My newly acquired 1974 Eldorado convertible project car

[MaR]

Lets talk cigarette lighters. All of the lighter sockets in my car were in poor shape at best. some of them were so rusted out that there was nothing really left of them. I had managed to gather enough parts to refurbish all of the lighters in the car but not all of them were the same. Here is the front drivers door lighter rebuild.





This is the layout of all the parts after a bit of cleaning.










The big difference between the front passenger lighter and the others in the rear of the car are the slots for the illumination. The remainder of the body is the same.











The slots for the illumination port need to be oriented as shown so the bulb holder can snap in. The bulb holder also has a second opening to illuminate the ashtray. The front passenger position also has a special ashtray with windows on each end for the illumination to light up the ashtray itself.









The illumination will work with the ashtray installed in either orientation. There will be no smoking in my car so there is not much of a worry of them getting damaged by use.

[hornetball]

Thumbs up Mitch!

[James Landi]

...been missing your reports... always loved the touches of illumination on Cadillacs. Of course, those small lights, connections, and associated parts had a distinct service life, and often, when they failed, were not missed. Keep your progress reports coming... very respectful of your creativity and attention to details.   James

[DeVille68]

nice work on an unnecessary detail like the cigarette lighter! Reminds me of myself :-D 

Best regards,
Nicoals

[MaR]

nice work on an unnecessary detail like the cigarette lighter! Reminds me of myself :-D 

Best regards,
Nicoals

I have spent the majority of the body work time on the car in places that will be completely covered up with rocker molding trim...

[MaR]

Time for what seems to be my quarterly update. Lets start with the passenger side rear quarter panel. As I had mentioned before, the passenger side rear quarter, fender skirt, and door on this car had been replaced. I had already replaced the poorly repaired door but I had not done anything about the rear quarter. The quarter itself was fine for the most part but the molding did not line up with the door and all the paint was flaking off of the repainted area. Here is how far off the molding was:





And here was the general condition of the paint:










It was not rusty; that is brown primer showing though. With one quick pass of the DA, here is what the paint looked like:






I sanded the entire quarter with the DA sander all the way to the metal.







Here is something odd. When they repaired the car, they put the trim back on the car before they put the top coat on and then just masked it off.

[MaR]

Now to fix the molding. When the replacement quarter and door skin was installed, the replacement pieces did not have the studs for the trim on the panels. Screw in studs where used and when a factory door with factory studs was installed, the molding on the rear quarter was not in the right place.






You can see that the holes for the screw in studs were way too low. I had to weld them up and drill new holes in the correct locations.

[MaR]

Now on to the bodywork. Just like the fenders, I skim coated the panel with filler and then blocked it down. Since this panel is so big, I got this big boy:






It's a 24" body block for long, flat panels. On to the skim coat!






The panel was mostly straight with just a few imperfections. There were a few low spots after the first skim coat which I took care of with a touchup coat.












I just liked the way this looked in sanded steel:





I then skimmed and sanded the upper section:






I also smoothed out the body seam where the quarter is welded to the rear cowl.

[MaR]

I built a little "paint booth" over the rear quarter so I could prime and paint it.





Here is the quarter after I tack clothed it right before the first coat of primer.






After the first coat of primer:






I sanded the first coat with 240 grit paper and then put a second coat:





I sanded the second coat of primer and then at this point, I put the trim studs back on.






Finally, I sprayed a single stage coat of the body color on. Again, this is not the final paint job. It's just something to make it so it's not sitting around in primer until I do the real paint job.

[MaR]

I pulled the rear bumper end off while I was painting the rear quarter. The rub strip was a bit oxidized, the lens needed to be polished, and it was a little rusty on the inside.






I masked off all the chrome, sandblasted the rust from the inside, and then painted the bare metal black.





The gray rubber bump strips on the car clean up nicely with rubbing compound.





The reflector came out nice after a quick polishing also.





The sides and top of the reflector are supposed to be painted gray to match the bumper strip. I'll have to have to paint mixed as none of the 6 shades of gray I had on the shelf were even close.





I then put parts back on the bumper end and put the bumper end back on the car. I also reinstalled the (incorrect) quarter panel extension that I had previously painted.

[MaR]

I also put new "window fuzzy" on the outer rear quarter window molding. The reproduction piece of rubber fuzzy molding did not have a guide that was on the factory one so I 3D printed a new one out of ABS plastic and riveted it on where it should have been mounted.






And lastly, the most important part: I got the cigarette lighter installed in the armrest.

[MaR]

One thing that I have wanted to do for a while is pull the gas tank and make sure there was not a ton of crap in it. It did sit for decades so I wanted to be sure. The hoses came off with no problems.





The tank itself came down with out any fuss. Nothing was rusty and the tank strap bolts came out with no problems.





Fortunately, the tank was quite clean inside. The filter sock was very clogged though and it was also split on one side.





I put a new filter sock on and put the sender back in the tank. I also cleaned the contacts on the float sender.





The trunk pan under the tank was in great condition.





And the tank went back up with no issues.

[MaR]

Next  I pulled all the remaining things off the firewall that I had not already removed and cleaned up. This included the cruise control module, the vacuum tank and the wiper motor.




I also removed the wiper linkages and all the trim from the cowl area. I had already replaced the seam sealer where the cowl and the firewall meet a while ago.





The firewall just needed a wipe down but the cowl needed to be repainted. I masked it off and sprayed it with the same satin black I have been using for just about everything else.






After the first coat of paint, I put the cowl tag back on as well as several of the bolts and retainers that should match the cowl.





I then sprayed everything with the second coat.

[MaR]

Each of the items that I removed from the firewall/cowl needed a little work. I started with the cruise module. There was not much to do with it but the filter for the lower solenoid had turned to dust and the housing was a bit rusty.







I cleaned up the filter housing and painted it. I also made a new filter and gasket (the old gasket broke when I took it off).

[MaR]

I reattached the cruise module to it's bracket, hooked up it's vacuum lines, and then bolted it back on the firewall.

[hornetball]

Thanks for posting Mitch.  Was wondering what you were up to.  I can't wait to see what your "real paintjob" looks like.

[Harley Earl]

Beautiful work as always, Mitch.  Inspiring for me, personally.  Thank you for the excellent pictures, descriptions, tips and techniques.  Very telling on why body and paint is priced the way it is currently.  You are an Artist!

[MaR]

Just after I got the car, I tested the wipers. They seemed to wipe OK but the washer pump made a horrible grinding noise so I just unplugged it and never messed with it again. On these old GM cars, the washer pump is cam driven off the wiper motor and it's common for the seals to fail and gum up everything with washer fluid. You can still buy entire replacement pump kits which actually upgrade the pump to pump more washer fluid. I started out by unhooking all the wiring from the pump portion of the motor assembly.






With the wiring unhooked, I took the pump portion of the motor assembly off and laid it out with the new pump assembly. There is a set of electrical connections and switches that have to be moved over to the new assembly.

[MaR]

With the pump assembly off, I proceeded to take the rest of the wiper motor apart to clean it up and re-grease it.

[MaR]

I cleaned and painted the housing and put everything back together with new grease.