BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)

old80cs

G-Body Guru
Jun 27, 2013
622
2,041
93
Massachusetts
The wheel well repairs came out nice, Donovan. I did some repairs to mine way back when. I had the body up in the air maybe 3 1/2 feet off the ground. Rotisseries were still new and exotic at that time, so it rested on a pair of 4x4 posts and stacks of 8x8" blocks. I could sit on a milk crate and work on everything I needed to without the chassis in the way. The wheel wells are covered in POR15 chassis black at the moment but I like your idea of the bed liner stuff, may go that route for durability. Thanks for that idea.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt
Supporting Member
Feb 2, 2015
4,155
23,835
113
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
As usual, looks good. I almost cut my frame notches today. Was toward the end of what I was doing and decided to sleep on it.

I was considering bed liner on my wells to pretty them up a bit after I get done with the frame notch. Was anxious to know if that was good or stupid? I'm a gooder decider when more peoples are involved! :confused:

You've probably already explained this 7 times [sorry] but, though I know those wheels likely require spacers, do they need that much? Just curious to where the outside of the tire sits and tire size relative to the fender seems like it could tuck a bit even with a large BS rim?

Unless that is precisely the look you are after then consider myself head slapped for even bringing it up . . .
smack.gif

Crap, I almost forgot to reply to you Garth!
Sorry about that....

I’ve been asked the question about the wheel adapters/spacers before, and the answer is as simple as this:

I just think it looks better with them.

These are factory aluminum wheels that came on these cars stock when ordered that way, their code designation is N78.
The adapters I have in place are NOT needed to make them fit, they fit just fine without them.

However.

To me, and in my humble opinion, without the adapters they sit too far inboard in the wheel wells making them look awkward. Keep in mind, these are small diameter, narrow wheels measuring in at a paltry 14x6. With such a small narrow wheel in such a (relatively) large wheel well, it kinda looks to me like a skinny legged girl in a giant ballroom skirt.
So the 2” adapters/spacers simply position the wheels further outboard to make it look less awkward. Remember the old Pontiac Wide Track ads? Same premise here.

I originally covered the subject way back on page 3, post #128 of my build thread:

https://gbodyforum.com/threads/project-olds-cool-updated-4-1-18-wheel-wells.62181/page-3

There are a couple of early pics before that post of the wheels on the car without the spacers. I encourage you to have a look at them and then report back with your opinion on the before and after.

Hopefully this clears things up for you and everyone else.
Cheers,

D.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5 users

Canon_Mutant

Royal Smart Person
Aug 15, 2015
1,159
1,420
113
From the computer screen, I worry about rock dings on the lips too after doing all of that wonderful metal work? And figures, I went back about 20 pages and didn't see it and, 50/50 I lose, had I started back at the beginning and worked forward I would have caught it in 3.

But, also to consider, I'm a retired engineer. Though some engineers question everything because they think they are the only real expert, I just question stuff purely from uncontrollable curiosity . . . that's all it is. Hopefully you know that by now?

boink.gif
=>
smack.gif
=>
drunk.gif
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users

Martin S.

Greasemonkey
Aug 17, 2017
137
198
43
Hamburg, Germany
I finished up the last of the metal work Thursday evening, which set me up nicely to spend the long weekend getting the rest of it done.
Friday was going to be all about cleaning, masking, and shooting some epoxy. I started off by making a quick trip to the store for some supplies...

View attachment 85873

...then came home and got down to my most dreaded task in the world- masking.

View attachment 85874

Two nice wet coats of epoxy later, I had a good foundation for the remaining steps. I left everything masked up and after letting it cure overnight, Saturday afternoon I scuffed both wells thoroughly with red Scotchbrite. Next was to apply some 3M heavy bodied seam sealer to the joints between the inner and outer halves with a plastic body filler spreader:

View attachment 85875

View attachment 85876

View attachment 85877

View attachment 85878

It wasn’t pretty at this stage, but it didn’t have to be. The following stage would take care of that and provide the protection I was looking for. Once the seam sealer was given the necessary time to cure, I hit the wells with wax and grease remover, followed by a coat each of Bulldog adhesion promoter. Then it was time for the rewarding part!

