She's Home!

Post date: Jul 16, 2018 2:39:49 AM

Got the car home on 7/3/18 and took four days off work to start putting it back together. As always, I've picked the hardest way to do things.

But, the paint is simply gorgeous. Pictures don't do it justice. There's a ton of pearl so it really sparkles in the light.

The work done by the shop is really good. The only problem is there is a ton of primer and filler dust and that stuff is sticky....

First step was to start laying down the sound deadening. I'm using the products and approach from sounddeadenershowdown.com. Getting down the main layer took a few hours since they were big pieces and I added a layer of radiant barrier.

Then I got the windows in. Naturally, the power window motors sit right where I cut the speaker holes. After some deliberation I decided to go with the kick panel speaker mounts. I'm using normal speakers so the main brace behind the kick had to be removed and the vertical panel "massaged" for clearance. I wired in a couple of relays with some fancy magic so hitting button 4 on the remote rolls down both windows. The front window slides were in pretty good shape - just cleaned and lubed with caliper grease. The B85 molding went on pretty easy and the black works exceptionally well with the blue.

Then there's the quarter windows. Man, I hate those things. I made the mistake of thinking I'd get them mounted myself - since it would take a while - so Shaun can get straight to helping me align them. Well, I did it all backwards, and the videos that are out there aren't very helpful for a Cutlass Supreme, so I ended up scratching the film a little in the corners. But got them in and we got all the windows aligned.

I mounted the roof rail and weatherstrip and skipped the seal sealer in the corner. It's not really necessary, right? Well, I could see daylight through the corner from the inside of the car. No bueno. I also tried to mount the blowout clips by using a hot screwdriver. Complete failure. So then I epoxied the clips in place. Yeah, no better. So another $20 for two clips and Shaun installed them the right way. Add some seal sealer, and that bit is finally done. I'm going to wait a few days to make sure everything settles right then I'll glue in the weatherstrip.

Then the stereo. As mentioned I went for the kick panel mounts. They're actually much more solid than I expected, so no rattles or noises. I used the ones from Retro Sound since they were advertised to tilt the speakers towards the passengers. They do, a little. No idea if they're really worth twice the price of the generic ones. Shaun also closed up a random Chevelle Hole in the driver panel.

The sub was always a problem. I had just strapped the sub box down to the trunk floor, but the sound proofing was isolating the trunk from the cabin. While poking around for kick panel info I ran across https://the-shop-llc.myshopify.com and they had a very nice idea. Look for their Chevelle sub boxes and package trays. Obviously they don't make parts that fit a CS, so Shaun and I had to do it the hard way. I did have to move down to a 10" sub to fit the package tray, but now it's firing straight into the cabin so that's plenty. Shaun whipped up a new box that bolts to the package tray and I got it carpeted, mounted and bolted the amp to it. Looks almost professional.

I cranked it up to "painful" and there are no rattles, buzzes or any other oddities. Sounds great and everything is fitting together really well. It is quite fun to watch the speakers on the package tray work, almost too bad they'll be covered.

The package tray is still in work, but it'll be wrapped in the correct color vinyl and the center insert will be wrapped in speaker grill cloth. Having access to Shaun's bosses wood shop - and Shaun's woodworking skills - has been a huge help.

Bonus activity: The kick panel crowds into the parking brake lever, and the Kappa speakers don't count as "low profile" grills, so some caressing and influencing had to occur. Good think I rebuilt the mechanism ... five years ago? Longer? .... because I had to remove the arm by itself. The Autowire fuse panel got mounted overlapping the parking brake mount so the unit can't be removed without some serious intentions. But since I removed the rivet I could just unbolt the arm and do what needed to be done.

That'll work just fine. Sure. Yup. Ahem.

I made some water shields from thick drop cloth and more sound deadening for the doors and mounted the door panels. Straightforward but time consuming to cut out all the various bits. But, they fit perfect and I'm really digging how the blues work together. Still have some tweaking to do on the passenger door, swap in my old stock repainted armrest bases and - probably - recover the armrest pads I have in the correct color vinyl.

Got the rear seat back torn apart and slathered in rust converter. Thankfully no surprises were hiding in the seat back. Hopefully this week I can wrap the package tray and reassemble the rear seat back. I really hope I can get the package tray done correctly in one try because it's almost $200 in vinyl!

All in all it's progressing really well. As usual there's a few interesting detours here and there but no major problems. I think it should be all together within a couple of months, then it's just start saving up for wheels.

The only mistakes so far:

Put a screwdriver through one speaker's surround. It's a small cut, still works just fine.

Oh, and the body shop came in almost $5k under budget!