Mechanic

I left work a little early yesterday to bring my car to a mechanic that was recommended to me from a fellow Cadillac owner. Conveniently, the shop is not too far from where I live, and I was able to limp it in.

I just got a call from the guy, Jeff, saying the water pump was out and there was in fact a vacuum leak and that some of the stuff wasn't hooked up right. He said it would be at least two hours to diagnose the problems. So I'll probably be looking at a pretty stiff bill when all is said and done.

But on the up side, I have someone interested in my '93 Eldo who is planning on fixing it himself, and is not frightened by the repairs. Maybe he'll actually buy it. Then I'll be able to pay for the repairs to the '67 Eldo.

Coming Home

Well, This weekend, There was an exhaust leak coming from the bottom of the carborator...so I put a new gasket on, but it didn't help(of course, no one had exactly the right gasket, so that may be the problem...). Even though this wasn't exactly fixed, I brought the Eldo to where I live, and it drove OK the 50 or 60 miles on the freeway, but once I exited, it didn't like the lower RPMs and started stalling on me. I made it to my apt. (after having to re-start the car about 4 or 5 times) but I don't think it will run well if I try to go anywhere. I'm going to call a mechanic, and get them to fix the exhaust leak, and whatever else it may need. I'm tired of not having cars that work. I'll fork out the cash to get it to run right.

Foamy

Jim doesn't think I will actually make the seats. He may be right, but still, he could lie. I'm not sure where to get the foam for the seats maybe I will ask the guy at SMS fabrics where to get the seat foam.

Fabric

So the seats in the 67 Eldo had been invaded by a rodent of some kind who decided that the seats would make a great place to live (I don't blame it, they are comfy). This means that I have to re-upholster the seats. I contacted SMS Auto Fabric in Oregon, and it turns out I don't even have the correct seat fabric in the car anyway the current fabric is from the '61/'62 Mercury. So I'll have to re-do all the seats instead of just the front. It's also going to cost about $300 in fabric just to replace the fabric insets. I will probably sew the seats myself to save some moola, but I always run the risk of not finishing the project doing it that way.

New Focus

So now instead of bringing a '67 Convertible to the Grand National, I will be bringing a '67 Eldorado. I have a few things I would like to do to it before I bring it down:

New upholstery on front seat (repair hole mouse chewed in it)
Refresh the paint
Change mufflers back to stock
Fix dashoard
get radio


things I don't absolutly need to get done before the show, but would like to fix:
power seat controls
power window controls
dash mechanics

So I need to get cracking on this...I've been in contact with the seat material guys, but they sent the wrong sample, so I'll need to find out if they have what I have.

I need to find an auto painter. this is the most scary part for me. I'm so afraid of it getting messed up.

I need to learn how to fix all the crap in the dashboard.

2 67's

So, I bought the '67 Eldorado. It's Ember Firemist, with a black cloth interior. It's pretty awesome... I might bring this one to the Grand National in LA instead of the convertible. It will take much less to get it in shape for the show.

I have brought home some of the chrome from my convertible to polish. I'm going to try with a dremel.

My Cheating Heart

I have found one of the cars on my list! The list being the cars I want to have in my garage when I die. This list changes slightly every time I get into a new tax bracket but so far none of the cars have fallen off the list, it only gets added to.

1) 1983 Datsun 280zx - 5spd, non-turbo, with voice warnings in silver, blue, black, or charcoal*
2) 1992 Toyota Supra - 5spd, Turbo, with Targa top in medium blue*, black, charcoal, or silver
3)1975 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible - any color except brown, yellow or gold, built on my birthday
4)1968 Cadillac deVille Convertible - Spectre Firemist*, black, charcoal
5)1967 Cadillac Eldorado - Ember Firemist*, black, blue, green,
6)1985 Cadillac Eldoado Biarritz - with stainless roof, no brown yellow or gold
7)1949 Cadillac fastback - any color
8)1957/58 Eldorado
9)1957/58 Coupe deVille
10) v-16 Cadillac

Anyway, I have found #5 1967 Cadillac Eldorado in Ember Firemist. It is CA, and is $5500. I emailed the owner and was not hearing back from them, and was terrified that they had sold it already. I've been looking for this car for years! I passed on one maybe four or five years ago, because it needed a lot of electrical work, but now I wish I had just bought it. Now I have another chance, finally! Buying this car means that I will not have the cash to finish the convertible in time for the show, since the proceeds from the sale of the Porsche and the 93 Eldo will be going to buy this '67 Eldo. But at least I could bring the '67 Eldo to the show!

For sale again

So I went to list both my '93 Eldo and the '84 944 on craigslist, and the posts won't take for some reason. I'm getting a bit frustrated, I've tried 3 times now, with different addresses. Why won't it work!

On top of that, I think I've found a '67 Eldo in Ember Firemist right in my backyard for a resonable price. I hope it works out. Maybe they'll trade me for a '84 944 with a little cash thrown in.

reality

Well, now that I have slept I realize that my dreams of making the World's Fastest Cadillac will have to wait until I have the World's most finished '67 Convertible Cadillac...

world's fastest indian...

