My newly acquired 1974 Eldorado convertible project car

[MaR]

The next step of the dash reassembly is to work on the vents. Two of my vent assemblies have broken louvers on the chrome frame so I acquired a pair of very nice ones from Charles here on the forum. I started out by salvaging what I could of one of the foam dampers on the side of one of the vents so I could reproduce it.





Next was to completely disassemble the vents so all of the pieces could be completely cleaned and polished as needed.








Here is a before and after of the polishing on the chrome frames.





And all the parts after they have been cleaned and dried.






I made replacement foam dampers for all of the vents. The dampers give the vent some resistance in it's housing so it will stay where you position it. If your vents flop around, your foam dampers have disintegrated.





Out of the 6 adjustment levers I have, I picked out the best four and cleaned them up. The black line in the middle was gone from most of the levers and after polishing, just about all of the black lines were gone. After I cleaned them up, I repainted the lines (with a toothpick).







And here they are all assembled. I still want to replace a few of the levers as some of them are flaking chrome. Next time I go to the junk yard, I'll get a few. I think Cadillac used these same vents for many, many years so getting extra parts should not be hard.

[MaR]

The map light had melted and disintegrated but I managed to find a few spares in my local classic junkyard. They were both in usable condition but not perfect. Since you don't really see it though, I'm not terribly concerned if it's not perfect. The map lights I found were from '75 or '76 models so they did not have the black edge or mask on the face. It's just painted on so it was easy to reproduce.

[MaR]

Now I can (almost) finish putting parts back on the dash. I started with the wiper controls and the vents.











Next was to install the map light. After it was installed, It seems to sag a bit. I have seen other cars of this design with the issue so I'm assuming that the mount is warped, possibly from the heat of the bulb. When I take the middle dash back out when I paint, I'll see if I can find the cause of the misalignment.








I also put the glove box light back together and then tested all the dash courtesy lights. As you can see, the map light is pointed more toward the dash than the passenger so something is up with the mounting points.







Here is the dash with all of the controls lit up. I'll have to do something about the lack of uniformity of the control illumination. Some things like the headlight and accessory controls have blue filters built in but the wipers, cruise and climate controls have no filters. I would prefer to have everything uniform. That's a project for another day though...





One last thing, on the '74, the interior door pulls are long straps that have a tendency to rip off the upper door panels and break the chrome bezel in the process. I never liked them on my '74 CDV I had years ago and I still don't like them now. When I acquired my replacement lower door panels a while back, I also got a set of the upper panels (I think from a '78). Growing tired of the constantly flopping drivers side pull strap, I just installed the the drivers side panel as is, no cleaning, no restoration, and finally, no flopping. I'll reupholster it later...

[James Landi]

Such incredible work pays off in details that bespeak "as new" fit, feel, and look. Having owned dozens of well used Cadillacs, I often was simply glad to have everything working, to have the outside looking good enough to pass a 15 foot test, and to have my eyes not rest on the worn out soft goods and cracked interior panels.  It's so great to see your efforts pay off in those close up photos you post... bellissimo!   James

[MaR]

Such incredible work pays off in details that bespeak "as new" fit, feel, and look. Having owned dozens of well used Cadillacs, I often was simply glad to have everything working, to have the outside looking good enough to pass a 15 foot test, and to have my eyes not rest on the worn out soft goods and cracked interior panels.  It's so great to see your efforts pay off in those close up photos you post... bellissimo!   James

Thanks for the good word! My goal all along is to just have a good solid driver that looks as good as reasonably possible and document what I'm doing along the way so others might have some questions answered that they might not find info on elsewhere.

[MaR]

Here is a part that has been floating around for a while that I finally finished up; a rather crusty passenger side lower seat trim panel:

[MaR]

Now for something a bit more in depth. It's time to work on the power seat racks. They "sort of" both work but under great strain and the drivers side controls have wiring issues. Both racks are quite rusty, very dirty, and just quite tired overall. I've started with the drivers side rack but both racks appear to be identical. One of the things that I am changing is the tabs that hold the bolt covers. On the '74, there appear to just be tabs in one or two ends and on the later racks, they had tabs on all four ends so I will be swapping out parts to add the tabs to mount the later style larger bolt covers. On to the grunge!




Right off the bat I took the motor and transmission assembly off of the rack actuators. Being that they lived under the seat, they are probably the dirtiest thing in the interior of the car. Surprisingly, I had no problems getting the cables off of the actuators or the transmission.













With the rack separated, I took off all the actuators and then separated the rack slider from the upper rack. Several of those red guides in the last pic were broken and falling apart. I found some replacements in my local junkyard but apparently it's common for them to fail.









Here are the first rack pieces that I test sand blasted. It's imperative that all the blasting media be removed from the rack before you put it back together or it can bind up.








I also cleaned up all the fasteners.
















Here are the lift actuators. The front and rear are different and the center posts look similar, but they are different also so be sure to not mix them up when you put them back together. I cleaned out all the old grease and grime and then thoroughly regreased the actuators.













