Hello everyone!

I'm George from Chicago, well Schiller Park, about as close to O'Hare as I can construct a domicile without ending up on a federal watchlist. In January I purchased my first Camaro, and first LS car. For some context and background, I've always been a car person, but my interest has skewed to 60s-70's BIG cars. Slow, comfy, and usually oddballs. This is going to end up as a rambling mess, sorry in advance,

A couple (maybe 10 now, yikes) years ago my aunt purchased a 2002 SS Convertible, that to this day has maybe ~23,000 miles on it, I had the opportunity to work on it here and there, and do some detailing etc, but never drove it. I thought it was neat but just didn't "turn me on" in a any way. It's also a convertible and absolutely no offense to anyone but totally not my thing, I also have pretty darn good hair and that just does not work together. Around the same time I had the opportunity to meet and become friends with one of your fantastic admins and see his BEAUTIFUL '98 in living color over the course of summer cruise nights, along with another mutual friend with an amazing Firebird. That's when I said hey wait a minute, these cars are pretty cool. I drove my aunts SS and then it kind of clicked. I "got it", and filed away in the back of my mind that someday if one pops up, I'd take a shot. Full disclosure here, I usually "flip" a car or 2 a summer, not for the monetary aspect as much as it is for the experience of finding, buying, sorting, and enjoying for a few months as a way to experience different cars. As of January I had my '75 Olds Ninety-Eight, 2003 Ford Crown Victoria LX Sport, '99 Saturn SW2 (The plastic fantastic daily), and '15 VW Golf TDI.

Some pictures to break the text wall:









I sold my TDI with ~300k after 10 years of daily beatings and hung onto the little Saturn, so some garage space was open. As with all good stories, a late night FB Marketplace scroll tuned into me sending a message on a higher miles, but rust free and CHEAP 2000 Z/28. The next morning I walked my daughter to the bus, and hopped in the Saturn with my friend Mike, and we were headed for Lansing Michigan. In January, in the snow. More on this later. lol

Now I could have easily brought a trailer, where is the fun in that? Anyway, pretty uneventful drive up, had Qdoba which it had been like 10 years so that was a highlight, I guess, and met the seller. Very cool dude, with another amazing built F body. Crawled around the car, went for a drive and all seemed well. Super clean car, 150k, with some um, questionable audio mods, and a cracked rear bumper and quarter panel ding. Whatever it's cheap right? Seats were smoked, but had a nice Borla Exhaust, and brand new Z06 reps with new Nitto 555's. We made a deal, and we were off. Now the weather was cold but clear. WAS. Got on the expressway for home and the snow squalls started, and the Camaro was like the jello machine, that longed to be placed into a ditch. After 4 hours of white knuckle 30-50 mph expressway fun we made it back to Chicago, and went to delta sonic to blast the snow and ice off and parked the car.












Then it was time to get to work.

Started with getting rid of the horrible Dual flip screen, and replaced it with a Pioneer double DIN, some new speakers, ran all new wiring to the sub, and replaced the Amp. Used the kit from Screaming Chicken, which was much better quality than the Metra kit.






Testing the amp. The subs are a little much, we'll see if they stay. Then dropped the car at my buddies shop (M&V Auto Body in Schiller Park) for the bumper/quarter fix.







Swapped a new grille with a Z/28 badge on, and got to cleaning.











Then went after the disgusting interior. Used LSeats for some new seat skins, and yoinked most of the interior for some clean up. Steamer and carpet extractor got some heavy work! Replaced the terrible HIDs, some new turn signal lenses, shorty antenna, etc. Just getting it looking a bit better. Full paint correction with 3D One/3D Speed and 3D Cherry wax on the DA.

 

Yes I'm going to fix the bent fender retainer thing this week, lol. its not broken off so should be fairly easy. Put some miles on it, changed the oil, coolant, trans fluid, rear diff, air, and fuel filters, etc. Air works, car runs great! Then the 4x4 look started to bother me. A lot. Ordered Stranos springs, and Konis, along with an adjustable panhard, adjustable rear LCAs, front upper and lower control arms, wheel bearings, tie rods inner and outer, shock tower bar, sway bar bushings, and new bump stops. Did some wheel well grinding and painting too. That was fun! The LCA bolts actually came out! Had Gary's in Franklin Park do an alignment after, and WOW what a new car. Solid, quiet, and tight. Drives like it should now.