I applied several coats (probably 5 or 6, I lost count) of bed liner coating. I used all 4 cans that I bought, so roughly 2 cans per wheel well. That should give you an idea of the mil thickness I applied it to.
Here’s the payoff pics once I was done:

View attachment 85879

View attachment 85880

View attachment 85881

View attachment 85882

View attachment 85883

View attachment 85884

I’m super pleased with this product, it was easy to apply and appears to be tough as nails which is exactly what I wanted. It took a few coats to perfect the finish and technique, but all it cost me was some time and a blister on my spray nozzle finger.
Lol

To finish things off, late last night I went out and unbolted the exhaust hangers to buy me a bit of room, and started wire brushing the frame to knock the loose crap off. Then it was straight into hitting the frame with a couple coats of semi-gloss black POR15. I didn’t just do the visible portions of the frame in the wheel openings, rather I coated as much as I could reach right from behind the front wheels all the way to the back bumper.
There’ll be a few areas to touch up in the future no doubt, but it’s nice to know that the majority of it has been painted now. (I already did the front half when I did the engine and transmission swap).

The POR15 was still wet and curing in these pics, so hopefully it will dull down a bit more and won’t be as glossy. Anyways, pics:

View attachment 85885

View attachment 85886

View attachment 85887

View attachment 85888

Overall I’m extremely pleased with how they turned out. It’s nice having the peace of mind that these areas have been addressed, and that they’ll be protected again well into the foreseeable future. Hopefully for another 38 years just as the original undercoat did.

Hope y’all enjoyed following my exploits, now I’m off to bolt the exhaust back up and get the wheels on. Then it can stay on the ground and off the damn jack stands for a while!

Thanks everyone,

D.


Great work; awesome result; as always (y)
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt
Supporting Member
Feb 2, 2015
4,155
23,835
113
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
  • Like
Reactions: 5 users

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt
Supporting Member
Feb 2, 2015
4,155
23,835
113
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Well, here we are at the start of another week already, and I haven’t yet updated y’all on last week’s progress.

There’s not a whole lot to report on really, just some work on a couple of small projects and one very good find.

With the wheel wells completed and scratched off the “to-do” list, I wanted to focus on stripping the old paint and primer from the filler panel that goes between the back window and trunk lid. I set it up on the stand and got to sanding off what I could from the flat areas with the DA.

Here it is just about to get started, with the lower trim still installed on it:

BEA09D98-8791-4F8A-855F-1E457394EB5A.jpeg


Roughly halfway through a squirrel must’ve ran by, because I got distracted and started tinkering with project #2.
I’ve had an ad up here looking for a driver’s side bucket seatbelt in dark claret for a couple weeks now with no real promising leads. The problem I had with mine was that the retractor assembly wasn’t retracting when the buckle was undone. All the usual culprits like the door popper/seatbelt ComfortLock spring were checked, but were all present and in good working order. I began to suspect it was the main spring that retracts the belt inside the housing commonly known as the clockspring.

In talking with Scott (Injectedcutty) one night about my possible options, I remembered that I still had the tan set of bucket seat front belts left over from The Brown Bomber and started wondered about the feasibility of swapping out or repairing the clockspring part of the assemblies. After digging them out of storage the following night, I began carefully dismantling the passenger side spare belt assembly first. I figured if I broke or couldn’t properly reassemble the thing, I wanted it to be on the passenger’s side spare, and not on the one I really needed.

With the assembly firmly chucked up in the vice and the outer protective covers removed, I very carefully pried up the cover that houses the clockspring. This was initially a bit nerve racking, as the outside of the cover has “DO NOT REMOVE” stamped in it in big bold letters.
Meh, nothing ventured, nothing gained right? Even with the belt retracted into the housing as far as possible, there was still a bit of tension once I pried the cover up. I slowly unwound it, making sure to count the number of turns as I took the tension off it.
It worked out to around 6 1/2. With the spring tension now safely removed, I got a thin screwdriver in under the cover and lifted the spring and cover off together.

