BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)

Rktpwrd · Jun 13, 2017

dr78442 said:
Donovan, I really like the idea of painting the B pillar black. A very slick and steathly body mod. When you're done with both of your cutlasses I will be sending my 78 cutlass to you .LOL. As always great work!

Thanks Mike. Glad you like the mod I have planned for it.
I just think it frames the window openings nicely that way, and looks clean. I have to remind myself sometimes that the factory '78-80 hardtop Cutlasses didn't actually come that way, I've been looking at The Juggernaut this way so long!
Lol
Makes you wonder why GM didn't do it...??

Thanks for the compliments my friend!

Z48LT1 said:
Donovan,

You're almost too generous with your answers and advice. Don't hesitate to let us know when we get to be tiresome. Here's my new contribution.

What is it about All Metal that you like for this use at this point in the process?

BTW, I employed a similar flanged-and-epoxied approach to bodywork some 20 years ago, without the welding, substituting pop rivets, with success beyond any reasonable hope, on a 65 VW microbus. My epoxy of choice was PC-7, which I still consider a miracle adhesive, but I haven't tested my luck on any comparable project since then. I may have some hard copy evidence of my experiment but with any luck I won't be able to find anything incriminating.

Best - Gary

No worries Gary, it's not tiresome at all. I'm always happy to address and answer everyone's questions.

My answer to your question about the All Metal is pretty simple really.
I like the strength that it will add to the repair, and its ease of sanding. The repair is what I would consider to be just a little low to fill over with only conventional body filler, but not really deep enough to require short or long strand fibreglass filler. So the All Metal seemed to be a nice alternative that will still provide excellent results.

Thanks for relating your previous experiences with epoxying in panels on your Vee-Dub. Appreciate it!

Longroof79 said:
Hi D,
As always, I'm totally impressed with your work. I know I must sound like a broken record, but I'm astonished with your level of craftsmanship and work ethic...I enjoy seeing your work in progress. Thank you again for showing us how it's done and being an all out great guy to boot.

Thank you very much Jack!
You're too kind as always sir.

It's my pleasure to share the journey. I just hope everyone finds it enjoyable as well.
Your comments are very flattering, I'm honoured to be held in such regard in your eyes. Thank you.

The craftsmanship you speak of wasn't always there. It's slowly evolving and being refined over the years. I started out like everyone else, not even knowing which end of the welder to hold so to speak!
Lol
Every time I delve into something new, or something I've done a million times before, I always try and improve upon it, and "do it better this time".

As far as the work ethic is concerned, I'm not scared of hard work, or getting my hands dirty. But then again, I don't really consider this work. Quite the opposite actually. It's my release, my sanctuary, my place to go and do my thing, and leave the stresses of the world outside and the day behind me.

Besides, what else am I gonna do with my time? Binge watch seasons of Dancing With The Stars?
:rofl:

Thanks to everyone again, for all the comments and support.

D.

Rktpwrd · Jun 13, 2017

I got off to kind of a late start tonight due to falling asleep on the couch after dinner, but being stubborn, I decided to see what I could accomplish with the time I had left anyways.

I started off by welding up the hole in the driver's side "B" pillar, as well as the ones around the back window that I could reach from the driver's side of the car:

Starting to work my way around the back window:

In yesterday's update, I mentioned grinding out the brass that the factory brazes in when they install the roof. With all of the seam sealer removed, I ground out the last of the brass in preparation for fully welding the upper outer driver's side roof corner.

You never want to have body filler on or making up an edge, so this had to be created in solid steel. I started by slowly adding material with the welder in the form of small beads built up on one another, ensuring to fully cool the area each time of course. Being an edge, the area will take quite a bit of heat without distorting anything, but you still can't go crazy with it. Note the relatively small heat ring with all the beads in this spot:

As I was welding and cooling the welds, I finally found a use for the rust holes on the car...

After the material was added, I knocked it down close to flush, and threw a straight edge on it to see where I was:

As you can see in the photo above, the whole area was still low, including the area below where I had started adding the welds. A quick check with the back window moulding confirmed the same:

Note the Sharpie mark near the bottom of the pic, that's where I would need to start adding the extra material to.

After adding many beads of welds, and knocking the tops down with the grinder, I broke out my body file and continued working the area. Some of you may remember the body file from my work with it on the front edge of The Juggernaut's hood, so you already know what that's all about.

After about a gallon of sweat, and 40 minutes later, I had the surface filed smooth and flush:

Another check with the straight edge confirmed it was right now.
No low spots, can't get any better than this!

