Got the 455 painted this weekend. Just needs to get dropped in. From there we can get the mounts on and figgure out the cross member.
81 Cutlass build thread
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lookin good! take a peice of soder wire and bend it into a omega logo shape and soder it in place of the jumper on the back of the tach. that should solve the bouncy issues for the tach
Well my computer died last week, and its finally fixed. Forget how much you rely on a computer!
Always had the plan on redoing the other 2/3 of the interior. Finally started. Pulled the seats and carpet to find slightly more rust than I thought. I knew there was one 3X2 hole but there was 10 or so pencil eraser sized holes after I hit them with a wire brush. Got the floors fixed, next the dash. IT came out easy, to discover a 85 console harness is a lot different than a 81 column. Decided to just swap the inside harness. Turns out an 81 3.8 engine harness wont plug into a 85 307 fuse box, swap the engine harness. Rewire the whole engine. Swap wiper motor to an 85 because it doesnt plug in anymore, doesnt bolt up. Holes are off. Fix that, intermediate wipers dont work. Just low and high. Ugh. Put dash in. Blower fan doesnt work. Radio display doesnt show up. Swap doors over to power windows/locks. Takes forever to figure out how to bolt the stupid things in.
Turns from what I thought was going to be a day and a half project turns into a 3 day unfinished project. Still need to find out why the fan doenst work, radio display doesnt work, dash inst done, door panels arent on, seats arnt in, carpet isnt, console isnt it, its a big project!
On the bright side the 455 is sitting in the other cutlass loose. Not bolted down but its in!
The header panel is kinda fixed. Fender is still out, and the quarter is sopposed to cost $350 to fix, and the header panel is the crappy one but the headlights arent jammed intot the fender now.
Rust
Fixed, sorta.
Always had the plan on redoing the other 2/3 of the interior. Finally started. Pulled the seats and carpet to find slightly more rust than I thought. I knew there was one 3X2 hole but there was 10 or so pencil eraser sized holes after I hit them with a wire brush. Got the floors fixed, next the dash. IT came out easy, to discover a 85 console harness is a lot different than a 81 column. Decided to just swap the inside harness. Turns out an 81 3.8 engine harness wont plug into a 85 307 fuse box, swap the engine harness. Rewire the whole engine. Swap wiper motor to an 85 because it doesnt plug in anymore, doesnt bolt up. Holes are off. Fix that, intermediate wipers dont work. Just low and high. Ugh. Put dash in. Blower fan doesnt work. Radio display doesnt show up. Swap doors over to power windows/locks. Takes forever to figure out how to bolt the stupid things in.
Turns from what I thought was going to be a day and a half project turns into a 3 day unfinished project. Still need to find out why the fan doenst work, radio display doesnt work, dash inst done, door panels arent on, seats arnt in, carpet isnt, console isnt it, its a big project!
On the bright side the 455 is sitting in the other cutlass loose. Not bolted down but its in!
The header panel is kinda fixed. Fender is still out, and the quarter is sopposed to cost $350 to fix, and the header panel is the crappy one but the headlights arent jammed intot the fender now.
Rust
Fixed, sorta.
Interior project is 95% done! 😀 Just have to put the seat backs and side pieces on the seats. I wanted to change the chrome hinge covers to grey as I think they are kinda ugly but my SEM medium gray is too light for the interior. I painted the carpet with it and it worked good, but test painting a non carpeted surface, i can see medium grey is not the same color as dark medium grey.
The interior is way better than the old one though. Grey is a lot better looking than the 7 different colors it had before. Only things wrong are the seats are a little dirty, theres 1 crack in the dash, and some of the chrome is starting to flake off the door panels. Window motors are slow, even with the hot wire trick, and the radio screen doesnt show up. It worked once, but hasnt worked since. I pulled it off a junk cutlass anyways so you cant expect miracles.
Overall im happy. Still need to figgure out why the inner door skins are different. Theres no metal in the front of the pull strap to drill a hole to attatch it. The holes between salon and supreme door panels are completly different, kinda suprised with that.
The interior is way better than the old one though. Grey is a lot better looking than the 7 different colors it had before. Only things wrong are the seats are a little dirty, theres 1 crack in the dash, and some of the chrome is starting to flake off the door panels. Window motors are slow, even with the hot wire trick, and the radio screen doesnt show up. It worked once, but hasnt worked since. I pulled it off a junk cutlass anyways so you cant expect miracles.
Overall im happy. Still need to figgure out why the inner door skins are different. Theres no metal in the front of the pull strap to drill a hole to attatch it. The holes between salon and supreme door panels are completly different, kinda suprised with that.
Thanks! Blake, are you going to the Back to the 50's show? Theres 2 other things I can do that weekend and havnt decided what im going to do. Was going to go last year and skipped out.
I'm definately going to be hanging out on University around Porky's on Friday and Saturday night!
I spent this past Friday night cleaning out the hearse to get it ready to take down there.
I registered for the show, but I still don't know if I'll take the car inside the fairgrounds, or if I'll just cruise it around.
If you come down, give me a call if you still have my phone number or shoot me a PM beforehand...
I spent this past Friday night cleaning out the hearse to get it ready to take down there.
I registered for the show, but I still don't know if I'll take the car inside the fairgrounds, or if I'll just cruise it around.
If you come down, give me a call if you still have my phone number or shoot me a PM beforehand...
i was reading about your ralley pac tach problems, wondered if you saw this. http://tech.oldsgmail.com/eint_tach_fix.php i was just about to do mine in the next few days here, and found this, i never saw it before for some reason...
Yeah, that might be worth it. It was suggested before but I didnt get to it. I thought my nice clusters tach wouldnt bounce, it still does. 2 down, same symptoms.
And on a depressing note, no back to the 50's show for me. Stuff came up and I cant go. Theres next year I guess.
And on a depressing note, no back to the 50's show for me. Stuff came up and I cant go. Theres next year I guess.
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