Here’s what the insides look like once you’ve got it apart. The black one on the left is the original from the claret belt, and the white one on the right is from the passenger’s side tan belt. You can clearly see the coiled clockspring inside:

2B527A9C-A885-4D95-A4DD-109261099313.jpeg


If you look closely at the top of the cover in the passenger’s side one, you’ll note that the inside part of the spring is anchored in a slot to keep the spring from spinning in the cover and actually provide the retractor action:

333453AA-9D18-46A7-9EF1-38B46DF9A995.jpeg


Look closely at the one that came from the claret belt. Note how it’s not only no longer anchored in the slot, but it’s actually distorted and pulled out. You can see the end of it in the left part of the pic.

827A100E-AA59-4ED1-8F72-A5A2EC800D5C.jpeg


Success! I now knew why the belt wasn’t retracting, and better yet, how it came apart and that I could fix it (or at least replace it).

After repeating the same careful disassembly procedure but with the spare driver’s side clockspring, I swapped it over onto the claret belt assembly. Adding a couple 3 extra turns or so to compensate for the spring weakening over time to the 6 1/2 I counted when disassembling, I clipped the clockspring and cover back onto the seatbelt assembly, and bolted it back into the car.

I’m very pleased to say the entire operation was a resounding success, and now the seatbelt assembly works properly, just as good as new! Better yet, it cost me exactly zero dollars, and I now no longer need a replacement belt!

As I was screwing around with these 2 projects, I was also secretly working on project #3.
Earlier last weekend, I happened upon an ad in the local online classifieds for a 10 bolt posi that looked suspiciously like what I was looking for. The seller had posted a pic of the casting number on the carrier housing, so after a couple of minutes doing some online sleuthing, I confirmed it was exactly what I had been looking for.
It was a 3 series carrier, Eaton style posi for an 8.5” GM 10 bolt, with 28 spline axels.

Trying not to get my hopes up or get too excited, I contacted the seller to inquire if it was still available. To my delight, it was!!
It appeared to be in exceptional condition, and after confirming with the guys here on a separate thread, it was determined that the spider gears and even the clutch packs looked great. Feeling it was well worth his $150 asking price, a deal was struck after he agreed to throw it on a Greyhound bus and ship it down to me. (It was a three hour drive north of me, one way).

$33 in shipping and a day later, I had it in my hot little hands. I couldn’t beat the cost of shipping, it would have cost me more than that in fuel alone if I had’ve gone and got it myself. Here it is once I got it unpackaged and on the bench at work:

095FA1FC-AE81-4223-A0B1-3BE81351AF46.jpeg


Wasting no time, the following day I removed and replaced the carrier bearings with all new Timkin bearings and races. It’s all wrapped up in the pic to keep it clean until I’m ready to install it. After this pic was taken, I wrapped up the exposed bearings as well.

7F0B627D-4D02-46D2-8395-E2AD69DB1882.jpeg


Now that I had closure on 2 of the 3 ongoing projects this week, I could finally redirect my attention to the poor forgotten filler panel. After getting the last of the old paint stripped off it, I bolted it up for a test fit.
This is where things kinda took a turn for the worse.

Once the filler panel was aligned and positioned in its final spot, I had a huge gap between the filler panel and the trunk lid. I’m talking big enough to drive a damn bus through, it was close to a 1/2”!!
Unacceptable.
I quickly realized that I had moved the trunk lid too far back to get good alignment with the quarter panel extensions, and that the only solution was to move it forward again until I got an acceptable gap back at the filler panel. After spending nearly half a day adjusting, tweaking, and fine tuning every little minute adjustment, I had all of the components aligning and playing nicely with each other, except for the extensions.

Here the filler to trunk lid gap now that everything’s been readjusted:

9CBCAD30-7A06-4BB0-A37E-D91ECC73D80D.jpeg


The perfect fitment and alignment of the filler panel and trunk lid affects so many other things downstream of them. The quarter extensions, the license tag housing, even the height you set the trunk lid bump stops to are all affected.
Here, I’ve now got much more acceptable gaps to the license tag housing...

