Projects The Consolation Prize - '61 Olds Super 88

The 61 Olds has been down for a bit, and I got bored and bought another car (see prior post about the 55 Mainline I snagged). But now I'm back on it.

The trans has never been right in this car, and in all reality, that was probably my doing. My adjustable TV cable collapsed on me, and caused this thing to lose throttle valve pressure. I basically wasted the trans the first time I took it out of the driveway. It worked well enough to shake the motor down and kick the car around for a few hundred miles, but it was clearly amiss and in need of repair before I move on to the next phase of this project.

Thankfully I have great friends like my pal Jim Rawa, who has done all of my transmissions since I was a teenager. I know Jim was busy, so I tried to buy this one from TCI to not bother him, but he wound up with it anyway. Again, though the failure of the transmission was likely due to installation error, it was less than I expected in terms of performance and Jim took care of that for me. He cleaned out the case and mess of the burned clutches, then removed the wave washers and added 2 additional clutches and steels. He also tightened up the accumulator. Personally, I like a trans that shifts firmly, maybe even a bit harshly. Yesterday I went down and picked it up and brought it home, but not before taking it out. 100% improvement and functioning exactly as intended.

Jim's M.O. is to paint the trans tail shaft plum crazy purple. After hooking me up he can paint it however he wants.

 

Have your transmission friend set-up the TV valve correctly as that was what probably caused the failure ..... it's critical on these transmissions. Here's some tech and TCI relevance.
https://www.onallcylinders.com/2021...-cable-on-a-gm-700-r4-automatic-transmission/

 

You're absolutely correct, and that is what likely caused the failure. He set it up for me and all is right.

 

Your awfully down on this car but I think it is magnificent!

 

^^^^^^what he said. Those cars are just fabulous.

 

Yeah, I don't get the "consolation prize" thing... that car is Bitchin'!!

 

Excellent, I'd hate to see you go through that again.

 

Got back on this this weekend after an insane week in work. Now that the trans is functioning properly, I turned my attention to the last couple punch-list items that have still been nagging me; the throttle return spring and the gas pedal assembly. For whatever reason, they've given me more grief than they probably should have, but everything on this car has been a struggle so it should come as no surprise.

I really wanted to use the factory gas pedal, but that wasn't even functioning properly when I got the car. In all reality, the fact that I could only get 1/2 throttle out of it was probably what helped keep the 394 alive for the summer I drove. Plus the throttle cable as opposed to the linkage would work better with the dual quads.

I tried to use a chrome spoon pedal behind the factory pedal that attached to the floor, but the spoon pedal just couldn't attach well to the firewall and it was really cheesy.


I had to go back to the drawing board. I looked at some of the aftermarket suppliers for factory equipment, and came across the 69 Cougar/Mustang assembly. Even though it hangs as opposed to being mounted to the floor, it's black and has the same chrome trim around the perimeter that the stock pedals have. It looks like it could be factory, even though it isn't.

It wouldn't work in its stock form, but I was able to cut, weld, and manipulate the rod to line up and to work with the cable. My first attempt at this wasn't right, and it was pulling the cable to the side and was rubbing the cable housing and hanging up the throttle. I was also trying to be too cute, and drilled the hole for the pin only .002" oversized. I pulled it all back out, changed the rod a bit, clearance everything a bit looser, and now it seems good to go.


I also changed the angle on the Edelbrock throttle bracket so it would pull straighter. It was crazy how out of alignment it was considering it's an Edelbrock bracket meant for Edelbrock carbs. These were ugly anodize out of the package but I had them chromed. While I was at it, I shortened the cable sleeve so it wouldn't have such severe turns and would put less resistance on the cable. This was a major improvement.

I also finally found the combination of springs and mounting locations for the return springs. This was my first foray into multiple carbs, so there was more trial and error here than I'd like to admit.

Lastly, the engine itself needed some tuning to run right. It would run down the road fine, but when I would come to idle in gear, the car was falling all over itself. I put a vacuum gauge on it and it had very low vacuum, like 9 inches, which would explain the terrible idle. I went back and checked my rocker arm adjustment, and only found 2 that were a bit tight but not overly so, but that had no significant improvement on the vacuum. I threw some more initial timing at it, and that seems to have fixed the problem, giving me 16 inches of vacuum and a smooth idle in gear. Like I said, this is my first adventure into multiple carbs, so it's a learning experience for me.

