Bought my Fourth car yesterday! 1947 Oldsmobile series 76 fastback

[Electronic M]

I've always loved classic cars. Back when I was around 10 I picked up an old (80's) book consumers guide to cars of the 40's and that influenced me to want a 40's fastback. I've been trying to find one that hasn't been ruined by customization or rust and isn't a 15K+ show quality restoration...Not an easy task. I might have had one sooner but the previous times I have found good cars I didn't have money...

Things finally came together yesterday. It started with a 59 caddy way up north that I didn't buy because it was in worse shape...I had taken the money for that caddy out before seeing it in person (didn't want to make 2 trips) and decided instead of redepositing it I'd put out a want ad. That led me to this...


The Car was originally sold by the local Oldsmobile and Harley dealership in a town in North Dakota to the town barber who was driving it atleast until 1982 by the inspection dates. Some years ago he sold it back to the same guy at the local Harley dealership that he bought it new from. The person at the dealership planned to restore it but never got around to it. He eventually sold it to Ron who planned to swap the original straight 6 for a V8 and build his wife a hotrod. Ron decided he had more projects than he was ever going to get to and sold it to me... Possibly the most amazing thing about the car (asside from it having almost every factory option) is that after the original owner signed over the original title nobody ever tried to retitle it in their name. I have the original title the original owner signed and gave to the harley dealer!...Once I retitle it in my name I will effectively be the SECOND owner on paper!

It was running and driving 3 years ago and garage stored since. The engine and brakes are free but the battery is bad and the previous owner thinks based on the popping out the carb it did when he tried to start it last week that a valve is stuck...I have a battery on order (them wide 6V jobs are surprisingly expensive) and me and my buddy Chris are going to try and get it running this weekend.

It's pretty much all complete, original and solid. There's a hole in the driver's side floor about the size of 2 golf balls and a finger hole in the trunk but otherwise she is solid. I think one of the previous owners installed front drop springs (they look too new to be original) which I will eventually replace to restore the stock ride height. I have the hubcaps but half the wheel clips for them are missing along with possibly the front carpet. The lower half was originally a less vibrant sage color (but less faded than the factory paint fender skirts) the top is factory paint...those 2 colors were actually about the same as the colors the living room of the first house I grew up in was (it was built within a year of the olds) originally (I chipped down to it more than once as a kid).

So far I've been able to verify the head lights and 2/3 of the tail lights work, and the radio dial lamp works...My battery charger has confirmed that the battery it came with is pretty worn out. Most of the other electrical is not responding.

Anybody know if these use the same door key as the ignition or trunk key? Ignition and trunk keys work but the door lock cylinders aren't responding to either key... lucky for me the doors are unlocked...

I don't have a spare ignition key (I should try to get one made soon) so I don't want to risk snapping it trying to persuade the doors.

[Electronic M]

It's got an Oldsmobile special engine tag on it that stumped the oldsmobile club president (according to the previous owner).

This morning I found a 1942 half dollar below the seat.

Time to see if ace hardware can copy the ignition key...EDIT: they had the right blank...more surprisingly I tried the ignition key in the driver's door and it just worked...Then I put some graphite powder in and it played dead again for a while before coming back. The passenger lock was much more stubborn. I had to play with it for a good 5 minutes and it only came around after some PB blaster. Both door locks seem to work consistently now...If it's good tomorrow I may start locking it at night.

[dishdude]

Pretty cool! Glad you were able to save it from a hotrodder, they're just as bad as the people turning console TVs into a dog beds.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by dishdude

Pretty cool! Glad you were able to save it from a hotrodder, they're just as bad as the people turning console TVs into a dog beds.

Thanks, though putting in a bigger engine is plan C...Plan A is make the original engine in it work, plan B get another 40's olds straight 6 (I think I know where I can get one). Plan C comes into effect if A and B fail/cost too much or if after driving the I6 I find it to be under powered for the rural highway and interstate driving I mostly do.

I know where a much rougher 47 Caddilac with flat head V8 motor with hydramatic that turns over is...that would be a period correct way to hop it up if the original engine is not up to the job...I wouldn't even have to change the column shifter since my olds is already factory Hydramatic.

