moving

I am moving this weekend. All my cars overheat easily so I will have to bring them over in the dead of night when it is cool...

Almost Lost the '93...

So my cars are parked on the street around the block my apartment is on, and the '93 Eldo has not been near a car wash in a number of months so it's looking pretty dirty right now. Apparently, someone is sick of looking at it because there was a notice on it from the city of Berkeley letting me know they were going to tow it if I didn't move it dated 7/21. Luckily yesterday I drove home a different way, and saw the windshield when I pulled up to my place. The part about it that I thought was pretty hilarious was the chalk markings they used to determine if the car had moved...they were a little over the top. there was a vertical mark on the tire from the wheel to the ground then there was a half circle on the ground marking where exactly the tire was and then a crossing mark which also lined up with the mark on the tire it looked a little too CSI...I wondered what they would do if I moved the car an inch so the lines didn't line up anymore...

Actually, there were two notices on it. The other was from a guy who had seen the for sale sign on it months ago, and wanted to know if I still wanted to sell it. Then someone else walked by it and wrote on that guy’s note that they would also like to know if the car was till for sale.

I called the first guy, and he said he'd look into how much it was going to cost to fix and call me back today, and since I'm sure he will not be calling back, I'll call the second guy tonight.

Ordered Muffler

The Eldo was looked at this morning, and a new muffler was ordered. It will get replaced on Friday or Monday depending on when the part comes in. I decided to go inexpensive, and just replace the muffler with a stock-style one that will fit the existing pipe pattern (which is no where near stock).

Loud-ass car!

I went to a Cadillac meet on Sunday, and I was a little embarrassed about my car. If anyone is going to know all the things that are wrong on my car, it's this crowd.

The first embarrassing thing was that the coolant boiled over when I got there.

Then while they were doing the awards, some cars left early and drove out right behind where the announcer was. They were so quiet the announcer didn't even need to speak up, I don’t think many people even noticed the cars drove by. That was depressing, If I had driven by at that point, they would have had to stopped that whole thing until I passed. I was embarrassed for something that didn't even happen...I really want to get this fixed!

On the way home, I turned the heater on, and that kept it from boiling over again. Of course, it was like 20 degrees cooler at home than where the car show was, so that may have helped too ;-)

muffler quote

I called a place right down the street from where I work and got a quote to replace the muffler, he gave me an off-the-top-of-his-head-without-looking-at-the-car quote of $150 installed.

I'm going to bring it by their shop on monday morning, and see about having it done. I'm not sure if I should put it back to single exhaust or leave it dual. I will post on the CML and get some feedback.

I can't wait to have a stealthy cadillac once again!

muffler

Uh I have GOT to get this muffler replaced! the car is so damn LOUD it's making me not want to drive it.

dash dying

So I got some good info on dying dashboards, it seems possible, now I just need to look and see if my car was supposed to be mono or stereo. If it was mono, I may have a new dash!

Dash

I got an email from someone who has a 67 cadillac dash for sale. This was in response to a post I put up on a parts board a few months ago. It is a mono speaker set up (one speaker in the middle) for a deville, and it is gold.

Now, I know it's possible to dye these things, but I don't know if it's possible to succesfully dye one blue if it is gold to begin with. I have posted that question to the Cadillac Mailing List(CML), hopefully someone there has tried it, and can tell me if it will work.

Uhhhh...

Today...I have no cars that work. The 93 Eldo smokes like crazy if I drive it, the 67 has a bad battery cable, and the Porsche has a flat tire.

Taking the Month off

I'm taking the month of July off from any car restoration (unless it's neccesary or in credibly cheap). Our lease is up and we are expecting to move(hopefully to a place with a garage!), so my car restoration will resume in August.

last week

So on Sunday after the show, I thought “wouldn’t it be nice to listen to music on the way home?" so, I attempted to have the radio installed at a Circuit City in LA somewhere near El Segundo. They wanted to charge me $120 in labor (what happened to FREE Install?!) because I wanted it in the glove box. What a rip-off. The guy working there seemed kind of shady too so I skipped it. I'm at the point where I think I will just do the install myself. I just have to figure out where to buy a bezel (or maybe I can make one).

Also, on the ride down my car started to not start after I shut it off. I had it jumped twice before I discovered through the help of a couple other people that my battery cable was the problem. So I got a battery terminal cleaner (most awesome invention ever!) and cleaned and tightened the cable almost every time I wanted to start the car. On Sunday, the car over heated and spewed coolant all over the engine compartment, but mostly all over the battery. I sopped up all the coolant, and cleaned the battery terminals and after it was all dry it would start again. Though not very well. The last time I started it, it sparked a little, and I noticed the plate that holds the cables down was not tightened enough, the whole set up is kind of janky. I think I will go get a new battery cable as soon as I can.

