When the "tick" finally becomes a "knock"...

[bcroe]

.  If I paid $10k- on engine work and had an oil leak, I'd
be visiting the shop that did the work to have them correct it.

There are a lot more things besides the engine that can leak.  My drip pan
goes from the radiator to well under the drive shaft.  And I do not expect
the average shop to make it any better than the original, although I have
as a designer sometimes done that.  Bruce Roe

[wrefakis]

472
cracked flex plate
tick at first
then sounded a whole lot like bottom end noise, converter as well could produce a similar sound
99% of time that,s what we found
in all my 100,s of 472 never had a bottom end go bad

[scotth3886]

BACK ON TOPIC:

The Ark went to Michael today to have the corn oil removed and the holy water put in along with the holy filter.
Oil was dark black, kinda thick, Michael was feeling the oil for particles and looking in the catch bowl. New oil and filter in.
He also changed the brand new upper radiator hose that took a whack when the belts froze from the compressor failure and the vacuum line from the distributor thingy that also took a whack. "And you need a choke stove, cheap part, find it and I'll put it in." In process.

Prior to departure I wanted to take a pic of the floor of the Lair to show Michael where I was seeing drips.
And was VERY surprised to see a good sized spot of tranny fluid. Swell.

Michael traced that to the seal on the forward part of the drive shaft. "Don't panic, its minor, DRIVE THE CAR. Check the
tranny fluid (I did when I noticed the spot, dip stick said full, said full again when I got home). Hyannis Vintage has a shop they use in Plymouth that does all their drive shafts, he said its a cheap and quick process to rebuild/balance, like $300. He also said that's the original driveshaft, so 200K on that part too. Whatever. The plan with this is to DRIVE THE CAR. When it snows and they salt, we're done until spring. Michael will come here, get The Ark up on stands, remove the drive shaft and give it to me. I'll take it to the shop, fetch when done, then Michael will replace it. He said the time will be spent getting the car on and off the stands, taking the drive shaft off and on is like 30 minutes.

I told Michael after the loss of the car all summer, nearly 10K just spent, now "this", I'm getting a little discouraged.
To wit he responded "you don't know what discouraged is..."

"Drive the car. Drive it like you stole it"

If no civil war next week, Wed/Thurs/Fri look like fine Ark therapy days.

Love this car....

"Michael traced that to the seal on the forward part of the drive shaft. "Don't panic, its minor, DRIVE THE CAR. Check the
tranny fluid (I did when I noticed the spot, dip stick said full, said full again when I got home)."

I had that happen this summer.  It was a bad cardan joint that took out the tailshaft bushing and seal and then leaked.  The cardan centering ball / kit and tailshaft bushing was very difficult to find. NAPA had the seal.  It did fix the vibration I had all the way up that got really bad at about 75 and up.  The driveshaft shop only had one centering kit so the rear one wasn't replaced.  I still have a little vibration at 100mph+

["Cadillac Kid" Greg Surfas 15364]

Did the vibration clear up at 110?
Greg Surfas

[scotth3886]

Did the vibration clear up at 110?
Greg Surfas

Increasingly worse at higher speed so its not like a range that can be a tire balance.  It's nowhere as bad as it was before we replaced the front joint, kit, balanced and replaced the seal.  Was unable to find the tailshaft bushing or the 2nd centering kit for the rear u-joints.

I imagine its the bushing, if I can ever find it, or the rear centering ball and kit are also going bad.  I rarely ever drive it that fast, but want to know it'll do what it's supposed to do. 

[cadillacmike68]

Soooo,

What's the difference between the flex plate and flywheel??

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

A flex plate is a tin coupler that connects a crankshaft to an Automatic Transmission Torque Converter, whereas a Flywheel is a heavy steel or cast iron circle that connects the Crankshaft to the Transmission and holds the Clutch Pressure Plate to clamp the Clutch Disc to turn the Transmission Imput Shaft.

Bruce.  

PS.   The actual difference is about 7/16" thickness.

[cadillacmike68]

A flex plate is a tin coupler that connects a crankshaft to an Automatic Transmission Torque Converter, whereas a Flywheel is a heavy steel or cast iron circle that connects the Crankshaft to the Transmission and holds the Clutch Pressure Plate to clamp the Clutch Disc to turn the Transmission Imput Shaft.

Bruce.  

PS.   The actual difference is about 7/16" thickness.

OK, so flywheels only on manual transmission cars then??

And what does the starting motor gear connect to on our Cadillacs? I always thought that it was the flywheel.

[bcroe]

OK, so flywheels only on manual transmission cars then??

And what does the starting motor gear connect to on our Cadillacs? I always thought that it was the flywheel.

