37 LaSalle project

[MoonDog]

Here is my 37, it belonged to my grandfather, he bought it used back in 1978, all it needed at the time was a fuel tank ( still needs it). it sat in a warehouse since then until about 12 years ago, there was an apartment above the area it was stored in that had a fire, all that water got on it, not much of a big deal. it was moved out of the storage area to make room for someone who was going to pay rent, so my dingbat brother stuck it out in the woods.

6 years later comes hurricane Katrina (which really didn't do us any favors) dropped a pine tree on the roof, really didn't hurt it that much, but it took 6 more years for me to get to it with all the damage and trees down on the property, I'm still working on cleaning up the place after all these years. Still cant get to the 59 caddy easily to remove the 4 pine trees that fell on her, (not much left i'm afraid), the 1960 still has a chance but the one I wanted to do first was the 37..

So far I have found the cancer is in a few spots ie.. center posts and rocker panels, also a small spot under the seats. Found someone on ebay selling the rockers for caddy and olds (thinking they might fit and save me time making), but not sure and not willing to fork out 399.99 per each to find out, also found small spots under stainless molding, easy fix.

Found a few places to get replacement glass and a few with gaskets for reasonable prices. the wiring is shot, only trying to remove in 1 piece to copy lengths and connecters to make a new one. found this place,, http://riwire.com/. think I found it in these forums but cant remember.  they have spools of the cloth covered wiring that I think would be more original than the painless wiring, or anything else out there.

If anyone knows a better place please let me know.

I rebuilt the starter, generator, and carb already and was going to crank the motor to see if it will run but since the wiring is a shorted mess I decided to just go forward with the rest of the work.

Enough of that story for now,  I'm going to try to post a few pictures and hope it works.

[MoonDog]

How do I make the pics smaller? Keeps saying its over the 5k allowed   lol

[Richardonly]

I believe it would be in you photo program.  Keep lowering the pixels and see where it is to get your desired size.

Mine is reading about 350 kb.

[Jim Stamper]

     Try YnZ in California for your wiring. I have a complete harness from them in my 37-60 Cadillac coupe. Correct harness with easy to read numbers on each wire to identify with the installation sheet for directions on where it all goes.  Really excellent, no color striping to interpret.  Friendly and helpful too. They charged me $10 to send me a copy of the directions.

     Another company wanted, I think it was 1/2 the price of the harness for the instruction sheet for a 37 LaSalle I owned when I lost that sheet. Poor product support I thought. I made do without.

     For sheet metal you might want to check out Bob's Automobiliania, in Atascadero, Calif.  Some Buick models share body shells with some Cadillacs and LaSalles. But you will want to do some investigation in that regard. I think Buicks are very well supported parts availability wise. They always made a lot of them and they have a high survival rate, so things like sheet metal is produced for them.  Others here may have insight into this and also regarding fitment. Floor mats and other things from Bob's work well in LaSalles.

                                                        Jim Stamper,   CLC#13470

     

[gary griffin]

Nice project Jim,

   Restoration can be a challenge.  For my 1942 I bought the wiring harness from Rhode Island and I talked to YNZ  also.

   I think they both do the same thing but YNZ did not have a pattern for mine and needed me to send in the old one to measure. I was fortunate that someone else had rewired a 1942 series 67 and sent his harness in to R I  as mine was partially removed and would not have made a good pattern.

   They make exact replicas of your harness and everything is in correct looking wiring but modern cloth in the covers.

    I know the complete harness sounds expensive but it is easy to install and everything fits. The wire is are bundled correctly and a pleasure to work with.

[MoonDog]

Thanks for the info Guys! I'll check into it on my next day off, been really busy at work.