1969 Cutlass 442 - Golden Nugget

[Big Dawg]

Hey everyone,

I have been on the forum for about 4 yrs and would like to properly Introduce myself and my 69 442.



Name is Am, located in beautiful British Columbia...Coquitlam to precise.

I bought my ride in Aug 2012 for a whopping $2500 Canadian. I drove it home and boy was it a rough ride with major mechanical and electrica issues. I knew that I would be doing alot to the car, first I was going to keep it original as possible, but this pro-touring site gave me so many ideas. The car has typical rusting in the fenders and drivers floor pan which will be taken care of after the mechanical and electrical.

I eventually decided to get it mechanically and electrically safe for me to take my family for some drives without worrying about it breaking down.

I didnt have open cheque book so I did things in bits.

2 years ago in March went to the Bahamas for a vacation and came back with a Torn Patellar Tendon playing volleyball like it was 1999. In March of this year my family and I went to Las Vegas for a family vacation and I caught a virus of some and fell into a coma and life support for 25 days at UMH in Vegas and another 2 months in BC Hospital. I lost over 65 lbs and had relearn how to walk and talk and still am going to rehab weekly. I have been off work on disability so I have had alot of time to do the fine things like wiring and I interior stuff as it didnt require too much from me strength wise. Plus it keeps me sane and feeling somewhat normal. It's been tough emotionally and mentally. My wife and kids and family have been my #1 support system and the next best thing is being outside working on my car to the best of my abilities.

First thing I tackled was the brakes and suspension with just regular OEM stuff and got a hold of 455 Olds motor, as i carefully stored my numbers matching 400 (on a pallet sitting in the garage).

I will be posting a bunch of pics I have taken over the years.

Here is the car when I got it home....gave it a quick wash.


Replaced the brakes and Suspension with stock OEM (as this was what I was thinking of doing at first.




This was my old tired 400

[Big Dawg]

So I tackled the motor and transmission next...cleaned up the engine bay as best I could.




Here are a few pics of the motor in the assembly stages and installed in the engine bay

[Big Dawg]

Don't know what happened but I am unable to add anymore pics...told me to contact the administrator . Will try again tomorrow.

[Larry Callahan]

Don't know what happened but I am unable to add anymore pics...told me to contact the administrator . Will try again tomorrow.

Can you try again? Maybe there was a temporary hiccup? I can't find any reason why you can't upload pictures at the moment. You don't have too many in one post and none of the file sizes are too large.

[Big Dawg]

A couple pics of the 468 Olds installed and of the rebuilt TH400 with a Stage 2 Shift Kit and way beefier internals, also added drain plug to make it easier for oil changes.

[Big Dawg]

So after a year if it sitting and reading countless threads on here, I decided to change up the suspension and brakes again. Decided to go with disc conversion in the rear and 6 piston 14" wilwoods out front with a Wilwood master cylinder and proportioning valve. Realized the wheel studs were too short after the conversion so went ahead and pressed in longer studs





Also decided to go with dual viking coilovers front and rear

[Big Dawg]

Can't figure out why the pics aren't loading the correct way

Also went with tubular upper and lower a arms as well.

The next thing I did was rip the old interior out and wiring harness out of the car. I cleaned up all floor panels and trunk and used a wire brush and got almost all of the surface rust cleaned up. My son and I laid down some POR15 and put in some sound deadner

[Big Dawg]

The next thing I did was clean up the front grill and go to new headlights, and installed a brand new EZ wiring kit...the old harness was a hack job by the previous owners.

[Big Dawg]

Next thing I did was tackle the interior, before this I had no idea what hog rings were and how to use a hog ring pliers....but after some blood sweat and tears I can say I am pretty good at reupholstering seats. I used brand new PUI seat Covers and kept the interior looking original as possible with oem carpet as well. Cleaned up all the seatbelts as well.

Before




After

[Big Dawg]

Here are some pics with the interior reinstalled




While I had the dash out I decided to clean up the bezels and levers. I also decided to install a retrosound stereo and installed a.set of 6x9 speakers. Also went with Dakota Digital Dash.

[Big Dawg]

I decided to go with an electric fan setup and decided to get Dual Fans from the wrecker out of a 2002 Windstar van....with some minor trimming and some homemade brackets I got it mounted up to the rad and and the rad cover. I set up 2 separate relays. One of the relays is connected to the Fitech Fan Control as I decided to go EFI and one of the relays went to a manual switch under the dash. I also installed a EFI Tank and used a clean Braided line setup with proper AN fittings.

[Big Dawg]

Here are a few pics of the car on stands after putting on the 20 Boss Riddlers....at first I thought I wasnt goi g to like the look, but now I really think they look good on the car.




I took the car out for drive a few weeks ago and boy did it have some pep. Lots of power.....chirping the tires in 3rd. Took my wife and kids out and they loved it. My wife said her neck was sore from it hitting the back of head rest when the car was changing gears. My 5yr old daughter calls it a jack in the box car because of the manual roll up windows. My 9 yr son said it was the second happiest time for him, the first was when I came home from the hospital after 3 months.

The best part for me was no leaks or overheating....everything worked as it should and the fans worked as they should. All the electrical worked just the way it should.



Here is evening shot with my kids in the car....see my daughter wearing her zebra toque...lol.


Again sorry for the lopsided pics.

Thanks again for all the inspiration and ideas from this site.

Any feedback good or bad would be appreciated.....when the weather is better here I will start tackling the body and start some bodywork and patch panels.

Have a great New Years and please Drive responsibly

[tim222]

The car looks great, I may have missed it but what lower a-arms did you go with?
Also, how do the windstar fans do at keeping the temps down?

[Big Dawg]

The car looks great, I may have missed it but what lower a-arms did you go with?
Also, how do the windstar fans do at keeping the temps down?

I used the Global West A -Arms.........the fans work great....they are a push pull style fan......the fan that is on the fitech relay is a push.....the manual switch operates the pull fan.

The car went over 180 when I had just started in the driveway, the second the fan went on the temp dropped to 169 in a matter of a couple minutes. Than when i began driving with the cool weather the temp went down to 160 and stayed there.

I will going to aftermarket rear upper and lower control arms in the next month, but first will be installing a hydroboost setup out of a 95 Astro can. Just waiting for it to arrive...ebay special.

[Big Dawg]

I got these specs for the Windstar fans from 99-03

Test Results:

2000 Ford Windstar Fan Assembly
left fan: 340ml= 13.3inches
right fan: 390ml=15.3inches

left fan: 60.3cmm=2129.193cfm
right fan: 64.4cmm=2273.964cfm
this was rated at 1935 RPMS
4403.157 cfm total......

ml= milliters
cmm= cubic meters per minute
cfm= cubic feet per minute
conversion from cmm to cfm done by cmm x 35.31= cfm

[Kcrain]

What headlights are those and where did you get them? I have a 69 chevelle with the 4 headlights and selections on the 5 3/4 headlights are slim.

[Big Dawg]

I got them from octane lighting on ebay a couple of years ago...it included the HID kit with it which I did not use....I used the headlights and the bulbs they came with.

[Chocolate Apocalypse]

Glad you're doing better, great project too...though I am a little biased when it comes to Oldsmobiles lol Mine was originally Saturn Gold with a white vinyl roof and white interior, hoping to get it back to that later this year.

[TimMC]

Looks great. Where are the gauges from.

[Big Dawg]

Looks great. Where are the gauges from.

Dakota Digital.....Matt from Matt's Classic hooked them up for me.