My newly acquired 1974 Eldorado convertible project car

[MaR]

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.

The actual seat racks are identical between the Talisman and the Eldorado and they seem to be interchangeable. My current plan is to take the Talisman upholstery (style), foam, and springs and modify them to fit the Eldorado frames. I will know more once I have at least one of each style of seat apart. The transmission tunnel does not have any effect on the Talisman seats since they are 40/40 seats. The center console mounts to the transmission tunnel in that car. The Eldorado has a "tunnel" of sorts under the seats. It's no where as tall as the one that's in a RWD car but it will serve as a base for me to make a small riser for the Talisman console to mount to.

[babywantsbling]

Where do you get 3-d filler parts made. And do you have an example of the cost for say, the rear fender fillers. Thank you. I enjoy reading your updates. I wish my husband had the skills to do this stuff.

[MaR]

Where do you get 3-d filler parts made. And do you have an example of the cost for say, the rear fender fillers. Thank you. I enjoy reading your updates. I wish my husband had the skills to do this stuff.

I have them printed at Shapeways. I don't know what the rear fillers will cost as I have not modeled them yet but it's safe to say that they will be considerable more than the other fillers on the market. Mine will be better though. 

[hornetball]

I wish my husband had the skills to do this stuff.

Ouch!   

[babywantsbling]

Ok thanks. For some reason I thought you had done them already. Ours bubbled up. I ordered a set off eBay. I think they’re fiberglass. I ordered them before I read your post though. They’re being painted now. Hopefully they will fit. I’m sure the other fillers will have to be done someday. At least I have this information now. Thanks again for posting that.
How is your restore coming along? I’m excited to see it finished.
Thanks, Melinda

[35-709]

Hope you fitted those pieces first Melinda, before painting.  All of the ones I have ever heard about, or used, require a fair amount of grinding, cutting, shaping, etc. to fit at all properly.  Some body shops find them so time consuming to fit and adjust that they won't do them.  Best  of luck.

[babywantsbling]

Got it back. They are on there and painted. He did have to do some cutting to get them to fit. But I’m glad I bought the fiberglass type. Body guy agreed. Theses won’t bubble up. I’m sure the fronts will be next but for now they’re fine. How is your car coming along?

Melinda

[MaR]

I did a few more maintenance related things recently as well as some more restoration related odds and ends. I’ll post more pics soon.

[James Landi]

Always look forward to your posting Mitchell.  Your efforts inspire us all.  James

[chrisntam]

Mitchell, I'm gonna creep around your neighborhood until such time that the for sale sign goes under the wiper, then I'm gonna buy it.



Keep up the good work!

[MaR]

I like to jump around while I'm working on the car so I switched over to a few of the remaining interior parts that needed to be cleaned up an redyed. These parts are the trim covers that go over the seat rack mounts.





Since they live on the floor, they were crusty and stained. I also seem to be missing a few of them so I popped over to my local vintage salvage yard and found these from a '75. They should fit my seats racks and look like they cover the bolts better than what I currently have.





I went ahead and dyed the old covers, the new covers, and some other various seat rack covers that came off of my drivers seat rack.





I still have a few other interior parts that need to be dyed and a hand full of under dash parts that need to be sand blasted and painted. it's getting much closer for me to start putting interior parts back in.

[MaR]

The exhaust has been annoying me since I got the car. Someone replaced the resonator with a straight pipe and the muffler was rusted out. Needless to say, it did not sound very good at all. You can see that the muffler has holes around the seam and there is no resonator in the pics below.







I decided that I was going to just replace the muffler and the resonator myself rather than have the whole exhaust system replaced right now. The muffler and the resonator were rather inexpensive.





When the previous work was done, they replaced everything from the rear of the muffler back with a single bent pipe and welded it to the stock muffler. I started by cutting off the pipe where the resonator mounts and replacing the straight pipe with the resonator. This would let me get the mounting correct for the resonator before I cut the pipe at the muffler.











After I had the resonator fitted correctly, I cut the pipe that comes from the muffler outlet off and removed to to prep it. Apparently, the outlet of the muffler was rusted out and they just sort of spliced in a new pipe piece to replace the bad outlet pipe. This left a hodge podge of pipes at the outlet of the muffler that I had to grind off and then flare the old pipe to fit the new muffler correctly.













I then cut the inlet off of the muffler and sliced the inlet pipe so I could get it off of the stock mid pipe. All of that was factory so it still had the factory alignment notch for the muffler. It was easier for me to notch the new muffler than try and grind off the factory notch, plus, it made alignment of the muffler much easier.









I then put everything back together and clamped it all up. Everything seems to be leak free so far.





I did a final autopsy of the factory muffler. On the surface, it looked reasonably OK but it was full of chunks and you could see the rear seam splitting from rust. With the outer cover pealed back, you can see the rust damage. The rear of the can is just about perforated all the way around.

[MaR]

The trunk also needed a bit of attention as I really had not done much of anything to it so far other than remove a few of the cardboard and carpet trim pieces so I could access the rear filler brackets. I pulled everything out and carefully stored the cardboard pieces so I can reproduce them later.




It appears that the rubber mat has never been out of the car. The trunk carpet looked brand new under it.





All of the orange glue had given up long ago and the trunk carpet was just laying in the trunk. I was able to just remove all of the carpet and fold it up for later use. All of the sound deadeners were still in place but they were smelly and brittle so in the trash they went.





This is about the consistency of all of the seam sealer throughout the car.





All in all though, the trunk floor itself is about as perfect as you could ask for. No rust or any damage to speak of at all.

[hornetball]

Wow your trunk looks good.

I only had one seat mount cover left in my car.  The rest were missing.

[MaR]

I have also started deep cleaning the floor pan in preparation of painted it. I started with the rear area under/behind the rear seat as it's the worst part.





I pulled out all the degraded seam sealer, removed the rear speakers and wiring, removed the rear windows access panels and then went over everything with a wire brush attachment on my angle grinder.





I was amazed at the number of spotwelds on this specific panel under the rear seat back.





I also scrubbed and pressure washed the rear area and now I need to go over it with some degreaser. Once that is done, I can coat everything in POR-15 and then new seam sealer.

Bonus pics, this is why I don't put the top up:

[MaR]

Wow your trunk looks good.

I only had one seat mount cover left in my car.  The rest were missing.

The 75 and up covers look much nicer. I also found out that they will fit all four mount positions on my Talisman seats so I need to get another left and right one. I did not have trouble finding them in my junkyard so if you needed some, they should be relatively easy to fine.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Boy, that trunk floor is immaculate.   And love the picture of the rear sway bar in place.

First Convertible roof I have seen with a Sunroof.   Must be one of those rare options.

Bruce.

[MaR]

Boy, that trunk floor is immaculate.   And love the picture of the rear sway bar in place.

First Convertible roof I have seen with a Sunroof.   Must be one of those rare options.

Bruce.

And portholes! I have to say, the holes in the sides make it much easier to make adjust the top mechanism.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Forgot to mention that your pictures of the trunk floor have shown me for the first time, a correct rubber floor mat.

Bruce.

[MaR]

Forgot to mention that your pictures of the trunk floor have shown me for the first time, a correct rubber floor mat.

Bruce.

I will take a few more detailed pics of it.