I think at this point, we can say the engine compartment is a wrap.

 

Wow!

 

Figured I'd keep this thread going here with a little update as this project marches on.

I put probably a 1000 miles on the car and generally was unhappy with the overall performance. It seemed sluggish and just generally didn't seem right. I put up a post on here about timing (https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/timing-with-dual-quads-help.1288445/), which helped but I still felt it was off. Work has been insane lately (in a good way) and I just don't have the time to continue to screw with it. I brought it to a local shop that specializes in multiple carb applications. Even with the piston stop, I was about 12 degree off of TDC, which was properly set. Then he recurved the distributor. 18 degree initial, 36 degrees all in. He also adjusted out of spec floats on the brand new carbs. Running better than it ever has.

I enjoyed a nice ride home from the shop with my daughter and while I was in the area, took her to get her first pair of hockey skates. A little vibration at high speed, but that could also be attributable to the fact I was rocking in the left lane, cruising in overdrive.

Before I put the car away for the night, I figured I'd run down the street and top the tank off. On the way back, I hear a real pronounced rumble. WTF was that? I slow down to try to pin point where the noise is coming from... and the wheel falls off.


I walked home and woke my wife up to drive me back with a jack and couple tools. By then the cops had found the car and were now in my driveway. They were chill though and directed traffic while I put a couple lugs back on to drive the couple blocks home. Somehow all 5 lugs loosened in the spider cap. Thank God this didn't happen when I was blasting down I-287 at 80 mph, but instead happened on a tiny country road when I was going 15 mph. It didn't hurt the quarter, but mushed in the edge of the wheel arch. It did however destroy the drum from where the car fell on lip, and of course the wheel and studs and spider cap.

The '61 as sort of a unique drum, with a big bell on the outside of it.


This one is about as straight as a question mark, so it's scrap now.

I hammered out the olds studs and put some new ones in. I bought this nifty wheel stud installer tool that worked great. $9 well spent on Amazon.


Olds 9.3 parts aren't the easiest to come across so I was a little concerned about being able to get a new drum. Yes Fabcraft has them, but I figured there might be some common application that could work. I know the stock drum is 11x2, and is a 5-on-5 bolt pattern. I started checking what cars might have that combination, and I came across a 71 Chevy C10, V8, 2wd. I sprung for the AC Delco professional option, $53 each and free prime delivery.

Sure enough, perfect fit. There's the part number, 18B16.



Only snag I hit was my new lugs are a little too big to work with the spider cap, so once some smaller ones arrive we can start putting some miles on it again.

 

Yikes! Thank goodness you, the young'un and the car are o.k.... Lady Luck was ridin' with you!!
And from my recent experiences, $53. is dirt cheap for drums now days. At the end of the day you came out of that one pretty neatly!

 

My maiden voyage with my car... about 40 miles, as smooth as silk. The next morning I backed the car out, the RR lug nuts were visibly loose, what an oversight. I was extremely lucky. Jacked it up, torqued the nuts and checked the rest. It was the only loose one. I cannot recall why that one was loose.

 

I couldn't agree more. If that wheel came off at highway speed it would have been a catastrophe for all involved.

 

I have no idea how those lugs became loose. It's not like I hadn't been driving the car. That wheel had probably been on for 6 months since I was last in there for some reason.

The spider caps are certainly part of the problem. Obviously the wheel and lug nuts have a corresponding taper that centers the wheel. But the spider cap mount goes under the lug nut in between the wheel and nut, but has a unilug sort of pattern. It's clearly going to affect how the nut pilots into the wheel, and affect the torque spec to get and stay tight. I think in this matter I'd prob be best to just set them straight easily, then hammer them on with an impact.

 

Wild that the wheel would come loose like that, great that it caused minimal damage and didn't come off at speed. An awfully long road you've been down with this car, but it sure is pretty in the end.

 

Still freakin weird in both our cases, we were both driving relatively fast and yet the wheels stayed on. In my case, it may have been hand-tightened and I overlooked it. I torqued them all to 100 ft-lbs after that.

