1968 DeVille Convertible - Restoration

[DeVille68]

Lot of stuff has been done in the last few weeks.

I smoothed the casting flashed inside and outside of the engine. On the outside meanly to help the paint to stick to the sharp edges. Inside, mainly for looks but maybe it will also be a bit more gentle to the oil that is flowing by.
(first picture shows the sharp edges)
(second picture show the smoothness of the oil return section)

I also welded nuts on the back of the water pump / front cover, as has been recommend here on the forum.
Third picture shows the four 1/4''-20 nuts on the back and all painted POR 15. I used longer screws to secure the exact position of the nuts.
Front side will be painted Cadillac blue - stay tuned for that!

[DeVille68]

Since I want to do as much work by myself as possible I also made me a special tool to press out the wrist pin.
I used some scrap metal and welded those together to form a solid stand for the piston to rest on. I used a water level bubble to get the stand level. It needed some grinding in the end.

Then I could just set the piston on to the stand and press the wrist pin out. I heated up the eye of the connecting rod, being careful not to heat the piston (it got warm anyway). So this really helped pressing out the pins. The connecting rod does not need to be extremely hot a little "warm" is sufficient.

For the connecting rod screws I also made a special tool out of old tubing that I cut on an angle such that the head of the bolt slides through but the tool still able to support the forces.

[DeVille68]

My new short absorbers also arrived. Those are specially made by www.shocks2springs.com. They take normal gas charged shocks and "remove" the high pressure gas. In the end you have a "pure" hydraulic shock just as what was used when my car was new.

Why do you want pure hydraulic shocks?
-> Because these only dampen the motion and do not add any stiffness.
-> If you use gas charged shocks you have some significant amount of psi pressure inside the shock, to keep the oil pre-compressed. This helps improve the performance of the shock because it can start dampening the motion right away and does not first need to compress the oil and air inside the chamber.
-> So, gas charged shocks add some stiffness, and this additional stiffness can be too much. Today's car take this into consideration and hence the stiffness of the springs is a bit lower to accommodate the stiffness of the damper.

How to check if you have pure hydraulic shocks?
-> If you can pull or push the piston to an arbitrary position and it will remain there, you have a pure hydraulic shock.
-> Because a gas charged shock will always try to equalize itself, so the piston will move in the direction where the gas inside can expand.

Check out the picture below. I pushed one shock fully compressed and pulled to other to fully extended, both remain in their respective position. From the outside they look just like any gas charged shock.

Those shocks are the "normal" duty version. This company also offers a "heavy" duty version.
I have to see how those perform and maybe I will upgrade to the "heavy" duty version, which has just a larger area and thus can exert a higher dampening force.
Those shocks came with all the required mounting hardware, which is nice.

[DeVille68]

Started assembly on the suspension components. First of is the upper A arm with the bushing and shaft. I used some scrap metal to make me the proper stands and press tools. No need to have expensive tools.

I first aligned all the pieces as described in the shop manual. Then I put those into the press and carefully pressed the bushing in. The flanges make full contact with the arm and the inside metal sleeve also reaches the shoulder of the shaft. So seems to be perfect fit.
Then I pained the visible surfaces of the bushing with some POR to match the rest of the A arm and to prevent it from rusting.

Part number of those bushing is: MOOG K5187

[DeVille68]

Installed the bushing of the lower A-Arm. Again, some scrap metal helped tremendously! :-)
One side of the two holes is larger, that is the bushing slips through it until it just touches the other side. Be sure that the bushing is properly aligned.
Then it is just a matter of pressing those in. Originally they had a tool that would set the correct depth. I used the rust marks on the original ones to guide me, turned out that they stick out just a bit less than 1/2'' on either side.

The bushings I used have the part number: MOOG K5155

There was a thread here: http://forums.cadillaclasalleclub.org/index.php?topic=147450 where someone noticed that the bushing had the wrong diameter.
I did not notice any difference at all. I can not tell if the old bushing I pressed out where original or not, however the new ones where identical to the old ones.

