Lovey, the 1955 Eldorado restoration story

[David King (kz78hy)]

More chassis shots.

[benx13]

That build takes some effort and hours. Huge undertaking.
Well done 💪🏼

[David King (kz78hy)]

Fog lamps and fender extensions.  There are a many parts making up the fog lamps and fender extensions and my lamps had rust issues.  The fender extensions were solid and required chrome work.  The lamp housing base required the attachment hole to be repaired, and painted.  The extensions have separate stainless strips which were polished.  Those are held w/rivets which I could not locate and would not have the tooling to set/peen them anyway.  I did find some small shoulder screws which did the trick and almost look like the rivet head, expensive though.  New wire harness, lamps, lens and the rubber sealing panels that I have yet to figure out how they go.  If anyone has successfully installed these, let me know how they install.  The originals were to far gone to tell anything.

[David King (kz78hy)]

Fog Lamp and fender extension photos.

[David King (kz78hy)]

Fog Lamp assembly photos.  The lamp sockets required the old wire harness ends to be removed and new harness to be fed through the reflector, into the socket, and new lamp contact ends be soldered on the harness.  The new harness came with the contact ends.  The complete wire harness set came with the car and it is a very good quality product.

[David King (kz78hy)]

End of fog lamps.  I installed the lens and cut the felt wicks and placed at the bottom of the lens.  These are ready to bolt to the bumper assembly.  Lamps tested and working on the bench.

It is nice to see shinny, finished parts.

[Roger Zimmermann]

Very nice work. The '55 fog lamp assembly is obviously more complex than the '56 one.
It seems that you could install the 1044 bulbs without damaging them. For their installation on my own cars, I did a tool pushing all 3 pins together, facilitating the installation.

[Lexi]

Nice job on those Fog Lights. They are gorgeous! Clay/Lexi

[David King (kz78hy)]

Time for some interior photos.  The original interior was long gone when I acquired the car.  A sixties white vinyl tuck & roll with musical embroidery was made.  The rear seat frames were gone and made with wood and foam.  I had a hard time finding convertible rear seat frames and ended up getting an incorrect base from a vendor.  He made good on it and sent the correct one, but after my trimmer had spend time blasting, painting and foaming the frame, so I ended up eating some cost on that screwup.  I bought an extra set of door trim panels as I needed the arm rest features and the waffle trim on the bottom was a little better than the ones on my set.

All the parts were blasted, painted with POR-15 and some area required some metal patching, front seat sides, rear quarter trim had to be welded with replacement steel.

6 Hides were used to do the complete interior.  Sherwin Williams color Totally Tan (SW 6115) was the color used to match the dye to.  Finding the hardware and seat buttons took some time.  '62 or '63 Chevrolet Impala interior buttons were purchased and polished as they matched the correct Eldorado buttons used.  I found an original hard boot striker, had it scanned, and then recreated them using a foundry in Chippewa Falls, they came out great and I will have 4 cars sets left over to sell on.  These mount on the top of the rear seat on either side and that is where the hardboot latches secure to.  I've not installed those yet as I want to get the interior in the car to ensure they align correctly.

[David King (kz78hy)]

More interior photos.

[David King (kz78hy)]

More photos.

[David King (kz78hy)]

More photos.

[David King (kz78hy)]

More photos.

[Roger Zimmermann]

David, you have now a super documentation at what was done. I regret that I could not do the same when I restored my '56 Biarritz as the digital cameras were not yet on the market.

[David King (kz78hy)]

Hard boot striker that goes on top of the rear seat.  P/N 4647333.  This is my reproduction one.

I added the rear quarter trim panels as I forgot to include them above.

[David King (kz78hy)]

David, you have now a super documentation at what was done. I regret that I could not do the same when I restored my '56 Biarritz as the digital cameras were not yet on the market.

Your are correct Roger and the process of documenting it here is forcing me to organize a couple of thousand photos so I can find what I'm looking for.

[David King (kz78hy)]

The underside of the body is getting finished.  When the modern interior was installed, they used about 30 nails to hold the carpet to the floor, what a bunch of hacks.

The convertible top was taken apart and the chrome parts redone.  I did not take photos yet of the finished chrome work, but I will and they are nice.  I will put it back together when I go back for the Easter holiday weekend.

[Roger Zimmermann]

Some years ago, Mike Rizzuto was selling a set to assemble the folding top. Could you buy a set there or did you turn the bolts yourself?

[David King (kz78hy)]

Roger,

I bought a top kit from John Krantz.  John makes the top kits and the side door window glass frames that always seem to rust out.  He has many years available and I can get them to resell.

Very complete kit with new chromed bolts and rivets.  I had my bolts re-chromed anyway, but will have spares now from the unused ones in the kit.

[David King (kz78hy)]

A few more body photos.