After a little work to the edges, it's starting to look really good. This was about as far as I could go with the filing process tho, more material needs to be added to the edges to complete the outer edge, and to nicely match the contour of the upper corner of the window moulding:

This last photo, I'm not really happy about posting. Mostly because I'm a perfectionist, and I don't have an "after" photo to follow it up with.
Anyways, this is the area after I addressed the pinhole, and added the necessary material to the edges:

Unfortunately, that's where I had to stop for the evening. I simply ran out of time. Living in suburbia, the neighbors tend to get a little pissy if I'm running the compressor and making a racket grinding past 11:00 pm.

So that's it for tonight gentlemen, I'll pick back up on it again tomorrow night and get this area knocked out.

Thanks for checking back!

Donovan

Carl1984Gbody · Jun 13, 2017

Rktpwrd said:
I promised y'all an update with pics of the wheels and tires completed and on the car this weekend.
Since it's a long weekend for us up here north of the 49th, it's still technically the weekend. So here we go!

This weekend was filled with highs and lows in respect to the wheels. I was up bright and early Saturday morning, and had the rims and tires dropped off at the tire shop shortly after 10am.

After a little blunder on the tire shops' behalf where they mounted the tires blackwall out (low point), they corrected their mistake, flipped them around, and remounted them RWL out like I had originally requested.
Bit of a low point there. Little did I know it was a sign of things to come...

Fortunately, they were able to adequately balance each wheel using stick on weights on the insides of the rims, rather than the clamp-on lead ones that had caused all the pitting in the aluminum underneath previously.
Bonus, high point there!
Upon going to pay, I was told to have a nice day, they were done all for the low low price of $Free.99!
DEFINITE high point there!
(Guess it pays to take good care of your compressor customers!)

Once back home, I began the process of swapping out the old rims for the new. With the back of the car jacked up and the rear wheels removed, I test fit the new wheel and tire combination with the existing 2" wheel adapters (I had previously installed to help out the look).

This was a no-go.

After confirming with a tape measure what my eyes were telling me, I found that the new combo overlapped the wheel well flange by a solid inch. On a lowered vehicle like Olds Cool, this is just asking for trouble, usually in the form of cut sidewalls.
Low point...

Removing the adapter and bolting up the wheel against the brake drum wasn't the right answer either. Even with the wider tires, the whole thing still sat too far inboard for my liking. Yet another low point.
Time to jump in the truck, and head for the speed shop.

A high speed run there and back, and about an hour later, I had a set of 1" adapters to replace the 2" ones. Placing the 1" adapters over the wheel studs was rewarded with a disheartening reality:
The axel flange studs were 1/8-3/16" too long, protruding past the adapter. DEFINITE low point there.
Out came the cutoff wheel on the die grinder, and all 10 studs were carefully shortened. Finally, everything fit as desired.

All this nonsense finally behind me, I could finally move on with getting the damn wheels on. All the proper lug nuts I had sourced out fit and functioned as intended, with the exception of one. Something in the threads was screwed up or damaged, and it would not for the life of me go on. A look through my tap and die set was unsuccessful as well, I did not have the proper pitch and diameter tap to repair the nut.
Low point yet again!

Instead, I improvised and used one of the straight shank lug nuts and double washer deals I had used previously. Good enough until I can repair or replace the bad nut.

Front wheels went on without a hitch, and I was finally able to get the car down on all fours again. Made a quick trip to the car wash to get everything cleaned up and looking good, and finally got my first good look at the end result.

Although they look really good (and a substantial improvement over the old rally's), I was a bit upset to find that the clearcoat I had applied had dulled down the bright silver finish of the raw aluminum areas.
Another disheartening low.
They still look good, they're just quite dark now is all.

View attachment 66723

View attachment 66722

View attachment 66724

Not sure if I'm going to redo the silver areas just yet or not, I might give it a bit and see if it grows on me. Thoughts from the members on this?

Probably most importantly of all tho, the car now finally rides, tracks, and handles much better than before. It's firm, stable, and doesn't require as much corrective input nearly as much as before. That right there was reward enough for going through all the work.
High point finally!

Anyways, enough with the commentary.
Today I made a trip out of town, and stopped for a photo op. My apologies, they're not the greatest. The sun was so bright I couldn't see the screen on my phone to tell if it was gonna be a decent picture or not. The car looked a lot better in person to be honest.

View attachment 66718

View attachment 66719

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So that's it. There they are, done and on the car.
Thanks for checking back everyone, and please, feel free to share your thoughts and opinions!

