1968 M&M Cadillac Hearse

[dpmeloan]

I got it painted Saturday and it does look a bit better, although I did get it a little too thick in places on the top. I did have a major mishap during the painting. Originally I had the paint tray on top of the coach so I wouldnt be lifting a paint soaked roller over the body. Worked fine for awhile until I went to refill the tray and put it back up top. I didnt get it quite high up enough and it slid off the roof and all over the front of my wifes Subaru Impreza, all over the driveway, and also a bit on the body of the hearse.

Thankfully I was able to get it all cleaned off the vehicles without damaging any existing paint. I still need to clean off one of my wife's rims, and the driveway is proving difficult. I poured stripper on the driveway, then an hour later scraped up the goo and hosed it off. Helped a little bit I need to do it several more times.

Aside from all that here are the post-paint pictures:

Wow, this brought back some memories. When I started in funeral service in 1981 our funeral home had a 1973 Cadillac hearse in silver with a black crinkle top. One of my first jobs as the new apprentice was to paint that black crinkle top. I could not believe what a difference it made, and fortunately I didn't have any mishaps.  Your car looks great!  Doug 

[metalblessing]

Wow, this brought back some memories. When I started in funeral service in 1981 our funeral home had a 1973 Cadillac hearse in silver with a black crinkle top. One of my first jobs as the new apprentice was to paint that black crinkle top. I could not believe what a difference it made, and fortunately I didn't have any mishaps.  Your car looks great!  Doug

Thanks

[metalblessing]

I am thinking about trying to find some LED bulbs to replace the interior lights and eventually the headlights. I dont like the cold light of the bright LEDs, but they do make LEDs that have a vintage color in the 2700K color.

I think I have a bad door jamb switch or switches somewhere. Once in awhile I come out to a dead battery, and I know that one time my door jamb switch didnt fully close the circuit and my rear interior lights were faintly dim all night, and the rear control panel was hot to the touch. Of course i need to try to disassemble all the switches and clean them good, but I also think changing the bulbs to reduce the power load in general might also help give me a but of a buffer if the get stuck on again.

[Bentley]

Blake, are you asking if anyone knows of a source for the LED headlights?

[metalblessing]

Blake, are you asking if anyone knows of a source for the LED headlights?

No I am not, just updating what I am doing. I have already ordered a few interior LED bulbs, I will have to do some research though to see if I need to get some kind of conversion kit or if I can buy a ready to go bulb for the headlights. LED headlights are last on my list as I dont do alot of night driving. Had to take apart my fixtures and confirm they were all GE68 though

In the rear, coach area of the hearse there are 6 different lights. Thats alot of incandescents running at once!

[metalblessing]

Well I got 4 of my LEDs from SuperBrightLEDs.com and replaced some of my coach lights. They work great and are double contact bulbs as I needed. A few of them seem that the contacts are slightly not as deep as the old ones, so as a result they kinda flickers a little bit since they dont have a super great contact. Going to see if I can reinforce it a bit and give it a tighter fit.

Also got my new dome light cover for the back. Turns out it was a 58-67 Impala cover that was used. Bought a set of 2 on ebay for $11.

[Highwayman68]

How close are the LEDs to the color and hew of the incandescent bulbs?

[metalblessing]

How close are the LEDs to the color and hew of the incandescent bulbs?

Color-wise they look just fine, I ordered the 2950K color so it would be close, it looks kinda yellow in the picture but I think thats because it was getting dark outside. Basically it looked authentic to me, just brighter.

However...there were a couple issues with the bulbs for me. I think the contacts on these particular LED bulbs were maybe a tiny bit shorter, because they do not firmly touch the contacts in the fixture housing. As a result they would intermittently flicker. This was fine until the next day I went to attempt to adjust them and I realized that somehow the springs on the fixture contacts had melted together. I dont think this was the fault of the LEDs, but of me messing with them, trying to make them fit tighter.

I noticed one of the fixture contacts were depressed farther than the other, so I was using a toothpick to push on it and see if I could pop it back out, in the process the springs touched, got red hot and then melted. So I may need to order a new fixture altogether...

But if you were to use these for your 68 it wont be snug enough for a 100% consistent connection, so I switched mine back to incandescent for the time being until I get that figured out.

This week I am looking for a brake booster for my car as mine seems to have gone out yesterday. Trying to locate the correct part.

[metalblessing]

Brake booster still on backorder from Summit, in the meantime I think I have temporarily put an end to my battery drain. Seems I have a bad switch somewhere in the coach area. All 6 coach lights were staying very dimly lit with the doors shut. opening the doors made them come on full strength, but pushing the door jamb switch in manually made them only dim. I tested all 5 switches and no luck so for now i just removed all the coach bulbs, leaving the front ones intact. Looks like I have some investigating to do.

[Lexi]

Blake one thing you could do is test for a parasitic draw on your battery. With all systems that may normally draw current, (such as an electric clock for example), disconnected, remove your negative battery cable. Using a test light, connect it between the disconnected negative cable and and the negative battery terminal. If your test light goes on, then something is drawing current. If all OK, the test light should remain off. In order for this test to be valid, everything must be turned off. Clay/Lexi

[metalblessing]

Blake one thing you could do is test for a parasitic draw on your battery. With all systems that may normally draw current, (such as an electric clock for example), disconnected, remove your negative battery cable. Using a test light, connect it between the disconnected negative cable and and the negative battery terminal. If your test light goes on, then something is drawing current. If all OK, the test light should remain off. In order for this test to be valid, everything must be turned off. Clay/Lexi

Hmm, will give that a try. After removing all 6 of the coach bulbs it still died Saturday. After another charge I removed the fuse for those lights. This morning the cabin dome light was on so I removed that bulb. I was heading to work and didnt have time to do more than that. I know the lights are drawing battery though since I'm seeing it, I just have to determine why they are drawing with all the switches pressed. A temporary solution is to remove the fuses for the front and rear lights, but having lights would sure be nice, so im going to see what I can figure out.

Luckily I did buy a tester a week ago so i do have that ready to go.

[metalblessing]

Currently I am waiting for my brake booster to come back to me from being rebuilt, and waiting for a new master cylinder to arrive. In the meantime I'm working on getting a stuck/rounded nut off of my junction block so i can replace a brake line that I twisted in half.

Hopefully this weekend I can make some progress on that. Lots of fun, but on the bright side, it is a learning experience. Cant wait to have it drive-able again.

[metalblessing]

Rebuilt booster and new master are on, and one new brake line since I twisted the old one in half. Next week we bleed and then it should finally be ready to drive again.