1973 Chrysler Town and Country vs 1974 Olds Custom Cruiser

Agreed the back pass door seam needs imediate attention and it needs a back bumper or outer skin at least look at the inner skin and check the boxes the shocks bolt into but that olds LOOKS pretty damn nice dude!

 

Thanks! I have actually already located a nicer bumper.

 

The Oldsmobile - hands down. I don't see any area where the Chrysler would beat the Olds.

 

8 track?

That wins, hands down.

 

Here is that little story Mike was alluding to:

http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2009/08/01/hmn_feature4.html

Both are neat and appear to be solid wagons, but I would go with the Olds! I think the Oldsmobile will be cheaper to own and more comfortable.

 

Given my choice of the 2, I agree, the Olds is the better buy. That Dy-Noc is almost impossible to replace properly, though. Notice how the paint colour 'bleeds' through. General Motors used semi-transparent Dy-Noc to allow for that, so that the wood tone blended with all of the different paint colours.

I still say option number is the way to go. Use the money to get the Ford up and running. That would be my hands down favorite of the 3 wagons.

 

The Ford is running and driving. I need the get the woodgrain put back on, some new carpet, sending unit for gas gauge, AC charged, and other odds and ends.

 

Questions

Since I have never owned a clamshell, I have a couple of questions.

- IF - and yes, I said IF - I were to buy it, is there something I need to check once I get it home?

- Is there some type of regular maintenance that needs to be performed to keep them working properly?


I have an idea of what I want to offer. Here's the BIG question. What do you folks think would be a fair offer based on the car's condition and mileage?

 

I would like to see the underside of the Olds. If it is clean under there then, for the same money, I would take the Olds. The 70's T&C's are one of my favorite wagons but, from what i can see here, I would take the Olds in this case.

 

Well, as the owner of a '73 Olds clamshell, here's what I'd say. The tailgate motor system is pretty robust. There are lubrication points suggested in the factory service manual, and I'd get the '74 Olds factory service manual if I were you and acquired this car. The motor and drive system are not difficult to get to, especially the motor, which is right behind the trim panel on the left side of the rear area opposite the spare tire compartment.

The tailgate should go up and down smartly and quickly when you turn the key in the rear key switch. If it is slow or bogs down, I would avoid using the tailgate until I've taken it apart, lubricated appropriately, and, if it's slow, found out exactly why and corrected it. While replacement motors are out there, I wouldn't really want to have to try to find one. Better to fix a slow system so the motor isn't taxed, unless it's the motor itself, and it needs to be replaced.

As far as the rear window, it, too, should move quickly up into the roof and back. The mechanism is gotten at by removing the spare tire and looking into the well toward the rear. Again, both the factory service manual AND the '74 GM Fisher Body Manual will be very helpful things to own if you get this car. Much of the discussion of the tailgate and especially rear window mechanisms is in the body manual.

The rubber channel on each side should be lubricated. It might very well be dried and cracked, but replacement rubber is not available from the usual rubber weatherstripping supply houses. Any NOS rubber you find is likely to be just as dried out as what's on your car. If you search on this site, you'll find a thread where someone said the rubber cowl weatherstripping on late '80s Ford vans will work, but I've never looked into this.

The Old Cars Price Guide puts the average value of a '74 Custom Cruiser in "car show" (20-footer) condition at about $4,000. At the next step down ("runs and drives but needs full restoration"), the value is about $2,000. Based on these, I would say the car is worth maybe $3,000 given the issues with the rear bumper and elsewhere.

I paid $1500 for mine in January 2010. It was complete and ran fine, but it was partly disassembled because the owner had started to restore the interior and then took ill and died (he was in his 70s). Everything was there, and he had already incurred the heavy costs (had the front bumper rechromed, but it hadn't yet been reinstalled, and treated the car to a $5,000 paint job in 2005). The only significant expenses I incurred were new carpeting and reupholstered front seat (about $1000 total) and four new tires. Other than that, it was just some time spent reassembling everything.

Here's what it looks like today. Just three days ago, a guy at work offered to buy it from me. I told him not right now. I'm having too much fun with it.





In my opinion, don't think too hard about this and just buy the damn thing! (assuming you can get it for a fair price). These cars are cool as anything, always turn heads, and everyone wants to see the clamshell in operation when you go to car shows, especially children under the age of 10, who are fascinated by it. (Nobody ever asks to see a more conventional, two-way tailgate in operation!)

I look forward to hearing that you've bought this car, and welcome to the clamshell (and old Oldsmobile) club!

 

To follow up a bit on the above, here's some photos of the car when I acquired it.

The first photo is as it sat in the prior owner's garage. Yes, those are folding lawn chairs on the roof, but they were set on there carefully and were resting on the luggage rack protective strips, so the paint was not scratched. As you can see, the front bumper was not on the car, and the car needed a good washing as it was covered with dust. But there was a real gem of a car under there!

The car had sat here pretty much untouched from when the owner took ill in 2007 until I arrived in early 2010.




Here's a couple of shots of the rear area on the day I acquired it. Note in the second photo the exposed tailgate motor and drive mechanism at the far left. You can see the attachment of the lift mechanism to the tailgate in the lower left, and you can see the drive gear and the motor itself basically straight up from this. The motor is the little black rectangular thing with the wire connector coming out of the back of it.

Three easy-to-get-at bolts hold the motor on, but the motor gear engaged to the big drive gear is what holds the tailgate in any position other than fully down, so if you need to remove the motor, the tailgate should be either all the way down, or it should be supported so that it doesn't suddenly fall into the floor as you pull the motor off. You could lose a finger or two if they're in the wrong place when the tailgate falls as it is heavy. With any luck, your car's tailgate mechanism is fine, and you'll have no reason to disassemble this area of the car.






If you are wondering why this area was all disassembled, it's because the owner was trying to track down a problem with the tailgate mechanism as it wouldn't work at all after the car had come back from being repainted. I presume he suspected the motor, but I removed it, hooked it to a 12 volt supply, and it worked fine. I ultimately traced the problem to loose wiring on the rear key switch.



Here's the rear area as it SHOULD look, fully reassembled.




Yes, that's an aftermarket speaker on the trim panel ahead of the spare tire compartment. So sue me.

Actually, the prior owner had some classic '70s electronics on the car, including a rear speaker in this location (so there was already a speaker cutout there, anyway, so I didn't feel too much pain when I cut a corresponding speaker hole on the left side) connected to the stock AM radio, and a CB radio mounted under the dash with the kind of hookup that automatically silenced the car's radio whenever a call came through on the CB. Pretty cool for the time, but I took all of this out of the car as this is the 2010s, not the 1970s!


Note also the condition of the rubber on either side of the rear window, which was up in the roof. It's not bad, but it is a bit crispy. As I said, I've not done anything to try to replace it as it works well enough and keeps water out whenever the car gets wet, which is usually only when I wash it. I kind of want to leave well enough alone.

 

Prof - As you can see, we've got plenty of 'clamshell' experience here, so whatever troubles you might have with it, I'd be pretty sure we can help you solve them.

 

oh yea i think so

 

I never doubted that for a minute.

 

So what's happening here? Did you buy one of these cars?