Twig's 79 ChopTop delivery wagon build thread

Ok here is a build thread for Twig's(my wife) 1979 Oldsmobile ChopTop delivery Cutlass Cruiser. We pretty much bought it as you see it. But we have had to clean up and fix some problems.









As you can see all the body work was done for us, although we are going to strip it down over the winter to see what's under the paint. That and we are not to keen on the color. And there were some wiring problems under the hood. There was also only one bracket holding the PS pump. So it would flex to the point that there was no tension on the belt. Nor could you put any on it through adjustment. So my wife made a piece of stainless to put behind it and we have had no other problems. The car also has a Jegs crossmember to hold up the transmission.





Its a double hump to allow true dual exhaust. We also added the same touch screen radio/cd/dvd player. We are going to add a back up cam, but have yet to get to it.

 

The first real thing we added was the ShotGun blower scoop.





Now as it comes the only thing that holds it down is the wingnut on the small airfilter. After putting it on with the butterfly linkage hooked up there were three immediate problems. The first which isn't that bad is that the butterflies would not open all the way. Second which is related is that whenever my wife got on the gas the linkage for the butterflies would pull the scoop to the side as the scoop would just rotate around the carb. It we were running dual quads it wouldn't have happened. The other thing is this scoop is so heavy. It is a cast aluminum piece. So it was crushing the airfilter. So what we did was to add two braces from the front carb bolts to the underside of the scoop to hold the front of it up. This helped solve all the problems. I still have yet to fix the linkage to get it to open the butterflies all the way. But we will get to that. Now once we did all this we noticed the scoop was only about half way out of the hood. So we took a custom 2 inch spacer and put it inder the carb and it raised it up to the perfect height. There is one other problem. I measured the size of the scoop. then I laid out the proportions on the hood measuring off the centerline. Funny thing though. After I cut the hole the scoop was offset in the hole. Turns out the engine is from a van and may have offset motor mounts putting the engine off centerline. So I ended up making the hole bigger on the one side to compensate. Which isn't so bad as when I cut the hood I found some body filler in it so it is best just to get another virgin hood.

Here is the front bumper after my wife took the grinder to it. She also had to fix the rear custom bumper. She tried to weld it but whoever made it used some very thin metal so welding it was hard. We will end up using it as a template to make a new better one. The next mod will probably be this.

Once we have this mounted, a shift kit and custom aluminum console will follow.

 

Cool wagon love the chopped top.Get your wife to join us here we would love to have her here.

 

BTW here are some videos of her car.

[nomedia]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47Ug5Deq2sY[/nomedia]

[nomedia]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylxFwUTaqIU[/nomedia]

 

That's a nasty looking ride!
Love the scoop! What colour will you paint it?

 

you guys that actually work on your cars really pee me off

i need to win a lottery

 

Truthfully we haven't put that much into Twig's car. Only paid $2500 for it. I'll get hate mail for that now.

 

If we had your weather, our wives would never see us!

 

Are you kidding? Admiration mail! Good for you! We aren't cheap, just frugal!

 

Better hit the Outhouse!!!!!

 

Cool. My wagon cost even less. But the recent engine swap that I thought would be a cheap and quick, was neither. It took like 10 weeks mainely because of my migraine attacks. then a few weeks after that for parts. Must be a few months now. I will be going out here to finish up and my wagon should be good. My wagon cost me $1500. The engine which has some work done to it cost $400 off Ebay. But sadly I have put a couple hundred dollars into AN fittings for my Wire braided hoses. I had to replace the holes fuel system from the intake back to the tank. Had to replace the carb. I had to replace the entire fuel lines due to rust. So everyone out there with older wagons beware and check you lines.

 

We are thinking matt black like mine. But with somethings added to it like pin stripe flames.

 

Thanks for posting. I wish I had your resources and skills to do work on my car.

I love the delivery conversion from whoever it was that had it before your wife got it. But do not care for the chopped roof line. I would prefer to keep that stock. and I agree with y'all that paint scheme just looks sick (and I mean that quite literally and not as slang for cool).

 

79 olds cutlas cruiser wagon

Hi, I chopped this wagon. If you decide to sell it I would like to get her back. Her name is MOM and there is a rendering I did of her in Brians gargage. Did the drawing before she was cut. I gave the car to Brian with the understanding that if he were to get rid of her he would give me first shot. He must have forgotten because I just discovered yesterday at his open house that he sold MOM. Please contact me if you are thinking of getting rid of her. Please contact me. Thanks, Joe
610 764 7575 - bordlemayj@aol.com