[Electronic M]

So I got a new 6V battery today and tried starting it. Like the previous owner said it was popping out the carb...even shooting flame. So after confirming firing order, twisting the distributor 90 degrees in either direction and observing change in backfiring I cranked the distributor ~180 degrees and she started right up for the couple seconds a squirt of starting fluid is good for. After some whoops of joy (that had the folks run out scared I'd hurt myself), and a quick repeat demonstration for them, I added a couple table spoons of gas and a squirt of starting fluid and had her running for a good 30sec. She sounds pretty good (especially considering the distributor is set to a fairly random position) and almost idles on her own.

She'll probably be moving under her own power in a couple of days.

I'm super happy right now. There's no stuck valves or hard problems as far as I can tell... just little goofy stuff like the distributor cap wired backwards.

[WISCOJIM]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

After some whoops of joy (that had the folks run out scared I'd hurt myself), and a quick repeat demonstration for them

I would love to have seen that.

Congrats on the car and the Westy!

.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by WISCOJIM

I would love to have seen that.

Congrats on the car and the Westy!

.

Lol, Thanks. I did capture a phone video of the 30sec run after that.
This morning I dumped more gas down it and confirmed the transmission has drive and reverse and the brakes will stop it (it even squeaked the tires)...I only moved it a couple of car lengths in the driveway but I got to drive it and now I know more of the important stuff is working.

I have the distributor better configured (I was able to reconnect the steel vacuum advance line) soon I'll get to setting it correctly.
I need to figure out fuel before I try moving it more....the carb is either not getting fuel or not giving the engine fuel....or both.

[init4fun]

Congratulations on getting that car , I love it !!!!!

I will be watching for progress reports and I especially hope you will be restoring the original tube radio , gotta love a car built with not a single transistor in it

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Thanks, though putting in a bigger engine is plan C...Plan A is make the original engine in it work, plan B get another 40's olds straight 6 (I think I know where I can get one). Plan C comes into effect if A and B fail/cost too much or if after driving the I6 I find it to be under powered for the rural highway and interstate driving I mostly do.

I know where a much rougher 47 Caddilac with flat head V8 motor with hydramatic that turns over is...that would be a period correct way to hop it up if the original engine is not up to the job...I wouldn't even have to change the column shifter since my olds is already factory Hydramatic.

My uncle had a 1940 Olds that had a Hydramatic, AFAIK the first model to have it! Sometime during the war, the transmission failed. Parts were unavailable because of the war effort, so the dealer had to change the steering column and install a clutch and manual transmission, probably out of a salvage car. Needless to say, he wasn't very happy!

[Electronic M]

Friday evening after verifying fuel to the carb she started running off the tank so I took a drive to the end of the block all I had was 1st gear barely perceptible acceleration and banging in the trans as it struggled to get above 20MPH.

Yesterday me and my buddy Chris got the timing dialed in as good as we can (the repair manual basically instructs to time the distributor for the zero position of a user distributor adjustment lever, and to consult the user manual on adjusting that "octane selector" lever on the engine block for compensating for the specific gas you want to run.
We checked the trans level then took it for another block drive and this time the trans woke up and grabbed second or third and it cruised at 30.
We changed the oil. After that Chris worked on the carb....that became a case of temporarily making it suck less. The carb kit the previous owner threw in was for a Carter WO but the carb on it was a WA and things don't interchange between the 2. So there's no accelerator pump presently... While he did that I worked on fixing the electrical so that the brake light (among other things it supplies) fuse would stop blowing...I did that by rewiring the front and rear fog lights....the cloth insulation where they pass into the lamps and went through bare metal of the body was gone in 4" sections... I took some cloth wire from IIRC a radiola 44/46 power cord I replaced (the other cloth that bound the inner leads together was mostly shot but the insulation on the individual wires inside was most excellent) and used it to replace the bad sections visible outside the car...It worked well. I also extracted the radio.

Then we decided to motor to a station and fill the tank to dilute the old yellowey gas in it...we got it up to 50MPH and it rode well to 4 miles to the Heartland BP...then I was told that station was expensive and decided to try for the Pewaukee BP another ~4 miles away. In the portion of JJ that's nothing but swamp on either side I got her up to 60 and that seemed to be about all the trans would permit...it had been slowly getting better and smoother as we drove... sometimes grabbing second like a new car.