With my buddy Mike's '04 GTO.

That's more or less where we sit today, with some other stuff done here and there (SLP Lid, TB Coolant bypass, etc). Now is this a perfect car? Absolutely not. It looks pretty darn good for its age, runs excellent, but of course its a 150k+ mile car. Plans for the future? Headers, a new tune, since this one was done in South Carolina in 2009 and the place is now gone, and I have no idea what was actually done then, maybe an SS hood, and just some more fixing and cleaning as we go. Excited to put some real miles on it as the weather gets better!

Sorry for the novel!

George

 

Damn brother ya put some work into that one. Looks like a nice example and worth putting the resources into. Those wheel wells look mint.


Good read. Thanks for sharing.

 

Thank you very much!

 

George! I was just thinking about you today when we walked by your "other" Schiller Park house. I do believe we are the only two people from this town on this site, although Kevin does work here and used to live here when he was a kid so I guess he counts too. Great to see you've joined the site and put yourself into an LS1 Camaro! I have not yet seen you cruising around town with this one, but I hope to see this car in person very soon. You've hit all the right vendors and brands for various replacements and upgrades, and it's all come together very nicely. Looks like it was a nice example to start with, but everything you've done has been a massive improvement.

It appears that M&V still does really nice work. They painted an entire Chevelle about 25 years ago for a friend of mine, he's still got the car and the paint still looks great.

No one else will probably notice this, but I love the rotary dial phone hanging on the wall in one of those pics. I also see that you still have your original cement laundry sink in your basement just like mine. I love those things.

Seems like you've got a pretty good handle on these cars already, but always feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. Also, we've already done an early season car show at our Des Plaines spot back on that freakishly nice Saturday (3/21, I think it was). We'll likely do more before the "official" start of the season so just let me know if you'd like to be on the call list for these.

And lastly, welcome to the site!
-Ryan.

 

Nice work George.

Is M&V a good body shop, always nice to know a local one with references.

 

John, M&V used to do a lot of restoration work mostly on Chevelles, not just for customers but they would also buy/fix/sell them. Not sure if that's still a side business of theirs or not. They're on Soo Line Rd. over by my neighborhood. Do you know my old high school friend Phil C. with the yellow '72 BBC Chevelle? (he has a '69 & a '71 too) They painted it for him back in the early '00s, it still looks great.

 

Ryan! I figured you'd see this pretty quick! Kevin said a few guys had gotten together at Dunkin Donuts on Devon, but I had my daughters ice skating thing in Franklin Park both times. Definitely let me know next time you guys get together, I'm itching to get the car out and hang out. Been too long! It doesn't get much better than having a 4th gen encyclopedia a few blocks away, so yes I'll have plenty of questions, haha. Thanks for noticing my rotary and sink, there's the 1978 Maytag washer next to it too, I have the real MCM museum house going on here.

Definitely feels like a different car from when I picked it up. Good bones, but also had some years of indifference and neglect in there too. I'm a big fan of the OEM+ style modifications where it could look like it came that way or is close enough, to a factory option, like I've done with my Crown Vic, if that makes sense. Contrary to what some people say, I think these cars are actually really comfortable (I'm 5'8 maybe that's it) and whatever I do, don't want to lose the comfy to me driver aspect. I'd like to pound out some big road trips this summer in it, so just making sure everything is reliable and sorted is job #1. The sail panel is the biggest cosmetic issue (Shocker) but oh well for now. Might get lucky and find a early 98 or older in one of the junkyards this summer. Hood has some paint chips with the front bumper, but i wet-sanded and polished as much as I could, and the new nose emblem helps distract me from the scuffs.

Forgot to mention, the other day it got belts, idlers, tensioners, and i pulled the plugs, which all looked great, so back in they went. Looks like they were just done really. Following some LS! Tech tips, I flushed the cooling system and the PS fluid, and had my brother help me bleed the brakes and get new fluid to all 4 corners. Admittedly it hasn't been very warm, but temps look great and the old coolant was pretty disgusting so hopefully that helped something lol. I think the last big maintenance item is new rubber lines for the brake system, just for age alone on the stock stuff.

