I purchased this car on January 26th, 1997 from a gentleman in San Antonio, Texas. It was a numbers matching 350/350 car with A/C and a 4BBL. I had answered an ad found on http://www.442.com. The owner was in the Air Force and had too many projects so he decided to sell this one. I paid $3600 for her. I drove her all the way back to my home in Dallas, through a bit of snow and ice. Quite an experience with the drum brakes.
The car was purchased with the full intent of doing a nice daily driver restoration. I had owned many '70's vehicles in the past, but I had never really researched the cost involved with this type of restoration, so needless to say it has taken me longer than I anticipated to get to this point. I decided to do the restoration on an "as needed" order of parts replacement, but that didn't really work out for me. I basically kept replacing parts until my 5th attempt at a motor blew up on me in late 2000.
The history of the work goes like
this. The first thing that had to go was the front drum brakes and the 27 year
old tired suspension. I did a COMPLETE suspension and steering rebuild,
including rear bushings and steering gear box. I note those items in particular
because they are often ignored on vehicles with a "new front end."
For those of you who are wondering, the steering coupler disc did not need to
be replaced, and that was just about the only piece that didn't.
The next thing that got replaced was
the TH-350 transmission. Actually it was rebuilt. The color of the fluid was
dark and smelled slightly burned. I have had bad luck in the past with changing
fluid in this condition only to have it finish off the transmission. I pulled
the transmission out and had it rebuilt, since it was the correct one for my
car.
After that the only other thing that
I really had to replace was the weatherstripping. Typical of cars this age, it
was dry and rotten. I was not able to find the correct glass sealing strip (the
one on the outside part of the door against the window) that fit Cutlass
Supreme with the wide molding. Since that time a suitable replacement has
become available in the aftermarket. The car ran and drove so well I actually
sold my '95 S-10 and made this my only vehicle until November 1997.
In December of 1997, the timing
chain on the original 350 motor (97K miles) jumped a tooth and subsequently the
motor ceased operation. I decided to rebuild the engine and this is where my problems
really began. It was at this juncture that I decided to alter my restoration
plans from daily driver to moderate street machine. While rebuilding the 350, I
chose to swap the TH-350 for a TH-2004R that was a high performance rebuild -
I'll get back to that in a moment. It was April of 1998 when I had everything
together and done on the motor and transmission. I put a barrage of nice parts
in this motor, including TRW forged pistons, Edelbrock Performer RPM, Hedman
Headers, Isky cam, ARP fasteners, and full balance. I ported the heads myself,
only on the exhaust side, removing the EGR bumps and blending that area smooth.
At initial startup, the motor ran for about 4 minutes until it
"puffed" and started making a loud clacking noise on the driver's
side valvetrain. Closer inspection revealed that the #3 exhaust valve had hung
in the guide. I pulled the head off, had it fixed, second initial start - 4
minutes, "puff!" tap tap tap tap...same problem. Had the head fixed
again, pulled the motor out removed the oil restrictors. This time around
startup went fine. It was now August 1998 and the car had been running good for
about a week and a half. On a trip to Pep Boys, I got challenged by a 1 ton
Chevy truck with a 454. Interesting challenge. Could the torque of the 454 make
up for the weight of the 1 ton? Short answer: Yes. Lost that race, but not too
bad. What was too bad is that I lost my 350. When reassembling the motor the
last time, I forgot to put the oil pump drive rod in while I had the pan off,
so I dropped in from the top. Somewhere around 6000 RPM, the retainer clip
sheared off and headed straight for my #1 and #2 rod bearings. Crank trashed,
that's it I'm done with this motor. That week and a half, plus the race is all
the drive time I had on $4000 worth of 350.
The short drive time I had on the
motor made me realize that a small block was no longer enough power to satisfy
my tastes. I decided it was time to step up into big block land. It was late
January 1999 before I had enough money again to do anything for a motor. I
found a rebuilt 455 on Ebay that didn't sell, so I contacted the owner about
purchasing it directly. Purchasing a motor that someone else had built wasn't
really what I wanted to do, but I didn't have enough money to track down a
motor and buy all the parts for it again like I did for the 350. It had now
been almost a year since I had really driven my car and I wanted it back on the
road. Believe it or not, it DOES cost money to want. I picked up the 455 in
Houston, brought it home, selected a different camshaft for it and installed it
in late February. It ran just long enough to say it had actually caught and
ran. As soon as it had caught and I had let go of the key, it locked up. A tear
down inspection revealed the piston wrist pins had seized in the pistons, new
one to me. It was now April since I have had time and money to get a new set of
pistons and have the lower end of the motor balanced. The person I bought the
motor from stated that it had been balanced, but upon inspection I felt it had
not. I don't think the owner lied, I think he just didn't know better - he did
not build the engine. I also had the heads redone because the valves looked
pretty bad. The heads had been shaved probably about .0050 - .0060 and after some
machine work to my Torker to get it installed, the motor finally started and
ran correctly.
