Customs Family 1st! Time to change the easter egg for Detroit Auto-Rama!

Yesterday I spend finish welding it and found two big holes in the trunk from the old taillights and fixed them. I have several options with the trunk lid / plate light. I can't make up my mind. Here are the options, or, I can just leave it. The bolts have lights in them to make mr. law happy. The lead I had for a front bumper guard on the Hamb fell through, so I went on the internet and found a place through Hemmings that had some. Hopefully, I will have them middle of the week so I can get the chrome out. Tomorrow we are going to move it to Steve and Marks shop to start putting mud to it....

 

Maybe it's the angle of the pic but it looks to me like the front bumper needs to be lower which would make the grille opening slightly larger. Right now it makes it look like the car is sectioned, but the rest of the car is so big in comparison.

All in all, nice changes.

 

Hey Don,

Great turn around for this kustom project! When I first looked at the 90s monochrome paint and streetrod vibe I said that probably was a good lookin' vehicle before the molestation! Now it's on its' way to being a great kustom. I'd vote for a solid darker colour over a metalic, as anything with a metalic or flake will look more like a streetrod choice for colour.
Great job on this!

I've still gota line up shipping on the '36 fenders & will be in contact-

Swankey Devils C.C.
" It's time for another Tea Party!"

 

thanks for the advise guys, keep it coming! I was thinking a dark blue or purple....no flake. The bumper isn't more than an inch higher than the original molded one. The garage is not that big and this car take up alot. Tomorrow I will get it outside to better look at it....I wish I had the time to cut down the hood, but have way better projects to play with....

 

Interesting thread, I'm in sort of the same situation with one of my cars. I built a 39 pontiac coupe when my kids were very young, and they practically grew up in that thing. I built it in the late 80's when monochrome was in, but I really did it that way because my family came before chrome, and it was a lot cheaper to just paint everything. It's not the way I wanted to do it, but it was in style and cheap.
Now I'd like to update it, but the kids don't want me to change it too much, I feel like it's part theirs, so I gotta respect their wishes. To be honest, it is so full of memories, I'm a little reluctant to make any major changes either.
So, it's just been parked in the garage for the last few years while I work on other stuff.
Thank God I didn't get into the crazy Easter egg color combos and graphics at least.
I'll be watching this thread with great interest.

 

its going DON..

 

Last week I got it outside as the snow started to melt..

 

Couple shots from the front. I don't have the bumper guards on. These shots were taken last monday, feb 2.

 

Steve came over with the flatbed and we took it to S&M Auto Body. Our club meeting will be there the next couple weeks as we are working on my car and Steve's "Blew By You" gasser for Detroit. We wet sanded the whole car with 400. Then started putting all metal on the seams. Then the Duraglass, then bondo.

 

Had to dig out some bad areas on the car that have popped up over the years.

 

So for the past week, this what I have been doing...Bondo, sand.

 

The hub caps are gone. A old time buddy of Steve and Mark's came in to the shop that day and confided that he had been looking for a long time for those hub caps....Steve said he was building a 51 plymouth old school with a hemi on a very limited budget, (Steve actually gave him the car years ago) and new I wasnt going to use these olds caps. He wanted to know how much I wanted to sell them for....I thought it would be cool to donate them to the 51 Plymouth project! Made that guys day, as well as mine.....S&M introduced me to icing....much easier than multible coats of primer.....

 

Finally, primer!

 

I blocked the first coat of primer with 180 and an array of different blocks and still my favorite, a paint stick.

 

Last coat of primer....Started with 180, then ended with 320. Mark then ran a finish DA with 400 over the whole car....

 

looking good. im digging that front end treatment!

 

Yesterday was a pretty nice day, we think it is ready for some color. Has to be ready.....my finger prints are gone, my nails are all crooked, and my fingers are bleeding at the joints! That usually means to me its time for color! So I pulled the car outside and blew all the dust off of it...

 

Now it goes into the booth just a week after it got here. We figure it is much easier to do the jams first, and then paint the car the next day. I took a couple color chips home over the weekend to let the kids pick the color. I kept the options to dark, with either blue or purple the choices. THe interior has both, and changing the interior is not in the budget. They pick Moonlight Violet. It is a dark violet with a blue base. Mark does the honors of laying down the color. He first applys a coat of sealer primer. Then a couple base coats, then a violet, then clear. The color seems much deeper than the paint chip. I like it. I unfortunatly forgot my camera today when we spray the car, so I used Steve's. I will post pics later. The car looks great in the booth!

 

Really nice work and a great encouragement for me to get hot on my panel truck project out in the garage.

Lee

 

Cool, glad Ryan featured this. I remember reading your intial post and going "Ugh, too streetroddy for me!" and closed the window (withought even reading the thread)

Glad I got another chance too see what it was your up too!

 

Can't wait to see this puppy in color!!!! What a great thread!

 

Don, going back to the photos of the front end with the grill & bumper...is there a way to raise the Olds emblem and center it in the space? It just jumps out at me and says...dummy didn't measure before drilling the holes. And I know you're not a dummy!!!
Really looking forward to seeing it in color. Rich

 

How in the hell did I miss this thread? Looks damn fine, Don...

 

Hell yeah!!

Cant wait to see it in Detroit...

 

Looks great!! I can't believe the transformation you pulled off in a short amount of time.

 

Nice progress! Take the Olds emblem out of the grille; it just doesn't work.

 

More pics!

 

Don, I love what you have done to redesign a dated car to make it a timeless car! I'm very partial to old Oldsmobiles having owned a '41 Model 76 fastback w/440 Mopar and pushbutton TF trans. A great car.

One thing that occurs to me is how you are addressing the eradication of the scallops on your car. From what I can gather and from personal experience, unless you take the original paint down to the bare metal, you run the risk of the scallop pattern showing up through the new paint job! This is not evident all the time, but in certain lighting conditions the scallop pattern WILL show up and make you absolutely crazy. Believe me, I know! Just my two cents. If you have a way to ensure the scallop pattern won't show up without taking the paint down to bare metal, please let me, as well as all the rest of the HAMBers, know.

Thanks for taking the time to record your Olds redo.

 

I am shocked that Ryan did this.......I have 50 things going on in my head from its not worthy to it is still too streetroddy to I am not changing enough.....my wife yelled at me and said to just keep doing what you set out to do......