Customs Progress is a beautiful thing - 53 Olds 4 to 2 door conversion PAINT and Chrome

Well after years of working on the Olds its finally looking like what I envisioned.

Bought it when I was in high school from my best friends dad, we use to play in it when we were in elementary school and I always told my friends dad I was going to buy it off of him when I grew up....I did.

It started its life as a 4 door and I always wanted a Kustom, but a 4 door was not going to cut it, so I decided to tackle the conversion, 9 years ago, this was PRE-HAMB for me at least, so I was doing this on just drawings and daily space outs at work and Tex Smiths How to Build Custom Cars book.... What an adventure, I cant wait to drive the wheels off of this thing.

Still finishing up the details, upholstery, glass, mount new tires, etc but she is a solid driver.

2007:
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2008:
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2009:
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Wow! What a transformation. I love the color, what is it from?

 

Damn that's a great transformation. Looks like great work and love the color. Stock drivetrain ?? Hell, it doesn't matter, great looking car

 

Nice job, car look gorgeous! You scared me with the thread title though...thought you made a 4 door from a 2 door!

 

Chopped, hardtopped, and made into a 2 door. This car has doors from a convertible, right? I remember that being an odd-luck score to find convertible doors. Looks great with paint on it.

Are you planning to run caps on it? Or?

 

Holy Crap, "2 to 4 door conversion...." that would be crazy...changed it.

 

Thanks guys.

Funny thing about the color i had no idea what color is was going to be until that day; which by the way was painted on the Friday of the Round Up.

I originally was just going to re-primer it black and drive it, my buddy Milo who helped paint it said HELL NO, I'll bring some of my left over paint and other materials from home and we'll give it some color, he's a pro painter, so he drove up from South Texas to prep and paint my car. I told him I wasn't ready to pay for a full paint job, his words "who said you were paying"

From all the paints he brought my wife picked this one. Went to the Carquest on 5th street (thanks Lux) bought some clear, some HOK gold flake and other materials and BAM.

The color is a Chrysler Indy Metalic Red and the Flake is a micro HOK gold flake. It wasn't even planned like that, gold was the only color he had in stock. This paint really pops in the sunlight.

 

Man... looks great!!!

 

beautiful car. I agree with everyone, the color is perfect. Congrats on a great job, you should be proud.

 

You've got a great car and a great friend. nice work.

 

Thanks guys, as far as caps go I am planning on running the original Olds caps with bullet centers. Though I was going to cut a corner with just running it in black primer I am glad I was talked out of it (didn't take much for sure)

With the amount of work involved in this thing, it does not make sense to postpone the inevitable. Besides as my buddy calls it this is just driver paint.....

Details:
Suspension is stock car had 80,000 miles when I got it
Doors off of a 53 Olds Convertible
Front Sheet metal off of a 52 Olds, there is a major difference between 53 and 52, learned that the hard way
Fresh 307 Olds engine
New 350 BOP Trans
Smoothed out the firewall
Fabricated new motor and trans mounts
Scarebird disc brake kit
Relocated brake booster to firewall
All new brake parts/hardware
All new brake and fuel lines
new gas tank
new aluminum radiator

I wanted a reliable cruiser.

 

Cool -- great transformation! I didn't even notice the flake in the first photo, but the one showing the reflection from the hood looks great!

Congrats - hope you drive the wheels off it!


Malcolm

 

looks killer! is that the same car? you remember mine don't you? man now i got to work on mine more.

 

It looks great.

You don't by any chance have another one of those grille bars do you?

 

Excellent!!!!!

 

Yeah 53, it is the same car.

I don't have one. This one is pitted and hopefully when i send it off to get it chromes they will smooth it out.

Rey

 

This was the scariest part of the build, no bracing, no direction, minimal measurements, look at what was holding up the top, I look back at these pics and cringe. I had to go back a few months later and redo everything, braced everything, squared everything up, grind down and reweld some of the "impatient welds" I had to fix alot of the mistakes. It was a nightmare.

I hated this car.

Lesson learned.

 

Wow! it really looks great, can't wait to see the finished product!

 

Man, that looks great! Nice color, what happened to the Supremes?

 

Wow Rey that looks awesome!

 

Thanks, still thrashing on it, the details are killers. Cant wait to ge the new WW and caps on it.....after thinking about it kinda leaning towards caddy caps.

Sold the supremes, those things were not meant for a car this big, those are 14's and they look puny, the black stains on the rear whitewall was the scraping of the rear lip.

Thanks BD

 

A BEAUTIFUL Job, Very Well Done!!!!

 

Your Olds is looking Great !!! Is the area where the old back doors were off the convertible as well ?

 

Thanks!

What I did was move the pillar back, skinned the rear door and used that as the panel to fill in the rear portion.

 

you did a great job! worked out pretty well with the paint i'd say...

 

Quick update, this is the car at the DOD. Caps, WW and sideglass.

Thanks to The Fidgiter for taking these pics, he did a great job covering the Day of the Drags in his post.

 

Looks slick all buttoned up with side glass in it. There's a couple of these that just hit a local junkyard near me if you're looking for any little finishing trinkets.

 

Hats off to you man!

 

That's awesome... great work!

 

Beautiful Car ! Lots of great metalwork and everything came out perfectly...Hats off to You !!