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1961 Cadillac Restoration: Sweating for the wedding?

Started by Andrew Trout, October 30, 2014, 12:53:16 PM

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Andrew Trout

Engine issues have been resolved. New connecting rod bearings were ordered and we installed those. Put the pistons back into their correct cylinders, got everything torqued down to spec and everything still turns. I guess we should read the manual a little more carefully next time, huh?

As a side note: The connecting rod bearings for a 390 cu. in. engine are apparently an odd size, so there's a huge cost associated with them. If you're planning on rebuilding your engine, be prepared to spend a lot of money on those bearings.


Assembled lower control arms from USA Parts Supply. We've got the bearing, ball joint, and frame bumper.


Assembled upper control arm from USA Parts Supply. We've got everything except for the frame bumper. So now we've got to get ahold of the customer service rep on Monday and get that straightened out.


Putting the rear cork seal in.


Oil pan gasket.


Buttoned up engine. Still need to replace that last soft plug. Since this photo was taken we've also put the harmonic balancer on, and bought an engine stand for putting more of the engine together. So we'll be doing that tomorrow.

Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

chstitans42

I am jealous of you two, assembling the engine together! You did what I should have done, and put it all back together yourself!

Andrew Trout

#22

Finally put the engine on a stand. We should have done this much earlier. My father's already decided the stand is merely adequate and plans on upgrading the casters and the pin before we loan it out to anyone.


We put the oil filter assembly back on the block, and torqued it down to spec.


Rebuilt water pump courtesy of McVey Cadillac. They even included the gaskets!


Engine block with heads and water pump put on. A few water pump bolts are MIA so we're getting by with some substitutes for the moment.

When we first put the heads on, we had them backwards. We realized it when we went to install the water pump. That was a fun few minutes while we switched them around. We used a copper-based gasket sealant for the head gaskets as well. Hemming's had a blog post recommending copper-based sealants for head gaskets and exhaust manifold gaskets. 

You've probably noticed that the heads are a different shade of blue from the block, pump, and harmonic balancer. I sure have, and have no idea why that is. The block and heads were painted with paint from the same can (Bill Hirsch Cadillac blue). We're going to hit the whole engine with a coat of paint before it goes back into the car, so hopefully that will help with some of the color issues. Or maybe it's jus the light.


Lifters will be coming out and getting rebuilt and then we'll reinstall them along with the push rods. After that it's valley pan gasket, valley pan, and we're suddenly seriously close to putting the engine and transmission back into the car.
Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

Andrew Trout

Quote from: chstitans42 on January 03, 2015, 07:51:33 PM
I am jealous of you two, assembling the engine together! You did what I should have done, and put it all back together yourself!

Thanks! It's been stressful at times, and we've made a few mistakes, but we've caught them all before it was too late. It's helped me improve my mechanical knowledge of cars as well.
Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

Andrew Trout

Only a little bit of work this weekend. NFL playoffs, folks!

My Dad ordered a new exhaust system from http://classicexhaustinc.com. Pipes, muffler, and resonator. It's currently under the car for storage. We also bought another junkyard exhaust manifold as it turns out the passenger side manifold was also damaged. So that's a frustrating discovery this late in the process. Not sure if we damaged it moving it around. That's on the way, along with the rubber frame bumpers for the upper control arms from USA Parts Supply. The customer service rep was apologetic about them not being installed.

We put the pushrods back in, and then put the valley pan gasket and valley pan on, along with the breather tube. We're holding off on the rest of the engine parts until the engine is back in the car to make it a little easier to maneuver.



This Saturday is the big day: Engine and transmission are getting attached, and then the whole kit and caboodle is going back into the car. One it's in place we'll work on the distributor, oil filler tube, thermostat gooseneck and so on. Oh, and put the valve cover gaskets on.  ;) We put the covers on to keep dust/dirt away from the rocker arms and valve springs.

Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

James Landi

Just a thought: we engaged in another thread regarding the installation of a PVC device on older engines.  I mention this in regard to your car because I once owned a '61 Cadillac convertible that sucked in toxic blown-by when I was at a stop light with the a/c running.  Would be much easier to install this device now with the engine out of the bay...

Andrew Trout

Engine and transmission went back into the car this weekend. We brought in some extra hands to help out: My brother and his father-in-law.



Transmission is being attached to the engine. We used some drifts to get bolt holes lined up. 



Guiding the engine and transmission back into the garage. We have a two-bay garage, so engine work was happening in the empty bay, while the car is in the other bay. The ground was frozen, but the weight of the engine meant we had to use breaker bars and 2x4's to help the engine hoist along. You can see some of the drag marks in the dirt from the front caster.



We're in the bay, and my father's pointing out the holes for the engine mounts. We have a load leveler as well which was a huge help for this process. The adjusting handle was pointing towards the firewall, so when the engine was in it was tricky to adjust the angle. I'd highly recommend having the handle point out if you're doing it for the first time yourself. Also, the garage floor slopes into the center, so the hoist wanted to roll on us a lot once it was in the bay. It got a little exciting, but no one was hurt and nothing was damaged.



And we're in! Obviously a huge step, and allows us up to start putting the front end back together. Things should start moving a lot faster now.
Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

mgbeda

Wow.  You are brave doing all of that in the snow.  That is a huge step and you must have a great feeling of accomplishment.  Good luck to you and keep up the good work!

-mB
-Mike Beda
CLC #24610
1976 Sedan DeVille (Bessie)

Andrew Trout

Small update: we got a large number of parts in from OPG, along with General Dual 90 tires from Lucas Classic Tires. The General 90's are reproduction and bias-ply as opposed to radial, so that will be a fun learning experience for me when the car gets back on the road. My father noted that "we'll just need to take it easy" when driving the car. Well, duh. It's a Cadillac, not a Mustang or Cougar.  :P

We've hit a snag with getting the rear crossmember and transmission mount figured out, so if anyone has knowledge of this, I've started a thread in the technical/authenticity forum: http://forums.cadillaclasalleclub.org/index.php?topic=134503.0

Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

Andrew Trout

Parts keep going back on!


Heater box when back on the car. Thankfully we kept the original gasket so we didn't need to try and make a new one. The nuts that secure it in place need to be re-plated.


We were able to figure out the mystery of the transmission mount. It goes inside the transmission as opposed to outside of it like an engine mount. We got that straighten out and installed, but the transmission still leaned towards the passenger side of the car. It look a lot of leveraging but my dad was able to use a breaker bar to push against the transmission hump in the body to move the transmission into place. Then I slid the bolts into the mount through the crossmember and secured it into place.


Intake manifold installed.


Along with fuel pump and oil filler tube.


We also put the carburetor on, most for the hell of it. It's quite a bit bigger than we remember. 


Here's the front end of the car as of yesterday. Engine and transmission are in, upper and lower arms are in, intake manifold, fuel pump and oil filler tube, and gooseneck for the thermostat are in.

My father's heading out of town so we'll pick back up in early March. I've got some parts to track down, but the next items to put back on the car are:

Coil springs
Shocks
Spindles
Tie rod struts
Power steering pump
Steering box

There's still plenty more to do, but thankfully the pile of parts to go back on is getting smaller each weekend. Which also helps with finding the remaining parts. Figuring out all of the fender bolts is going to be not fun.
Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

DeVille68

1968 Cadillac DeVille Convertible (silver pine green)

Rob Troxel

Appreciate the pictures and detailed monologue on what you had to do to get where you are.

Dan LeBlanc

A couple of things to note . . . just trying to be helpful here.

On the transmission being closer to the passenger side of the car and requiring a lot of leverage to get it to align properly.  If you look at the ears on the engine block and the ears on the engine mounts, on one side, the ears of the mount are to be toward the front of the engine.  By that, the front ear should be to the outside of the two ears on the block.  On the other mount, the front ear of the mount should be in between the two ears on the engine block.  If they're installed either with the opposite orientation, or both with the same orientation, you will have the same conditions you describe - the engine pitched to one side causing misalignment of the transmission tailshaft.  Prying it into place to align it will put undue stress on the mounts and cause them to fail prematurely.  If need be, I can check the orientation on my Fleetwood and get back to you.  You may also be able to see it in the engine picture in the shop manual in the engine section.