At the gas station I overshot the pump I wanted and after stalling it a couple of times trying to reverse (this isn't the first time that has happened) I gave up and went forward to the next pump. I added 15 gallons of premium and we set off... since we were almost half way around lake Pewaukee by that time we decided to take the long way back that would complete out circle of the lake....as we came to the stop sign of choice she gave a stuttery 1-2 shift to warm us we were being dump but we persisted...we had to take one steep hill in 1st which didn't help things much but we probably went about 6 miles before it got hot enough that it would either do 1st or try for second and bang and trash and keep doing that for long enough to prompt a stop...the old whale oil in the Hydramatic was good and hot and seafood smoke whafted...When we stopped an older couple in an acqua late 60s chevy truck that had been following us (they digged the olds as much as I do) stopped to chat and offer help.... After a few minutes letting it cool with the engine off we tried to set out in 1st then tried grabbing a higher gear....that didn't work well so Chris suggested flooring it in low to hit 30 then shifting back to drive, and that worked. We had only one stop sign between trying tho and home(something like 4 miles). We made it back and we still had like whafts of whale smoke. I took my IR thermometer and measured the head and thermostat housing and registered 178F the trans was a whopping 215F! A minute later Chris grabbed wad of paper towels and checked the trans fluid again...it was still full but this time the entire dipstick was smoking... It was hilarious watching that thing smoke. As I stopped laughing I almost got a picture as the heat got through the paper and Chris reflexively dropped it... But I think the camera of my mind will retain that image for decades to come.

After that we had dinner during which I showed Chris how the Westinghouse H840CK15 works but it decided not to have horizontal freq in locking range) then we changed the belt. The old one was stretched to about the end of the tensioner range and we made the mistake of picking one the same size...so it's tight enough to spin everything but the generator pulley barely has enough grip to charge...The fleet farm we got the belt from closed by the time we got back to try it, so that is a job for me to complete. We ironically almost bought a smaller one that would have worked.

Since it was dark we tackled the radio Chris has figured out that you can fix a non-working car radio vibrator by hooking the coil to a variac and cranking it up to 30V for an instant dropping it to 6V and repeating a few times....it came right back to life with the coil working and got good reception, but the lytic was getting hot, the dial pointer cord was snapped (before I bought it) and the speaker was buzzy at and above moderate volume....So I gave the radio a full recap, a new dial cord, and tried to deal with the speaker...the cone on the original is badly warped and I don't know if I can straighten it. I ended up trying another 6x9 I had and ended up cutting the frame of that new speaker to fit in the right radio case. I also added an RCA input and switch on the bottom so I can inject audio into the radio directly... the RCA jack I bolted through a vent hole, the switch I had to drill another 3/16" hole (same size as the vent holes) as an extension of the vent hole grid because there wasn't enough clearance inside the existing vents to fit the switch. I got it all together and working for 5 min and the speaker died....

It was very late so Chris went home and I gave up and went to sleep.

I'm almost caught up on the TV I skipped the last 2 days...if the rain has stopped I may grab a belt.
Tomorrow the new oil filter will come in from Chicago...it's top loading so I won't loose oil changing it.

In future weeks Chris and I plan to pull the transmission pan, clean everything we can (the dip stick had a lot of crap on it the first time we checked) do anything else we can, and refill it with dextron.
Hopefully we didn't mess it up too bad, and can make it good again without too much issue.

[Electronic M]

Well I got enough of a break in the rain to get the belt and oil filter changed and give it another 2 block test drive...The trans in drive range shifted fairly smoothly all the way up to 40MPH so I don't think I messed it up back on Saturday.

I'm at the point where the electrical is almost all sorted out...I need to get the sized screws on the license plate light off so I can change the bulb, check the sending unit for shorts/sunk float (I know the guage and wiring up to the tank is good), and see if I can fix or need to replace the dash light rheostat (which is part of the main light switch). I want to replace the wiper vacuum and wash fluid lines before I reinstall the radio since it's easier to get to them with the radio out.

[bgadow]

A great car; those pre-Rocket V8 Olds don't get talked about much but plenty of style & I've always loved those fastbacks. Funny how they fell out of style back then. From my experience a well-tuned flathead 6 can cruise you along just fine.

