My newly acquired 1974 Eldorado convertible project car

[Andrew Wall CLC#10638]

Recently acquired a 76 Eldorado convertible in need of many things.  Kudos to Mitchell for posting such detailed information, and being so on task.

Andrew Wall

[hornetball]

Mitch, can you print me a license plate handle too?  Need one and all the ones I've found in the yards crumble.  PM me and I can PayPal you.

[MaR]

After several local sandblasting companies blew me off on getting the radiator shell blasted, I just did it myself. I took it down to bare metal, etched primed it and then gave it a spray of satin black.

[MaR]

While I had the front of the car off, I noticed that the sway bar bushings were looking quite sad. I got new sway bar mount bushings and end links. Everything looks much tighter now.

[MaR]

Next on to the power steering system. As shown in one of my previous pictures, the power steering fluid looked original and was quite dirty to say the least. The pump was leaking all over the place and both the pressure hose and the return rubber hose were in poor condition. The steering box looked surprisingly leak free though. Here is the pump in the "as removed condition".







Dirty, oily, slightly rusty and just in an overall tired condition. I pulled the reservoir and started cleaning it out. The magnet had a substantial amount of build up on it.







I took the entire pump apart. If you are going to rebuild the pump, you can leave the pulley on the pump shaft. The hardest part of the rebuild is getting the clip off of the end of the pump shaft without bending it or shooting it across the room. There was no significant wear on the internal components but every seal and o-ring was shot.









A new front seal was pressed into place.





And the internals were reassembled and the clip was snapped back in. The easiest way to snap the clip back on is to find a socket that just fits over the shaft splines and use that to push the clip on. You don't have to worry about it slipping and shooting across the room like that.




When putting the veins back in, make sure that the radiused side is out or your pump will bind up.





Not shown is the rear pump cover. You either have to use a clamp or a press to put pressure on the rear cover so you can pop the big snap ring in. After that, the pump just slides into the reservoir housing. Don't forget to change the rear bolt and pressure outlet seals.

[MaR]

Now to put things on the engine. I put the valve covers and both exhaust manifolds back on. I had previously painted the valve covers and I blasted the exhaust manifolds and gave them a coating of high temp paint. We will see how well it lasts...







Many of the exhaust bolts where broken or so corroded that I did not feel like they needed to go back on the car. I ended up replacing 11 of the bolts and all of them got copper anti-seize. I also replaced the nuts that held on the preheat shroud and the manifold to exhaust pipe flanges.




For me, getting the engine to this step is a big deal as I have never had a big Caddy that did not have either a cracked manifold, broken exhaust bolts, or both.

[MaR]

I continued with rebuilding the power steering system. First up was cleaning up the low pressure metal cooler line. It was coated it oily grim, metallic gold undercoating, and a bit of rust. I cleaned it up a gave it a quick spray of satin clear.





I mounted the pump, filled it up completely with fluid, purged the steering box of air and old fluid (it took almost a gallon of fluid to purge out all the old fluid), and then installed new rubber lines.

[MaR]

I had acquired a replacement cruise control actuator some time ago from here on the forum. It was a slightly different style than the one that was on the car but it looks like it will work just fine.





I cleaned up the bracket, replaced the rubber chain cover and bolted it on the car. It fits just fine with no adjustment needed.





I replace all the vacuum lines at the fire wall with exception of the one that goes to the brake booster (I did not have the right size for it) and also installed the AC compressor brackets even though I will have to take the rear one back off when I put the compressor on. This way, I will not be able to misplace the brackets or the bolts...





Does anyone know what this bracket is for? It looks like some kind of wire or hose retainer should go on it but I found no sign of anything like that when I took everything apart.

[MaR]

I was finally able to acquire a set of factory rear tail light fillers. They are, of course, in very poor condition but they are complete which is what I need to be able to reverse engineer them for 3D printing. There are so many features on the rear of the fillers that are there to maintain the proper fit and spacing around the tail lights, bumper, and quarter panel filler that you just don't get on the aftermarket fillers that are currently on the market.

[hornetball]

Does anyone know what this bracket is for? It looks like some kind of wire or hose retainer should go on it but I found no sign of anything like that when I took everything apart.

You guessed right.  The engine wiring harness comes up from the rear of the passenger side and then there is a "T" at about the location of the PCV.  The wires for the transmission kickdown, anti-diesel solenoid and distributor run in a branch of the "T" that crosses to the driver's side between the carb and AC compressor.  That bracket secures this branch.

Attached is a picture showing the "T."  Doesn't show the bracket though (buried beneath the air cleaner).

[hornetball]

BTW, setup your idle before remounting the AC compressor so you have access to the idle mixture screws.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

When I had to do mine, I used a bevel-drive rightangled screw driver with a short screw driver attachment.

Bruce.

[DeVille68]

nice work!! 

[MaR]

I have a two foot long screw driver with a small blade that can fit around everything to get to the screws.

[MaR]

My other part of the interior that I really, really wanted arrived yesterday: the Fleetwood Talisman seats. Other than being quite faded, they are in good condition overall. I will reupholster them to match the car and completely go through the seat motors before permanently mount them.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Here are pictures of my rightangle gear drive screw driver.

Wasn't cheap, but it has got me out of a lot of difficult situations where room is at a premium.

Bruce.

[MaR]

Next on the list is to clean up the alternator. It was very recently replace just before I got it so it was not in horrible shape but the fan was rusty and it was just dirty overall.







I pulled it apart to verify that it looked OK on the inside. Nothing looked out of place and the brushed looked OK.





A little cleaning and some paint on the fan makes it look good as new.





I also got some new bolts and proper spacers to mount it. Apparently the previous owner lost the spacers for the rear bolt and just used an oversized nut to space it out. From the work I have seen that they did on the car, they were not what would be consider "master technicians".

[hornetball]

Mine had a nut instead of a spacer too.  Drives me nuts (pun intended)!

[MaR]

It is finally time to put the wiring harness back on the engine. The harness was in decent shape with the usual engine grime on it and several of the connector housing had crumbled off of their respective terminals. The harness cleaned up well though the woven cover for the transmission wire just crumbled apart in my hands.




I replaced the woven cover with some small corrugated split loom and wire tied it on both ends to keep it in place.





I ordered replacement connector housings and a bag of terminals to repair the harness. The existing terminals just snap into the new connector housings.




This terminal that goes to the kick down switch was broken. I replaced it and popped it into it's new housing. The terminal for the rear engine metal temp sender felt a bit loose and it was replaced also.





Since I'm not installing the heater core back into the car right now, I just blocked off the rear hose connection on the passenger side head for the time being.





I'm also going to omit the AC compressor for now. It's much easier to tune the engine with it out of the way and I want to rebuild it before I put it back on. The proper size AC delete belt for the power steering pump is a 17485. The engine is set to base time, the plug are clean and torqued, the plug wires are double checked and connected, the belts are tight, the fuel lines are all connected, and all the vacuum lines have been replaced. Once I get the fan and the radiator in, I should be able to start it up.





In preparation of starting it soon, I also have cleaned up the air intake shield and the radiator to grill air dam. They both had decades of funk on them and pressure washing them made the look nice. I also pressure washed the fan though I may end up blasting and painting it.

[James Landi]

All the very necessary air cowling needs to be in place for those hot summer days, idling in traffic. Truly enjoy and look forward to seeing your efforts manifesting so beautifully in the photos. Please keep them coming. Getting this all out there for us to appreciate and enjoy is a true pleasure.  At some point, we shall all celebrate when you present this gorgeous car renewed and staged to live for decades to come. Your extra efforts are appreciated.  Happy day,  James