Almost man, almost. I estimate I’m only about a month (give or take) away from being ready for the booth.
Hang in there guys.
BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)
- Thread starter Rktpwrd
- Start date
Almost man, almost. I estimate I’m only about a month (give or take) away from being ready for the booth.
Hang in there guys.
I hope this isn't a dumb question Donovan, but did you ever have any kind of rendering done for the paint scheme that you're using on the car? I don't know about anyone else, but if I could see something like that, then it would easier for me to visualize the finished product.
There may be a few renderings on the thread way back. On the rendering there is only one claret line, but correct is having two as D did on the filler panel. I'll chime in since I helped with the renderings (very crappy photoshop job), but the scheme is an homage to the 442 cars.....
I like it! Kind of a nostalgia theme with a modern twist. I think it goes along with everything else you have done.
Hey guys, what’s up?
I haven’t posted in a while, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been sitting idle. I haven’t done any repairs, priming or block sanding this week due to it being my turn to be on call for work (a gun full of mixed product and an emergency callout don’t go well together) so I decided to take a short break from it this week and work on something else instead.
I started out by digging out one of the last pieces of trim that needed to be stripped and have the brushed finish put on. It was the long one piece trim that goes above the back window. You’ve undoubtedly all seen me do this many times by now, so I won’t bore you with more pictures of the same.
However, this led me to think about starting to restore something that I’ve been dreading for a while now. The ‘78-‘80 Cutlasses have a 6’ long piece of trim that goes over the rocker panels that the ‘81-‘87 models don’t. Although I’ve eliminated all the rest of the wide lower trim that goes on the fenders, doors and quarters, I decided early on that I wanted to keep just these long thin rocker trim pieces. It will help to balance out the lower half of the car, and should tie in well with the silver accents on the wheels.
I had two sets of these trim pieces to choose from, the original ones that came on the car, and a spare set I bought off Kijiji in a different city with a little help from a couple awesome forum members here. (Thanks again Brian and Duke!) Unfortunately, after evaluating the Kijiji ones, I determined they were too far gone to attempt to restore. That left the originals as the only option, or give up on the idea all together.
Due to the thinness of their construction and their location on the car, these poor pieces have taken a real beating over the last 40 years. They resembled the surface of the moon or possibly a golf ball more than trim. Couple that with their length at just over 6’, and you can see what a daunting project they’d be to restore.
I don’t have any really great beforehand pictures, but trust me when I say they were rough:
I had started dorking around with one piece months ago to see if they were fixable and had been making decent progress, so that’s where I decided to continue on from:
This is super painstaking time consuming and patient work, but I found if I could just put in a couple hours on it every night I could actually make decent headway:
It’s more or less a slight modification on a process called “picking and filing”, whereby you gently tap up low areas from underneath and lightly file off high spots on the topside. Very similar to how I restored my wide belt mouldings on the doors.
By Wednesday night I had it done to about here:
Late Thursday night, I had the last of the dents worked out of this driver’s side piece, and Saturday evening I finished it off with addressing the top edge and ends, then put the brushed finish on it.
I had to mock it back up on the car so I could drill the front and rear holes in the fender and quarter to mount it (don’t wanna be doing that after paint!), so I took a couple of shameless glamour shots while I was at it:
I’ve got a couple videos up on my Instagram page (@rktpwtd5) of these before and after as well, but I haven’t sorted out my google password to post them on YouTube for the rest of you to see here yet.
Link to the IG videos:
I know it’s a very subtle touch and due to their location they probably won’t ever even get noticed, but I’m very pleased with the end result. All told, I’ve got maybe 24-26 hours in this one side, but it wasn’t all at once and now I have the satisfaction of knowing I can tackle something this daunting. Plus, with them being near unobtainium now, you’re not likely to see another set looking this nice again.
Ever.
😏
I’ve since started working on the other side and have roughly 2 feet, or a quarter of it done already too, so that’s not bad. It’s actually going much quicker and easier than I thought it would. I hope to knock the rest of this one out this week and return to the last of the repairs on the bodywork, so until then,
Stay safe and keep the shiny side up!
D.
I haven’t posted in a while, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been sitting idle. I haven’t done any repairs, priming or block sanding this week due to it being my turn to be on call for work (a gun full of mixed product and an emergency callout don’t go well together) so I decided to take a short break from it this week and work on something else instead.
I started out by digging out one of the last pieces of trim that needed to be stripped and have the brushed finish put on. It was the long one piece trim that goes above the back window. You’ve undoubtedly all seen me do this many times by now, so I won’t bore you with more pictures of the same.
However, this led me to think about starting to restore something that I’ve been dreading for a while now. The ‘78-‘80 Cutlasses have a 6’ long piece of trim that goes over the rocker panels that the ‘81-‘87 models don’t. Although I’ve eliminated all the rest of the wide lower trim that goes on the fenders, doors and quarters, I decided early on that I wanted to keep just these long thin rocker trim pieces. It will help to balance out the lower half of the car, and should tie in well with the silver accents on the wheels.
I had two sets of these trim pieces to choose from, the original ones that came on the car, and a spare set I bought off Kijiji in a different city with a little help from a couple awesome forum members here. (Thanks again Brian and Duke!) Unfortunately, after evaluating the Kijiji ones, I determined they were too far gone to attempt to restore. That left the originals as the only option, or give up on the idea all together.
