My newly acquired 1974 Eldorado convertible project car

[MaR]

My head guy put in regular viton seals instead of those Cadillac-only plastic things.

Question on the headlight adjuster screws -- is the style in the pictures above (Dorman 42124) correct for 1974?  I can't seem to find a clear answer anywhere and most places indicate that style came into use in 1975.  I suspect that what you removed was original, so . . . .  Mine were a jumbled mess -- they probably installed whatever was on the shelf when they did the cheapo paint job in 2015.

I looked at the viton seals but you have to machine the heads to get them to fit. The valves that still had the plastic covers were in great condition so they seem to do the job well enough for me. The pink adjusters are what should be on the car. I had two factory ones that were not broken on this car and the '74 Coupe deVille I use to have had them also. When shopping for the adjusters, I found that the Dorman pack that comes with the pink ones and the black ones was usually cheaper than the pack with just the pink ones.

[MaR]

Time to get the broken bolts out of the passenger side head. Since two of them had some of the bolt sticking out of the head, I worked on those first by welded a nut on the broken bolt.




I tried a variety of different techniques to remove the broken bolt: I put penetrating oil on it, I froze it after welding on the nut on while it was red hot, I tapped it with a hammer to free it up and I put an impact driver on it. I ended up breaking the welded nut off several times but I was finally able to get both of those bolts out. The other three were broken off flush or just below the level of the head. For those I drilled them. One of them drilled perfectly in the middle and I was able to drill it out completely and then tap it. The other two ended up off center so I used a punch to fold up what was left of the bolt and then knock it out of the hole.




With all the broken bolts out, I can now finish up cleaning the head and get it ready to lap the valves for reassembly.

[James Landi]

Yours is labor of LOVE.  For those of us who feel a need to "kick down" into first gear to see how a big block Cadillac  will "rev" and perform, be advised.    Happy day,  James

[hornetball]

Just a reminder that my OEM cam had 3 bad lobes.  Now would be the time to inspect the lifters and cam.

Thanks for the tip on the IM studs.  I found the section in the Service Manual you were talking about.

[MaR]

Just a reminder that my OEM cam had 3 bad lobes.  Now would be the time to inspect the lifters and cam.

Thanks for the tip on the IM studs.  I found the section in the Service Manual you were talking about.

Yep, I'm pulling all the lifters and inspecting the cam before I put it all back together.

[houseboats1]

Thanks for sharing
Mark

[MaR]

Engine work update time! I pulled the lifters and inspected the cam. One lifter was stuck and very difficult to remove from it's bore. Once it was removed, the face has significant spalling and that is never a good sign. I put a dial indicator on that lobe and it was .080" too short. The camshaft is shot...





It's not that big of a deal though as camshafts and lifters are relatively cheap and easy to get.

[MaR]

Now off to the block itself. I started on the passenger side with the preparation to put the heads back on. I cleaned up the gasket mounting surface and noticed a factory defect on the edge of the block. It looks as if something bumped the edge of the gasket mounting surface and left a ding in the surface. It was easy to just file it down to make it flush though it's unlikely that it would have caused any problems if I would have just left it.








After I got everything cleaned up I added the new headgasket, placed the freshly refurbished cylinder head, and torqued the head bolts to spec.






I'm waiting to put the new camshaft and lifters in until I get the drivers side of the block cleaned and prepped. I don't want to accidentally drop some small gasket piece or crud into a lifter and cause issues down the road. Plus, I want to run the oil pump without the lifters in place to flush out the old oil and make sure that nothing in that part of the oiling system is clogged.

[hornetball]

I put in the Comp Cams 252H.  Very smooth.  Loads of torque.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

One thing that concerns me is that you haven't pulled the engine to manually completely flush out all the bits of metal that have come from the cam and lifter that could be "floating" around inside the confines of the engine.

These particles will be going through the oil pump, and hopefully being contained in the Oil Filter.

If you aren't going to do this, it would be prudent to pull and inspect the Oil Pump, and replace if necessary.

Bruce.

[MaR]

One thing that concerns me is that you haven't pulled the engine to manually completely flush out all the bits of metal that have come from the cam and lifter that could be "floating" around inside the confines of the engine.

These particles will be going through the oil pump, and hopefully being contained in the Oil Filter.

