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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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Jon S

Yellow tag is easy to make:

Jon

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

Dan LeBlanc

That's what it looks like?  I've never seen one before.
Dan LeBlanc
1977 Lincoln Continental Town Car

Andrew Trout

Updates:

Interior


Floor pan patching is (almost) done! There's one square inch left to be patched, but everything else is all set. The passenger side was very minor, but the driver's side was in not great shape. The floors under both the front and rear seats needed a fair amount of patching. The initial look wasn't bad, but as we cleared out rust and rot the scope kept expanding. In hindsight, a donor floor probably would have made more sense than the many small patches we put in place.

Front seat and rear seat are being reupholstered, and carpet will be ordered this week. The same place that's doing the seats is ordering the carpet, and we'll be giving them the kick plates so all of the carpet matches. We're looking into pulling off the insides of the doors so they can replace the leather and carpet on those as well. When those are off, we'll order some replacement glass as we've got some cracks in three of the four windows. There's also some rust on the edge of the frame on the driver's side where it meets the rear window.

Suspension & Steering

The rubber pad for the coil springs didn't arrive in time, so the coil springs, shocks and spindles will have to wait for another weekend. Ditto for the struts, tie rods, sway bar, etc. I found the barb for the power steering box and installed that, along with the original clamps for the power steering return line.

Brakes, tires and wheels

Backing plates and brakes are ready to go on once the spindles are in place. We've got the brake hoses, and I found the copper washers for the brake lines (whew!). Front tires are getting mounted to the wheels so we'll have them at the ready when we're ready to finally take the car off it's jack stands. 

Engine

Ordered the heat insulator for our carter carb, along with a 4-blade fan off eBay. Exhaust pipes are ready to be installed. When installed the y-pipe (from the two manifolds down to the muffler) along with the steering and suspension, is there a 'best order' so we're not making things harder for ourselves?

Electrical

We got the engine to top dead center, but couldn't quite get the distributor to drop in. My Dad's going to reach out to a friend and get that taken care of. We also put the ground strips on and have some questions. For the block to frame, we have that installed without issue. For the block to firewall, we have two clips on the firewall. One is just around a blanking plate and the heater core, and the other one is by the wiper motor and brake booster/vacuum advance. The authenticity manual calls for a total of four straps: block/frame, block/firewall, and two upper arm/frame. In the authenticity manual the image shows the block/firewall strap on the driver's side connecting by the wiper motor and brake booster/vacuum advance. Do we need 5? Or was it one or the other from factory?

Speaking of the control arm/frame grounding straps: where can we find them?
Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

Jon S

Quote from: Dan LeBlanc on March 16, 2015, 10:36:26 AM
That's what it looks like?  I've never seen one before.

This is the real McCoy:


Jon

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

Andrew Trout



Front tires have been mounted. We had the wheels sandblasted and powder coated. I think I've mentioned it before, but we went with reproduction General Dual 90 tires. I'm really happy with how they look. Yes, I'm aware there's some blue stuff on the tire. We'll clean that off. ;)




Front seat is almost done as well. New leather, new foam filling, and the spring frame was sandblasted and powder coated. The guys doing the work even wove burlap between the springs for extra firmness. The seat should be done tomorrow. I'm thrilled with how great it looks.
Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

James Landi

I owned in 61 convert... purchased used in 1966 and kept it through 1973... loved it.  Mine was white with a red interior...your renewed interior looks terrific.  I recall the ride was substantially improved when I inflated the tires to factory specs.   I also recall, to my surprise, that the section between the hood and windshield that forms the lower windshield was originally chrome plated and painted over... wondered why that was so...is yours chrome plated as well? 

Dan LeBlanc

The whole thing was chrome plated but outside the grille area is body colour
Dan LeBlanc
1977 Lincoln Continental Town Car

James Landi

Dan, Why do you think that Cadillac did that?  Did the "up scale" models have the chrome finish and the '62's have that section painted over, or can I surmise that someone made a production error? How are you managing that part?  James

Dan LeBlanc

No. They were all the same.

For now, its fingers crossed and hope it doesn't peel.

It must've been a problem area as for 62, the chrome was a separate insert in the cowl.
Dan LeBlanc
1977 Lincoln Continental Town Car

Andrew Trout

Ours is chromed as well. Paint is long gone. We'll address that when we get the car repainted next year.
Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

Bill Young

Andrew, I am living back in Rochester New York due to My Wife's health. Do You want to get together?
Sincerely , Bill Young

Andrew Trout



Front seat is completed!

Quote from: Bill Young on March 26, 2015, 12:12:42 AM
Andrew, I am living back in Rochester New York due to My Wife's health. Do You want to get together?
Sincerely , Bill Young

Yes, absolutely. PM sent.
Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

Andrew Trout

Exhaust crossover and muffler are on the car, along with the transmission cooling lines. Sorry, no pictures. It's hard to get decent photos of something that's inches away from your face while laying on your back.

We also put the carb gaskets, spacer and shim on and torqued the carb down to spec.

