when the prior owner was bragging about what he paid for the car when he first got it and what he was going to do it. :shock: But I know this is the art of the deal, and since the car was so solid body, interior and trim wise, I still considered what I paid a savings over starting with a car that needed everything. So I counted my blessings.
The mechanical plans the prior owner bragged about making to the car were horribly done. The recipe sounded nice, but the execution was bad. He rebuilt the top end of the engine with 7A heads that had been redone, an Edelbrock intake, an Flamethrower distributor, an agressive Lunati cam, and put Headmann headers on it and run the exhaust out to some off brand performance mufflers. Problem was that the car didnt run right. It was so out of time it would barely turn over, and when it did, the original Quadrajet carb was so out of adjustment (and had a bad choke pull off) that it dumped fuel in the engine and you could smell gas in the oil. On top of that the charging system wouldnt maintain a charge and one of the Comp Cams roller rockers broke while the car was running.
Though my plans were always to return the car to stock, it became clear that it wasnt going to happen with this engine. I figured it would be too costly to fix the sloppy work on the original so I decided to find another engine and use the good stuff off the old. I ended up finding another Olds 350 engine from a 79 Oldsmobile in Nothern Illinois that has already been rebuilt and bored .030 over with a mild cam. So I had that engine put in with the rebuilt original carb and I ended up selling the old engine and all the other speed parts on it to a guy from the Chicago area wanting to put a 350 in his 86 Cutlass.
Once it was running, I only drove the car sparingly due to the harsh winter, but I would go out to the garage and start it up. With the few good days we got, I would clean up the car on the inside and outside as I could. The car is very complete with all the original emblems and no rust due to it being rustproofed back in the day. I got in contact with the second owner who told me he babied the car until he put it up and even had it entirely repainted prior to putting it away due to a collision with an animal. Only the rear bumper was rotten (but not the frame rails) so I ordered a rear bumper from East West Autoparts out of Tulsa, Oklahoma and had it installed and it really improved the look of the car. I have also had the brakes redone (stemming from a leaking wheel cylinder), the front end rebuilt, new shocks, new fuel pump, and new BFG tires I found online that I got a "sweetheart" deal on. All that is left to do mechanically is install new A/C hoses and high pressure line and charge the system and rebuild the rear end due to a slightly noisy pinion bearing. And I have to put in another headliner eventually and fix a couple of tears on the driver seat. Thats really it so far!
While it has not been cheap, this has been one of the most fun cars I've brought back from the brink. I hope to continue to have more fun with it. That said, I dont have any frame-off restoration plans for it; I'd rather drive it as an unrestored car I can take to shows and have fun with it the way it is. Here are a few pictures taken last Friday after I had the BFGs put on it. Enjoy! I'll post more as I do more to the car.
I joined the forum a few months ago and though I have enjoyed reading the posts from everyone, I havent made time to write one of my own.
I have a 79 Hurst Olds. I bought the car back in November from a gentleman in Indiana, and though it was relatively solid, the car was in need of lots of TLC. The person I bought it from purchased it from the 2nd owner, a gentleman in rural Illinois who bought the car in the mid 1980s and parked it in a barn by the late 1980s. The gentleman I bought the car from found a genuine barn find as the car hadnt seen daylight in 26 years.
I ended up paying double for the car than the guy I bought it from which I discovered when trolling the Classic Oldsmobile forum when the prior owner was bragging about what he paid for the car when he first got it and what he was going to do it. :shock: But I know this is the art of the deal, and since the car was so solid body, interior and trim wise, I still considered what I paid a savings over starting with a car that needed everything. So I counted my blessings.
The mechanical plans the prior owner bragged about making to the car were horribly done. The recipe sounded nice, but the execution was bad. He rebuilt the top end of the engine with 7A heads that had been redone, an Edelbrock intake, an Flamethrower distributor, an agressive Lunati cam, and put Headmann headers on it and run the exhaust out to some off brand performance mufflers. Problem was that the car didnt run right. It was so out of time it would barely turn over, and when it did, the original Quadrajet carb was so out of adjustment (and had a bad choke pull off) that it dumped fuel in the engine and you could smell gas in the oil. On top of that the charging system wouldnt maintain a charge and one of the Comp Cams roller rockers broke while the car was running.
Though my plans were always to return the car to stock, it became clear that it wasnt going to happen with this engine. I figured it would be too costly to fix the sloppy work on the original so I decided to find another engine and use the good stuff off the old. I ended up finding another Olds 350 engine from a 79 Oldsmobile in Nothern Illinois that has already been rebuilt and bored .030 over with a mild cam. So I had that engine put in with the rebuilt original carb and I ended up selling the old engine and all the other speed parts on it to a guy from the Chicago area wanting to put a 350 in his 86 Cutlass.
Once it was running, I only drove the car sparingly due to the harsh winter, but I would go out to the garage and start it up. With the few good days we got, I would clean up the car on the inside and outside as I could. The car is very complete with all the original emblems and no rust due to it being rustproofed back in the day. I got in contact with the second owner who told me he babied the car until he put it up and even had it entirely repainted prior to putting it away due to a collision with an animal. Only the rear bumper was rotten (but not the frame rails) so I ordered a rear bumper from East West Autoparts out of Tulsa, Oklahoma and had it installed and it really improved the look of the car. I have also had the brakes redone (stemming from a leaking wheel cylinder), the front end rebuilt, new shocks, new fuel pump, and new BFG tires I found online that I got a "sweetheart" deal on. All that is left to do mechanically is install new A/C hoses and high pressure line and charge the system and rebuild the rear end due to a slightly noisy pinion bearing. And I have to put in another headliner eventually and fix a couple of tears on the driver seat. Thats really it so far!
While it has not been cheap, this has been one of the most fun cars I've brought back from the brink. I hope to continue to have more fun with it. That said, I dont have any frame-off restoration plans for it; I'd rather drive it as an unrestored car I can take to shows and have fun with it the way it is. Here are a few pictures taken last Friday after I had the BFGs put on it. Enjoy! I'll post more as I do more to the car.