The front end cap on the motor is welded in place and I did not want to grind it apart. I tried a different rust removing product that is made to stick on difficult surfaces. It seem to work well enough but I did have to sand it in a few places in the end. One advantage of that material is that it will not damage most stickers.










Next up was to break down the transmission and regrease it. It was quite clean inside and mostly just the outer case needed cleaning.


















I next cleaned up the actuator cables and then mounted them to the transmission










For the forward/rearward actuators, they are peened together and I did not wand to break them taking them apart. There is what I though was a greasing hole so I used that to flush out the old grease and then refilled it with new through the same hole.









I acquired a nice sized syringe to squirt the grease in with. It proved to be very useful later on...






This actuator had been run to the stop so many times that the housing was bent. I replaced it with a spare from another rack.






The relay had a little bit of surface rust that cleaned off easily.






I mounted the rebuilt actuators to the refinished racks, the motor and transmission to the cross plate, and then reassembled the entire rack with the motor and transmission. Now I just need to do the passenger side.

[hornetball]

I see you do this stuff in socks! 

My stuff was a lot cleaner, but I did pull apart the transmission and clean/regrease.  I thought it was interesting that the factory left these pieces as bare metal.  Yours will last a lot longer now with that black primer on it.  It'll keep the rust off the carpet too.

[James Landi]

I  always took working power seats for granted until the years of "downsizing" when all of those high stress transmission housings and casing were manufactured in plastic instead of metal.  On newer models from the 80's, the transmission housings break apart because the plastic simply becomes brittle.  I owned several '80's Cadillacs where I simply adjusted the seat for the two of us and then disconnected the power to the seat fearing that someone would engage it, and then I'd be forever stuck in an uncomfortable driving position. As the saying goes, "They don't make 'em like that anymore."    Thanks for posting--- always look forward to seeing your progress.   Happy day, James

[MaR]

I see you do this stuff in socks! 

My stuff was a lot cleaner, but I did pull apart the transmission and clean/regrease.  I thought it was interesting that the factory left these pieces as bare metal.  Yours will last a lot longer now with that black primer on it.  It'll keep the rust off the carpet too.

If I'm working indoors, I'm going to be comfortable! I think I'm going to glue a piece of vinyl on the underside of the rack feet to keep them from ever getting stuck to the carpet.

[MaR]

I  always took working power seats for granted until the years of "downsizing" when all of those high stress transmission housings and casing were manufactured in plastic instead of metal.  On newer models from the 80's, the transmission housings break apart because the plastic simply becomes brittle.  I owned several '80's Cadillacs where I simply adjusted the seat for the two of us and then disconnected the power to the seat fearing that someone would engage it, and then I'd be forever stuck in an uncomfortable driving position. As the saying goes, "They don't make 'em like that anymore."    Thanks for posting--- always look forward to seeing your progress.   Happy day, James

You could see a little of this between the '76 Talisman seats and the '74 Eldorado seats. That metal seat trim that holds the seat controls that I posted just above the seat rack post is a plastic part on the Talisman seat.

[hornetball]

As the saying goes, "They don't make 'em like that anymore."

I've got a '94 Corvette, and the quality difference between it and the '74 Eldo is dramatic.  And it's not just metal vs. plastic.  Some pieces on the Eldo are plastic too, but it is a much higher quality plastic that is still pliable and can retain fasteners.  On the Corvette, if I look at it funny it'll break.  And the Corvette is just as much a low-mileage garage-queen as the Eldo.

Oh well.

[MaR]

To continue on with the seat rack theme, I pulled the rack from the passenger side Talisman seat. I knew that it would be different from all of the other seat racks that I have because the Talisman seat has power recline. Since it does not have a dedicated switch (or motor) for the recline, the front tilt switch work the recline feature and the front is fixed on the seat rack. Since I want to have full 6 way motion on the seat rack on my final product, I won't be using the 4 way rack at all. I do plan on retaining the power recline if possible so I'll just leave the actuator disconnected for now. Here is the underside of the passenger Talisman seat, the cable that goes from the seat transmission to the seat back actuator and the rack itself.









The seat switches also needed a bit of going over also. They are much more "restoration friendly" than the window switches as they can actually be disassembled without breaking them. They were not that bad overall but they had rust stains from the seat trim and the drivers side has some corroded pins. What I found odd was that the driver side switch had a much larger flange than the passenger side one, but both them could physically be mounted on either side. Here is what they looked like as removed:







The circuit board is retained by these little clips that can be popped out with a small screw driver:





And here is the inside with the circuit board removed:





Here are all the pieces cleaned up (drivers side) and ready to assemble:





The plastic carrier for all the controls. It just sits inside the metal housing.








The circuit board is keyed so it will only fit in one way.






And with all the clips in, everything is retained and ready to install.

