Hey All! Its been a while since I posted anything on here. Ran into some family health problems back in 2007 and have not been active since. Well its 8yrs later and unfortunately I had to sell the 64 Fleetwood but I'm back, all signed up again, and the CLC let me keep my original member number. Now that I'm back I went out and bought myself a 1978 Sedan DeVille for $2300.oo that was owned by an old world Italian man down in Long Island City,NY. Even came complete with the dashboard Jesus, and a Virgin Mary stuck on to the left of the steering wheel. The car has 97000 miles on it and never went out in the winter although he did give me and extra set of rims complete with mounted and balanced unused studded snow tires. The car need some work to be real nice. Here is my list:
1) headliner is coming down and needs replacement
2) Both real tail light filler panels are gone and need replacement
3) Roof is fading and and paint chipping off
4) Horn does not work
5) Interior opera lights do not work
6) Rear Trunk emblem needs replacement (the one that covers the key hole)
7) Both "Sedan DeVille" emblems that are mounted on each side by rear doors are broken
Other than those things the car is in pretty nice shape. It runs and drives as it should, it rides just like a Cadillac, and the transmission shifts just as it should. I'm not going to go nuts and do any type of restoration on it. Its completely rust free Body, Frame and everywhere else. Even the frame still has the factory coating on it. I'm just going to clean her up a bit and freshen her up and enjoy the car as a nice car to drive when ever I want to.
Congratulations on your return to good health and your celebratory purchase. These model years 1977-1980, were solid and very durable, so changing all of the fluids and attending to some of the "decor items" should provide you with years of pleasure and pride. Your's is a great car to invest some money in fixing items like the head liner, and some of the missing parts. Try soaking the vinyl roof material with Armerall -- (Repeated applications can moisturized faded looking material) Happy day, James