My 1947 6107

[CRAIG LEWIS]

I bought this car in 2001. I tjust sat in the drive for about 3 years while I was too busy to start. You know how that goes. Thought I would get a hobby found out I did not have time. I hung in there though and in 2003 I decided it was time to make the time. Here it is as it sat in driveway.

[57cadillac]

What are your plans for the cadillac (business coupe i think)? Full restoration or some kind of resto-mod/customizing?

[CRAIG LEWIS]

Near thanksgiving of 2003 I moved the car out back to my shop. I am in Arizona and winter is the best time to work on the car. Summer gets way to hot and my shop is not fully enclosed. So I tore down all the body panels and trim then the engine and transmission leaving just the tub and frame with suspension. I had playfully restored a 1940 Buick and 1946 Chevy P/U when I was 16 and 18 years old and had always wanted to do a real restoration someday on a worthy car. Over the years I played with cars but life gets in the way of fun sometimes and raising a family and career demands kept me at bay. I finally committed myself to this and went all out, full nut and bolt restoration. It is a bit overwhelming for a guy with a backyard shop and no mechanical training except what I teach myself but that was the point, to challenge myself. I wisely took thousands of photos along the way and labeled and even occasssionally sketched out parts as they were removed. I soon discovered that there is no such thing as too many photo's. I also learned that sticky labels don't last more than a couple years in this heat before they fall off (whole nother blog on this someday). In any case I got it broken down and catalogued in 2003. Then took the summer off. In the fall I tore the engine down. I thought the 346 flatehead would be salvageable it did turn and the heads were not too bad. I broke it down and took it into a machine shop to have it cleaned and the surfaces decked. While they had it I began the search for all the parts to rebuild. I used Egge for some, Kantner for some and Coopers for some. I found all three were easy to deal with knowledgable and quick to respond. By spring of 2004 the engine was completed. During that time I also built myself a jig to remove the body from the frame. I do not have limitless funds so fancy machines and lifts were not in the budget. I used jacks, blocks and scrap steel to lift the body off and create a cart to roll it away. It worked fine but I later got myself a rotisserie and built my own body cart so I would never have to do it this way again.

I will post pics of the engine and the body jig soon.

[57cadillac]

Nice to see another car guy with not much mechanical knowledge doing a full out restoration. One of the reasons i decided to restore an old car is to gain some knowledge and experience in mechanical stuff(without going through college that is).

[CRAIG LEWIS]

Here is the body comming off the frame with the Jig stand. I rolled the frame one way and the body the other.

[CRAIG LEWIS]

Here is the engine before machine shop cleaned and decked it. I did have it magnafluxed and had them rebuild it into a short short block as i did not have the proper tools to deal with some of the assembly.

[CRAIG LEWIS]

Back from the machine shop with shinney perfect surfaces.

[CRAIG LEWIS]

Wish I could post more but I went to a 5 megapixel camera in 2004 and my files are to large now cant seem to post pics, any suggestions appreciated.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

G'day Craig,

When posting pictures, you need to reduce them in actual size, that is to around 100 to 200 Kb, for easier downloading.

There are a number of programs out there, and I use Paint Shop Pro 7.

Bruce.

[Chris Conklin]

In a Mac or Windows environment the viewing program provided will usually have the ability to resize an image (in Mac it is called "Preview"). You shouldn't have to buy any software. But if you do, Bruce's recommendation of Paint is good. Also, Photoshop Elements is a good bargain for an abbreviated version of Photoshop.

[CRAIG LEWIS]

Alrighty then I will give this another shot,  here is the front suspension, while the engine was at the machine shop I dove into the frame and suspension. Complete disassembly of all components and media blasting to clean up. Replaced all the rubber and links used Steele products as well as Kantner. I also sent shocks out to Apple Hydrolics for rebuild. The frame snd suspension components were all painted with black zero rust and a matte satin clear coat. the finish is very close to factory and very tough .

[CRAIG LEWIS]

I also took each leaf from the leafsprings apart and media blasted, checked for cracks and used spring liners from Bob Drake Ford to line them as I reassembled. Put the rearend back together replacing all bearings and seals and rebuilt the brake system. By the time it was complete it was almost winter and another year gone by.

