N0ob with a '68 Calais

[Gene Beaird]

Greetings.  I'm new to this list, but not to our Caddy.  We have a 68 Calais that I inherited from my father.  It was originally my grandparent's car.  Back in 1968, my grandparents were making a trip from their home in Alabama through Houston to visit relatives, then north to Dallas for yet another family visit.  Somewhere outside of Austin, the oil pump on their then-current Cadillac quit, putting them on the side of the highway.  The car got towed to Charles Maund Cadillac in Austin, Texas, where the damage was assessed.  Instead of dealing with replacing the oil pump, and then possibly the engine, my grandfather walked out onto the lot and picked out a blue Calais.  Money and keys were transferred, and the luggage was loaded up in the Calais for the rest of their trip.  They owned the car until my grandmother's passing in 1999.  My Father picked up the car, and had it until his passing in 2001.  Then the car came to me. 

We got the car with a little over 100K miles on the odometer.  The master cylinder needed replacing, so we didn't do much with it until we moved into our current place and had our shop built.  I have just completed replacing the master cylinder and brake hoses (they were weeping), so the car now has brakes!  That was last weekend's work.  Along the way, I touched up the brake booster, and cleaned and re-painted the air cleaner top.  I'm waiting for a set of repro '472' decals to arrive before I clean and repaint the air cleaner, but that's in the plans. 

I plan to just drive and enjoy the car, fixing problems as I go.  It will probably never be a show car, but we do plan to drive it to local cruise-ins.  I'll be checking back from time-to-time when I'm in search of parts.  It seems they are kind of getting difficult to find.  I'm currently needing the weatherstripping around the doors and windows, and would really like to replace the 'Cadillac' script on the trunk lid to replace the broken one that's there now.  I also need to replace the exhaust system, as I don't think the current one will pass inspection.

I'll try to get an avatar up of the car as soon as I can.  Thanks for reading.

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas

[Ralph Messina CLC 4937]

Gene,

Welcome! Weather stripping, for that matter almost every piece of rubber, is available from Steele Rubber: http://www.steelerubber.com/
There are several sources for repro 'jewelry" like McVey's and USA Parts. However, you might find better value on eBay.

HTH,

Ralph

[Gene Beaird]

Ralph,

Thank you.  I haven't had a look at Steel products, yet.  I'll go see there.  I have a couple of other restorations in the works that take funds and attention from the Calais, but I really wanted to get the car back road-worthy so we could get it out and exercised some every once in a while.  I'm in the process of finishing up a resto-mod of our ex-autocross Mustang SVO, and then have an ex-TxDPS B4C Camaro I want to restore back to factory colors (black and white).  I also have my wife's Dakota R/T that needs brake lines, and the lowering springs installed, so I'll be busy in the shop for a while.  Meanwhile, I can locate and acquire parts for the Caddy while we enjoy it on nice days.

Regards,