Carl 61 Fleetwood Phyllis

[Clewisiii]

I just received an email from UPS that Just Dashes has shipped out my restored dash and end pieces. Took 5 months but it is delivering in the exact time they told me. So I will not complain about that. 

Happy to get that back and check out the restored color.

[Clewisiii]

No way,  I just got an email from UPS that a shipment from SMS is on the way.   It says it is 25 pounds so I do not think it is my complete order. But I am excited either way.

[Clewisiii]

Can I say it is an early Christmas gift if I paid $4000 in total for this stuff. But my Just Dashes order came in today and an order for SMS. 

I will go over just dashes first then check all the SMS order.

The dash looks great. But it does have a more gritty texture compared to the original.    They sent a touch up paint bottle with it. 

[Clewisiii]

The SMS order is a partial order.  I received the fabric, vinyl, trim vinyl.   I did not receive the trunk lining, sewn headliner or extra headliner material.

I ordered 5 yards of vinyl.  I received 5.5.  But that .5 had cuts in it and along half the rest piping strips had been cut off. 

The half yard of trim vinyl is not the correct color. But I cannot fault them for that as there was no reference material for the order. I may use it or buy something else locally. 

I ordered 6 yards of fabric.  This was one cut of 4.5 yards and two cuts of 1 yard.  Some cuts in material and one with a hole in the center.

The pleats run length wise of the roll. There are 21 pleats in the rolled fabric. The seat bottoms have 24 pleats.  So I will need to splice. But this is not SMSs issue. 

All in all I am happy to have this material and start seriously planning how I am going to use it. But it is still hard to believe that that 3 pieces of cut fabric are $1000

[Clewisiii]

So the one year goal is to use all of this stuff to redo my factory interior.  And the cherry on top goal is to use the leftover material. Fabric, vinyl, wood veneer and make a custom floor console to match the car.  I may need to build a casting set up to make some custom chrome pieces to match the look of the door panels etc. 

[Clewisiii]

A little french stitch sewing practice. I am getting a lot better.

[6caddy2]

French seam looks awesome Carl!!! everything else seems to be in order, been a minute or 2 since the 61/62 site, looking great!

[Clewisiii]

I am a little worried about my amount of material ordered for vinyl. 

I ordered 5 yards.   Here is the usage on two yards of that. The complete front seat.  And one door. 

I still need the complete rear seat, 3 doors. B pillars c pillars along rear seats. And all of the piping.   

The good thing is the rear seat uses a lot less vinyl.  But I am still a lot tighter then I would like. Because of these cut pattern lay outs, that is why I want to disassemble all door components and make patterns to check on the material before I cut a thing.  This will also leave no room for error.  So I may need to order 2 more yards for safety. 

[Clewisiii]

I counted up just over 1000 inches of piping for the car.  This needs to be cut from the vinyl.  I think I will need to order 2 more yards of material.

[Clewisiii]

Well I decided to measure up and cut all the piping. Since it was straight pieces I did not need to plan where to cut them from.  I did not account for the yardage of piping.   So this makes me low on vinyl. 

I tried laying out my patterns on what was left.  And seeing if I had enough.   If I do not make one mistake cutting or sewing I should have enough.  But I do not know if I can count on that.   I should buy another yard or two. 

[Clewisiii]

I am still working through finishing my new shop for my car. When I originally added this up a few years ago I came up with $17,000 for the remodel.  I don't know if that is what I actually spent. But I don't want to add it up.  I have the wall board for a third of it.  Another $700 for the rest. I am working in stages. Next year will be a new insulated roll up door with windows.  I finally have conditions that will not harm my car.  No more water or moisture intrusion. 

[Clewisiii]

I have half of the walls complete.  But I bought all of the 3/4 inch panels local to me so I will need to wait for a resupply. 

But with my last two days of vacation I decided to clean and assemble the open face bench spray booth that I bought used. I know this is extravagant but I really want to keep a clean work space.  I have blue paint all over my ceiling fans from when I painted my engine.  I also have a layer on my tool boxes.  I want to limit all of that for when my cars body work gets farther along.

[Clewisiii]

After nearly 2 years I am back to working on the body work of the car.  I had to completely rebuild the front lip of the hood. So now it is going to be a chore to get these compound curve body lines nice and straight.

[Clewisiii]

You know, I fear I will need to sandblast a good portion of my car again.

The reason I spent all the money and time fixing up my shop was because the conditions were actually harming my car.  A family of racoons were in the attic two years ago and their urine running down rusted the back of my hood, part of the firewall, and a fender.  But because of the low level of the floor, the barn would flood in the spring.  Near an inch of water would cover the floor when the snow melted.  It then made the shop very humid, making matters worse.

Trying to work through it all on a spot basis may be to risky. I think the roof is all good, and the rear fenders. So basically the body past the firewall should be fine.  But I need to do all the doors front fenders and hood.
I rented the equipment and blasted at home last time.  I think I can use my small sand blaster to do the firewall. Then I can just take all the other parts to a shop and have them blasted one at a time.

[Roger Zimmermann]

Bad luck to have to do the work twice. Sandblasting can sometimes do more harm than good; I suppose you know that.

[Clewisiii]

I keep the material cool so I have had no issues of warping. There is oil canning in my hood but something was left on the engine when someone closed the hood and stretched/dented the metal up.  I have been working in to shrink the area.   I was very successful doing this on the Fleetwoods roof.  It has been harder on the hood.

[Clewisiii]

You know the excitement you get when you stick your hand in your pocket and pull out cash you didn't know you had.

I was going through one of my bags and found another owners manual that I did not know I had. I remember buying the one. I was upset with the discoloration on the plastic sleeve. 

I have no idea where I got the clean one from. You would think that would be something you remember.

[Clewisiii]

I received my SMS order of leather today.  I only ordered half a hyde. I worried that it would not be enough.  And it won't be enough.  But I am happy I only ordered a half hyde. This is the work quality of leather I have ever worked with.  It feels weak in your hand.  It is covered in wrinkles and loose break. I will not use this in my car.  The red and blue image below shows the surface quality of this leather next to a red leather that I had on hand.  Again they feel completely different.

At least the color is good.  I will cut this up and send it out to several companies to see about color matching in a better quality leather.

[Clewisiii]

All. To any who have a 1960 to 64 bench seat with the fold down armrest I have a question. 

When I first got my car the driver arm rest was locked right up.  It was out about 2 inches and stuck there.  I was not actually able to get it open until I disassembled the seat. 

I cleaned, oiled, and bent back the mechanism.  The legs individually worked in my hands.   

Well after a year and a half stand still on my seat structure I am back to reassembling the seat for a test fit and reminder of assembly steps.  But I notice the armrest is locking up again now that it is in place. 

I think the mechanism overtravels and gets locked.  I do not have the foam on the armrest yet.  Maybe that foam thickness will prevent the overtravel. 

So my question is this a problem others have observed?   What are your thoughts on the issue? 

[David Greenburg]

Not a problem I have observed.  Armrests on my '61 are a little stiff, or less sloppy (probably from lack of use since its a low mileage car) compared to other Cadillacs of this vintage that I'm acquainted with.  Both with my '60 and my former '59, the driver's armrest could sometimes bind slightly at first, which I've always thought was due to wear/excessive play in the mechanism.  But a gentle tug upward/outward seems to take care of the problem.