They measure:
length overall: 3.56''
diameter outside: 1.370''

[6262]

shocksandsprings.com. They take normal gas charged shocks and "remove" the high pressure gas. In the end you have a "pure" hydraulic shock just as what was used when my car was new. .

Nicolas, I have tried to visist the vendor's website but the link provided by you does not work.

Thanks for this great thread!

[DeVille68]

Hi Nils,
sorry the website is www.shocks2springs.com

Thanks for your kind words.
Nicolas

[DeVille68]

I mentioned before, that I got a 70 Crank Pulley, which works fine on a 68. Today I checked that the belts do indeed line up. Check out the pictures. The Generator, Water pump and Crank are on one belt and Power Steering and Crank are on a second.

I do not have the correct Power Steering Pump and it has the wrong pulley. I also don't run A/C any soon.
So this setup works nicely for me.
Just had to buy the 70 Crank Pulley, everything else is identical to 68.

[DeVille68]

I also started painting some pieces with the Bill Hirsch Cadillac Blue Paint! And boy is this a fantastic color! We do not have such good spray paint in Europe! So glad I got those cans!
Color is very nice. Can't wait to paint to full engine soon.

I need some help regarding colors:
1) Is the distributor shaft also blue?
2) Is the power steering pump bracket blue?
3) The power steering pump body is blue but the pulley is semigloss black.  Correct?
4) The fuel pump is blue but is the oil pump also blue?

Best regards,
Nicolas

[DeVille68]

Has anyone noticed that the freeze plug kits that you can buy everywhere are all missing the two plugs for the oil gallery holes?

So, I bought two freeze plug kits and a 3/8'' NPT tap.

I then used my dremel tool to get the holes closer to the tap size (I did not have a proper drill bit....  ) Work out very good, thread installed and plugs fit nicely.

[cadmium]

If you got the water pump pulley from the same engine as you got that crank pulley it would be only a single sheave and you wouldn't have the extra unneeded sheave on there.  It just looks a little nicer.  As an alternative, you could use a spot weld cutter and remove the rear sheave from the pulley you have.

From my two cars I showed you earlier which are all original and have never had any painting or detailing under the hoods:

1 - the distributor shaft is bare aluminum
2 - the power steering pump brackets are black
3 - the power steering pump body is black and its pulley is black
4 - the fuel pump is bare aluminum and the oil pump is blue

Nice to have threaded plugs in the oil galley holes.  You will never have to worry about those letting go.

Did you drill the additional oil drain back hole in the back of the oil galley?

[DeVille68]

Hi, thanks for the tip regarding the water pump pulley!

Thanks about the color scheme, what about the vacuum advance on the distributor?


Yes, I also drilled a return hole and I smoothed some of the casting flashes. I did, however, not massage the manifold and intake runner. I was planing on "porting" the heads, but it seemed to be too much trouble for too little performance gain.

Maybe better off installing a dual exhaust than grinding for hours....

[cadmium]

The vacuum advance can on my distributor is bare metal.  I've seen it painted blue on some other cars but I think that was done by spray can "artists". 

Have you ever ported a set of heads on an engine?  There is more performance there than you might think.  I'm a big believer in streamlining the airflow through an engine.  I ported the heads on my convertible engine, as well as the intake plenum.  I even ported and polished the carburetor.  There is quite a howl when the secondaries of the carburetor open.  More than there ever was stock.  Now I just need to install a dual exhaust.  I always thought I would get the use out of the stock exhaust system and wait until it rotted off before getting a dual exhaust, but I've been waiting way too many years for that to happen.  I need to just do it.  I've owned that car for 27 years now and I've never changed the exhaust, and the guy from whom I bought the car said it was old then.  Dual exhaust and a ported induction system would complement each other well.  Just get out the grinder.

