My newly acquired 1974 Eldorado convertible project car

[MaR]

Considering that your hood is off and that's the worst part of pulling the power unit . . . .  Just sayin'.

The hood was off...

[DeVille68]

I took off the shelf stainless steel shoulder bolts and then turned them down to add the extra step and the proper threads. I'm considering making them as a kit for DIYers to rebuild their own hinges. If I do that, I'll have them CNC tuned from scratch and put a hex head on them rather than the hex socket that's in them now.

Nice work!
And, great idea with the fasteners. Well, let us know in the forum if you do that. I have already planned this rebuild for the next winter.

A leaking transmission while driving would be caused by the vent tube being blocked, pushing fluid through other areas like the pan gasket. Most mechanics forget to check the vent.

Best regards,
Nicolas

[MaR]

Nice work!
And, great idea with the fasteners. Well, let us know in the forum if you do that. I have already planned this rebuild for the next winter.

A leaking transmission while driving would be caused by the vent tube being blocked, pushing fluid through other areas like the pan gasket. Most mechanics forget to check the vent.

Best regards,
Nicolas

I'll check my vent tube.

[MaR]

Here are the pics that were missing from my previous post. The hood hinges installed and the seam sealer on the top lip of the cowl.

[MaR]

I pulled all the the stainless steel trim from the windshield so I can polish it.  The reveal over the top edge has a dent in it so it will be a little while before I can fix it. I polished all the other pieces and reinstalled what I could.







Here is the result after polishing:

[MaR]

The main reason to polish the windshield trim was so that I can reinstall the interior windshield trim. I started out by cleaning up the top latch retainers/sunvisor mounts.





I also had made a new power wire for the illuminated passenger side visor.







I test fit the passenger side mount to see how to route the wire.








Then I attached the mounts to the interior header trim and bolted everything in place. The mounts have to attach to the trim first and then the assembly is mounted to the windshield frame.









With the frame mounted, I then installed the A pillar trim.

[MaR]

While I was working on the windshield trim, I was also getting the Talisman console brackets ready to mount. I had previously constructed the floor pan adapter and made the floor mounting brackets. Now I gave the adapter a few coats of oil based paint to waterproof it.





Here it is, in place with the brackets installed on the floor. with everything in it's correct location. I marked the location of the console mounting slots on brackets.






With the mounting slots from the console marked I then made slots in the brackets. The console has horizontal slots for for and aft adjustment so my bracket slots are vertical to give me up and down adjustment.








I'm using the same style of clip nuts that everything else in the car is put together with. If they can hold the car together, they will work for my console as well.





With the bracket painted, I installed them to the floor.








I then attached the floor pan adapter to the Talisman console.







Next was to bolt the console in. Since the mounting bolts may be exposed in the end, I opted for some stainless steel bolts that I polished.








And here is the console shell bolted in place. I also installed the sunvisors.









In the Talisman application, the console sits on the large transmission tunnel and the console itself is upholstered to match the seats. Since I had to make a riser for it to mount properly in the Eldorado, I'm probably going to carpet the lower section of the console in the same style that the door panels are done in: a strip of carpet along the bottom with a stainless reveal molding between the carpet and the upper upholstery.

[hornetball]

I also had made a new power wire for the illuminated passenger side visor.

Did you make that?  I need a fresh one.  RCA jacks are easy to find, but I was having a bit of trouble sourcing the braid.

[MaR]

Did you make that?  I need a fresh one.  RCA jacks are easy to find, but I was having a bit of trouble sourcing the braid.

It came from a shielded coaxial cable. I pulled the outer jacket off and it was very close to the factory wire underneath.

[hornetball]

It came from a shielded coaxial cable. I pulled the outer jacket off and it was very close to the factory wire underneath.

Huh.  Thought about doing that, but I was running into really light gauges for the inner (power) wire.  I'll need to keep looking.

[MaR]

Huh.  Thought about doing that, but I was running into really light gauges for the inner (power) wire.  I'll need to keep looking.

Well, both bulbs might consume 10 watts total so even a light gauge wire should be just fine.

[MaR]

I have been playing around with restoring a steering wheel for a little while now, trying different methods and experimenting with different materials. I have a method now that I feel like will last for a while so I pulled my wheel off and started working on it. It has two full cracks, one at 12:00 and one at 6:00. There are also two small crack starting on the rear of the wheel. The inlay face is almost completely missing and the support is cracked is several places. I started by removing all of the old inlay, cleaning up wheel and then removing it from the car.














I then scuffed up the wheel and opened up the two cracks that had just started forming.










To fill the cracks, I'm using a two part sculptable epoxy clay. It's firm enough to handle and as it cures, you can come back and easily shape and carve it with an exact-o knife. I tried mixing in some of the dye that I use on my interior parts but it just made it turn slightly pink rather than the normal off white that the epoxy usually is.








After the majority of the cracks where filled, I gave the wheel it's first base coat and sanded to expose the high and low spots in the wheel. I then filled and shaped the repairs as needed.










After I was satisfied with the crack repairs, I gave the wheel several base coats.






I then clear coated the wheel with a 2K catalyzed automotive clear.








I have been working with an individual on a reproduction wood inlay. He already makes it for the 71-73 wheels and with some modification, I was able to make it fit my '74 wheel. I'm pleased with the results. Also, thanks again to Charles for supplying the very nice '76 center caps with the chrome emblem and wreath.