I've read a bit about linkage adjustments on those transmissions being critical (linkage to the carb?) The stuff I read referred to a some mid-50's models but mentioned they would shift rough & overheat if not adjusted right. My only experience with one was a beater '50 Cadillac I had for a short time. If my wife had let me I might have kept it as just that, a pure beater, but she'd have been too ashamed to ride in it!

I've had a bad itch for a while now to pick up another project car; looks like a I found one & hope it will be sitting in my driveway soon. Bringing a car back from the dead is just as satisfying as doing the same with an old TV.

[Electronic M]

So I've been busy....
Let's see if I can list off all the stuff I have done.
The trunk was turning into a rusty estuary during rain, so I replaced the disintegrated petrafied weather strip, buzzed the surface rust off and painted it with Eastwood rust encapsulator. I also drilled out the trunk rust hole to ½" and stuck that size metal hole cap from ACE in to plug it.
I have every light inside and out working... though the mercury switches on the trunk and glove box lamps are flakier than a bowl of Kellogg's....
The mystery wire under hood turned out to be the hood lamp wire...the original lamp socket (and presumably mercury switch) are AWOL but it uses a #55 bulb so that and a dial lamp socket are there for temporary.
I got the dash light rheostat going with sandpaper and PBlaster.
I dropped the gas tank and unstuck the sending unit to make the fuel guage work (more on the tank later).
Got the clock working...The winding solenoid switch contacts were dirty, the roto-pendulum was sticky, and the fuse was missing and a odd physical size so I had to cut down a standard size fuse.
Every hose under dash is new. After some lube and coaxing the wipers work now but they don't go back and forth on their own...I pull the knob out and they move energetically to their stops and stay till I push the knob back in and then energetically return to their rest position...I can move them back and forth quickly if I keep working the knob. The washer fluid pump jar and bracket was missing so I bought a vintage one off eBay...I chose well; all it needed was the pump opened and the plunger gaskets cleaned with PBlaster and reassembly to work. I changed the wiper blades too.
I installed a turn signal switch. That was a couple days puttering around.... Especially since I used the front parking lights as turnsignals but wanted them to also work as parking lights...To make that happen I wired 3 relays(a comment here about it having no solid state devices influenced me to choose relays) together into a 3 input, 2 output XOR gate. So the parking lamps can do double duty.
The new napa brake light switch after ~3 weeks of use yesterday started to intermittently stick on and randomly turn on while parked which I need to address.
I had to rewire the ignition switch since everything that should be off when the key was off was on and vice versa (the sole exception was the heater which works well). Some previous owners rewiring left a lot to be desired...
I also got new hubcap clips installed and got the hubcaps on. Replaced the trunk Hydramatic badge with a reproduction, and installed a repro dome light lense to replace the missing one.
I also patched all the noticable exhaust leaks out to the rear axle so now above idle it no longer sounds like a farm tractor having a bad day.
The radio antenna has been replaced I had to mix and match pieces from the old and new ones to make it work. Radio gets great reception with it, but I think the modified replacement speaker I put in it died since the vibrator is running but I get absolutely no audio from it.
I figured out the rear accessory lamp is a back up lamp. It's gear selector switch is powered by the parking lamp circuit such that it only works with the other lights on...the Hydramatic does not have a dedicated lever position for park but does have a parking pawl that is engaged with the engine off and the shifter in reverse.... I'm thinking about changing the parking lamp to the switched terminal of the ignition so reverse will work with parking lights off but only when the engine is running.

When I did the sending unit I learned the previous owner either sucks at cleaning out gas tanks or lied about cleaning it...I probably should have fixed it when I had it dropped but it was late and I didn't have the stuff to clean it... draining it to fix it was poorly planned and between dropping the drain plug in a 70s Johnson boat tank (and the fiasco of retrieving it) and not having enough Jerry can capacity and having to make a long drive for more I lost a lot of productive time. The flare nut for the fuel line leaked a bit at the end, I retightened it the next day and it was good for a week then started leaking which caused more issues.

Last weekend me and Chris intended to pull the trans pan and rebuild the carb...what we managed to do was adjust the brakes, unstick the E-brake, grease wheel bearings and steering points, pull the trans pan and sort of fix the fuel tank leak.... there's a brass adapter fitting that split when we tried to tighten it to stop the slow leak...which created a fast leak...it cost us the carb rebuild time and still isn't perfectly fixed... between that and the crap in the tank (which I'll circle back to) I'm thinking about dropping the tank to clean it (the fuel line is at bottom so I have to drain the tank to fix the leak which is better than half the process to drop the tank).

