1959 cadillac sedan deville "easy restoration"

[Roman_cadillac]

Hi All!

I want to tell you about my Cadillac

I always wanted a 1959 Cadillac. Before, I had 1960, 1968, 1975 Cadillacs. But 1959 is my favorite!

In May 2021, I decided it was time to get a 59 Cadillac. I found the car on Instagram. It took 8 months to deliver from Los Angeles to Arkhangelsk (Russia). In February 2022, the car arrived.

The car has always been in California

The car was in good condition, running. For a perfect exterior, it needed painting. The chrome elements are in excellent condition. The body is solid, without corrosion. The front fenders had rust at the bottom. The car was repainted once. All the glass is original and in good condition. The interior is original, except for the seat upholstery, the seats are re-upholstered with a copy of the original from SMS fabrik. The dash pad is original without cracks. The horn ring is original and in good condition.

[Roman_cadillac]

[Roman_cadillac]

It took 4 months to prepare the car daily driving. After driving for only 2 months. The transmission broke.

The reason is 2 rubber rings.




The rubber rings dried out. The coupling cover developed play. This broke the seating areas of the cover. The cover came out of engagement with the oil pump rotor. This caused damage to the rotor and the oilpump body.










After running the transmission without oil pressure, the housing bushing was damaged

[Roman_cadillac]

Other parts were in good condition.

[Roman_cadillac]

We all know that the Jetaway is a tricky beast.
Many people repair this transmission several times in a row and this is normal...
In the country where I am, no one gives a guarantee for jetaway rebuild
I decided to do the repair myself. Before, I had never repaired automatic transmissions.
I got a lot of information from this forum.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Roger Zimmermann

His recommendations and posts on the forum were very helpful
The transmission was repaired for 7 months. It did without several repairs. The transmission works fine.

1-2 is almost unnoticeable.
2-3 is hard
3-4 is even less noticeable than 1-2.

[Roman_cadillac]

[Roman_cadillac]

Be careful with the oil rings I broke 3 of them. 

There are no governor rings for sale, I bought a NOS governor on eBay. Removed the necessary ring

[Roman_cadillac]

The valvebody was missing this spring. It's good that I found out about it before disassembling the transmission, otherwise I would have gone crazy trying to find this spring.

[dogbergs]

Good to see you here Roman, great work!

Best / Johan

[Roger Zimmermann]

Nice work, Roman! Ah! those valve bodies and the springs: what I see in the transmission I'm overhauling is not always corresponding with the shop manual. The question is always: what this or that spring lost during a prior work or was it discarded by the factory? Some technical bulletins are describing a change but not always...
I understand that in your region few people can work on those transmissions; it's about the same in Europe.

[Roman_cadillac]

At the time when the transmissions were being repaired, I took apart almost the all car.

[Roman_cadillac]

Unfortunately,  the frame factory markings are almost destroyed.



OEM body mount good condition



OEM hardware very good condition! Go to replated



The frame was transported to sandblasting

[Roman_cadillac]

1.Blasting

[Roman_cadillac]

2.Epoxy primer(jotun)









3.Paint(Jotun conseal)

[Roman_cadillac]

After the frame was repaired, the body was sent for sandblasting



To move the body my friend made a body cart







The lower part of the body was lightly sandblasted.
I made a mistake. I didn't remove all сoated

Rust FREE body!

[Roman_cadillac]

[Roman_cadillac]

After sandblasting, we coated it with epoxy primer "jotun jotamastic 80 wg"

I didn't like it. It looks wrong and filthy

[Roman_cadillac]

Removed the remains of coated from the bottom and drops of epoxy primer.





Sandblasted rocker panels, lower quarter panels and firewall













Factory body sealant and LEAD BODY SOLDER

[Roman_cadillac]

The sandblasted areas of the body and the places where the remains of the coated were removed were painted with epoxy primer. After that, body sealant was applied with a brush.

[Roman_cadillac]

I just wanted to prime the bottom like at the factory, without coating
Because of several layers of primer it looked terrible.
To hide the defects I used a spreadable sealant