[hornetball]

Wow, nice job.

[Cadillac Fleetwood]

Beautiful work!  It's like visiting the Cadillac showroom in 1974, only better!

Charles

[mario]

That came out beautiful. May I ask what the difference was between the wood inlay for the 71-73 wheel and the 76 wheel and how you had to modify the one you used.
Thank you for your time.
Ciao,
Mario Caimotto

[MaR]

That came out beautiful. May I ask what the difference was between the wood inlay for the 71-73 wheel and the 76 wheel and how you had to modify the one you used.
Thank you for your time.
Ciao,
Mario Caimotto

I have not actually had a 71-73 wheel in hand but the way the insert was made, it seem as if those wheels have a flat bottomed slot for the inlay. On my wheels (a '74 and a '76 wheel), the slot for the inlay is stepped with the outside being higher than the inside. I had to mill the matching slot in the insert to get it to sit flush. You can see below the step in the slot and the groove I milled into the insert.

[MaR]

I seem to have a bit more free time lately so I pulled out the buffer just to see if what is left of the factory paint could be buffed out. The passenger side door was just painted a few months ago so I'm using that as the reference. The first pic is the passenger fender as is vs the newly painted door. I would guess that the factory paint has not been waxed or polished it at least 20 years if not much longer than that. I used a Griots random orbit buffer with a hard foam waffle pad and 3M Perfect-It cutting compound.







After a bit of work, most of the color and gloss came back. you can easily see the difference in the old factory finish vs the new (cheap) paint. The old paint is much smoother and has much less orange peal.






For the factory to look really smooth though, it really needs to be color sanded to get all the damage out of it and then buffed out. It's in such bad shape overall though that it's not worth the effort.

[MaR]

I also did a bit of work on the door panels. When I bought the molded carpet, I also bought new carpet for the door panels. Here is the passenger side door panel carpet installation. I started with my refinished panel that has the existing carpet removed.





I sized up the new carpet piece to be sure it was going to fit properly.






It's hard to see in the pics, but I applied contact adhesive to both the door panel and the back of the carpet. Just wait until both pieces are dry and then stick them together.







With the carpet glued in place, I applied contact adhesive to the rear where the binding is wrapped around the panel and then wrapped the binding over the edge.





Here is the panel with the carpet completely installed.






And here is the stainless molding installed.






Next I worked on the upper door panel. This job is just like the other upper panels that I upholstered previously so I won't go into detail on the upholstery part. The big difference on this panel is that the window "fuzzy" was completely shot and mostly missing.







The molding is held on with heavy staples that punch though the trim and the metal panel. Swapping out the trim requires you to either have a super heavy duty stapler or to find an alternative way of attaching it. I toyed with screws but in the end, I used 3M molding tape. If that does not hold, there are several other tapes that are much more heavy duty.






The rest of the reupholstry is like the other panels: take it all apart and then put it all back together with new fabric.

[MaR]

Power door lock actuators. Anyone that has owned an early to mid '70s Cadillac (more specifically the coupes) knows that power door lock actuators love to seize up into a solid block of rust. The actuators in my car are no exception and finding good ones is an expensive endeavor. It is possible to convert the system to use a more modern actuator but I have the broken ones and a set of functional units from a sedan so lets see what we can find out. I started out with a spare passenger side actuator. It was locked up completely and nothing would make it move.









The actuator is held together by the peened over end of the housing. Later versions have a rolled edge rather than a peened edge.





I straightened the edge and hoped that it would just come apart. Nothing like that happened...





Not really knowing how it was constructed internally, the only thing I could see to do is to drive the internals out from the other end. Tapping the metal end with a punch started out OK but after about 1/4" of an inch, it just seemed to bind up.





Since this was a spare, I just went with it and finally drove it apart, crushing the circuit breaker in the process. I at least knew what was inside and partially knew how it was assembled internally.





For this rebuild, I took a functional rear sedan actuator which had the correct rod length and removed the internals from it's shell. Now I can see how it's supposed to go together.





I dropped the coils and connectors into my coupe housing.





And then dropped the actuator rod into the coil.





I then peened the top over.





And then put the boot in place.





The end result was a rebuilt actuator.

[MaR]

So swapping the guts of an actuator to another shell is technically not "rebuilding it" and there is a finite supply of good sedan actuators. I wanted to take a non-functional actuator and make it work. I took my factory installed passenger side actuator and soaked it in rust remover for days and days until no more rusty liquid would pour out. I then flushed it with water and put penetrating oil in it. After about a week of this, I was able to get the entire unit apart.





You can see here what actually rusts together and bind it up.







I soaked the actuator rod in rust remover.





I also rewrapped the coils since the existing tape was ruined by the fluids and oils I soaked it in.





From there, I reinstalled the coil into the housing, the brass tube into the coil (I cleaned and polished the brass tube), and the actuator into the tube. I thoroughly greased the tube, the actuator and the end caps to help combat corrosion.










I then peened it back over and installed the only good boot I had on the connector end.







Since I don't have any way to put a new boot on the actuator end, I need to come up with some method of deflecting water from entering the rod side of the actuator. Some kind of plastic shield like a umbrella would work provided it can be attached firmly to the rod.