The trans let out ~1.5 of it's 3 gallons of whale oil (the rest stayed in the torque converter, and removing the pan showed the bottom had a lot of tenacious sludge...carb cleaner and brake cleaner barely touched it so I had to scrub it with a wire brush...the window mesh trans filter was equally plugged with sludge... I'm impressed the trans worked at all with how plugged it was. There were some gear teeth ends in the bottom of the pan... fairly sludged ones so I suspect old damage. The trans sometimes requires moving the car forward to get reverse gear mesh so I suspect those chips are on the reverse gear. After cleaning and reassembling the trans and everything else it ran a bit better but after a few miles it still started bucking and not wanting to handle throttle....My intuition kicked in then and I thought the metal fuel filter might be doing it. The next day I test drove it to AutoZone and on the return trip it wouldn't do more than 30 unless you accelerated on a down hill and you couldn't give it much gas without it sputtering and bucking...when I got home I immediately changed the fuel filter and took it back on the road. The old metal filter was about completely clogged. I could barely blow through it on the pump side and when I blew through it backwards on the carb end about half a Titanic's worth of orange bits and liquid came out.... So how did it drive without a plugged fuel filter?...It drove great I had almost peppy acceleration, no bucking and it got all the way to 70MPH before I decided I was a bit too far above the speed limit and backed off.
The new transparent plastic fuel filter is already starting to saturate with dirt so I'm thinking about dropping the tank and cleaning out with the marbles, CLR and slosh method. If I add teflon to the fuel line threads to stop the slow leak then I have to drain the tank which is half the work to drop the tank...

I've been working on patching the floor too. I removed the door jamb rubber covered metal step grip and found more for under it...I could sweep it under the rug by reinstalling the step grip but I plan to fix it today if I can. The metal I patched the driver's floor with is a little thin but I couldn't have shaped it to match the ribbed contours of the original with my megar tools if it was thicker. It is a small patch and ties into sturdier metal backed with structure so it should be ok...at the very least it'll keep the squirrels out.


That's where I'm at... Still plenty to do but it's getting better all the time.

Originally Posted by bgadow

A great car; those pre-Rocket V8 Olds don't get talked about much but plenty of style & I've always loved those fastbacks. Funny how they fell out of style back then. From my experience a well-tuned flathead 6 can cruise you along just fine.

I've read a bit about linkage adjustments on those transmissions being critical (linkage to the carb?) The stuff I read referred to a some mid-50's models but mentioned they would shift rough & overheat if not adjusted right. My only experience with one was a beater '50 Cadillac I had for a short time. If my wife had let me I might have kept it as just that, a pure beater, but she'd have been too ashamed to ride in it!

I've had a bad itch for a while now to pick up another project car; looks like a I found one & hope it will be sitting in my driveway soon. Bringing a car back from the dead is just as satisfying as doing the same with an old TV.

From what I understand the bands adjustment is critical for a proper 2-3/3-2 shift. The throttle adjustment may be important too... There's a proceedure in the repair manual and I plan to look at that after I rebuild the carb.

Your right about this being fun. At the very least it's keeping me busy. Work has been slow lately (most days I have 3 meetings and an hour of other stuff tops). So I have spent a lot of time on the olds.

Good luck on your new project.

[WISCOJIM]

Lots of progress!

Snow tire in the trunk?

.

[bgadow]

When I dropped the fuel tank on my 51 Ford it looked terrible inside; I'd planned on coating it so I ordered a POR-15 fuel tank sealer kit. First step they include is an enzymatic cleaner. After that was done the tank looked so nice I never bothered to coat it; that was nearly 10 years ago. There must have been 1/4" or more of hard, black sludge in the bottom (lead?) and that cleaner really knocked it out. I haven't had trouble with clogged filters since then, though I do see a bit of silt in the glass bowl on the fuel filter.

One of the many great points of a car like this: you can DRIVE it! You don't have to be afraid of stone chips or door dings. I drive my Ford year round (avoiding rain), usually 3k/year. If I want to go down a dirt road...I go down the dirt road. Henry II built it to drive, right?