1955 Oldsmobile 88

So here are some shots of the engine bay...

324 V8







Notice the very large air breather...



Very small opening...

Kanter had a rebuild kit for my carb. Cost... around $60.

Got to looking around and O'Rileys had a rebuild kit for $15!!
And everything made in the USA. Turned out to be a very good kit.

So...

Very dirty, not working well carb...






Fully cleaned and ready for reassembly...




Back on, clean, and working great!
I know it's funny looking.
From very large air cleaner that doens't breath, to a tiny little guy.
But it works, and gets a lot more air...

This fixed the hesitation that the carb had when you tried to start from a stop.
It also warmed up much faster.

There was also a bent rod that is apart of the linkage between the carb and trans. This was both keeping the trans from getting the correct pressure feed back and it didn't allow the carb to open full throttle. The carb was only opening about 1/2 way.

It now accelerates and shifts great!

Great progress!

good work man...get the little things done and be ready to cruise

Trying. Hoping to work on the master cylinder issue the rest of the weekend.

Got everything switched over.
Now I just need to bleed the lines, hook up the vacuum line and she'll be ready to go!

Here is the box that I had to remove.


It allowed "fresh air" in at the drivers feet. Never really felt much with it open, and I'm pretty sure that is where one of the leaks was coming from.

So out came the box. I used the box for the template. Cut a plate out of 16 gauge steel. The philips head screws that held the box on were a pain to take off. Had to drill a couple out. So bought new bolts to put in their place.

Painted the plate, cut the holes for the master cylinder and mounted everything up.
(The extra hole is a drain hole, need to hook a 90deg elbow and hose to drain)

The lines were pretty easy to run.
The splitter block for the front brake lines was almost directly below the M.C.




Rear line is ran and hooked in. Old pedal and M.C. have been removed.



I was able to use the brake light switch that came with the pedal

When I drove the car home there was a lot of banging and clanking. When I got it home, I really checked it out. Looked at all the body mounts expecting to find loose, missing, or body rot at these locations.

Nope... everything looked great and solid.

Well... when the front bar/grill has 8 bolt holes and is being held on with 2 loose bolts on the bottom and 1 long bolt on top with no nut, it tends to be a little loose and kinda sorta moves a lot.

6 new bolts with rubber washers between the braces and grill and now it drives super quite.

whats with the little blue ground wire

JRiggs wrote:whats with the little blue ground wire

I knew someone would ask about that.

That's the power wire off the electric fan. The two colors from the fan are black and blue. That was just temporary to check to make sure it was working and moving the correct direction. I have to finish running the lines and hooking it up correct.

Looks like the Olds is really moving along.

I seen the remains of a 55 at Starks and seen a couple in Modoc if you ever need any parts.

I rewired the fan to an on/off switch inside the car.

Replaced the front shocks. Yea... they were the original shocks.

I got the brakes bleed. It stops with ease! Not worried about front disks at all right now. It's amazing how well it stops!

Ready for warm weather to start tackling more things.

Oh... also figured out that the coolant leak is just from the bottom radiator hose. It is not on all the way. It's is kinda cockeyed keeping it from sealing correctly. So I don't think I'll have to have any radiator work done!

Good deal!!! I seen you cruising around yesterday. Aryan and myself were out in the Mustang for a while.

Benjamin, you're really getting a lot done with this one. Glad to see it.

Z-YOU wrote:Benjamin, you're really getting a lot done with this one.

Yea, the other one was at a stage where I didn't have the right tools, space, or time. I know how to do a lot on cars, pretty good at figuring out most things. The 88 is where I'm able to do a lot of things to it on my own.

It's going to need body work and some other things that I'm going to need help on, but just the pure fact that I can move it around and take it to someone's garage that can help me do this work is huge.

Next couple things I'm going to tackle...

Wiper motor
Blower motor
Trunk floor
Fixing the floor boards correctly

Well, like a lot of us the rain has kept progress on everything, car, yard, etc. slow. Haven't gotten to the above list yet. Haven't had a lot of time to do much lately. Right now I'm saving up for the front wheel bearings. That's going to run me right around $250.

I had a little bit of time tonight so I thought I'd tackle something small.
When the car was last painted they decided to paint most of the chrome. On several places on the car the paint has peeled off and you can tell the chrome is still in ok shape. They didn't take the chrome off, they just painted right on top. From what I found tonight, I think I'm going to find most of the chrome is in ok shape and that there are a few ruff spots so they decided to just paint all the chrome.

I didn't like that the back up lights were painted. The chrome rings were painted flat black and the glass was painted red. This is a standard 88, not a Super 88, so the fact that it has reverse lights means someone ordered it that way.

So here is what they looked light right off the car...




This is after I stripped them...


This is after I polished the trim rings, cleaned the glass and cleaned off as much of the excess glue holding the lens together...


Passenger side installed...


Before and after of the driver side...


If the guy had used glue that dried clear you would barly be able to notice that the lens is broken. The one trim ring is in ruff shape, but I think it looks better this way than how it was before. I'm going to slowly work my way around the car and get all the paint off of the chrome.

No need to spend big money for the front wheel bearings,I have a complete front suspension including drums that should have good bearings and came from a 60,000 mile car. The lower control arms are rusted out where the spring sits but the rest are fine and they have been in my shed since 96.

Ok. How much do you want for them? Depending upon what you want for those, I might get the intake and carb from you at the same time.

Thanks Jeff for the parts!

I got the four barrel intake and carb.

I also got the front upper and lower a-arms, spindles, wheel hubs and drums for both sides.

When we were pulling parts out Jeff came across a front sway bar and the connecting arms for all the steering. Those parts are good on mine, but with the age of these cars getting harder and harder to find parts, you can't pass up spare parts.

My day off is normally Monday's... so I'll get an extra day off this week with today being Memorial Day. So I'm hoping to tackle the wheel bearings on Friday.

Extra parts are always a huge plus.

Gonna have it ready to go next Saturday?

Z-YOU wrote:Gonna have it ready to go next Saturday?

We were hoping to go but we have a graduation party to go to. And it is at the same time as the run.