Projects 1956 oldsmobile restoration

What did you do to restore your steering wheel? Or did you just replace it?

 

Looks great! I just love a 56 Olds dash.....well more correctly, I just love a 56 Olds.


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

chstitans...i used this stuff to fix the wheel cracks...pretty easy to work with

 

Interesting, do you have any pics of the process you used? How did you go about filling in the cracks and smoothing it out? My CAddy steering wheel looks about the same as yours did in your Olds.

 

when i did mine i just smooth it in the cracks and leveled it out the best i could..its really quite easy to handle and cleans up easy..then i just sanded it before it set up to hard and sculpted it the way i wanted it...i even used it to fill a crack in the metal horn ring too.. a note though i have seen jobs where others have opened up their wheel cracks into a V shape before they added the mix...i didnt so far a year and its still sticking..i dont have pics of doing the process..but others have them on the web..trust me you will see its really not that complicated..like working with playdough

 

That is looking real good. Did your car have the padded dash?
Russell

 

yep...one of those hey i dont have seat belts so called mellon savers...im glad it was rotted out and torn apart though..they kinda remind me of a big diaper on the dash

 

Your 56 is coming along great! Love the dash!

 

Nice job. ALL the clean-up on the sheet metal turned out great! Gotta love those western "rust free" cars. How did you get it so clean??
Please tell me you saved that cool vintage under dash Super Tuner cassette player??? When I was in High School, that was state of the art, and EXPENSIVE!

JT

 

working on cutting out new door panels...i was able to go to home depot and buy a board that was in the shower tub section for 13 bucks and position everything right so i could get all the doors and the back package tray too..i cut everything with my angle grinder with the cutoff disk on it..it smoked a bit but at least i didnt have to use the jig saw..also i have been playing around on my computer designing stuff for some pinstripping on the fenders later on down the road

 

Ever think about a suicide door kit. That would be really cool on a black 56 olds hardtop cause there's no post. It would make the critics of moredoors envious.

 

Maybe down the road...my cousins husband keeps saying the same thing...course he wants me to air bag the thing..im just trying to keep my head above the water right now on the build..but its at a stage when i can see stuff coming together..i likey

 

And @ jakespeed63 all i did was just air disk sand it...and YES our cars are pretty nice but still there is rust but useally located in isolated areas...although the farthest west ones...ie california..i was looking at before this one musta been toooo close to the coast...rustarama...my floorboards were intact except for one tiny area i decided to cut out cuz it was getting thin

 

Hope you don't mind if I post a couple of pics of my 98 coupe. just had it cut & polished, fitted newly chromed rear bumper as well as interior hood lining chrome redone. Have owned the car for 12 years, had a major rebuild then. Cheers, Russell

 

Looking good Rckt98...

 

well im finally back at it...im doing the door panels i have cut the boards like ive shown in the pics i posted before...now i have got my vinyl and have cut it in sections and have mocked up a example of what i want them to look like..im using reds silvers blacks and whites...i also buffed the stainless trim i took off the old door panels and will add them on...then come the door armrests...i just couldnt fork out 50 bucks a piece for after market ones at 200 for 4..and they wouldnt even be like the moulded in originals...sooooo i went to home depot got a 3 foot L steel and cut all my handles out of that allll for a grand total of 10 bucks...plus it will add a bit more of silver to the mix...

 

while i have the door panels not on this 56 ive moved on into the mechanical locks..here the first one i took out today..before and after shot..then im going to put the white lithium grease on them and restall them..i will post the window mechs when i take them out and clean them too...it will be nice to have the locks and windows working with ease..

 

I also ordered some speakers for the back window tray area so i can finish that up when i cover my new tray i cut i got them for 31 bucks and some door pulls for 8 bucks..i went with these to add more silver and a set of new side glass for $360 total shipped to my front door...its like christmas again

 

Oh man, how did you clean the door locks?
They look amazing!

 

Hell of a job there buddy, keep it up. Love how you source other ways to do things for less money....

 

here the front window crank before and after...the windows better glide up and down now with all the crap gone...as far as what i did to them i first sand blasted them with my cheap 19 dollar spot blaster then i went to town with a brillo like attachment on my drill also a steel brush attachment wheel just cuz i like everything shiney...oh also use PB blaster spray...i got it at home depot for 5 bucks..the hidden rust in the crevices..it just streamed out red rust...ps soda blasting would of been better being the sand took awhile to come out...

 

shadams...im really trying to think outta the box on this...when i go to home depot im always thinking what here can i find cheap that can have a application on my 56...after all i dont have a ton of money and im going to focus the bulk on the real important stuff...

 

Oh yea, me too. I have spent an ass load on spray paint at home depot, phosporic acid, paint thinner, steel wool, undercoating etc. Play sand..hardware, esp at tractor supply. I have really tried to go back to repairing/refinishing orig stuff instead of repro where I can as my build has gone on. I have said it a hundred times, but I wish I could start over knowing what I know now. Would be able to do it a lot faster for a lot less money....

 

i got a new toy over the holidays...i got a grinder from home depot on special for $29 dollars then outfited it with harbor freight disks for a grand total of 40 dollars...im telling you im having fun...its amazing what this does to stainless and other metals...check it out..just playing right now but im gonna tackle all my trim with this puppy..hell my wife saw what it could do and she handed me three rings of hers she wanted buffed...seriously...

 

Hmm, I have some things that I could use that for....looks good...

 

my glass came...now im putting it in...slooowly being im taking one door at a time and cleaning every bolt and screw ...heres my vent window before and after..also my vent channels were lined at one time with felt or something...rather than buy whole new tracks i bought contact cement and a roll of the loop side of velcro at 50cents a foot and relined it with that..was going to use felt from home depot..but i think this would last longer...also i got silver vinyl finally for my door panels and also found out universal door pulls arent universal...they dont fit...the hole is waaay to big..

 

Thank you for posting your tips and tricks! I'm going to get one of those spot blasters at Harbor Freight. I could at least strip the small interior trim pieces like you did, maybe use it on the interior floor.

Good idea using velcro. I also saw some others using shoe strings to replace the fabric around the door handle and lock linkages inside the door.

The goal for my car is quiet, modernish luxury.
My plan on the floor is
strip it
POR15 it
then use the home depot roofing material as a sound deadener: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3KdEHoq2l4
then i plan to use this stuff as a heat shield and as a carpet pad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFIfnA08--g#t=3

Great post, and thanks for saving that 4-door! You are inspiring me to get to work on mine!

 

benjammin...you can get a sandblaster gun on ebay for 17 bucks delivered...just make sure you get the one with the hose and not the top feed one...i tested both..the other your constently feeding material into it by hand...and when you do get it look on line and it shows the modification ya make to it to stop the surge problem..2 steps a hole drilled in the feed pipe and grinding down the inner nossle to let more flow..i run mine on a 30 gallon compressor tank...dont be expecting it to be super fast..but it sure gets in the tight areas...the bigger areas are best cleaned with a electric angle grinder with with a wire wheel

 

since we are on tips..heres 1 more...weld nails on to pull stubborn dents..i did on my rocker panel...oh and heres what i did with that cheap sand blaster i did my inside doors..heres a pic in the process many moons ago...

 

I did some research yesterday and came to the same conclusion as you and i ordered a hose fed gun off amazon along with a moisture separator for like $30 total shipped.

I don't have an angle grinder, but i have electric drills with many batteries and multiple wire wheels...i will see how it goes but will probably get a grinder.

Thanks again!