1948 60S refurbishment

[4860S]

Hi everyone.

I purchased this 1948 60S in North Carolina and it arrived in Australia mid last year. The car is in excellent overall condition and is as described by the seller. This is the third car I have imported from the US and my experiences to date have been good ones. The car is a reasonably early build, body No 945 and is Cavern Green with green Bedford cord and leather trim. I have no history for it other than that it was sold out of Florida to the Gentleman I purchased it from.

The Fleetwood came with known paint issues at the base of the doors where the Hydra Lectric cylinders had leaked brake fluid and ruined the paint on the lower doors and sills. The bubbling paint was unsightly and looked like rust, so it needed to be attended to. There was also some bubbling around the drivers side fog lamp and I felt this should be looked at while we had some paint mixed up for the doors. Little did I realise quite what we were getting ourselves in for. For those who are familiar with 48 and 49s, this probably comes as no surprise, it was certainly a surprise to us. I will let the photos do the talking.

Here she is as she arrived and was registered in Australia.



This not a good photo but you can see how the foglight surround doesn't sit flush with guard, it was actually worse than it looks. There is also the hole you can see to the left and there were rust bubbles to the right of the surround.



After removing the fog light units which were both held in place by wire as the top mounts had completely rusted away and grinding away at least a 1/4 " of filler this is what we were left with. At this point we hadn't stripped the front as we didn't realise what we were in for.



And after more grinding and stripping the front of the car, this is what we were left with


and


These repairs were rubbish and full of filler so it was clear we would have to make new repair sections and rebuild the brackets inside the fender. Here is the process;







 And finally the completed section with no filler


We need to make the mounting brackets for the fog light units, which themselves are a piece of work, being cast aluminium. We will repeat the process for the other side.

Regards
John

[gary griffin]

Great car, and I love the color.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

G'day John,

Congratulations on your purchase, and further congratulations on the way you are removing the dreaded rust.

Bruce.

[Andrew Armitage]

Good body work is an art form.  Nice work.

[4860S]

The repairs around the fog lights are complete, but not before we had to scratch build new upper mounting brackets. There is no bondo in these repairs, other than some lead filler on the left hand side which you can see, there is no filler in these repairs at all. In view of the extent of the repairs we decided to paint the whole of the fenders and doors on both sides. This was tricky because the prior paint wasnt brilliant so we had to apply the paint fairly dry to avoid "fry ups". We then applied four coats of clear and are in the process of buffing it, as you can see. Thanks to the excellent Authenticity Manual I discovered that the front apron which was semi gloss black was supposed to be body colour, so we fixed this as well.

This area of these cars is complex and the fog light housings are cast alloy. I can't imagime how many engineers worked on this small area and how long it took to design it for production. We also noticed that the guys at Fleetwood weren't too particular about the rocker finish, they leaded the B pillar carefully to match the door profile but didnt bother with the rockers. The front fenders also seem to have been produced in two sections. They have been extended at the A pillar end by the insertion of a filler panel. I wonder if the base stamping for both Cadillac and Oldsmobile was the same and the Cadillac panels were then re-stamped for the parking light/fog lights and extended. Any thoughts anyone?

The base of both rear dog legs were rusty and these have been repaired and the strips that the sill (rocker) molds attach to have had rust converter applied. This whole area will be extensively rust proofed before we re-attach the newly polished molds. Here are a few photos.






Regards
John

[Richardonly]

John,

Love this article and how you show the progress being made as it goes along.  When mine returns from the shop, I must take a 2nd look at this area but believe I am (it is) in good shape.  The only rust I have encountered so far was from the radiator boiling over with rusty water and hitting the front of the engine and the lower front suspension.  This was residue from the water not actual rust.  I do have some surface rust on a door sill from a leaking window cylinder.  The radiator has been recored and the clyinder replaced,  and as the engine has been partially detailed, that only leaves the the window sill needing paint.
I think I may just leave it and have the car repainted and that done at the same time.
I am so impressed with the quality of work being done on your car.  This is true craftsman quality work!

Richard

[Paul Tesone]

Great job , great color. Keep up the good work. I can see that the car is now in good hands . Paul Tesone CLC#6876

[4860S]

I haven't taken any photos to record the painful process of reassembling the Fleetwood, however I'm sure that the following will resonate with fellow enthusiasts.

Compared with what others have/are undertaking what we have been doing is minor stuff. Nevertheless, what we have encountered in the work we have done somewhat encapsulates the problems we all face working on these cars. In short, its fixing bodges that been done over the past 64 years of my cars life.

One of my pet hates with old cars is when you find bodged up screws used in place of correct ones and this usually involves enormous self tappers used in completely inappropriate places, like the internal window molds. Cadillacs of this vintage often have the dreaded Hydra Lectric windows and front seat. All 60 Specials certainly have them. And the window cylinders leak and fail, regularly. When this happened the original fluid, which was brake fluid, leaked down through the door drains and onto the sills and thence down under the chrome plated stainless steel sill molds (no kidding they were chrome plated at the factory). The result is ruined paint and regular door trim removal, tearing of the original door trim broadcloth and regular loss of the correct chrome plated self tappers.

We have just wasted a week in fixing bodged fittings and replacing rusted screws with correct dome head stainless screws. In the case of the internal chrome garnish molds around the windows we have closed up holes that had large inappropriate self tappers installed and in a few cases used nylon inserts to sleeve back the holes so we could you use the correct screws.

Similarly the small spring steel mounting tabs were broken on at least one end of the (re)painted door garnish molds, so we had to repair and repaint these and remake the small tabs that hold the the garnish molds to the base of the window surrounds. We even had to modify the window felts which were too long and prevented the black door molds from seating properly, a problem which called for more huge self tappers....

Having carefully repaired the internal door frames by reducing the size of the self tapper holes on the inside, we were able to have brand new countersunk stainless screws, all of the same size holding these molds on. And so it goes on...

The long and short of it is that the car looks little different to the first photo I posted, but I know what has sbeen done and she's now just that bit better than she was and I can start to focus on some of the other jobs I need to attend to.

Regards
john

[4860S]

Here is the finished result.




As I said she looks little different to the pre photo. We were able to get the door molds to fit properly after repainting them to match the dash. I'm not going to attempt to replicate the Di Noc leather look decals in the interior.



Now I need some help with the Hydra Lectric system (surprise surprise). One back window doesnt work, the other is intermittent. The pump is good, system runs ATF. Power and fluid is getting to the window, I can see the hydraulic lines flex as the switch operated, they just don't move - any thoughts?

Regards
John

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Rusted internals of the cylinder/piston?

Brake Fluid is a water-absorbant, and if the fluid could leak out, then air, and moist air at that could leak in, and internally rust.   This wouldn't be visible from the outside, but any rustification of the cylinder could allow the pressure side to escape to the non-pressure side.

Bruce.

[4860S]

Bruce, affected window cylinders have been replaced.

[Richardonly]

John,
The car came out perfect!  It now sounds like your window problem is some sort of binding on the track.  But then, the one that works intermittantly, would probably never work.  Hummmmmm  What happens when you disconect the cylinder and use the button?  Will the mechanism move by hand or lever when the cylinder is disconnected? 
Richard

[Richardonly]

John,

Switched E-mail carrier (ISP) and no longer have your e-mail address.

Mine is rvp195@yahoo.com

Richard