BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)
- Thread starter Rktpwrd
- Start date
Well, time to do another update finally.
After walking away from the car in disgust a couple weeks back, I finally got the desire back to do a little tinkering a few days ago.
I didn’t feel like immersing myself in the AstroRoof project again just yet, so I decided to start with something small.
I had gotten a stock GM 1.5 DIN radio for free as part of a package deal in a bunch of G body parts from a fellow enthusiast back in March, but neither of us had any idea if it even worked. The right hand play button was jammed in the “in” position, so I decided to see if I could get it freed up for starters.
After disassembling part of the outer case, I was able to remove the cassette player portion of it and get the mechanism freed up:
A little bit of lithium grease in the mechanism got everything moving freely:
With that done, I reassembled it and pulled out the old original 2 post radio. It still worked and was in decent shape for its age, but it was time for something a bit better.
Amazingly enough, the three factory plugs on the car side plugged directly into the newer radio. All I had to do was supply power and ground to a fourth plug on the new one that wasn’t present in the car for the display on the front.
Test fit and powered up, it still worked!
Now that I knew I was in business, the old single DIN faceplate had to go...
...and after cleaning up the 1.5 DIN one, it was painted to match the rest of my interior trim pieces:
Here’s the completed upgraded radio, now fully installed:
Now that I had a fairly decent head unit, I was quickly reminded that the wore out 4x10’s in the rear package tray still needed replacing. They were very old and tired, and already sounded terrible, so I had used them to mask off the holes when I repaired and repainted around the package tray.
Think they needed replacing? There’s even a hole near the center of the cone in the one in the foreground!
The next day I headed out and picked up a few new goodies, some new Kenwood 4x10’s along with a replacement alternator belt and new spark plugs:
Replacing the speakers was a snap, the only thing I had to do was replace the wiring connectors that someone had poorly repaired somewhere along the line. The only additional thing I might do is cut the center supports out of the speaker holes, the tweeter stands in the middle of the new speakers rests up against them.
A half hour later, the new alternator belt and plugs were also done.
This morning was my appointment with the glass shop, to see if we couldn’t locate the source of all the water leaks in the car. Nothing jumped out visually to the glass tech, but once he sprayed some soapy water solution on the outside and blew compressed air from the inside, we quickly found the trouble spots.
The back window was leaking at the top right in the center, the curvature of the glass must’ve been more than the curvature of the window channel. Since it was already urethaned in when it was installed, he ran a bead of new stuff along the top from the inside.
Similar story with the front windshield, it had a small leak center top as well as in both upper corners. He chose to seal these from the outside here tho. As for my leaking quarter windows, overall he said they were actually sealed up pretty well. He just found that the lower rear corners didn’t have enough pressure on them due to the location of the factory clamps to adequately seal. He injected a little urethane into the corners from the inside as well to get those fixed up.
I have to give it a couple of days for the urethane to fully cure, but once it does I’ll be testing all the glass once again with the soapy water and compressed air trick. It worked really well to pinpoint the source of the leaks.
That’s about all I’ve got for now, thanks for checking back in on things now that I’ve let the car outta purgatory.
😆
If all goes well and the glass stays sealed up, I’ll start installing some sound deadener in the back next. The roof, sail panels, rear floor and anything else that looks like it could use it will get done. Then maybe I can finally install the rear interior parts and back seat!
Till then,
D.
After walking away from the car in disgust a couple weeks back, I finally got the desire back to do a little tinkering a few days ago.
I didn’t feel like immersing myself in the AstroRoof project again just yet, so I decided to start with something small.
I had gotten a stock GM 1.5 DIN radio for free as part of a package deal in a bunch of G body parts from a fellow enthusiast back in March, but neither of us had any idea if it even worked. The right hand play button was jammed in the “in” position, so I decided to see if I could get it freed up for starters.
After disassembling part of the outer case, I was able to remove the cassette player portion of it and get the mechanism freed up:
A little bit of lithium grease in the mechanism got everything moving freely:
With that done, I reassembled it and pulled out the old original 2 post radio. It still worked and was in decent shape for its age, but it was time for something a bit better.
Amazingly enough, the three factory plugs on the car side plugged directly into the newer radio. All I had to do was supply power and ground to a fourth plug on the new one that wasn’t present in the car for the display on the front.
Test fit and powered up, it still worked!
Now that I knew I was in business, the old single DIN faceplate had to go...
...and after cleaning up the 1.5 DIN one, it was painted to match the rest of my interior trim pieces:
Here’s the completed upgraded radio, now fully installed:
Now that I had a fairly decent head unit, I was quickly reminded that the wore out 4x10’s in the rear package tray still needed replacing. They were very old and tired, and already sounded terrible, so I had used them to mask off the holes when I repaired and repainted around the package tray.
Think they needed replacing? There’s even a hole near the center of the cone in the one in the foreground!