D.

WOW, very nice

Opie Knievel · Jun 13, 2017

Looking good Donovan. This repair is coming along quite nicely. Just curious, what kind of welder do you use?

liquidh8 · Jun 13, 2017

Donavan, great work! I know all too well about adding metal to corners, time consuming, but the right way!

Looking forward to more updates.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

Clutch · Jun 13, 2017

Wow it's been a while sense I got to catch up on your thred. Cars looking really good man.one of these days I want to get some time to read about your other car the work on this one is quite impressive!

Injectedcutty · Jun 13, 2017

Clutch said:
Wow it's been a while sense I got to catch up on your thred. Cars looking really good man.one of these days I want to get some time to read about your other car the work on this one is quite impressive!

Set yourself back a couple hours and read "the juggernaut build thread". Donovan, i mean Mr. Ridler has some serious skills across the board lol! The 'Naut will be pulling some HUGE trophies whenever that car gets finished!

Texas82GP · Jun 13, 2017

Injectedcutty said:
Set yourself back a couple hours and read "the juggernaut build thread". Donovan, i mean Mr. Ridler has some serious skills across the board lol! The 'Naut will be pulling some HUGE trophies whenever that car gets finished!

It will take more than a couple hours!

Injectedcutty · Jun 13, 2017

Texas82GP said:
It will take more than a couple hours!

Eh, you're most likely correct Jared....after you factor in the breaks taken to wipe the drool off the phone, chin, etc :drool:

!!!

Rktpwrd · Jun 14, 2017

Carl1984Gbody said:
WOW, very nice

Thank you!
Quite a bit of work went into restoring them, but I'm very pleased with the results. They are correct for the year of the car, and I think they will suit the long term theme I have in mind.

Opie Knievel said:
Looking good Donovan. This repair is coming along quite nicely. Just curious, what kind of welder do you use?

Thanks Opie.
You already know the answer due to our conversation earlier tonight, but I'll post the answer here for everyone's benefit.

My machine is a Miller.
A Millermatic 135 to be exact. Miller calls the most recent version of this machine the Millermatic 140 now. Mine was the last of the series before they went to their "AutoSet" technology. It's a 110 volt unit, I use 0.023/24 wire in it with Co2/Argon mix, and it will easily handle material up to 1/8". It'll do 3/16" too, with the proper prep and edge bevelling. It works awesome, I love it.

liquidh8 said:
Donavan, great work! I know all too well about adding metal to corners, time consuming, but the right way!

Looking forward to more updates.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

Thanks Jim!
I seem to remember you going through the same process on your wagon to make the trim fit the body better too. I agree, it's well worth the additional time needed in my opinion.

Clutch said:
Wow it's been a while sense I got to catch up on your thred. Cars looking really good man.one of these days I want to get some time to read about your other car the work on this one is quite impressive!

Thanks Clutch.
Yeah, I'm wasting no time on this one if I can help it. Progress every day, and updates every night.
Miss a day, miss a lot!

If you can dedicate the time, even over a couple of days, I think you'll find the read on The Juggernaut's build so far well worth it. If you like lots of cool, trick parts, custom fabrication, and healthy imagination, I think you'd love it.

It can be found here at:

https://gbodyforum.com/threads/the-juggernaut-build-thread.55095/

It's a bit slow to get going, but I think it gets interesting pretty quick!

Injectedcutty said:
Set yourself back a couple hours and read "the juggernaut build thread". Donovan, i mean Mr. Ridler has some serious skills across the board lol! The 'Naut will be pulling some HUGE trophies whenever that car gets finished!

"Ladies and gentlemen, my public relations manager: Scott, aka Injectedcutty..."

(Thanks for the mad props my friend, greatly appreciated!)

Texas82GP said:
It will take more than a couple hours!

So whadda ya tryin' ta say???
That I'm long winded??
:blah:

Injectedcutty said:
Eh, you're most likely correct Jared....after you factor in the breaks taken to wipe the drool off the phone, chin, etc !!!

Oh you guys. Y'all crack me up!
Thanks tho, I'm very humbled by all your praise.

Donovan

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BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt

Carl1984Gbody

Not-quite-so-new-guy

Opie Knievel

Rum Fueled Midnight Mechanic and Moderator

liquidh8

Comic Book Super Hero

Clutch

Geezer

Injectedcutty

G body LS mafia

Texas82GP

Just-a-worm

Injectedcutty

G body LS mafia

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt

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