Shoot, I would port the head on my lawn mower if I ever had a reason to remove it.

[DeVille68]

Well, I am sure there is some high rpm horsepower to gain! I am not necessary looking for more high rpm but more torque on low rpm. I don't think the air flow is sufficiently high such that it makes a large impact.
Compared to the time spent I think I better install a dual exhaust on mine.

Anyways, my rebuild continues.
This week I used a lot of wire wheels and brushes to clean all the surface rust from my engine bay. Man, that was a lot of extremely dirty work. Those rust particles go everywhere! I was looking like coal miner! Two full days I spend removing the rust, another few hours to clean everything and prepare for paint. Then I used POR15 semi gloss black. Matches the original black color quite nicely.

Check out the pictures below.

[DeVille68]

I was now finally able to drop the engine off at the machine shop. He will resurface the block and head to achieve a 10:1 compression ratio. Bore and hone for new +.040'' pistons. Install all new bearings and balance the full rotating assembly.

Everything else I will do myself including fitting the piston rings.

Check it out below, the engine just fits inside our station wagon! :-D
Only when you have a comparison like this, it make you realize how massive this engine truly is! :-)

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Only when you have a comparison like this, it make you realize how massive this engine truly is! :-)   

Or, how small the modern day Station Wagons are.

Bruce.

[Roger Zimmermann]

Or, how small the modern day Station Wagons are.

Bruce, I wanted to say exactly the same! By the way, many years ago, I had to drive a latest generation Caprice Station Wagon from a customer. If the width of the cargo area was very generous, the height was disappointing.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Down here, before 1976, we were using the GM Station Wagons (Chevrolet) as Hearses.   No need to extend the wheel bases, as they were sufficiently long enough.

I had an ex Hearse, a 1959 Ford Ranch Wagon as a daily driver, and I could carry a ton of bricks in the rear compartment.

Bruce.

[DeVille68]

Yeah, that's probably true! :-) The engine may even fit into my trunk as well! 

Anyways, the work continues. Had the spindles and backing plate sand blasted and painted. Installed new Moog Ball joints (K5073) into the lower A-Arm. They fit nicely, my tools were made, yet again, out of scrap metal. Worked beautifully, the ball joints fit nicely. I added a tack weld just for insurance.
The brake backing plate is marked with "Delco Moraine 5462270"

While sand blasting the spindles I also discovered some original markings. I found three colors: red, green and orange. Check out the picture below. I have marked the locations. Probably some checks regarding the proper torque of the bolts, I suppose. Or some coding for the assembly line.

[DeVille68]

Lots of stuff done this weekend already. I have copied my post from another thread here for completeness.

-------------------------------------

And only now, I really replaced all ball joints. So I ended up buying the Moog Ball joints.
Moog K5073 Front lower
Moog K5205 Front left upper
Moog K5200 Front right upper

( I got mine from rareparts, but rockauto has em too)

Quality from looking at them is very good. They are tight, no damage, good boots. Everything is there. Dimensions seem to be accurate because I had no problem at all pressing those new ball joints into my original A-arms.

Check out the pictures below. I have put the description of the pictures into the names of them.
I will update this thread as soon as my Caddy is on the road again.


One question thought, that I hope you guys can answer, because I am in the middle of installation.
If you look at picture number (6) you see a little plastic piece around the stud of the ball joint. It came this way in the packaging.

What is this piece used for?
Somekind of protection while shipping the part or does it fullfill a function installed too?

I noticed that the upper portion of the boot would be somewhat loose without this plastic piece, so I put it in. You can see the end result in picture (7) and (8 ).

However, this plastic piece also limits the amount of travel the balljoint can do. And it may also soften or removed metal to metal contact, that is the stud cannot directly contact the housing of the ball joint because the plastic piece sits between.

--> Question: Should I leave this plastic piece the way it is now or should I remove it?

Thanks for your help.

Best regards,
Nicolas