The inner door panels are getting new leather put on them so they'll match the new seats. While that's happening we're cleaning up the interior chrome with some 4-ought steel wool. It's working great, if anyone's looking for a way to quickly clean up oxidation on their chrome. The shop that's doing our interior work is about to get busy with two boats coming in, so there's an urgent need in the near future to get our car mobile (i.e.: four wheels again). So we also tried to put the front coil springs, shocks, and spindles on.

Tried.

Turns out we don't have the front camber eccentric nuts. Oops. So those will be ordered today from Rubber The Right Way.

But, it doesn't really matter as the front shocks we ordered from Fusick are the wrong size. The thru bolt that goes through the lower control arm won't fit. We have the right size bolt as per the master parts list. It's 1/2" diameter. The hole in the shock we have is..oh, 7/16" diameter. So the bolt doesn't fit. There was some strong language uttered by me, as this is the SECOND TIME Fusick has sent us the wrong shocks. The first time they  sent us rear shocks (wrong part number in the catalog). Now, the second time it's a front shock, but apparently not the right part. I did some checking on the 61-62 forums for the 'right' shocks so we can order those. I've strongly suggested to my Dad that he voice his displeasure with Fusick and have them credit him some money as we have to pay to ship the wrong products back. We like Fusick as they're closer than McVeys or OPGI (we're in upstate NY).

With any luck we'll be able to get this sorted out and have the car on wheels this coming weekend. Hopefully.

Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

Andrew Trout

Very productive day today:



Front spindle and steering knuckle.



Backing plate



Tightening down the brake bolt. We torqued down the two bolts around the shaft first, so we had to loosen them and then installed the brake bolts. My Dad and I have taken to joking that we like doing everything so much, we want to do it twice.



Brake drum is on. We went to installed the washer and nut and couldn't find them. A whole lot of anxious checking ensued while I hit up Google to see if we could buy replacements. Rock Auto has some, so we ordered them and then ate lunch. Came back into the garage after lunch and promptly found the 'missing' washers and nuts.  ::)



Feels so good to give the brake drum a spin.  ;D



We got the tie struts installed and secured to the lower control arms, and also started installing the sway/stabilizer arm.

Do we have it installed correctly? Meaning does the bar kick up or down? Our teardown photos missed documenting that.

Also, any hints on how to get the sway bar bushings to compress?



We've got them installed properly in that the grommets, washers, etc are all in the right order. But when we put the bottom grommet on the bolt underneath the lower control arm, there's not enough thread showing to get a nut on the bolt and start compressing the rubber grommets. I'm tempted to use a c-clamp on the top two grommets, but is there a better or correctly way?

Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

James Landi

Didn't these bottom bolts originally come with very thin "locking nuts"? You can always compress those bushings too much and have them develop cracks in the rubber, or worse, distort the vertical spacer.  If it's too loose, you'll hear clatter as you drive.  You can always tighten them.

savemy67

Andrew,

The orientation of the stabilizer bar and order of the link parts looks correct.  It is often the case that not enough threads are available until the full weight of the car is on the wheels on the ground.  Leave the stabilizer bar links, and the bar's frame bushing clamp loose until the full weight of the car is on the ground.  This also apples to the control arm bushings - do not tighten fully until the full weight of the car is on the ground.

Keep up the good work.

Christopher Winter
Christopher Winter
1967 Sedan DeVille hardtop

Andrew Trout

Heater hoses w/ the 90º bend installed yesterday. Those hose clamps are a pain in the butt to get on!

I also hooked up the wiring for the starter motor, and painted the arm for the generator blue and moved it up to the water pump bolt. And also put in a new paper filter in the fuel filter assembly between the carb and pump. The bulk of yesterday afternoon was spent under the car (ugh) trying to get our driveshaft installed.



It didn't go very well. We got the shaft threaded through the frame, but the first attempt didn't work as rust got into the knuckle that goes over the transmission. So, pulled it back out, cleaned it out, and covered the knuckle. Got it mated up with the transmission, but it won't easily slide in. We tried persuading it with a wooden mallet, but it only went in a fraction of an inch each time we hit the shaft. Combined with the alignment seeming to be off slightly, we stopped. The propeller shaft looks be slightly higher than the transmission. We're worried something's wrong but we don't know what it is. My Dad's going to talk to the transmission shop that re-built ours and see if they have any suggestions to help with installation of the propeller shaft.
Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible

savemy67

Andrew,

Caution is advised.  You should not have to hammer the drive shaft into the transmission in order to install it.  If possible, find another slip yoke exactly the same as yours, or disassemble your front universal and use the slip yoke from the driveshaft to see if just the slip yoke will slide into the rear of the transmission.  This should determine if there is a problem with the transmission, or if it is a yoke or alignment problem.  If transmission, see the rebuilder.  If yoke, replace.  If alignment, double check your motor/transmission mounting points with the shop manual.  Hang in there.

Christopher Winter
Christopher Winter
1967 Sedan DeVille hardtop

Michel 14

Congratulations. This is what is lacking in our forum in France

Andrew Trout

While re-reading the manual we saw mentions of the polished/machined surface of the yoke. We're thinking that the powder coating make the yoke just a little bit too fat to fit into the transmission. We'll be removing the powder coating from the yoke on Saturday.

We also ordered some vintage license plates off eBay and they showed up. They look great, almost flawless!



Rochester, NY
1961 Convertible