1961 Oldsmobile Fiesta Wagon restoration

The car is home for the time being. We are working on putting in the Dynamat sound deadening so it can go to the interior shop. Also waiting for the exterior trim to come back from the polishing shop. We had tried a new guy, the one piece we saw was great, the rest not so great so we took it where it should have gone in the first place.....now its holding things up!
The wheels are 18" Boss 338's

That is an LQ9 LS motor out of a Denali under that rolled over at 15,000 klms (10,000 miles). Trying to figure out how to dress that up as it has the taller coil packs.... any ideas would be appreciated!

 

Very nice! For the engine dress-up idea:
http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2011/03/holley-performances-1967-chevy-c-10-shop-truck.html

You can also check Leno's site, as he did a piece on this P/U. Thought the engine looked pretty cool. I'm sure those 'covers' could be made to look 'Oldsmobile-ish'

 

Thanks Krash. I have a set of those fake valve covers, trimmed out to accommodate the A/c compressor: ready & waiting....... just to discover the A/C unit we had won't fit; so for now there is no need for the compressor. None the less the covers wont squeeze on now either, too many hoses and stuff in the way.

I will have to check out the Leno truck! Problem will likely be that I don't have Leno's fabricators on staff!

 

It's not Leno's truck. He was just featuring it in a video segment. It's actually the shop truck for Holley Performance.

 

Thanks again Krash. I thought you meant there was a second truck to look at....

 

It was one of those weeks when you swear you are going to get more done than you actually do. Sound deadening mats being installed, roof is done. One picture shows the steering wheel that I restored now fully painted.

Also a couple of pics underneath. Those stupid arms were ordered to be powder-coated black and we waited quite a while for delivery and when they finally arrived they were red. Oh well, a splash of color never hurt anyone I guess.

 

Do the sound deadening mats also help keep heat down as well?

 

Yes it does. Makes a huge difference in the old cars for sound, vibration and heat. Our 64 Ford F-100 is an amazing example. All old pick up truck are notorious for noise, road noise, engine noise, sound reverberation etc.

Most old cars 'wear you out' with the general noise: if you spend a weekend in them, like going some distance to a show and staying etc, by the time you get home and happen to hop in a modern car it is glaringly apparent the difference in sound.

Our Ford is a pleasure to drive 'noise wise' plus it is black so the heat would be unbearable in city conditions between the heat of the sun and radiant heat from the pavement in the summer without dynamat. Darn expensive, especially when you are doing a wagon but well worth the cost VS the final results on how nice the car is to drive. It does add weight though so you wouldn't want to add it if you are a serious drag racer. We do all of our vehicles with it.

 

update on 61

Well the sound deadening is all in, took just over 3 boxes of the stuff but the car will be so much nicer with it. The side trim is finally back from the polishing company and the car will be going back to our body shop to have that installed on Monday. Our upholstery shop is lined up, is working on the seats and we will be dropping off the door panels at the first of the week as well. I have been working on the custom speaker box (a converted Coleman cooler) and it will be going for paint when the car goes back to the shop for deficiencies. Looks like everything is coming together nicely: just in time for us to head south for the winter so it will be grinding to a halt. We will be home for Christmas so the car will be going to the upholstery shop at that time to be completed but I don't think he will have it done before we head back south......not sure how that will time out. May have to fly home for pick up!

 

I'm thinking about doing it at least from the front seat forward.

 

Well we are as far as we can go with the car for now. We dropped the car off back at our body shop yesterday for them to fix a few deficiencies and install the side trim and does it ever look great! I will try to take the car outside tomorrow and take a few better pictures but I couldn't resist snapping these with my cell phone.

The upholstery shop has our seats and door panels: colors have been chosen: we are going to do a slightly custom version of the stock interior. He intends to work on these pieces over the next few weeks: when we come back home for Christmas we will take the car to him to install everything, do the carpet and created the flooring inserts for the 'wagon' area.

 

WOW!!! That looks fantastic. I don't blame you for wanting to snap some fast photos. Thanks for sharing!!