You'll also want to remove the teflon tape I see on your temperature sending unit.  You do not want to use any sort of sealer on these threads as it can stop the sending unit from grounding, or cause a poor ground giving a false or no reading on the temperature gauge.  Same goes for the oil pressure sender also.  Last thing you want to do is have these two crucial pieces not working.

Good progress so far.  Looking forward to seeing more.
Dan LeBlanc
1977 Lincoln Continental Town Car

Andrew Trout

Hey Dan,

Not a problem, always glad to have some clarification on potential problems. I was thinking that the sloped and uneven nature of the garage floor meant the engine was finding it's own level. I'll take a look at the mounts next time I'm out there.

Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

Dan LeBlanc

If I remember correctly, the mounting tabs are offset on the engine block, and that's why the engine mounts need to be mounted in a way to counteract that as the holes in the front crossmember that the studs slide into are in a straight line.

I found that out the hard way also.
Dan LeBlanc
1977 Lincoln Continental Town Car

62 driver

It looks like you have a carter carb.  If so don't forget the spacer and stainless steel shim. All your work looks sharp.  8)
Dave Schneider,  CLC #27889

Andrew Trout

Quote from: 62 driver on February 19, 2015, 03:33:45 PM
It looks like you have a carter carb.  If so don't forget the spacer and stainless steel shim. All your work looks sharp.  8)

Yup, it's a Carter carb. I noticed the stainless steel shim on the old manifold looking through photos from the tear down phase. We'll need to track that down. Do we still use the gasket if there's a shim in place? I'm assuming yes. Does it go between the carb and shim? Should I use gasket sealer to attach it anything?

Thanks for the compliment on the work so far, but I'm going to sand and re-paint the valve covers. I did it outdoors when it was windy and the paint job looks...not good. And that's one place that people can easily see when you've got your hood open at a car show.
Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

Dan LeBlanc

Proper order is carburetor, shim, gasket, spacer, gasket, manifold.

I've seen some repops on ebay recently.
Dan LeBlanc
1977 Lincoln Continental Town Car

Andrew Trout



We swapped out the engine mounts. The passenger side was put on incorrectly. Once we fixed that, the transmission was sitting correctly above the crossmember where it bolts into the transmission mount. When it came time to put the nuts on the engine mount bolts, we couldn't really reach them, unless we look the upper a-arms off first. So...we took the upper a-arms off.  :-\

Turns out it was for the best as we had the bolts 'upside down' with the nut in the shock tower and the bolt head on top. It's supposed to be the other way: bolt head in the shock tower, nut on top. So that was a happy accident.



We also replaced the rag joint on the power steering box and re-installed it. It took a lot of extra work, as the first attempt to install it went no where fast. We wound up cleaning a lot of corrosion off the spline from the steer column and the inside of the top of the rag joint. After we did that, it installed like a charm.

Power steering pump went on, and we put in the new temperature and oil pressure sending units. We also put on the sending line for the power steering hoses, but are missing the barbed connector for the return line on the power steering box. Any idea where we can get a replacement for that part?

I did some searching in the 61-62 Cadillac forum and found that NAPA has heater core hoses pre-bend with a 90º angle in them. Does anyone know what clips should be used to secure the hoses to the water pump and heater core?




Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

Jon S

Quote from: Dan LeBlanc on November 07, 2014, 09:21:32 AM
I don't have the sticker - it's long gone.  All that's left is the residue from the glue on the tag.

It was either Walter Youshock or Michael Cascio that told me about the tag.

Dan -

This is the tag you are referring to:

Jon

1958 Cadillac Sedan De Ville
1973 Lincoln Continental Coupe
1981 Corvette
2004 Mustang GT