[MaR]

I recently acquired an "untested" power antenna for a fairly good deal. The thing that interested me was that the mast looked to be complete. When it finally arrived, I tested it out and it tried to work but it just could not extend the mast. I greased it up the best I could but it still needed help to extend or retract. Since my antenna that came with the car seems to work other than the broken off mast, I decided to take it apart and see what made it tick and if it was reparable. It seems that there is very little info on the web about this style of antenna and the service manual is not much help. I started by pulling the "automatic" part of the cover off.




As you can see, there is a little red gear than controls a switch. Here is what turns the gear:






For each revolution of the pin, it moves the red gear one step. Once the red gear has made 3/4 of a revolution, it would switch off either the up or down circuit depending on the direction the red gear rotated. The part with the pin is actually a nut that holds the clutch assembly together. The clutch has a spring loaded set of balls that turn the clutch plate. When there is too much resistance on the clutch plate, the balls will pop over two humps on the plate and "slip" around 180° until they hit the humps again. The clutch plate has teeth on the outside that grip the antenna cable and push or pull the antenna up or down.


















Under the clutch plate there is the middle housing for the antenna. This has a guide for the antenna cable to route it to the chamber than that spools up the antenna cable. On the other side of the middle housing, it has the back of the gear reduction housing. All of these parts were caked with old grease that was binding up everything.










I then removed the antenna from the middle housing. That required the antenna lead to be unsoldered from the jack on the side of the tube and then then antenna assembly could be removed completely.  I then removed all the guides and cleaned all the grease and debris from inside them.










After I got the middle housing cleaned up, I realized that housing itself was just about completely worn out. It was so worn in fact that it actually had a hole worn though the housing in one spot from the antenna cable. I opted to then just salvage the antenna mast and install it into my existing antenna assembly. Here are a few shots of the wear between the two parts.













Another thing to note was that the worn antennas gear box was full of the same orange/yellow grease that just about everything else in the car is greased with. In my antenna, it was full of molybdenum disulfide and it was it perfect condition and did not need to be replaced.

   



It all went back together smoothly, and for some reason, I did not take any pics of the finished antenna. I'll take a few and edit this post later.

[James Landi]

So much hardware, and then the development of the embedded antenna in the early '70's that was not considered very effective, and now, cars have embedded antennas yet again.   Great pictures and narrative, thanks, James

[MaR]

And here is the missing finished pic of the antenna:

[James Landi]

Looks great.  I recall the first day my Dad brought his first Cadillac home, a 56, and he demonstrated the antenna,along with everything else, on his "loaded sedan de Ville." I was amazed, as a ten year old.  And when I went to college, he gave me that car.  Even in the mid-60's, most of my peers had never experienced auto a/c, electric windows, power bench seat, and the crowning glory, the antenna, and foot operated station seeking radio.  Cadillac was certainly king in those days. I loved that car, and, frankly, the many Cadillacs I have owned and enjoyed.     Thanks for your postings,    James

[ant2173]

Many thanks for your report about the repair of power seats mechanism. I used it as manual to clean and regrease mine 6-way in 1982 cadillac.
Interesting - the mechanism in 1982 is exactly the same, but many details are replaced by plastic analogues, for example, the case.

[MaR]

Many thanks for your report about the repair of power seats mechanism. I used it as manual to clean and regrease mine 6-way in 1982 cadillac.
Interesting - the mechanism in 1982 is exactly the same, but many details are replaced by plastic analogues, for example, the case.

It also seems as if most of the parts were used for many years previous to '74.

[MaR]

Well, I have been busy with the '74 but I just have not finished the things that I'm working on to the point where I can post them. Here is something I am wrapping up right now though. Like most of these cars, the hood hinges are sloppy. The ones that were one the car had been "repaired" by the previous owner to the point where it took two people to shut the hood. I acquired a pair of decent but still worn hinges to at least make the hood functional and now it's time to get them properly sorted out.

I started with a spare hinge that was in typical condition with about half an inch of side to side play with the spring removed. There should be zero side to side play as that kind of wear is what makes the back of the hood stick up when it's closed. The previous owner of this hinge was also gracious enough to prime it but they skipped the prep work step and just sprayed over dirt, grease, and everything.








The main failure mode of these hinges is the rivets wearing out, either with the peened head wearing, the axle section wearing, or both. The only real fix is to replace the rivets as just hammering them tighter will just fail again in a short period of time.





I drilled out all the rivets, checked all the holes for roundness, and cleaned up any burrs around the holes. After that, I sandblasted all the parts and gave them all a nice coat of paint.










I opted rather than making more rivets to make some custom shoulder bolts and bolt the joints together. This way, if they were to wear again, I can easily rebuild them. All of the fasteners are stainless steel and I used Delrin plastic washers between the rotating parts for smooth operation without the need for grease. I used a locking jam nut to hold it all together.












The operation of the hinge is now perfectly smooth with zero side to side play. The Delrin washer are designed for this kind of load and application so they should last indefinitely. The only modification I had to make to the hinge was to take about 1/16" off of the corner of one of the linkages where it was bumping into the head of one of the bolts. Other than that, everything else cleared with no issues. Now all I need to do is add the spring and install it on the car.