BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)

Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt
Supporting Member
Feb 2, 2015
4,150
23,827
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Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Took delivery of my most recent eBay purchase yesterday, some new lower chrome seat hinge covers.

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These things usually get pretty beat up over the years just simply due to their location, and mine were no exception. Not surprisingly, the drivers side was the worst with a crack radiating out from one of the screw holes, and the almost prerequisite peeling chrome.

The lineage of these covers is a little unknown, the seller claims that these are NOS pieces, but I was half expecting them to turn out to be cheap aftermarket knockoffs. As it turns out, they may be neither. All the part numbers and stamping marks on the backsides check out as being OEM, and after several consultations with 69HurstOlds, he figures they might actually be rechromed pieces. Either way, the quality is very good, and the finish on the outsides is beautiful.

Ran into one minor hiccup though, instead of selling me a left and right for each seat (all 4 pieces are different part numbers), I instead received a left and right for the passenger side, and another passenger side left for the driver’s side. The right hand cover for the drivers side was correct.

What’s the difference you ask? The outer covers on each side need to have a notch in them to accommodate the recline levers. It figures that the one piece I was in most desperate need of was the one I didn’t get. Not to fear however, I let the primal hotrodder instinct take over, and modded that bish!

Made a template of the notch in masking tape from the original, and laid it on the new one where the width matched up:

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Then used a blade style attachment in my soldering iron to cut/melt through the plastic a bit back from the final edge:

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Then I slowly snuck up to the line with a 60 grit disc on the 90 degree die grinder, and radiused the corners just like OEM. This can be a little tricky to do as the chrome loves to peel from a disturbed edge, but this chrome appears to be adhered extremely well. Another indication that these might have been rechromed.

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Anyways, the end result turned out very good, I think anyone not looking for the modification would be hard pressed to tell:

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The seats had to be unbolted and tipped on their sides to access the screws holding the inner covers on, but this was only a 5-10 minute job per side. Overall, I’m very happy having the original scratched, cracked and peeling covers replaced with these new ones.

One more small detail to add to the general “wow” factor when the doors are opened!

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D.
 
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69hurstolds

Geezer
Supporting Member
Jan 2, 2006
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Also, for those that have AR9 recliners with these covers, ensure your seat back hinges aren't bent or misaligned. When you lift the seat up to get into the back seat, the covers come up with the seat back. If the seat stops, that are basically posts screwed into the lower seat frame, hit the covers on the way up or down, you WILL BUST THOSE CHROME PIECES. You would then need to realign your seat backs or if you're lazy, notch out the bottom cover(s) where the post hits it. If you have these seats, you know what I'm talking about. My gray 85 had the passenger inner busted when I got it, and when I lifted the seat, I found out why. Don't ask me how the f**k it happened, but the seat hinges weren't exactly straight and I busted a brand new cover because I wasn't aware of that little problem. A little massaging straightened them up again and another new cover fixed all that.

Just one of those watch outs you need to check for. The covers aren't cheap even in repro land.
 
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L92 OLDS

Comic Book Super Hero
Mar 30, 2012
2,872
3,050
113
West Michigan
Took delivery of my most recent eBay purchase yesterday, some new lower chrome seat hinge covers.

The lineage of these covers is a little unknown, the seller claims that these are NOS pieces, but I was half expecting them to turn out to be cheap aftermarket knockoffs. As it turns out, they may be neither. All the part numbers and stamping marks on the backsides check out as being OEM, and after several consultations with 69HurstOlds, he figures they might actually be rechromed pieces. Either way, the quality is very good, and the finish on the outsides is beautiful.
Wow Donovan, those look great. A few years back Gbodyparts.com was telling everyone they were going to reproduce these but I don't think it ever happened.
I dug a few OEM parts out of my stash to show the B side engraving and gate locations. Do yours look like this on the B side? Tooling in the 80's was crude. The
surface finish was rough as a cob and engraving was stamped vs cut CNC that we would expect today.

RH seat cover.jpg

LH seat cover.jpg
 
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rfpowerdude

G-Body Guru
Jul 15, 2013
656
1,057
93
Palm Bay, Fla
Damn, that looks sweet! Now, it seems all you have is the torn DS seat cover and the slightly crunched HVAC/radio dash surround and that interior will be mint!
 
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motorheadmike

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Nov 18, 2009
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Saskatchewan, Truckistan
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69hurstolds

Geezer
Supporting Member
Jan 2, 2006
8,088
17,292
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Wow Donovan, those look great. A few years back Gbodyparts.com was telling everyone they were going to reproduce these but I don't think it ever happened.
I dug a few OEM parts out of my stash to show the B side engraving and gate locations. Do yours look like this on the B side? Tooling in the 80's was crude. The
surface finish was rough as a cob and engraving was stamped vs cut CNC that we would expect today.

View attachment 166954
View attachment 166955
Actually, someone is repro'ing the whole 8 piece set for recliners.

One of the key takeaways on this is that generally speaking, genuine GM chroming on the back side was very dismal (see Anubis picture of GM ones above) but D's was immaculately clean and chromed on the back side. The other "interesting" item was the little fisher body logo above the ABS. Usually you can find SOMETHING different in the lettering or whatnot on a repro, but D's were correct right down to everything you see on the back side of the original like in the detail above.

You would not think a repro unit would give two flips about the fisher logo, and it was as detailed as the original. This was the main reason I was thinking they were rechromes. Let's put it this way, everything bolted up the way it was supposed to, the thickness, heft, and all the little details seems to say original parts. Just new chrome. If they were NOS parts, he got a helluva deal on em anyway.
 
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Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt
Supporting Member
Feb 2, 2015
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Calgary, Alberta, Canada
What he said. ^^^^
😅
 
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Burning

Greasemonkey
Jul 9, 2020
182
647
93
Bardstown, KY
It’s been kind of a long and crazy couple days, but I managed to sneak a couple hours in at the Skunkworks tonight.

The car and the repairs unmasked well the night after painting, so tonight I got after the wet sanding step. Very pleased to report that all that went extremely well here too. The new clear was knocked down with 1000 grit wet, then was guidecoated and gone over again with 2000 feathering it back into the original clearcoat.

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Having no runs to contend with and very little dust in the clear, along with it being applied on an extremely flat and smooth surface definitely made the task a lot easier.

I’ll let the floor dry overnight, then polish everything back up to a high gloss again tomorrow. All in all, 3 extremely successful blends.
👍🏻
Looks really good man, i enjoyed catching back up on it.
 
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