1960 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88

1960 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88
This Site is Dedicated to Carla Who Puts Up With Me.

Intro and Background

The blog covers the restoration of my 1960 Olds Dynamic 88. The car spent its early years in the Ohio/Pennsylvania region. The car has been in the family since 1984, when my uncle began restoration #1. That round included a good deal of work by Bob, who towed home little more than a parts car when he bought it. From the pre-resto picture that I saw it looked like it had been parked out in a field and neglected for quite some time. He got the engine running, replaced a fender, added new dual exhausts, exterior body work and paint, re-upholstery, and got all of the mechanicals to function properly. He had it for 20 years and then I purchased the car in 2004, with 58,200 miles on the odometer, and it has been in Arizona since then. Restoration #2 includes returning it to as close to OEM original as possible while maintaining a reasonable budget so the total expense remains close to the book value when complete. This is my first restoration so everything is trial by error and learning along the way.

The car's claim to fame is that it appeared in the movie Kingpin. It served as a background car and you can see it (for only a short time though) during the opening scene of the 1996 movie that starred Woody Harrelson and Randy Quaid. It's being serviced at Munson's garage as the movie opens. Check out the Internet Movie Cars Database (IMCDb) link in the right panel.

Interesting tidbit: the license plate on the front of the car in the above picture reads "60 OLDS", and is in Pennsylvania state colors, was actually made at the Pennsylvania State Penitentiary by inmates in the machine shop.

It has a 371 cu in Rocket V8 with 2-barrel carb producing 240 hp and automatic Hydramatic transmission. It has the original driveline. It's painted the original copper mist poly with white top.

10/3/11

Under Hood Completed

Painted the fender wells and reassembled the front end grill work.  All done with final adjustments and road testing.  Everything is now 100% operational.  Sounds great and runs very well with lots of power from a start and no hesitation.  Time to hit the road!   



11/30/10

Suspension and Steering

Completed suspension and steering including new stabilizer links, shocks, body mounts, ball joints seals, and control arm bumpers.  Powder coating on the springs, stabilizer, and backing plates worked really well.  Also here's the before and after on the front brakes which got new shoes, cylinders, steel lines, and brake mounting hardware.  The brakes are weak after the rebuild and leak testing showed it was the vac assist unit.  There is no rebuild kit available for that so I will have to order a remanufactured unit and replace the vac/master cylinder assembly.


































10/19/10

Engine Completed

Last weekend the engine went back together with some major help from Tom.  I finally got to see all of that restoration work over the past year on the sub-parts come together.  Dramatic difference.  The engine was painted using the original Olds Rocket Gold metallic.  A long list of stuff was done including main and rod bearings, lifters, push rods, new motor mounts, new head and intake gaskets, exhausts, hoses, belts, fuel lines, starter, generator, and power steering pump.  Here is the before and after:
















































Next week will include starting the engine for the first time in 18-months and steering/suspension rebuild.

8/12/10

Chassis

Here is the before and after of the front chassis.  After a good cleaning the area received a coat of Eastwood's Rust Encapsalator, a coat of high build primer and 3 coats of acrylic urethane with sanding between each coat.  That took roughly two months to complete.  Ready to move on to the engine painting now.

Front Chassis Before:















Front Chassis After:


5/21/10

Firewall After


Restored components that are firewall-mounted reattached.  Check out the powder coated master cylinder and heater duct; looking pretty good.  The wiper moter got a good cleaning too.

4/27/10

Vanity Plates

Just put on the new vanity plates I ordered for when it's ready to roll again!  Front and rear end will have "60 Olds" vanity plates with the Arizona Highways plate background:



4/26/10

Firewall

Firewall clean up and painting is complete.  Everything had to be removed from the firewall for a complete paint job, so since it was apart all of the vac lines were replaced and the entire wire harness was re-wrapped.  NAPA self-fusing wrap was as close as I could get to the original and it worked great.  Firewall joints were sealed with 3M auto sealant and I attempted to make it look factory applied.  The firewall received 2 coats of black hi-build primer and 3 coats of copper poly, with sanding between each coat.  Due to all the contours and the size it took a lot longer than planned.  Now it's finally time to start re-assembling some of those reconditioned parts onto the car such as the heater assembly, brake master cyl., voltage regulator, and wiper motor.  Here is the painted firewall:

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