 

2 cents= To me, the lug nut should be in direct contact with the wheel... anything that comes in between the two should be avoided. Granted, spider caps look cool as hell. But... so does a straight quarter panel. Just sayin'...

 

Yes, the lug and wheel mating surfaces are nor something to take lightly. I have seen wheels damaged by too-loose lugs, they would not stay tight ever again... into the scrap pile. I looked closely at mine before I gave it the okay to use.

 

I figured a modification to the spider cap mounting plate where I opened 2 opposing holes up with a die grinder so the lug will pass straight through it and then remove a little meat from the other 3 so there is more surface area contacting the wheel taper. Seems to work well so far. No more wheels have fallen off haha.

For as long as I've owned this car, over 3 years now, I've never had a period of time where things just worked. It was always something. There's no oil pressure. The lifters are collapsing. You can't put gas in it. The tires constantly go flat. The fuses keep blowing.... whatever. So since I've had it back from tuning, I've been trying to shake it down as best I can and just drive it. The car needs to earn my trust. Thus far, it's been great. Honestly, probably a good 500 or so miles in last couple weeks just running all over the place. Errands, BBQs, work functions, a couple local shows, I even drove it to my hockey games since I can fit my bag and sticks in the trunk. It has performed flawlessly and I have to give props to Mark Spencer at Spencer's Speed Shop in Belleville, NJ for getting it dialed in. He did a great job and I appreciate his help.

There was a nice show last week at the Mars/Wrigley factory, which is local to me in Hackettstown, NJ. My daughter can take or leave some of the cars, but was beyond excited about the huge container of M&Ms they gave her.


The main reason I have been trying to iron out the car mechanically is because it's going off for body work and full repaint in mid-July. I really don't want to have any issues where I'd have to be leaning over fresh paint to do mechanical work, so I want the car ironed out before then.

I grabbed a hood and other assorted front end items off a nice dude I connected with on eBay. I've never loved the grille and headlight treatment this car sports. It's better than stock, but still could be leveled up. As it is, the treatment omitted the front valence and some other front grille opening pieces, but I think it's going to be best to just fabricate that stuff as I go.

The hood is in pretty good shape. It has a few small dents in the very front that I'll wind up pulling and trying to work out. I'll also nose it. The current hood has these hammer-formed scoops that I really don't like the look of. They sort of work with the car, but a smooth hood would look so much better, and be so much easier to work with in laying out the next paint scheme. .


After stripping this with with a surface conditioning tool, it's solid and straight, but has some very light pock marking. Too be safe, I'm going to have to wire brush, sand blast or both, to make sure I don't have issues down the road.

 

What a gorgeous ride! Man that color really demands attention. And way to stick with the build!

 

Beautiful car; (now to be painted!) Nice family, great attitude... I don't mind the SBC at all!
Was surprised at the difference in chassis, recalling lots of engine swaps (Cad, Olds into '52 Pontiacs, Cads into Studes, et al, etc.)
I dropped a Corvette LT into my F100 in '73 just so I could move it around. 'Moved around' so good it stayed.
Thanks for a great post. Exceptional 'Bubbletop'!

 

Wonderfully done. You just keep at it.

 

The car was supposed to head off to body and paint last week, but I've been running behind and Jesse was kind enough to give me a couple extra weeks with the car while he finishes up a few customers work. Jesse Barratt of Bluesky Performance and Restoration is going to be doing the body and paint work. Aside from him being a real solid guy, he's turned out a consistent string of really impressive builds. Nothing HAMB friendly, but that's fine. This will be a collaborative effort and he and his crew are more than capable of turning my vision of the paint into reality.

As a few folks have mentioned on here, the car "looks" great, especially in pictures. And I think that's mainly due to a few factors, 1) it's just a great looking car to begin with, 2) the HOK paint is super eye-catching, and 3) the overall styling of the car is good. A vibrant color will look great even if the application is substandard, and here there are a lot of issues with the body with ultimately require a full repaint.


The crack in the hood is the worst of it. This came from the alternator being mounted where it interfered with the hood, and dented the hood from the bottom up when it was closed. It sticks out like a sore thumb, and I constantly get questions on it, and idiots poking it. I can't even call it unfortunate, since that word implies some element of bad luck. This was completely avoidable. You can also see the variation in color along the edge.