GN was AWSOME!

I'm so tired... but the Grand National was a lot of fun. I should have taken another day off.

There were so many really nice Cadillacs. There were 5 Eldorado Birritz's (which are pretty rare).

I also went on a tour to the nethercutt museum that was really neat, but I lost most of my photos from the trip, because I lost my camera. That sucked. I tried to go with out one, but I couldn't, so I broke down and bought another one(luckily there was a BestBuy across the street.

I met one of the guys who designed the '67 Eldorado who later became GM's VP of design, who basically told me he didn't like the color of my car.

No radio yet, but running better

I tried to have my radio insatlled on Saturday, but the radio I had didn't have an ipod connection, and they didn't have the stereo I wanted that did have the ipod connection. So I had to skip the install.

On Sunday I was able to fiddle with the carberator and get it running smoothly(well much smoother... Of course, in the process the bit of the ratcheting screwdriver I was using fell off, and through a gap in the intake manifold to a place I could not get to it from. I had to go to the local hardware store to get one of those magnetic tool retriever things. I found one that was really perfect, it bends to whatever shape you need it to. I don't know how long it will last, but hopefully I won't have to use it much.

still to do:

1) get stereo installed (Sat. morning)
2) stop squeek (Sunday)
3) polish chrome and wax paint (Sunday)
4) replace muffler (Monday?)
5) get tires that match (may have to skip)
6) try to fix doors to headlights (may have to skip)

Opulence

So I've had this car for how long now, and a friend of mine just pointed this out to me... the doors on my eldorado have TWO door handles on the inside! one for the front seat passenger, and one for the rear seat passenger. How awesome is that?

Calling Cards

I made some calling cards for the show with photos of my cars and contact info, I made them mostly as a test to see if this printer would be good for another project I am working on. I picked them up today, and they came out frickin' awesome! I used the orange photo by the water from about 5 posts back, and then put small images of my other cadillacs on the back.

Compliments

Getting copliments on cars is always awesome, but when you get them from people you know are into cars, it's even better!

Duh... and Vette Racing

So, it appears as though I didn't need the radiator. One of the hoses on the back side of the radiator was not clamped tight enough and was dripping down, making it look as though it was leaking from the bottom of the radiator, if I had looked close enough, I would have noticed this. I think I'm just in a rush to get this car finished, and I'm not really paying attention.

My brother made a makeshift overflow tank (since I did not have one) for me out of a water bottle. It doesn't look too bad; it's hidden away in the battery compartment.

The guy on Ebay claims he's going to send me my parts (the bezel and whatnot) so I get them before my show...we'll see.

On a side note, I went to 'Vette Magic (yearly corvette-only drags) yesterday with my brother and dad, and did pretty well. I raced the '73 'vette and got to the semi-finals for my bracket before the tranny fluid started leaking out and I got disqualified. I think I got fourth place, but since I was disqualified, I don't know if I actually get fourth place (we didn't stick around to find out). Unfortunately, my brother did not get to race because the car was disqualified. Dad raced his 99 vette, and was eliminated the first round. Since the car is new I don't think he knows it well enough to pick a time.

Ordered Radiator

...Ordered it from Radiators.com which has a warehouse in Sac, they are delivering it to my parents house today. While I was on hold, they had as their hold music the comedians from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Gives you a little insight into the company. It cost $181 after tax with a lifetime warranty.

I also called d'Bears (cadillaville.com) about a dash board, bezel, and stereo, but they did not want to send me the stereo, and it would take two or three weeks to get the dash and bezel. I decided to skip it and wait until after the Grand National to order these parts, who knows, maybe I'll find some of them at the show.

New Carb in

Jim and I put the new carb in last night. Right on the side of the street, because we have no garage. It seems to work OK, starts right up! Though I'll have to adjust the idle a little, it's running a little fast.

Two problems we ran into, were the part that connects to the throttle linkage did not line up properly, (see the image above)so we had to swap that part off the old carb. It could have been bent, or maybe that's what's different on the deville version?

the other problem was while taking the old carb off, I sent the clip that holds the throttle linkage on flying and it (of course) fell between the radiators in the front. As I looked down to see if I could get it, I saw a big puddle of green staring up at me. It was pretty obvious that the radiator was leaking. So, that goes on the top of the "to fix" list.

Oh- yes Jim fished the clip out with a magnet off the refrigerator (thank you Affluent Travel!) and some string.