'83 Cutlass Cruiser Build Thread

[Blake442]

Thursday I got distracted and ended up spending a few hours getting all the old dried up seam sealer out of the drip rails.
One of those tedious jobs that nobody will likely even notice except for me, but it had to be done.
Now the channel is nice and clean and ready for fresh sealer when I get to that point.

I also got a beautiful set of '78 wagon grilles from Ben that will make their way onto the car once it's done.
Now I just need some nice headlite bezels and signal lites. I'll have to check if they're the same as the Supreme/Calais.

Friday I went back out and finally got started on my filler work.
The metal for the roof is unbelievably thin, so I said screw it and didn't knock out any of the dents, just filled them.
With my luck, trying to straighten the metal would just lead to me chasing the damage around the roof and probably making things worse.
I have to sand very lightly by hand to keep the metal from moving, so no d.a.'s or mudhogs... just good old fashioned block sanding.
I only got the area above the front seats done, but it feels nice and straight so I'm happy.
I'll get more done this week and maybe even get it's first coat of primer on it...

Here's my roof rack holes filled in...


Before filler I scuffed up each dent to help it bite


Progress!

 

[Longroof79]

Lookin' good, Blake.
Have you seen this ad? viewtopic.php?t=51558&p=437917#p437917
It might be your source for bezels and signal lights.

 

[liquidh8]

Glad to see you are making some progress!

 

[Blake442]

More sanding on the roof yesterday.
More sanding on the roof tomorrow...

 

[Blake442]

More sanding on the roof yesterday.
More sanding on the roof tomorrow...

There's light at the end of the tunnel though.
The roof already feels a lot straighter and will hopefully be ready to pound some primer on it soon...
The rest of the body is going to be a breeze compared to the roof! :lol:



Jack, I saw that ad but am looking for some that are really top notch to match my nice new grilles.

Unfortunately the same can't be said about my front bumper fillers...
I had unknowingly mis-matched up a set I thought would work but once I finally checked they won't.
They make new ones for the Supreme/Calais coupes, but the fillers for the Salon/wagon are different so my search for those is going to take a bit more effort.
We've gotten a lot of rain and the ground is still really wet, so I'll wait till next weekend to try and make a run to the junkyard and see what I can turn up.

 

[Longroof79]

Good news, man.
Looks like you certainly have a handle on the situation. The body does look nice and straight. Glad the roof was the worst of it. Keep up the good work. 🙂

 

[liquidh8]

I guess we'll be seeing some pictures here pretty soon. 😀 Glad you are making progress.

 

[Blake442]

More sanding...

The roof is really starting to feel nice.
Still needs another pass to catch the remaining low spots and spots I missed on the first two goes...
Thinking about heading to the junkyard Friday morning if the weather cooperates and I'm not too worn out from work.

Ugh, my arms are tired... :lol:

 

[Longroof79]

Get some primer on that puppy... :lol:

Blake, if you happen to run across some nice B-body windshield strips at the junkyard, let me know. Most of the ones I come across are toasty.

 

[Blake442]

Laid down some more filler on Tuesday and sanded it off on Thursday.
Friday morning I made a run out to the junkyard to see what I could dig up.

At first I was a bit surprised to see a number of cars in the Cutlass section had been hauled out, and others had been moved.
After looking around I discovered that the Supreme/Calais headlite bezels are indeed different from the Salon/wagon bezels afterall.
I wish I had looked around better when I grabbed the header panel last fall and picked out better bezels then, but oh well. I found a better set that should clean up well.
I also looked for parking lites but didn't see any that were nicer than the ones I already have, so I didn't bother taking any.
I got a nice pair of the bumper fillers that attach to the fenders, but didn't see any of the bumper mounted ones that were worth the effort to remove.
While I was removing the fender fillers I noticed the car had the rubber radiator fillers still intact, so I took those as well.
They're kinda raggedy, but they'll be perfect for templates to make some new ones.
While I was a bit fearful of the cars being hauled out, it did reveal an '82 or '83 Regal wagon that I hadn't previously seen.
It had some decent rear bumper fillers on it, so I snagged those too.

I took a few pictures of my haul, I'll load them up in a day or two.

Sorry Jack, I didn't have time to search through the B-bodies for you...