John - Thank you! Yes M&V is excellent in my opinion, they've done a LOT of work for me over the years and it's all been nothing short of perfect. One of the few places left that aren't just parts changers and are not afraid to get the grinder and torch out and do body work. One of the cars they just did was recently at World of Wheels, they have a pretty good Instagram page to check out. They do a lot of resto work, not so much the car flipping part anymore I don't think, but have expanded into exotics and big dollar classics in addition to the regular collision work, and whatever junk I bring them. They actually just fixed a large scratch one of the neighbors landscapers put in the quarter panel of my Vic, this last week. 24 hour turnaround too, can't beat that.



George

 

Great to know y'all had good experiences with them.

Starting to feel like getting another 4th gen.

 

I love the wheel upgrade on your Crown Vic, I don't remember those being on the car last time I saw it. Looks like a GT500 wheel from the mid-'00s, very nice choice! Yes, I totally understand what you mean about modifications that look like they could have been stock for a given application, in my world we have always called that "stock-modified" but I really like your "OEM+" term for that. I've always liked those same sort of touches myself. And I agree about personal fitment into a 4th gen. We are about the same height and I've had the same experience, these cars have always fit me like a glove. I used to drive my '02 Z28 on a 75 mile round trip commute every day through some of the worst traffic in Chicago and never once did I feel body fatigue from being in that seat or position. I was once stuck in that car for nearly 5 hours coming back from Gurnee in a severe snow storm during rush hour on I94, I don't think I went over 5-10mph for at least a 25 mile stretch, but nothing on me hurt when I got out of the car (other than my bladder...haha). I used to put Blizzaks on a spare set of wheels and toss two 50lb bags of rocks in the trunk, and that car would drive through anything. Of course, this also meant that the undercarriage was pretty rotted out by the time the car was 10 years old. It's fine though, that was the one 4th gen I bought to actually drive, all the others were just toys.

Sounds like you're well caught up on maintenance. The idler and tensioner pulleys usually start chirping any time after about 100-110k miles so I'm sure yours was due. The cooling system tends to get neglected on these, and this is especially bad because the overflow bottle isn't pressurized so it's constantly exposed to atmospheric conditions, thus you'll get the Dex-sludge if you don't keep it changed on the proper interval. Does yours have the power steering cooler (it's a fluid-to-fluid cooler built into the upper radiator hose if it has it)? It wasn't standard on Z28 until 2002 or maybe '01, but it could be ordered separately on any V8 model under RPO V12. This cooler is junk and very prone to leakage, which then cross-contaminates both the cooling and power steering systems. If you happen to have it, the best bet is to just delete it (using a one piece radiator hose from an earlier model). You can install an aftermarket air-to-fluid cooler if you want, but it's not really needed unless you plan to road race, autoX, etc.

Lots of other little things like this we can go over when I see the car, some of it's probably stuff you've already researched yourself. Yeah I remember we've already talked about the roof panel issue. There's no good vendor right now selling replacements, the only one is sort of scam (sometimes they ship, sometimes they don't). I wish Hawks Motorsports would pick up this item and reproduce it, at least then it would be from a legitimate source. For now, the best bet is a used OEM panel as you mentioned. 05/98 was the month of "transition" on the assembly line regarding the prep process (omission of the epoxy primer that should have been applied to the underside of the panel before it was glued in place) which resulted in the bubbles, so anything from the earliest 1993 models all the way through 04/98 would be a good donor car.

I'll definitely let you know the next time we're getting the group together. So far the only car I've had out is the Cutlass. The Camaro and Nova haven't been touched since last fall, but I'll be getting to them soon.

 

Nice looking ride! I'm pretty sure I saw that for sale on marketplace, as I always look. Question on the seat covers - Did you do them yourself? If so, how difficult was it?

 

Thanks for the info Ryan, no PS Cooler on this one so good to go there. I do have an aux cooler in the box from some project but my thought was the same on probably not needed. Good eye those are from a 2008 GT500. Nice 18x9.5 wheel that with the new 275/45-18's should look pretty good in the humongous CV wheel wells. Have some Marauder front drop springs and I'll adjust the rear air ride to close the gap when the new tires are on, gotta handle those 239 horsepower with some good meats lol. Definitely looking forward to you getting some eyes on the car because I'm sure I'll think of a million questions. The up to 4/98 panel will be something to keep an eye out for this summer as well. Hope to see you guys soon! The Olds got it's wash and oil change Friday, so it's ready too.