The next day I headed out and picked up a few new goodies, some new Kenwood 4x10’s along with a replacement alternator belt and new spark plugs:
Replacing the speakers was a snap, the only thing I had to do was replace the wiring connectors that someone had poorly repaired somewhere along the line. The only additional thing I might do is cut the center supports out of the speaker holes, the tweeter stands in the middle of the new speakers rests up against them.
A half hour later, the new alternator belt and plugs were also done.
This morning was my appointment with the glass shop, to see if we couldn’t locate the source of all the water leaks in the car. Nothing jumped out visually to the glass tech, but once he sprayed some soapy water solution on the outside and blew compressed air from the inside, we quickly found the trouble spots.
The back window was leaking at the top right in the center, the curvature of the glass must’ve been more than the curvature of the window channel. Since it was already urethaned in when it was installed, he ran a bead of new stuff along the top from the inside.
Similar story with the front windshield, it had a small leak center top as well as in both upper corners. He chose to seal these from the outside here tho. As for my leaking quarter windows, overall he said they were actually sealed up pretty well. He just found that the lower rear corners didn’t have enough pressure on them due to the location of the factory clamps to adequately seal. He injected a little urethane into the corners from the inside as well to get those fixed up.
I have to give it a couple of days for the urethane to fully cure, but once it does I’ll be testing all the glass once again with the soapy water and compressed air trick. It worked really well to pinpoint the source of the leaks.
That’s about all I’ve got for now, thanks for checking back in on things now that I’ve let the car outta purgatory.
😆
If all goes well and the glass stays sealed up, I’ll start installing some sound deadener in the back next. The roof, sail panels, rear floor and anything else that looks like it could use it will get done. Then maybe I can finally install the rear interior parts and back seat!
Till then,
D.
Awesome , as your work is always and we all learned a new trick today !
Glad to see your back at it. Keep up the great work 👍 the car is coming along nicely. BTW what color did you use to paint the dash trim? It looks a lot like the gray they used on the 87 442's in fact I thought it was in previous pics until you said you painted the new radio bezel.
I forgot to mention in the update too, part of the reason I wanted to get the radio done was to get the new windshield antenna connected.
When I had the new windshield installed, I had fished the antenna through the firewall from the bulkhead connector but never attached it to the radio. To find the antenna lead inside the dash, I popped the dash trim that houses the clock out and found it coiled up in front of the HVAC ducting. A little manipulation with a fish wire got it pulled down to where it needed to be.
I also forgot to mention, and want to give a big shout out and thank you to fellow member Pagrunt. He was kind enough to help me out when I had a couple of questions regarding supplying power to the radio for the presets memory.
Thank you again sir!!
Thanks man, I appreciate the compliments. That was my intent with painting the interior trim pieces, I always liked that look so much better than the ugly wood grain. The color is a VHT wheel paint called “High Performance Graphite”. A good cleaning of the part followed up with a scuffing with red ScotchBrite and a final cleaning with wax and grease remover was all it took to get it ready for paint.
That particular grey was chosen not only because it’s the same color as the wheels...
...but also because it’s darn near identical to the upper color that I’m going to be painting the car:
Pulling this metallic grey into the interior from outside should help to tie in everything together nicely when it’s all said and done.
Thanks for the interest!
D.
When I had the new windshield installed, I had fished the antenna through the firewall from the bulkhead connector but never attached it to the radio. To find the antenna lead inside the dash, I popped the dash trim that houses the clock out and found it coiled up in front of the HVAC ducting. A little manipulation with a fish wire got it pulled down to where it needed to be.
I also forgot to mention, and want to give a big shout out and thank you to fellow member Pagrunt. He was kind enough to help me out when I had a couple of questions regarding supplying power to the radio for the presets memory.
Thank you again sir!!
Thanks man, I appreciate the compliments. That was my intent with painting the interior trim pieces, I always liked that look so much better than the ugly wood grain. The color is a VHT wheel paint called “High Performance Graphite”. A good cleaning of the part followed up with a scuffing with red ScotchBrite and a final cleaning with wax and grease remover was all it took to get it ready for paint.
That particular grey was chosen not only because it’s the same color as the wheels...
...but also because it’s darn near identical to the upper color that I’m going to be painting the car:
Pulling this metallic grey into the interior from outside should help to tie in everything together nicely when it’s all said and done.
Thanks for the interest!
D.
Thanks for the info Donovan. The dash trims on my 87 442 are really showing their age and its good to know they can be approximated so closely with spray bombs. Good thing I have no shortage of not so nice woodgrain trims to practice with😎. Keep up the great work I love the way the car is turning out, it'll be one of the sharpest G's north of the border I'm sure.
Hey, thanks again man. That’s really kind of you to say. No problem on the color info, I’m happy to help out.
If you should decide to go that route with yours, be sure to post up some pics when you’re done. I’d love to see them.
Here’s mine just after I had installed the carpet kit and painted my panels:
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