September 1960 Mechanix Illistrated included several pages of drawings to build the Olds using a gasoline engine.

Science and Mechanics April 1961 included the blueprint tear out drawings.

June 5 2013, Just arrived at the farm and plan on placing the Olds on the rack.

There are many improvements I plan on making.

The paint is bad and there is lots of rust.

It was stored in a chicken coup for the past several years, this was not a good idea.

The Rebuild, click the links below.

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The Drive System   Shortening of rear axel and machining for differential
Front Axel   Shortening of Front Axel
Hydraulic Brakes   Cleaning and Reparing the Brakes
Scraping and Preparing the Body For Painting   Cleaning and Reparing the Body
Starter Video (YOUTUBE) Video of starter motor and engine running Aug 18 2013
Taking the Olds for a little Drive (YOUTUBE) On Malcolm Line Howick Township
The Transmission Drive   Designing of the clutch and jack shaft to transmission

The Rear Axel Shortening and installing a Differential

The 5 horse Tecumseh engine with 2 inch pully to a 12 inch pully on a jack shaft to a 18 tooth sprocket.

This photo is the left rear wheel axel whith the driver hub held on with a hex bolt. the screws held the hub against the wheel hub (one screw is removed) . All the stress of driving the car was on this axel, the hub and these two screws holding the hub to the wheel.

Trying to remove the wheel from the axel caused a real challenge, the axel had been damaged so badly I had to use the puller.

As you can see, the double flats machined to the axel and mating hub was a very poor design.

In this photo you can see the drive sprocket held in place with a set screw to the ¾ inch axel. The axel was the full width to the Right wheel that just idled.

The left axel housing has been removed and the ¾ axel shown passing through to the right wheel.

My plan is to machine the small differential in this photo to fit between the two aluminum supporting discs, then both rear wheels will be used to the drive the car equally.

The differential taken apart shows the 1 inch shafts welded to the spur gears, these will have to be cut off and welded to the ¾ inch axel and the differential housing machined to fit between the alunimum support discs.

With the axel housing mounted in the lathe between centres, I will set up my realignment marks and the 3.5 inch section to be removed.

This is just a closer look at the set up.

With 3.5 inches removed from the one housing. I will set up for the second one.

You can see the scratch mark I did on the housing before removing the section, I wanted to be sure of accurate realignment before welding.

The axel housings have been shortened, the ¾ axel cut at the centre and welded to the gears.

In this close up you will also see the wheel drive hubs have been broached to match the milled keyway at the drive end of the axel's.

Reassembling the differential and axel housings for a dry fit to see how things are going to work out.

The Front Axel Shortening

This photo was taken before I removed 3½ inches from each end of the front axel

It is difficult to see the difference,, but this is the photo after the front axel has been shortened.

The left tie rod had been broken at one point and welded in place so I cut off the shaft and drilled and tapped for the rod so it can be adjusted.

After cutting and removing the 3½ inches from each end of the one inch solid steel axel, I buffed it up ready for painting.

Front axel ready for pin stripping.

The Cleaning and Repairing of The Brakes

The brake drums are 8" in diameter and were easy to clean up, just some rusty scale.

The brake shoes and the wheel cylinders were a more difficult task.

With the shoes and springs removed I had to get the cylinders out.

There was no way to remove the cylinders without damage by prying so I made a fitting and pumped grease into the cylinder to push out the piston.

The pistons came out real easy, the cylinders and pistons were just dirty, not scored or damaged so I just cleaned them.

One brake line was rusted badly and broke, so I made a new one. also the lining came off the brake shoe so I used J bond to repair that problem.

The master cylinder looked very bad but after some magic with my Dremel, it cleaned up real nice and will be OK.

Stripping The Body Paint

The paint was checked and chipped almost over the entire body and metal parts

This is the front area and even the wood had begin to splinter

In some areas the paint was difficult to remove and I found using the electric heat gun the and scraper the best

Under the curved front of the body seemed to be the worst to strip

The sidws and back were easy to remove the paint

I removed the seat and backrest then took the body outside to sand the filler I had used to fill small cracks and checks

Almost all done, I just set the seat back in place

This is after the second coat of black paint, it's looking pretty good.

With the body upside down, I tried my skills at pinstriping, I was pretty quick with my moist varsol rag to correct any slips.

Pinstripping is not very easy and I respect anyone with these skills. I am an electrician, not a painter.

With the wheels and springs installed, things are looking better. Pinstripping on the springs and axels.

I will now begin on the drive system from the engine to the transmission

Designing the power train from the engine to the differential

All shafts are ¾" and I began milling some keyways for the pulleys and sprockets.

This is going to be a very tight squeeze to get everything under the seat.

This 3 speed with reverse transmission came from a lawnmower, it is in very good shape so I will find room for it as well.

The original drive on the Olds was two speeds forward, no reverse, I need reverse.

As you can see, not much room.

I wanted to keep the starter crank and the choke control in the original location. I designed and engraved brass name plates on my CNC. The ignition switch is the far right ( Coil ).

With the transmission in place, I will begin sizing up pulleys and sprockets. Determining the size of the engine and the gear ratio, this is a guessing game.

Belt lenghts and pulley sizes for predetermined ratios for me was a task.

It's all in there.

Now working on the exhaust system, I wanted the exhaust to exit out the back and not under the seat. The best I could come up with was copper pipe.

Designing brackets and the muffler.

Cutting away a bracket on the engine to make room for the exhaust elbow.

This is the bracket that the throttle and choke cables are mounted to but it had to be adjusted.

laying out the exhaust piping was not that difficult, I made the muffler from copper pipe as well and have the tail pipe extended out the back,