“Well, That Escalated Quickly!”

That expression is really the theme of this event. The time comes in every man’s life to get fed up with all the annoying little issues and just build everything from scratch. That time for me was now. “Fed Up” is being used loosely in this case, it was really more like anger and rage. The result is the Cutlass is being born again as a new car, and getting a complete frame off restoration. What started the whole process? A small leak in the radiator.

Here’s a summary of what led up to now. The car is a 1972 Cutlass Supreme Convertible. Although much of this process will look similar on any GM A-Body car.

After getting home from a cruise I noticed the smell of coolant in the shop. This smell is unmistakable for me, as a once had a 1992 Ford Taurus SHO that had a habit of ripping the heater hose off of the heater core because the engine had enough power to cause excessive subframe and bushing flex. The result every time? Coolant smell in the air vents and engine.

Upon investigating the radiator leak, I noticed one of the motor mounts looked a bit sketchy and cracked. When looking at that mount I saw the other mount’s bolt was loose. While looking at the mounts I noticed the alignment shims in the upper control arm had fallen out on the drivers side! WHAT?>! I looked further and it turns out the previous owner had under torqued almost all of the suspension bolts. As I was torquing the bolts to spec I found a crack in the frame. GAME OVER. I get fed up and started taking the entire body off of the frame.

Shoutout to my poor wife. She came out in the morning to check on the radiator and I said “shouldn’t take much longer”. After not seeing me for a while she came out in the afternoon and the body was on jack stands with the motor pulled and on the garage floor. Her reply “Well, that escalated quickly!”

Did I want to do a frame off resto? NO. But considering the problem after problem above, it was the right thing to do.

Before Pictures

Here’s the princess treatment the Cutlass is going to get now, in summary:

• Complete Undercarriage cleaning and painting, from front to rear bumper
• Complete frame paint job.
• Frame repair at the crack. Turns out the PO had done some poor welding on the passenger side control arm, passenger bumper bracket, and the crack on the drivers. All will be fixed properly.
• Firewall and cowl painting.
• Firewall cleanup and simplification, relocate horn relay etc.
• BIG BLOCK ENGINE SWAP.
  • 455, flat top pistons, ~10-10.5:1 compression, brand new rebuild and machining. C heads with valve job and bigger valves. New high lift cam. Edelbrock Intake, All new everything.
• THM350 to THM400 transmission swap. Possible OD trans upgrade in the future, but not now.
• Stage 2 Ridetech Coilover complete suspension overhaul, front and rear. New modern suspension geometry and all new heavy duty parts.
  • ALL new parts, control arms, balljoints, spindles, bushings, cross shafts, coilovers and springs, and all brackets, front and back.
• Disc Brake conversion on the front modified to fit the Ridetech spindles.
• New or cleaned up and repaired wiring in entire engine and light harness.
• Restored brake and fuel lines.
• All new E-Brake cables and brackets for new transmission crossmember location.
• New Poly body bushings from Energy and rust proof hardware
• Rebuild steering system, including gearbox, steering coupler, tie rods.
• All new vacuum, fuel, coolant lines.
• Custom cut driveshaft.
• New Stainless Steel Headers.
• Rebuilt radiator core support and headlight assemblies.
• All new hardware on reassembly.
• No expense spared.

Disassembly Pics

Total disassembly time from complete engine bay to the pic above, 12 hours. Not Too Shabby.

The real kicker? This is all scheduled to be done before Thanksgiving! This will be a total body off restoration and complete car rebuild in 4 weeks, and I’ll be working at my day job during this time as well.

Stay tuned, lots of fun to come!

LEFTLANEBRAIN