My newly acquired 1974 Eldorado convertible project car

[warnercoffman]

I've just gone through all 8 pages of your project post here and I am blown away by your skill, the level of documentation and instruction on how you're pulling this all together. It's threads like this one and those of other skilled members in this forum that make me so grateful to be a member. My Persian Lime Eldo convertible was faithfully maintained for 9 years by the prior owner who was a stickler for preservation and thankfully he chose to sell it to me - otherwise I would have had little confidence in any other car I may have found. Thanks for teaching. I  can't wait to see how it all turns out for yours....so far I think I know what to expect in the final reveal!

[chrisntam]

...I am blown away by your skill, the level of documentation and instruction on how you're pulling this all together. It's threads like this one and those of other skilled members in this forum that make me so grateful to be a member...

+1

[hornetball]

Warner, we need pictures of your Persian Lime machine.  We're trying to talk Mitch into a second Eldo (in Persian Lime, of course).

[MaR]

Warner, we need pictures of your Persian Lime machine.  We're trying to talk Mitch into a second Eldo (in Persian Lime, of course).

If I did another mid '70s Caddy, I would like to do (or make) a Persian Lime Fleetwood Talisman.

[MaR]

Now the the engine seems to be running a bit better, I need to get the front end back together so I can drive it a bit. As shown in a previous post, I have two of the three fillers in from the 3D printer company that I use so I'm starting there. I had already primed them so I sprayed them with the cheap single stage paint that I'm testing with.







Here they are installed on their respective components:







And here they are installed on the car. Ignore the horrible fit of all the parts and their misalignment to the bumper; I will correct that when I swap in the replacement passenger door.











I also have started cleaning up the grills and their brackets so I can get those back on the car. Here is the lower grill. I don't think it has ever been properly cleaned so it took a bit of polishing to get it shiny again.





At first, I though all the chrome plating had worn off, it was really just very dirty.





In the end though, it cleaned up nicely.

[MaR]

I've just gone through all 8 pages of your project post here and I am blown away by your skill, the level of documentation and instruction on how you're pulling this all together. It's threads like this one and those of other skilled members in this forum that make me so grateful to be a member. My Persian Lime Eldo convertible was faithfully maintained for 9 years by the prior owner who was a stickler for preservation and thankfully he chose to sell it to me - otherwise I would have had little confidence in any other car I may have found. Thanks for teaching. I  can't wait to see how it all turns out for yours....so far I think I know what to expect in the final reveal!

Thanks!

Lets see that Persian Lime!

[MaR]

I got a few more things done. To start off, the transmission pan was leaking quite steadily so it needed addressing. As you can see, it had been leaking for quite a while.







The pan cleaned up nicely as did the vacuum modulator.









I also changed the filter and bolted everything back up and there are no leaks so far. Lets hope it stays that way.

[MaR]

Next up were the rusty steering column brackets. I'm getting closer to having all the brackets under the dash cleaned up and painted. It's the same as before: remove, sandblast, paint, and install.











When I do the final disassembly to do the soundproofing, I will make sure all the ground connections have good continuity. Before I put all the brackets back in, I pulled out the last of the old firewall insulation. That gets all of the old insulation and sound deadening from inside the passenger compartment.

[MaR]

The big thing I did though was work on the damaged passenger side door. As I had mentioned before, the passenger side door had been hit and reskinned sometime long ago. The frame of the door was damaged though to the point that the door should have just been replaced rather than repaired. The repair left the crown of the door where the middle trim mounts flattened out and no adjusting in the world was going to get it to align with the front fender and rear quarter. I already had the interior trim removed and was ready to pull the wiring out from the door jam.





If you look at the mounting holes for the power door lock actuator, you can see bondo chipping out from around the holes. The entire end of the door is cracked and chipping were the bondo was applied.




Here is the car with a successful door-ectomy procedure.





And the new door bolted in with all of the bits and pieces back on. I cleaned up and lubed the power window mechanisms, properly aligned the window and tidied up the wiring a bit. You can see that now the body lines meet up correctly and the door now actually shuts a bit better.









With the door swapped out, I was able to better align the front fender and associated front end parts for a better fit all the way up to the headlight assembly.





And lastly, I did a "test fit" of the Fleetwood Talisman seats and center console. The seats bolted in just fine and the only modification needed was to swap out the power plug on the seats since they came out of a different model year. I just placed the center console as I have not fabbed up the mounting brackets yet. It looks to be sitting a few inches too low as there really is not a center tunnel for it to sit on like there is in the Fleetwood. That will be easy to accommodate for when I make the bracket though.

[hornetball]

What's the plan for upholstery on the Talisman seats?

[MaR]

What's the plan for upholstery on the Talisman seats?

I will upholster them with the white polyurethane material that I have been using for the other parts that I have reupholstered. I think in the end, the seats will be some sort of hybrid of the Talisman seats and the Eldorado seats. I need have a seat in the end that will have the folding seat back of the Eldorado seat. The drivers side should be straight forward since it's a normal 6 way power seat but the passenger side is a four way seat with a power recline. I should be able to come up with something though.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Next up were the rusty steering column brackets. I'm getting closer to having all the brackets under the dash cleaned up and painted. It's the same as before: remove, sandblast, paint, and install.

It always amazes me that manufacturers of any car, be it cheap, or expensive, in the eyes of the purchaser, never bother to rust-proof the undersides of the dash parts, or any internals that aren't going to be seen.