I would say a flywheel is used on any car not using a torque converter (which
is heavy enough to cover the function).  My old hydro trans car had quite a
substantial weight bolted to the crank, no torque converter on that shaft. 
Bruce Roe

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

The older Cadillacs used a Fluid Drive, which acted as the flywheel, and also held the Ring Gear for starting purposes.

My '60 CDV had such an operation, where the Flex Plate, which is actually a Drive Plate without the Ring Gear attached, and only served the purpose of connecting the Drive to the Crankshaft.

The reason that these "Flywheels" are so heavy is so that the inertia of moving the car stops the engine from simply stalling when the transmission is placed into gear and the clutch removed.   The TQ or Fluid Drive is in itself sufficiently heavy enough to act as a Fly Wheel.

Bruce.

[cadillacmike68]

You really can learn something new every day!

And Thanks to Chris.

[Cape Cod Fleetwood]

"Michael traced that to the seal on the forward part of the drive shaft. "Don't panic, its minor, DRIVE THE CAR. Check the
tranny fluid (I did when I noticed the spot, dip stick said full, said full again when I got home)."

I had that happen this summer.  It was a bad cardan joint that took out the tailshaft bushing and seal and then leaked.  The cardan centering ball / kit and tailshaft bushing was very difficult to find. NAPA had the seal.  It did fix the vibration I had all the way up that got really bad at about 75 and up.  The driveshaft shop only had one centering kit so the rear one wasn't replaced.  I still have a little vibration at 100mph+

No vibration in the The Ark at all, smooth as silk politely in the city or blasting on the highway.
My 75 SDV $hit the drive shaft, it was pretty obvious.

[cadillacmike68]

No vibration in the The Ark at all, smooth as silk politely in the city or blasting on the highway.
My 75 SDV $hit the drive shaft, it was pretty obvious.

Speaking of driveshafts, the boss lady's CTS literally broke it's driveshaft a couple years ago.  The CPO warranty covered the repair. I never even got a mile from the house that day.

[dochawk]

That's because the Cadillac is *IN* the C130 seen testing Bernouli's Theory of Lift.

I just don't believe it.

Your Cadillac and the C130 have the same wheelbase.

Now, if you told me that the C130 was in the caddy's *trunk* . . .



Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this whole thread, although it took me a couple of weeks . . .

It's kind of sad to have reached the end . . .

But I'm glad to see it back on the road.

And to add my own flashback:  when the Miata engine went the second time (transmission at 40k, engine at 60k, and rebuilt engine at 70k), I toyed with putting a Northstar in it and getting a custom chrome piece in Cadillac script of "Miatalac" . . . I joked about towing my '72 Eldorado with it while I'm still working on it--and got the response that everyone would think the Caddie was pushing the Miata . . .

[If anyone gets the bright idea to do this, I concluded that the best way would be to chop an STS chassis to size, and drop the Miata body on . . . far less expensive, and it could handle the torque]

[2manycars]

Increasingly worse at higher speed so its not like a range that can be a tire balance.  It's nowhere as bad as it was before we replaced the front joint, kit, balanced and replaced the seal.  Was unable to find the tailshaft bushing or the 2nd centering kit for the rear u-joints.

I imagine its the bushing, if I can ever find it, or the rear centering ball and kit are also going bad.  I rarely ever drive it that fast, but want to know it'll do what it's supposed to do.

Same thing went bad on my transmission (1964, TH400), due to the drive shaft support bearing being shot.

Contact Fatsco Transmission Parts, in NJ. They'll have the bushing and rear seal for the trans.

[scotth3886]

Same thing went bad on my transmission (1964, TH400), due to the drive shaft support bearing being shot.

Contact Fatsco Transmission Parts, in NJ. They'll have the bushing and rear seal for the trans.

I ordered it yesterday.  It'll be here Monday. 

[2manycars]

I ordered it yesterday.  It'll be here Monday.

Excellent! Beware that thing might be staked in there. Mine was. That ought to get rid of the leak, alright.
Good luck with it!

[scotth3886]

Excellent! Beware that thing might be staked in there. Mine was. That ought to get rid of the leak, alright.
Good luck with it!

I did manage to replace the seal to stop the leak.  NAPA had it.  What I couldn't find was the bushing. 

If it is staked in there, I assume the tailshaft has to come off?   It's almost not worth messing with.  It's 90+ before I can feel/hear any vibration now.  I just like everything as it's supposed to be. 

[2manycars]

Tailshaft housing, yes. That can be handled without taking the trans out. Driveshaft DOES have to come out though.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

This topic has now been locked as the original issue has been rectified.

Matters arising from other questions need to be commenced under their own headings.

Bruce.