If you aren't going to do this, it would be prudent to pull and inspect the Oil Pump, and replace if necessary.
Judging by the look of the lifter and the cam, the damage has been happening over a long period of time. It's unlikely that there are any significant pieces of metal that could cause damage. I am going to pour fresh oil and/or solvent though the oil pan until I quit getting dirty oil and particles before I put the new cam in. That is very easy to do with the front cover and intake off.
Bruce.

[hornetball]

I am going to pour fresh oil and/or solvent though the oil pan until I quit getting dirty oil and particles before I put the new cam in.

I did the same using diesel fuel.  I've since been running Rotella with some ZDDP added and did a quick oil change about 100 miles in as if I were breaking in a new engine.  So far so good.

[MaR]

I did the same using diesel fuel.  I've since been running Rotella with some ZDDP added and did a quick oil change about 100 miles in as if I were breaking in a new engine.  So far so good.

Good to hear. I bought a case of inexpensive oil to flush with before I button the engine up and fill it with something good.

[Bentley]

MaR, how do you get the text directly below the photo? That has eluded me for some time now. Thanks.

[MaR]

MaR, how do you get the text directly below the photo? That has eluded me for some time now. Thanks.

Drop your photo in with the IMG tags and then just type on the next line below it.

[MaR]

Time for some updates! I continued on with engine work and got the drivers side head surfaces cleaned up in preparation of reinstalling the drivers side head. Nothing out of the ordinary, just lots of scraping and cleaning to remove all the old gasket residue. 







With both heads installed, I just temporarily put the valve covers back on to keep junk out of the heads. It's starting to look more like an engine now.





I cleaned up the front cover, thermostat, and oil pump mounting surfaces to get ready to put some parts back on the engine.









A little paint for the oil pump.





And back on the engine it goes.

[MaR]

Just about every gasket in the HVAC system has turned to dust. To fix that, I bought a big roll of open cell foam gasket material to make new gaskets out of. Here is the plenum that comes from the main HVAC housing and goes to the vents. The foam is long gone.





Here is one of two rolls of foam, This one is 1/2 wide and the other is 2" wide.





After a little cutting and fitting, I have a new gasket. I will have to go through the entire HVAC system and replace them all.

[MaR]

As I had mentioned before, the passenger side door and rear quarter have both been repainted long ago. Under further inspection, the passenger side door skin had been replaced but they did not get the door frame straightened out all the way and this made the profile of the door out of shape. No amount of adjustment of the door would ever make it fit properly and my only recourse was to either reskin the door correctly or replace it completely. I opted to replace the door as reskinning it would not help unless I could manage to straighten out the shell of the existing door. I found a donor door from a '73 coupe that had been painted with a roller at some point in time. I took everything out of it to get it to a shell.





I stripped off all of the old paint to get it to a clean starting point. Aircraft stripper went right though the white paint and then turned the factory paint into goo.







After I stripped down the shell, I coated all the inside jams with POR-15 to prevent rust. I then used a 2k urethane primer over the POR-15.









The outside of the door is in fairly good shape. There was no rust and the only damage was where the door handle mounts. The door must have been opened very hard into something and it dented the door where the handle mounts. It all popped out fairly easily and only required a small amount of filler.







With everything primed, I sanded the primer to get the high spots and smooth out the panel. I then did a second coat in a different color and sanded it again.







Lastly, I used an inexpensive single stage 2k acrylic enamel to just give it some color until I can paint the entire car. The finish is fine for now but later on when I paint the entire car, I will repaint the door again so everything matches perfectly.

[James Landi]

Mitchell,

Terrific work-- your methodical and careful approach, chronicled on this site, is inspirational.  Thank you for taking the time to curate all of your effort for us.   James

[MaR]

I had a great trip to a local junk yard that I had never visited before and managed to get my hands on good condition OEM front fender to bumper filler that fits '73 & '74 Eldorados. This is the last OEM piece for the front fillers that I was looking for. This will allow me to make solid models to be able to 3D print 100% accurate reproduction for all the front fillers.







As I had posted in earlier in this thread, I have the headlight to bumper finished and I just finished up the turn signal to bumper filler. I have already started work on this one and hope to have a prototype printed soon.