Having done RHD conversions on many different brands, there was no paint or protection to be seen.   Even the steel within my '72 Eldorado seats, frame, backing power operations, etc, are all plain bare steel.   The funny thing is that when dismantling these cars for conversions, nothing was rusted to such an extent that force was required to undo bolts, etc.   But, on the good side, it did make alterations a lot easier as there was no paint to remove prior to re-welding and the like.   Just a quick rub with the wire brush.

But, Michael, yours is the worst I have seen, except from a car that had been submerged and not dried out properly.

Bruce.

[MaR]

It always amazes me that manufacturers of any car, be it cheap, or expensive, in the eyes of the purchaser, never bother to rust-proof the undersides of the dash parts, or any internals that aren't going to be seen.

Having done RHD conversions on many different brands, there was no paint or protection to be seen.   Even the steel within my '72 Eldorado seats, frame, backing power operations, etc, are all plain bare steel.   The funny thing is that when dismantling these cars for conversions, nothing was rusted to such an extent that force was required to undo bolts, etc.   But, on the good side, it did make alterations a lot easier as there was no paint to remove prior to re-welding and the like.   Just a quick rub with the wire brush.

But, Michael, yours is the worst I have seen, except from a car that had been submerged and not dried out properly.

Bruce.

"Moist" is the best way to describe the condition of the interior when I got it.

[MaR]

Now that I have a source for the correct style of foam for the HVAC parts, it's now time to put the middle dash vent assembly back together. I started by putting new foam on the vent doors. Most of the old foam was deteriorated and was either dirty and crumbly or musty (or both).











The reassembly is straight forward. The only possible hiccup is that there is one retainer for the vent door on the drivers side that is different than all the others. As you can see below, one of the retainers has a bend in it. For all of the others, they are just straight.

 



The first pic below is from one of the center doors, the next pic is from the door next to the wiper controls. The retainer with the bend in it goes closest to the wiper controls.







The actual housings are straight forward to reinstall: just clean them up, slide them into place (the drivers side hosing popped in with a "snap") and put all the screws back in. The three screws on the underside of the pad closest to the passenger side are different than the other underside and top side screws and the ones on the ends are different than all of the others. I also replaced the foam on the rear of the drivers side but the foam on the rear of the middle was fine.

[MaR]

I also had some time this weekend to reinstall the main grill. I started out by cleaning it up a bit, replacing the clip nuts, and installing the upper bracket (that had been sandblasted and repainted).






Next up, I loosely installed all the brackets and finger tight installed the grill. I then shifted it around until the middle of the grill was center up at the middle of the bumper. The bumper itself was not centered on the car so I then shifted the bumper over so it was centered between the headlight assemblies. Finally, I then shifted the grill in and out until it was even with the inner trim on the headlight assemblies. The end result was that the grill was even and centered with all the trim and the hood.







The last thing I tacked on the front end was the misalignment of the passenger side headlight assembly to the fender/turn signal. As you can see below, everything was just all over the place.





I had to make an adjustment to the turn signal mount inside the fender that allowed it to be rotated toward the center of the car, next I was able to slide the side of the turn signal inward to make it sit flush with the outside the fender. After that, I adjust the front cap to make it sit as flush as possible on the sides. Finally, I was able to get the headlight housing to fit more flush on the inside edge of the cap/turn signal assembly.





I did run into one little problem: the 3D printed lower headlight filler actually sits in a different place in relation to the turn signal filler than I anticipated. I will have to reprint the headlight fillers with a different profile where the two fillers meet. It's not a big deal but it will bother me if I don't fix it....

[MaR]

SInce I have the old factory seats out of the car for the time being, I took the opportunity to take the seat rack off the drivers side seat so I can clean it up and get it "tuned up". On the surface, the seats don't look horrible but the foam under the leather is brick hard and the support springs are completely sprung and out of shape. In the end, when I reupholster the Talisman seats, I will have to make some sort of hybrid between the Eldorado seat and the Talisman seat so I can have the folding mechanism to allow people to more easily get in the back.









The rack itself functions just fine, it's just grungy and rusty like all the other brackets in the interior. I'll just take it all apart, sand blast it and make it as close to new as I can.





The biggest difference between the seat construction of the Talisman seat vs the Eldorado seat (besides the folding mechanism) is the way the seat cushion is constructed. The Eldorado seat has a conventional car seat construction for the time with "S" springs, a foam core and padded upholstery cover on the seating surface. The Talisman seat is actually constructed more like an expensive chair with an "S" spring base, individually pocketed coil springs that are tied together and then an extra thick padded upholstery cover with buttons that go completely through the cover and the springs. I can imagine that the seat construction was a considerable part of the price of the Talisman option.

[hornetball]

Great work as always.  The Eldo sure fills that storage unit!

[Big Fins]

I always enjoy reading this and hornetball's resto job. Great work on both of your parts.

How about if you had the Talisman seat frames and base recovered with a period correct leather cover? You would have the Talisman seat comfort with the looks of your year Eldorado.

[MaR]

I always enjoy reading this and hornetball's resto job. Great work on both of your parts.

How about if you had the Talisman seat frames and base recovered with a period correct leather cover? You would have the Talisman seat comfort with the looks of your year Eldorado.

I am going to reupholster the Talisman seats to match the Eldorado, I first have to work out the differences between the seat frames so I can retain the folding function so it's possible to get into the back seat.

[Big Fins]

Can you swap the seat backs to the Talisman bases? That might take away the reclining feature but, give you the rear access that you need, or give you both.

Maybe you can even fit the Talisman bases to the Eldorado rails and add a faux cover on the front and rear to make up for the trans tunnel opening the Talisman bases have.