81 Cutlass build thread

[81cutlass]

Took the 455 out from its year long slumber. Pulled the manifolds off and broke off 2 bolts in the process. Got one of them out though. Now I just need to paint it Olds Gold after I get all the ugly yellow off. Only has J heads and the stock cast intake but it had good oil pressure and decent compression and ran strong so the plan is to fix whats wrong, and put the thing in the 85 salon.

 

[3XBrownCutty]

torque monster Can't wait to see the 85 all together!

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

A little piece of advice for the gray cloth interior parts. They look really dirty, but seem to be in otherwise good shape, so I suggest using Simple Green to clean them. How I do it is I get a bottle of it and a clean scrub brush ( hand held one for a kitchen floor or finger nails usually works great). I mist the whole thing with cleaner then mist the seats with water. Now, scrub till you bleed and hose out the fabric. You will be shocked how much crap comes out! To help them dry, use a shop vac to suck all the water you can out, and leave them to drain hung upside down over a lawn mower or saw horse. once they have drained for an hour or so, vacuum out the water at the bottom edges. Do this a few times then let them dry over night. They should dry out within 24 hours and when they are done you will have nice clean seats that look like new. I have done this to countless junkyard seats with great results. The front seats in my car had been used by someone to wipe the grease off their hands when I found them, but they still came clean.

 

[81cutlass]

Havnt got anything done on the 455. Too many projects, too little time.

Got the paint ordered for my fender, bumper cover and header panel. Body shop quoted my 3100 to fix it. I figure I can do it for $500. $300 for the body shop to pull out the quarter dent, $100 for paint, and $100 for other stuff. Have all the parts but the weathers been too bad to get to sand or paint. Not going to worry too much about how the paint looks like. As long as the headlight isnt stuck into the ground like it is now and the bumper cover isnt tore and its green thats all that matters. Going to repaint the thing in 2 years anyways. Not ready to repaint the whole thing. Nice to find aluminum hood and trunk, get a TA spoiler and a 2" cowl.

My turbo has been burning a bunch of oil and the berrings were shot. Got a replacement and did some porting on the thing. Better than it was before for sure. Really need a 3.42 or something, only have a TH350 though so that limits me to a 3.08. Gotta organize wires this summer too. The guy who put the 455 in the car butchered the wiring and there was little to work with. And yeah, its a carb turbo. I know its wierd, and theres 7000 wires, hoses, and lines for the thing. 😀 Gotta pull out the engine this summer to put a better cam in and port the heads.

Back to normal.

 

[rIbBaD]

Nice Thread, keep it up, cutlass' are worth building up 😉

 

[81cutlass]

Forgot to put up some of the pictures of my down pipe build from this winter. Stock one is 2 1/4" double walled non mandrel pipe. Closer to 2" by the time everythings bent. New one is 2 1/2 mandrel aluminized pipe thats TIG welded.

Step one- Jig

Step two- build

Welded

 

[dan2286]

Nice job on the down pipe!

 

[81cutlass]

Been messing around with it for the last few weekends. A deer ended up taking out the rest of my junk header pannel, bent my hood in the front, took out my bezels, and took out my 81 grills, the only real part I cared about. Its sorta fixed now. Its green, but the fender is still out, and the body shop quoted me $350 to fix my rear quarter without paint. My headlights are right now though so its OK.

My AC is now working, and I have no oil consuption with my new turbo. Went to get some parts sunday from a dirt track racer. I was told "Dont park too close or we'll put a cage in it" I laughed. He had a decent 86 brougham for future use. Its not nice enough to drive, and its not rare or anything. So i wasnt sad to know it might get beat up. It had a astro-roof, ralley pack, remote passenger mirror, and fender blinkers. Pretty highly optioned car, minus the 3.8. Got the grills, radio, and ralley pack. Got a nice header panel, and a turbo monte hood bump. Was going to go for a H/O one but its a correct bump for the engine, so its going on eventually.

Put the ralley guages in and it works good, but the tach goes up to 2500 RPM and stops, at about 3000 it starts falling back to 2000 and is bouncing. When I shift to 3rd it goes right back up to to 2500 and it stops climbing again. Hit 3000 and it falls to 2000 and bounces. Funny thing is it runs great up to 2500.

And my speedo still bounces. It used to bounce only at 65+ when I had my sweep cluster but now it bounces up to 25 when I accelerate and stops at 30 when I coast. Its fine at 30+ though.

Might end up swapping the cluster out of my salon in there. Maybe it wont have as much problems.

 

[Blake442]

That Turbo hood bump is gonna be a sweet touch on there!

I'd look into lubricating/replacing your speedometer cable before replacing the cluster again...

Did you remember to see if the tach was set to 6 cylinders instead of 8? There's a switch on the back of the assembly.

 

[81cutlass]

Ya, it was set to 6. I might try pulling the cluster out and pull out the jumper and clean it up to see if it helps any. I know my speedo cable should get replaced. It started grinding bad above 55 and never got around to fixing it. Grinding sound has stopped now but it still wiggles.

I was stoked to get that hood bump. It was either going to get pulled off by me or get smashed up.

Guy had a kinda cool 82 Regal wagon with a 350 chev and a manual trans that looked OK besides some rear fiberglass wheel flares.

If its worth it I might go pull out the Astro-roof from the 86 cutlass. Almost want to seeing how nice it is.