Due to the thinness of their construction and their location on the car, these poor pieces have taken a real beating over the last 40 years. They resembled the surface of the moon or possibly a golf ball more than trim. Couple that with their length at just over 6’, and you can see what a daunting project they’d be to restore.
I don’t have any really great beforehand pictures, but trust me when I say they were rough:
I had started dorking around with one piece months ago to see if they were fixable and had been making decent progress, so that’s where I decided to continue on from:
This is super painstaking time consuming and patient work, but I found if I could just put in a couple hours on it every night I could actually make decent headway:
It’s more or less a slight modification on a process called “picking and filing”, whereby you gently tap up low areas from underneath and lightly file off high spots on the topside. Very similar to how I restored my wide belt mouldings on the doors.
By Wednesday night I had it done to about here:
Late Thursday night, I had the last of the dents worked out of this driver’s side piece, and Saturday evening I finished it off with addressing the top edge and ends, then put the brushed finish on it.
I had to mock it back up on the car so I could drill the front and rear holes in the fender and quarter to mount it (don’t wanna be doing that after paint!), so I took a couple of shameless glamour shots while I was at it:
I’ve got a couple videos up on my Instagram page (@rktpwtd5) of these before and after as well, but I haven’t sorted out my google password to post them on YouTube for the rest of you to see here yet.
Link to the IG videos:
I know it’s a very subtle touch and due to their location they probably won’t ever even get noticed, but I’m very pleased with the end result. All told, I’ve got maybe 24-26 hours in this one side, but it wasn’t all at once and now I have the satisfaction of knowing I can tackle something this daunting. Plus, with them being near unobtainium now, you’re not likely to see another set looking this nice again.
Ever.
😏
I’ve since started working on the other side and have roughly 2 feet, or a quarter of it done already too, so that’s not bad. It’s actually going much quicker and easier than I thought it would. I hope to knock the rest of this one out this week and return to the last of the repairs on the bodywork, so until then,
Stay safe and keep the shiny side up!
D.
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Meh, looks fair. 
You're so lucky that there wasn't any tears in that crap. Very nice work! I totally wasn't aware you were going to use those. Are you going to use the wheel lip trim as well to fill the gaps or....?
You're going to hate to know that I used to have a complete set of those snake blinders NEW several years ago for 78-80. I got them in a stash of NOS parts I bought when I was stupid and buying up parts lots just for a handful of G-body stuff I needed. And obviously I didn't have a need for them.
But there was more parts to it than just that. It had rear quarter and front fender molding and an upper section too, so I'm assuming you're not going to use the top and quarter sections. I sold all that plus some new taillights to a guy restoring a 79 H/O. Too bad I didn't hang on to that stuff. I could have saved you about a week's worth of labor.
You're so lucky that there wasn't any tears in that crap. Very nice work! I totally wasn't aware you were going to use those. Are you going to use the wheel lip trim as well to fill the gaps or....?
You're going to hate to know that I used to have a complete set of those snake blinders NEW several years ago for 78-80. I got them in a stash of NOS parts I bought when I was stupid and buying up parts lots just for a handful of G-body stuff I needed. And obviously I didn't have a need for them.
But there was more parts to it than just that. It had rear quarter and front fender molding and an upper section too, so I'm assuming you're not going to use the top and quarter sections. I sold all that plus some new taillights to a guy restoring a 79 H/O. Too bad I didn't hang on to that stuff. I could have saved you about a week's worth of labor.
Thanks brother! I’m still digging on the brushed finish myself. Haven’t gotten sick of it yet despite having to convert all the trim pieces to it. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they’ll look together with the fresh paint.
Meh, looks fair.
You're so lucky that there wasn't any tears in that crap. Very nice work! I totally wasn't aware you were going to use those. Are you going to use the wheel lip trim as well to fill the gaps or....?
You're going to hate to know that I used to have a complete set of those snake blinders NEW several years ago for 78-80. I got them in a stash of NOS parts I bought when I was stupid and buying up parts lots just for a handful of G-body stuff I needed. And obviously I didn't have a need for them.
But there was more parts to it than just that. It had rear quarter and front fender molding and an upper section too, so I'm assuming you're not going to use the top and quarter sections. I sold all that plus some new taillights to a guy restoring a 79 H/O. Too bad I didn't hang on to that stuff. I could have saved you about a week's worth of labor.
Actually, the Kijiji pieces I contemplated and ultimately rejected had several tears in them, thereby making the decision easier. Even the screw holes in the faces were oblonged and roached. Still not totally sure how one does that.
And as I mentioned in the post, no I won’t be using the top and quarter sections.
It’s a shame indeed that you didn’t hang onto that stuff, but then again I wouldn’t have the satisfaction of being able to bring these parts back from the dead if you did. 😏
Nope, they’re history John. I had to roll the fender lips on the quarters for tire clearance, so that ruled out using the wheel well mouldings without some serious surgery. Besides, I really liked the look better when I removed them anyways.
I’m sure you and 69HurstOlds are gonna comment on how the rocker mouldings look a little short without the wheel well mouldings, but it is what it is.
At least until I can find where I left my moulding stretcher.
😅
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