[CRAIG LEWIS]

For 2005 I spent much of the time finishing up the small details on the chasis, rebuilding the transmission and finishing assembly and paint on the engine. I took the transmission into a local shop with some old school knowledge and they worked on it for about two months locating parts and rebuilding. I used cadillac green from Bill Hirsch for the engine color. By the time I was ready to mount on the frame it was January 2006.

Even though the engine and tranny are mounted  there are lots of little details to attend to which will take up the rest of 2006.

[CRAIG LEWIS]

With the chassis about 90% done I moved it into the barn and covered it up. It was time to begin body work. I finished stripping off any misc moulding pieces and took out all the glass and trim. I mounted the body to the rotisserie and prepared it for media blasting. You never really know what you have till it is down to bare metal. I knew I had rot in the fron floor pans ans some in the trunk. I did not want to expose the metal longer than necessary and knew it was not going to be ready for primer till the rust issues were addressed.  I wanted to get the floorboards fixed first and I figured the repair would take me a month or two at least. First I had to find a donor floorboard. I could easily see where the rust issues were and slectively media blasted these areas only.

[CRAIG LEWIS]

I could not locate another 6107 model, and have quickley learned that there are not going to be many resources and very very few body parts for this model. 46-47 model 6107's have a number of items that are produced only those years for those models and thats that. I did find a fourdoor and was able to purchase the front half of the pan we cut it at the top of the crown for the seat supports, shich gave me extra lenght for what I needed. The bad part was the frame bracing is different so then I had to cut those out and tweek mine to fit. Then it was the tedious drama of welding the pan in. All in all it came out good but took me several days of welding and grinidng just for the front section and bracing. These pictures show the floor pan after I cut out the section, I took out the whole section in front of the seat mounts in one piece. I also had some smaller areas of cancer to attend to.

[CRAIG LEWIS]

Here you can see the floorpan tacked in place. I also had to address the rotten door sills over the rockers.  Both side neede replacing. I made them myself creating the dimples to match the factory using a drilled hole in a 2x4 beveled on the edges and a socket that fit the diameter. You get one shot with a 5 lb. sledge. Worked like charm.

[CRAIG LEWIS]

The front floor board was easy compared to the trunk. I really had to try several things befor I figured out the best approach. Ideally a donor patch would have been the route but that was not happening. I am no metal smith and have few tools at my disposal. shaping this from a single piece was not hapenning the extent of damage was worse than I thought and involved numerous compund angles and curves. Stamped metal from the factory be damned I was gonna make a quilt. Check it out!

[CRAIG LEWIS]

by the time the welds were ground down and finished of you cannot tell from the underside and it isnt too bad inside either. All metal finish no fiberglass filler. Then it was back to the rotisserie for media blasting. Once the media blasting was done it into the homemade paint booth for primer.

[CRAIG LEWIS]

Did I mention it is now 2008 and I am putting the first coat of primer on the tub. I am using DTM 2k epoxy primer by Sherwin Williams. I will spend the next several months on block sanding and dinging out dents  etc. A rotisserie is a must for prepping. I am not a paint and body guy but I am learning. I will have the final primer and paint coats done by someone who is  a pro. 

[CRAIG LEWIS]

I spent 2009 blocking and sanding and collecting up some parts I needed.   I also dusted off the chassis in 2009 and finished off the last of the engine details and fired her up. other than getting the disltributor in backwards all was fine and after I sorted out the distributor it fired right up. Need to make better reference points in the future when removing a distributor. I was off 180 degrees on the initial , took days and lots of phone calls to figure that out. spent much time on the body as I was learning the ropes of metal dinging. I can do a whole other blof on that needless to say I have tons of repect for old time body men and I am sure there are many tricks and tips I could learn from them if I only knew any. With the help of some old books and some tools off ebay I think it is in pretty good shape. I mounted the body onto the frame in the spring of 2010. Of course that tooo was an adventure I had a buddy come over and help me out but is definatley going to take more guys once the final paint is on. Now I am working on the car in sections. I will completely mock up the rear and move foward to the doors and then the hood and fenders. I am repairing the trim as I go and mocking up the trim fit as well.