Hood ornament base interchangeability

[TJ Hopland]

Just a few hours ago I drove my 75 eldo to the local (small town) grocery store and came out 5 minutes later to see that the hood ornament was missing.  Ya its saturday night but its 5*F out.  Good thing I did not see em.   There would have been an advantage to driving a huge crappy car.  I would have likely run them over or smashed into their car.  Long term that would have likely turned out bad but short term would have felt good.  Spring was laying in that air dam thing between the bumper and core support but no sign of the wire.  Usually the base part is still there because it broke or there are parts of the wire.  Never seen one like this.  Also have not had this happen in over 10 years.  Thought now that the stand up ornaments were rare it was not as big of an issue.

Since it is likely to happen again I dont want to pay a premium for another 75 assuming I had the right one to begin with.  It was fairly large with the wreath.  I dont remember if the crest was hollow or just did not have any color in it.  I did not like it at first but it sort of grew on me.

Anyway the question is what years and models were the bases the same as my 75 eldo?     Also assuming I get one without the wire whats the easiest wire to come by to replace it?   I may even install one of the switches I have laying around to hook to the horn.

[Jack Mcilwraith]

After I lost two ornaments from my 1979 Eldorado,I installed contacts under the hood which would sound the horn when the ornament was pushed backwards. This they have to do to be able to cut the wire which holds the ornament on. Never lost another one.

[TJ Hopland]

I have one contact set that I bought back in the 80's for my 83 and saved when it went to the junkyard.   I also have a couple of nos kits I got at a dealer a year or two ago when I found out they still had them in stock. 

Looks like 76 was when they went to the more oval base?  My 73 and 75 have a small square base that is part of the chrome strip down the length of the hood.  I assume 76 and up did not have the chrome strip?

[76eldo]

76 does have the stainless center strip with the base continuing that line.

I think that 74/5/6 are interchangeable, but wait for the parts experts to answer, or call someone on Monday.

I may have a used ornament if you want it.

Brian

[TJ Hopland]

Well it looks to me like in the more recent years there were basically 2 sizes.   The larger one is what my eldo had.  Overall height looks to be about the same but the larger ones dont have any stalk to stand them up.  If its a wreath style the wreath pretty much is what hooks to the base.   Slightly later the overall size shrunk a bit but the final height was about the same because they stood up a little over a 1/4 inch.    The cars with the strip along the whole hood seem to use the ones with the tiny square base.  When the strip disappeared it looks like they went to that more oval base.  It looks like the Eldo held on to that style through 78 but the other cars changed in 77?  There is also a much newer rounder style where the part with the loop sticks down farther than any others, this appears to have been what was on the 90's devilles.   

[Johnny]

I bought a new '77 Eldo, and even back then hood ornaments were being stolen.  To alleviate this problem, I got a repro '41 Cadillac hood ornament for JC Whitney, and replaced the original stand up hood ornament.  Besides not having to worry about losing the hood ornament, it really looked great, and fit in with the lines of the care, especially the chrome strip that ran down the hood.  I checked their website and they still sell them.

http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/ItemBrowse/c-10101/s-10101/p-100000170103/mediaCode-ZX/appId-100000170103/Pr-p_CATENTRY_ID:100000170103

[TJ Hopland]

Interesting thought.  Price is right. Do the wings line up like the wreath to act as a sight so you can properly target those lesser cars?

I just won a lot of misc emblems on ebay, the photos were not very good but it looked like there would be something I can make fit.  We will see when I get them.  I was digging around the garage and found a couple that have the larger base, I was thinking of taking a grinder to the base and see if I could get it to fit the 75.

Seems like I read somewhere that there were now licensed reproductions being made for most of the 70's and 80's emblems that were no longer being made by GM.   Anyone know if that is true and who sells them?   

I made a few back in high school shop class.  One of the guys in class had one on a key ring (im sure stolen) so I used it do a sand casting in aluminum.   It came out fairly decent but I dont know what I did with them, Im sure they are in a box somewhere.  I bet one of the hollow non color ones would be easy to cast.

[Johnny]

Interesting thought.  Price is right. Do the wings line up like the wreath to act as a sight so you can properly target those lesser cars?

Actually the wings offer a more precision "gun sight" then the one dimensional wreath.  Not to forget that the hood ornament can cause more collateral damage then the break away wreath and crest on a spring.

[just4fun]

1971 thru 1978 Eldorado hood ornaments are all interchangable. Should measure 3-3/8" wide and if my memory serves me right, other Cadillacs of the 1971 thru 1976 era used the same ornament. Here are a few links from ebay and good luck. The $ 225.00 emblem is one of our fellow members here.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=290288180322&ih=019&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NOS-Hood-Ornament-Emblem-Cadillac-Eldorado-1971-1978_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ42611QQihZ004QQitemZ140290321790QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1976-CADILLAC-ELDORADO-HOOD-MOULDING-WREATH-ORNAMENT_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ140708QQihZ016QQitemZ260343737030QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

[Ted in Olympia WA]

Over the last three years I sold a few of these used and non sold for less than $150 and as high as $264.  This was when you could buy a reproduction; now the reproductions are no longer available and the used ones are selling for a lot less.  I have not seen the reproductions ones but I think they were not that great.  There also seem to be a lot being sold on eBay recently; maybe your stolen one will show up?  Must be the poor market right now and this would be a good time to pick up used parts if you can find them.

Anyway the one I posted on eBay right now for $225 makes a very good cheap advertisement for other parts.  So far my best offer has been $150 and I turned it down.  This is the only NOS one that I have and I willing to hang on to it until I find someone that needs it for show quality.

I think that maybe the correct one for 1971 was a bit different but I don't know this for sure.

TED

[TJ Hopland]

For some reason I thought not that long ago you could still get them through GM.  When I got my car 12? years ago I got a new 73 one from a dealer, dont remember if it was old stock, I do remember it took a few weeks to come in, seems like it was in a bar coded bag but I could be remembering wrong. I think it was around $75. When I did the body work on my 73 4-5 years ago they body shop broke it and they were not available from dealers but it seems like at that time they told me that they had just recently been discontinued.  They (a long time dealer) told be it had something to do with the foundry that had made them forever burning down or closing seems like he said that it was even a problem for current production cars.  No idea if that was true but it seemed logical.  At that time there were tons of 'new' ones available online for $200 and up which would make sense if people found out they were no longer made and cleaned out all the existing stock.  I lucked out and found a good used one with some other trim from a salvage yard.   I have no idea where I heard that they were again being made but this time as an authorized product.   

[Jim Skelly, CLC #15958]

The ornament is the same on all '71-'78 Eldorados, but there are at least two different bases that I know of (different casting number).  The base visually looks the same in any case.  I had written to GM to complain about the poor quality of hood ornament bases and how my local dealer refused to refund the purchase price of one.  GM found that the supplier provided a bad batch of bases.  Their letter indicated a change made to the casting starting in '73 (I believe), but I don't have the letter readily accessible.  I was provided a good quality new base and was told to keep the old one.  Plus, the unscrupulous dealer heard about it from GM, since I had written to Cadillac's General Manager and the head of GM's Parts Division!

I don't remember if the Eldorado ornament is the same used on some of the other full-sized models of that era.

[Ted in Olympia WA]

I have been looking at the ones I have and I think the Eldorado is the only one that will fit the base.

TED