@LS1Formulation - Being in GR I'm sure you did, since this was right down the road in Lansing. Guy had dropped the price a couple times, guess January isn't peak F body selling season lol. For the seats, yes I did them myself. No I had no idea what I was doing but these are honestly some of the easiest seats to take apart ever made. Need like a 15mm, 13mm, and a T50. No hog rings on the fronts, just the rear uppers which I didn't have to replace, material is just clipped on. Best advice I'd say is take pictures of where all the seat trim goes, and get those covers out of the box ASAP and into the sun to relax the material. The holes for the seat back release and belt retainer are not pre-punched so just take your time making the new holes. I also used a steamer to relax the material when i put them on, and added some foam on the drivers seat bottom. The warmer the better so it stretches. I did this in my basement in February, next time outside in July lol. I just can't stand torn up seats and a dirty interior, but the 1500 dollar quote I got to do the seats made me learn how to DIY very fast lol.

George

 

Welcome, and amazing work getting that Z28 sorted out so nicely. Great backstory too. I don't suppose your Olds has a 455, does it? Those were the last of the big boats, and yours is a beauty.

 

Much appreciated!

Sure does, 455-4bbl. A Pontiac 400-4bbl was available in '75 for a delete credit but the take rate was very very low. I've seen one with the 400.

 

The first car I remember my mom having was a 1972 Olds '98 with a 455. Would love to own one someday. I checked out that Lseats site, they have covers that fit my Firebird so I'm going to order a couple swatches to see which one matches closest. My front seats are in decent shape, but could definitely stand to be recovered.

 

I wish my '74 had been ordered with the 455ci option. I'm pretty sure '76 was the last year you could get that in a Cutlass, but in '74 it also got you an early HEI ignition. With a 350, you still got points in '74. I think they all had HEI by '75 though.

Can't wait to see your car George! We don't have to wait for an official gathering, we're only a few blocks apart.

 

I'm in! Good point lol, hopefully this upcoming weekend the weather will cooperate and let's do it.

I think HEI was across the board in '75, that's right. Honestly the 98 has been the most reliable car I think I've ever owned. Knock on wood, but at 51 years old, I've never had a single time it didn't start or get me where I was going, even on 1,000 mile plus trips. Absolutely no complaints, well a little more than 190 HP would have been nice but oh well

Oh and in Camaro related things, updated the firmware for the head unit this evening, shockingly didn't brick the radio since I'm pretty computer inept, but glad I did it. Less laggy and I can display OBD2 Supported gauges via the radio screen, which is kind of cool.


George

 

Sounds good, we'll see what the weather has in store for us.

I think you'd notice a decent power improvement with a cat delete and duals on your '75. Even my basic 350-4 was rated at 200hp in 1974 with the dual exhaust option, so yours has got to be better than that with a loosened up exhaust.

Did you ever meet my friend Mike with the '83 Cutlass that we did a 455 swap on back in 2011? I might steal his engine for mine when he's not looking. It looks totally stock other than the headers (he's since changed the air cleaner to a dual snorkel factory piece). Even the emissions tag on the fan shroud is deceptive (it's from a 260ci mini-SBO Cutlass, so it says "4.3 liter"...haha):

 

I keep saying I'm going to head over to Iggy's and have them bend something up, maybe this will finally be the spring I do it! I have to have them put the Marauder tips on my Sport anyways. I think this summer I'll take the Vic to at least one of our cruise nights, see how many eye rolls I get. Hey its almost an antique now!

Haven't had the chance to meet him I don't believe, now that would be a very nice set-up! Looks completely factory like you said, other than the headers, nice work.

 

All this talk about smog-era cars........

Yep, '75 was first year for all HEI and cats, which contributed to a big HP drop across the board. My '76 T/A's 455 was rated at only 200 HP (partially due to a pathetic 7.6:1 CR), and having even JUST the factory Y-to-single cat caused it to fall on its face by ~4000 RPM. But bolting on a cat-less stock exhaust system from a '74 woke it up quite a bit, it had no problem pulling 4th to redline (~5800 RPM). I can't imagine what LT headers and good, dual-muffler exhaust would do. I'm sure the '75 Olds 455 would respond similarly. My dad's '74 Ventura's I-6 still had points, and that disto-cap didn't even have a window to adjust dwell through, setting the points gap was a good starting point, but trial and error was the only method to dial it in. I hated tuning up that car, even though spark plug access was glorious.

If you haven't checked out ClassicOldsmobile.com yet, you should. Best site I've found for Olds cars.