B70F0006-8A58-4CF2-8A22-B74B40C49969.jpeg


D2BF2298-D132-4689-961A-A007A84D9985.jpeg


...but here is the trade off. I have no choice but to go back in and adjust the angle and distance that the extensions sit off of the quarter panels. This needs to be done by sanding off material on the edges where the extensions bolt to the quarters, and it needs to be done at the correct taper so that they match the angles of the taillights.
You can see how much too far back the extensions are now:

958374EE-683E-4778-B57A-0DF6AB4C98EA.jpeg


BACF60E2-0DCE-4A14-9DA9-F82C5F9FC1B8.jpeg


This helps illustrate it a bit better yet. It’s roughly 3/16” per side that these will have to be shortened.

474B5905-6B4F-435E-ACD6-8F8AC899D058.jpeg


EEC59936-8FB6-4065-8A9E-39C3E9631C95.jpeg


All is not lost or horrible tho, I’ve actually already got the driver’s side extension modified and fitting good again:

B64AA592-2C33-4A19-B1AF-BDB6644BD436.jpeg


There’s a little bit of body work that will need to be done on them though, as the height decreases as they move forward. Again, not the end of the world, because the car needs a block sanding and at least one more reprime before I’ll be satisfied enough to drive it this year.

Whadda ya gonna do? Sometimes it’s 2 steps forward and 3 steps back. Just the nature of the beast.
Thanks for checking back and following along with the highs and lows on the old girl, until next time everyone.

D.
 
  • Like
  • Winner
Reactions: 16 users

Injectedcutty

G body LS mafia
Nov 24, 2014
6,057
22,807
113
Louisville, KY
Progress is looking good D! I guess it's nature of the beast to go backwards to make things right, I know that story all too well my friend!!!!
Keep chugging away, you'll be driving it before long, maybe even with two black marks on the pavement, or blowing snow if that crap doesn't melt!!!
 
  • Like
  • Agree
Reactions: 5 users

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt
Supporting Member
Feb 2, 2015
4,155
23,835
113
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Progress is looking good D! I guess it's nature of the beast to go backwards to make things right, I know that story all too well my friend!!!!
Keep chugging away, you'll be driving it before long, maybe even with two black marks on the pavement, or blowing snow if that crap doesn't melt!!!

Thanks Scott.

I hate doing things twice, but unfortunately sometimes it’s unavoidable. But hey, that’s why we do mock-ups and test fit everything right? I’m just glad I caught it at this stage in the build, rather than during final assembly when everything was already painted.

The thought of leaving twin black marks everywhere I go this summer has me smiling for sure! After I correct my issues with the quarter extensions and block sand and reprime the car, it’ll quite likely be next on my list of things to get done. Mike is a Millwright and feeling better after his heart scare, so that little project might just be right up his alley.

Stay tuned to see how it all plays out...
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5 users

liquidh8

Comic Book Super Hero
Donovan, good score on the diff!

And thanks for sharing the info on the seatbelts, I wish I did that before putting mine in, they could have used an extra turn or 3.

And finally, it sucks you had to do things twice, I feel that pain. That's precisely why my wagon was completely together and apart multiple times. Extra work, sure, but everything I modified, I modified with the car assembled.

In any case, I haven't commented much, but I am definitely all in on your builds, and all the others!
 
  • Like
  • Agree
Reactions: 5 users

oldsofb

Royal Smart Person
Supporting Member
Dec 7, 2007
1,369
3,963
113
Maryland
Just curious here. Wouldn't it have been easier to add some material to the trunk where it meets the filler panel? A piece of round stock welded in and smoothed out could be quicker than all the rear adjustment. Maybe there's no way to add material and still clear when opening.

Hutch
 
  • Agree
Reactions: 1 user

GBodyForum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Amazon, the Amazon logo, AmazonSupply, and the AmazonSupply logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

Please support GBodyForum Sponsors

Classic Truck Consoles Dixie Restoration Depot UMI Performance

Contact [email protected] for info on becoming a sponsor