The body seams on the catwalk between the decklid and rear window are also an atrocity. The one on the right side is especially bad and disappears and reappears 3 separate times. Again, this had to be visible in a final blocking prior to color and a conscious decision made to leave it, which is troubling when a skim coat of icing would have filled the remaining amount and just rectified the issue in about 20 minutes.


The frenched antenna is all jagged along the edges.


There are cracks like this on both scoops on the hood, and on the edges of the front wheel arches. The scoop was also rubbed through in buffing.


The paint on this car is a true candy, HOK Pagan gold, which is mostly over silver, and is over root beer in the cove and on the roof. I can only assume there was difficulty breaking the tape line off on the edge of the body line, so it was covered with a wide red pinstripe that has brush marks in it. I'm assuming this was done with a pinstriping tape to mask both sides of the line.


The door edges are also chipped and sloppy. There is some more red stripe there, too.

There are also streaks in the color, under the clear, that are especially visible when the car is really clean. I'm almost certain that came from rubbing the car with a tack rag after the candy before the clear was applied. The rag likely distorted the candy color and put streaks in the final product. This probably could have been avoided with the use of an intercoat clear, which would have locked that candy down before the tacking. So while the car is presentable as it is, the combined effect of these issues warrants a complete repaint. I'm looking for better than "presentable".

I've also never been thrilled with the styling of the grill on this car. Though I do like the 1/2" steel tube style on it, the execution of this one left a lot to be desired. So I ripped it all out.

The 61 Olds uses basically 4 pieces to make a complete surround, and form the perimeter around the opening. There is a lower valence, two headlights to complete the sides, and then a middle grille to form the upper center. This car didn't use any of it, and the lower half had been fabricated. Unfortunately that was not going to work with my plan, and it looked as though it has been cut with a hatchet. I was able to reuse the front lip, first cutting a straight line on it, and cut some straight filler pieces on my 36" Pexto shear.




I'm really trying to make this car not like the other two well-known gold 61 Oldsmobiles out there. One uses a 60 Merc grille, the D'Agostino "Golden Starfire", and another with a factory grill. Zocchi also used a 59 Imperial grille, but I don't love the weight of it visually. Though it violates my typical rule of never using a visible part post-dated to the target styling year, I just don't think there is a better style than using 65 Corvair headlights. They set wide and give the car a wider look. They have 2 bulbs, and the bezel come to a peak, that mimics the peak of the cove. There is continuity of styling, and the use of an actual headlight surround give the car a finished look. There is a dude in Japan that pulled this treatment off, and IMHO, it's the best looking front end treatment on a 61 Olds that's ever been done. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right? At least our cars aren't on the same continent.

The upper bar will be trimmed and ends finished. The middle will fill in with additional square bars.

This morning I'm tackling a reworking of the hood release. The wonky previous modification is getting 86ed, and I can just modify the factory handle to work with the new grill treatment


That's where we stand for now. Hope to get further on this today

 

I feel this so much. I'm at the point where 20 years in I want to repaint my Buick. So many little things that I notice. Just not sure I can muster the motivation.

 

You are definitely making it a much better car in the end and it also shows how pictures hide all kinds of problems.

Take my 56 for instance...it looks half decent in pics but I promise it has all kinds of issues some of which came from the factory all the way to what 67 years of use will do.

 

Absolutely. And look, I'm not ignorant to the fact that ALL cars are like that to a degree. Hell, there are a lot of people out there like that, too. You see someone on the internet and think, "Damn they look good" then you see them in person and, well, it's just not the same... This is a custom car after all and they all have some issues just from being messed with. But I'm trying to achieve less 20 footer and more 3 footer. You get it.

 

I feel that with my 56 Olds. Older, amateur restoration but generally looks killer rolling down the road, and is fully functional. I have no idea if I'll ever redo that car, but I can say, it's been my favorite car I've ever owned. It's the "go anywhere" car.

As for this car, upon completion of the paint and body, obviously chrome in the front, and a few interior odds and ends. It's done. There's just nothing left to do. Then I can show it, drive it, enjoy it, and move onto the next project when I feel like it.

 

Your aim for excellence is admirable. These subtle changes will make a huge difference!