'59 Series 62 restoration

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I have begun an unintended major restoration on my wife's '59  Series 62 2 door hardtop. My wife's father purchased the car from the original owner in the late '80's and only put a few hundred miles on it before we acquired the car in 2014. The body is in relatively good condition. It has had one mediocre quality respray but there is no major rust issues. I began a clean up of the engine compartment shortly after the car arrived and was shocked to find out how much grease, mud and road debris I was able to remove, some where in the neighborhood of 40 lbs. The engine and transmission immediately began to leak from every gasket and join, I guess all that cocoon of grease and grime had been keeping it all in for who knows how many years. Keeping fluids in became a real challenge and we were only able to put a few hundred miles on the car before we decided that something drastic had to be done. I decided that the engine and transmission needed to be resealed all the hoses replaced and the radiator recored. I began to remove components for gasket replacement and repaint. Sometime in this process I belatedly thought I should have done a compression check before I removed all the accessories and the radiator. The engine ran smoothly and seemed to have adequate power but how do you really know if you don't check? I put a socket on a small 3/8 breaker bar and tried turning the crank damper bolt, it turned almost effortlessly in fact it was so easy I wondered how it had had any compression at all? It was about this time that I realized that the torus gasket was one of my leak issues and that the transmission needed to come out for this repair. So after a discussion with my wife it was decided that a engine rebuild was inorder and since the transmission was going to come out with the engine and it's overall was unknown it would get a rebuild as well. Well........one thing lead to another and the project is now a full blown frame off restoration.
The engine is tired and is off to be rebuilt and I just had the transmission rebuilt. I have been sending components off for rebuild / refurbishment. The body is off the chassis and I will be disassembling the chassis and sending it to be blasted and powder coated. Here are some photos from the beginning.

[novetti]

Beautiful car...I can't seen anything wrong with it from here 

Huge job...keep us informed in your progress.

cheers

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Thanks Julio!

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I started this thread after I posted in the General Discussion session requesting help finding Exhaust Isolaters In an effort to keep all of the information together I am providing a link to that post and the replys here, http://forums.cadillaclasalleclub.org/index.php?topic=151300.0

I am trying to learn how to best use the site and keep the information organized as I know that there are folks who will look at one topic category over another i.e. General Discussion vs Restorations. I will be asking the moderators for their advice on how to accomplish this. It may be a cut and past thing temporarily.


Glenn

[savemy67]

Hello Glenn,

I am glad you posted the second photo.  In the previous post my attention was drawn to the body mount "biscuits", so I was somewhat baffled.

You may or may not have any luck with places like USA Parts, or Steele Rubber.  Maybe some of the other specialty Cadillac vendors might have the part, but because its a '59, it might be expensive.  You could consider making your own out of the sidewall of a used tire, or see if Buick used the same part.  I am pretty sure that Chevrolet did not, even though the frame and exhaust routing were very similar for this year.  Maybe Oldsmobile?

Nice work by the way.

Christopher Winter

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Thanks Christopher, Good suggestions. It has also been suggested to use a mud flap from an 18 wheeler which would give me extra material to use on some of the exhaust hangers.

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I found this photo of the drivers side cowl area. I remember thinking I needed to document this for the numbers hand written in pencil. Anyone have any thoughts as to what it means? It does NOT refer to the VIN  number.

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I have a couple of items that I am trying to source currently. If you have any suggestions I would appreciate it.
First is some one who can provide the gasket for the back of the fresh air vent doors ( see photos)
A source of emergency brake cables.
And I noticed that one segment of the drive shaft has a rubber damper inside the tube. Looks like it may have been vulcanized into the drive shaft ( photo included for reference) If someone can confirm or clarify the construction and knows where I can have this restored I would really appreciate it.