The power of the 455 was
unbelievable! I could burnout at will and the car would nearly lift a front
tire from a dead stop - no I am not exaggerating. The car runs and drives great
for a grand total of 2 weeks. On the way back from an interview in downtown
Dallas, the car dies and will not restart. It is obvious to me that it is an
electrical problem. I had to have the car flat bedded back to Mesquite - it
doesn't help that I was unemployed at the moment. Troubleshooting the problem
reveals that the ignition switch was not providing enough power to activate the
relay I had wired to my distributor - easy fix.
Now the car was running again. It
was idling in my driveway as I was putting up tools and cleaning my hands.
While in house, I heard the car die. I went outside to check it and it would
not start. I checked the ignition switch again, it was fine. The only think
that I can come up with is the module in my Unilite must have popped.
Where does it end?
A trip to the speed shop to pickup
another Unilite module had me bringing home a new cap, rotor, module, and coil
for my HEI. The sales guy tried to talk me into an MSD distributor, but I couldn't
afford it. The cost of the HEI upgrade was about the same as the Unilite
module, seemed more reliable so that's the way I went. By the middle of June
the car was running again, and I got another job a week later - things are
looking up?
This time the car runs for 2 months
trouble free. This is where we revisit the TH-2004R. Everyone said this thing
would not last under the 350 - but it goes 2 months behind the 455. I was not
kind to it at all. On the way to work one morning, second gear starts acting
like it doesn't want to shift. By the time I got home that evening, I had no
forward. The first TH-2004R I ordered via mail order from Georgia. I decided to
have one built locally this time. I installed the transmission and it was not
shifting from the get go. I double checked my TV cable - everything looked
good. I took it back to the shop where I bought it and they proceed to tell me
I didn't have the cable adjusted correctly at some point and I burned the
tranny up - my fault, want another? $950 out the window. I said screw it and
put the TH-350 back in.
The car felt even stronger with the
TH-350 back in it. I can't really describe it other than to say the connection
between the motor and transmission felt more "solid." It was now
October (it took about a month to purchase, install and get screwed on the
TH-2004R) and this time we make it about a month and my differential starts
making noise. A carrier bearing has seized and cut into the carrier. I decided
to park the car for the winter.
It's February before I get back to
working on the car. I ordered an Auburn carrier and bearing kit and gave the
diff to a friend, who had a friend that can rebuild it. He had it for about 6
weeks before I found out he can't get the ring bolts out. I got the diff back
and took it to a local shop and they had it done in a week. At this point I
drove the car a little bit and let it set. The motor had developed an oil leak
I could not find and the transmission was also leaking. I started thinking it was
time to stop where I was at and consider a full step by step restoration. My
friend was getting ready to have a 30' x 24' garage built so I was planning the
restoration sometime after that. I let another friend of mine borrow the car
during July and August 2000 while the garage was being built. My friend had a
small accident in his '98 Maxima and I let him drive the Olds around while it
was being repaired - keeping an eye on the oil and trans fluid. The garage gets
finished about the 3rd week of August. When I get the car back from my friend
he tells me it is pinging badly to the point of being undrivable. This is the
first warm weather driving the car has seen in a year. When I was riding around
in it a little earlier in the year I didn't notice a problem. The problem
turned out to be too much timing from the HEI. The 455 has a Comp Cams 280H
(230 @ .050) cam in it and a stock converter. I had to idle the motor up and
that caused the ported vacuum to come on and advance the timing. I decided that
I need a more adjustable ignition solution and go with the MSD distributor with
a 6AL box this time. When I went to remove the HEI , I couldn't get it out. My
friend winds up beating it out and we find out that the oil pump drive rod is
stuck in the end of the distributor and the retaining clip (installed correctly
this time) was holding it in. My friend basically beat on the distributor until
he beat the clip off of the rod. We were able to get the clip out through the
oil drain hole. After installing the MSD distributor, we come to find out that
the initial ignition problem was not the module in the Unilite, but the coil
had burned out instead.
It was now November and the car was
running without pinging. My friend bought a lift for his new garage, so we put
the car upon the lift to see if we can fix the transmission leak, which had
gotten serious now. It turns out to be the o-ring on the speedometer drive
housing, We fixed the leak and things seemed pretty decent with the car. I
drove it a bit more afterwards, trying to enjoy some drive time before I take
it apart for the restoration. I have yet another friend who was over changing
the oil on his Jeep and we take a trip to Autozone in the Olds. I got on it
pretty hard on the way back and it developed the slightest tap - sounded like a
lifter to me. I checked the valvetrain, but all looked well. I decided to drive
the car to work the next day. By the time I got to work it was clear there was
something wrong, but it didn't sound like anything in the lower end. I still
remember what a rod sounds like from when my 350 grenaded. I was thinking that
it was the flywheel coming lose. I decided to take the car home at lunch encase
anything happened, I didn't want to be in rush hour traffic. I made it about
1/3 of the way home and I got a big "POOF!" from under the hood, oil
and smoke everywhere, cats and dogs sleeping together - mass hysteria. It turns
out that the #6 rod failed and destroyed the motor.
That brings us to where we are now - I decided to begin the full restoration in January 2001. I am shooting for June of 2002 for completion. - And God, I SO missed it! Maybe August 2003?