1951 Oldsmobile 88 (Deluxe) by 1951Olds88

3 minute(s) of a 31 minute read

After a few quite weeks, I have started working seriously on the car again. Part of the delay was due to surgery and an unexpected two week stay in the hospital, followed by the necessary convalescence. But I had also been waiting for the parts required for the main job on the car, firstly the rebuilt carburetor and secondly the new wiring harness. Both have arrived, all the little extras like grommets, etc., have arrived from Fusick and other suppliers. I started on an easy bit, replacing the wiring for headlights, parking and turn lights. This looked easy as the wires were not part of the main harness but joined at two connectors under the hood. The headlights were relatively easy, especially after removing the large sheet metal plate in front of the radiator. However, the spring in one of the holders for the parking/turn light bulbs had completely disintegrated. I could not find a replacement holder in my restoration catalogs, so I ending up rebuilding the old one using a spring from a more modern bulb holder.

I also needed to replace the door check link on the drivers side. This proved to be a bit more of an adventure as the bolt holding the old, broken link had rusted solid. No amount of penetrating oil would loosen it and I finally had to use a Dremel reciprocating saw to remove the head and then use a Speedout (which worked very well) to remove the rest of the offending bolt. Ended up taking almost a whole day for this job, instead of the expected hour, but it is done.

Another thing that I wanted to do was replace my hub caps. While the car is a 51, it was built very early in January and the factory was probably using up 1950 parts. So the car came with 1950 style hubcaps. While probably original (but I don't know for sure), I knew that in shows a knowledgeable judge might notice the difference, and even though I could explain it, it could be a hassle. And as I prefer the dog dish hubcaps anyway, especially when teamed with the trim rings, the car has been 're-shoed'.