I just saw this movie, The Worlds Fastest Indian it was awesome! Now I want the world's fastest Cadillac...Where do I find a racing club that will allow Cadillacs?

cadillac meet

I went to a Cadillac meet this weekend, it was a dinner, and it was so nice, I hadn't gone to a Cadillac event in so long. Even though this one was not a car event, it was still great, and it got me a little motivated. I talked to Jeff, who I had contacted before about working on my car. He said he could still do it, so I may just have it towed up there. I had also intended on going down to where it's at on Sunday and trying to do something, but instead I alphabetized and sorted my CD's and cleaned a little. So here is another wasted weekend (as far as the car goes, It was productive otherwise). But I am taking an extra long weekend next weekend, so maybe I will be able to get something done.

where do I get an ignition switch?

I can't find one...

Things left to do:

sand car/prime to prevent rust
take off fenders
take out glass from drivers side door
take trim off of rear fenders
take trim off drivers side door
get metal repaired on pass fender and both rear panels
get car running
get all window motors working properly/fast
remove all weatherstripping
buy new weatherstripping to install after paint
remove top/interior
get car painted
get new carpet for interior or clean existing carpet
rebuild engine(?)
fix tranny(?)
swap out drums brakes for disks in front(?)
get new clock for interior
get radio working or new one
get speedometer working

New Starter

I installed a new starter in the '67 cad, but it didn't fix the problem. It was a huge pain in the ass too...

I had to go buy a jack and jack stands since there were none at the house(I don't know where they went). I had to move my brother's '56 ford out of the way, which is a three-on the tree, and is missing the part that indicates which gear you are in, and having never driven a three on the tree it was pretty difficult to figure out where each gear was. Also the battery was pretty dead and it had a generator not an alternator, so I would charge the battery up and get it started and if I stalled it, I would have to charge the battery up to get it started again. The whole process was quite a pain in the ass.

Then, I had to move all the crap out of the garage, which really wasn't hard. And push the caddy into the garage, which was difficult, that sucker didn't want to move...the gophers had dug out all the dirt around the tires and effectively buried the car in about 5". We pulled it out of it's divot with Peter's truck, but it really didn't want to move (we only moved it about a foot, and Peter dug a pretty nice divot into the ground trying to pull it out). then we dug the dirt out from under the tires and filled in the divots to make a smooth pushing surface, it didn't really help even though the car was angled downhill we still had to push incredibly hard to get it to move. Then we couldn't get it over the lip of the garage and used Peter’s truck to push it in(using the plastic garbage cans as cushions...I think in the process we bent my bumper, which I'm pretty bummed about.)

Anyway, I got the starter installed and it didn't make the car go, so I'm onto the next part...fusible link or ignition switch.

Engine

I saw on Craigslist a rebuilt 429 engine, and considering the short amount of time I have to get this car done, and my suspicion that my engine is not running right and needs to be rebuilt, I thought, maybe I'll just swap it out for one that runs right to begin with. But the 429 that's for sale is from a '64 and it won't bolt into my '67 without a new tranny (which I may need anyway). I think I'd rather get a engine from a '67 anyway even if I were to swap it out. Oh well.

I Suck

I'm going snowboarding this weekend instead of working on my car. But I am going to be riding in style on my Fleetwood snowboard.

Nightmare

I had a dream last night that all my Cadillacs were at a storage place and they had been left outside uncovered to rot. I guess in the dream I had been away for four or five months and when I returned they were all destroyed. The convertible was completely destroyed, the top had been left down and the interior was destroyed, and the body was covered in deep rust holes. Weird thing is, it was triple white, so you could really see the rust. it was just dripping down the sides of the car. I was so angry!

I need a Garage!!!

The mud is so squishy, there is no way I can jack the car up where it is.

starter...

I bought a starter, which is probably where I should have started, and went to go install it on last Saturday, but it was raining so hard, I couldn't get under the car. I will try again Sunday. I also registered the car non-op for the time being. I will register it operartional when i can get it started.

Still not running

Jim and I went down to where the car is this Sunday to try to get some stuff done on the Cadi. With all the recent rain, the area around the car was pretty muddy, my shoes were caked with mud and it was difficult to maneuver around it. Also the gophers are tearing the ground up around the tires so once we do get it started it may still be pretty difficult to move. I hope they don't chew right through the tire like they did on the Ford a few years back...

With the storms the covers kept coming off so the interior got wet. The carpet was pretty moist, I tried to open the car up to let it air out a bit. I would have liked to have opened the top to let the sun dry to carpet out, but the car is still dead.

We put the new ignition coil in, but it still won't start. I get one click then nothing after that. This is very frustrating. I don't know what the hell is wrong with it. It's probably something really stupid and cheap. I'll need to crack open the service manuals this week and see what else I can try.

Oh! and the power to the house was intermittently going out, so I couldn't even sand down the areas that were getting rusty to re-prime them. The list is becoming a little too long to be complete by June. I'll have to prioritize the to-do list. I'm not sure if I would rather have it running and not painted for the CLC meet, or look pretty but not run well. Probably running but not pretty.