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1957 60 Special different bodies??

Started by gary griffin, December 30, 2015, 06:19:50 PM

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gary griffin

I ordered a Steele rubber kit for my 57 Fleetwood and several of the pieces were too long or too short and the alignment pins were in the wrong places. Steele told me there were two different bodies for the 1957 60 Special.  They have had this trouble before.

They were great about promising to send me replacements for the parts not fitting which was most of the order.

Has anybody else ran into this problem? My body tag says body by Fleetwood. The Steele kit says it fits the Cadillac 60 special and the Buick also. Were some 60 specials Buick bodied?  How could anybody keep track of all of the differences. My car is 18??? so I am assuming it is 18 thousand into the production and I have heard that about 20,000  60 specials were produced.
Gary Griffin

1940 LaSalle 5029 4 door convertible sedan
1942 Cadillac 6719 restoration almost complete?
1957 Cadillac 60-special (Needs a little TLC)
2013 Cadillac XTS daily driver

Walter Youshock

NO.  Total bs. The 60 Special IS different from the series 62 sedan and Sedan deVille.  Fleetwood and Fleetwood alone made every body for every Cadillac at that time.  Sure some things were shared throughout the other lines but Buick did not stamp, paint, wire, and upholster your car.
CLC #11959 (Life)
1957 Coupe deVille
1991 Brougham

gary griffin

I do not disagree Walter but why are there different dimensions for the same rubber components? This seems to be in the door area. The provided rubber for the front doors are too long and he rear too short and the dripline molding is wrong also.
Gary Griffin

1940 LaSalle 5029 4 door convertible sedan
1942 Cadillac 6719 restoration almost complete?
1957 Cadillac 60-special (Needs a little TLC)
2013 Cadillac XTS daily driver

Walter Youshock

CLC #11959 (Life)
1957 Coupe deVille
1991 Brougham

gary griffin

#4
I talked to two representatives at Steele and they both said it is a reoccurring problem. They also promised to fix it immediately, whatever that means to them?  Could Buick have used some Cadillac parts? I know this was common earlier. Of course they are the wrong parts for my car, no dispute about that.
Gary Griffin

1940 LaSalle 5029 4 door convertible sedan
1942 Cadillac 6719 restoration almost complete?
1957 Cadillac 60-special (Needs a little TLC)
2013 Cadillac XTS daily driver

Jon S

#5
The Buick and Cadillac shared the same C body. The fleetwood had a longer wheel base and trunk, but the weatherstrips were the sale physical dimensions. Can't speak for the precise location of the attaching pins. Back then, only the Roadmaster, Roadmaster 75, and Super shared the C chassis of Cadillac. In 1958, the Buick Limited shared the longer trunk, but not the longer wheelbase.
Jon

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

Roger Zimmermann

Steele Rubber can do errors. For example, the trunk weatherstrip for the '57/'58 Brougham they are selling is the wrong type. They sell the weatherstrip used till 1956 on the regular Cadillac cars for the Brougham when the weatherstrip for regular 57 cars to ... will fit perfectly.
Years ago, I sent a not to them about that; they still offer the wrong trunk weatherstrip for the Brougham.
1956 Sedan de Ville (sold)
1956 Eldorado Biarritz
1957 Eldorado Brougham (sold)
1972 Coupe de Ville
2011 DTS
CLCMRC benefactor #101

chris cunliffe

Steele Rubber  also seem reluctant to correct errors . When I rebuilt my 57 Seville I ordered nearly all the 57 parts from the catalog  I spent ages trying to find out where the rectangular firewall grommet fitted until I asked the question on this forum and found out that it is a 58 only part. A few months ago I saw that Steele were advertising the part on Ebay as fitting 57-58 so I sent them a message saying it is 58 only. Their response was to agree that it is 58 only and that the listing would be changed immediately,three months on - no change .How many more of you with 57 cars have a useless $38 grommet sitting in their spares box.
1957 Eldorado Seville #967

gary griffin

It will be interesting how this ends up. Steele Rubber still claims there are differences. I will contact the other suppliers and find out what they say. I purchased my Steele rubber as a complete package on eBay and they guarantee the fit so I am assuming I can send the whole package back. I know others are priced lower and I also know that in the past I have had a few Steele components that were too firm to seal easily but normally they have everything one could want. Although the most visible change in the 1957 to 1958 is the difference in the stainless panels on the rear quarter and the 58 having Quad headlights I am beginning to wonder if there are other subtle differences in the body or did Steele just err?
Gary Griffin

1940 LaSalle 5029 4 door convertible sedan
1942 Cadillac 6719 restoration almost complete?
1957 Cadillac 60-special (Needs a little TLC)
2013 Cadillac XTS daily driver

55 cadi

I ordered Steele products and found there are some differences. Mine was the door seals for my 55.  I did my homework on it first and saw the different types and ordered what works for my install 

They are really the only place that makes all the seals anyway, no one else makes them all. There is one other and only do a couple seals in my case.

I Ordered through rubber the right way, they get from Steele rubber and are cheaper than what Steele rubber charges, and have great customer service with problems, returns or exchanges.

They are cheaper than manufacture, the manufacture is more into selling to resellers than dealing with buyers, they do help over the phone and email on questions.

Some of the products you order from rubber the right way come straight from Steele rubber direct.

Jason
1955 Cadillac sedan series 62
1966 mustang convertible w/pony PAC, now in Sweden
2005 Cadillac deville

ghhatley

I replaced the rubber with Steele rubber on both my '58 Sedan (2000)and my '58 Fleetwood 60S(2012) and both kits were damn near completely wrong. Pieces way to long, too short,  pins in the wrong areas, as  I recall I basically had to take what they had sent me and remake it myself by cutting pieces and re-locating pins. Seems to me they don't care as long as we keep buying their sub-par rubber products.
Garage:
1958 Continental Convertible
1958 Continental Convertible
1958 Cadillac Extended Deck gone
1958 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 S
1960 Continental Convertible
1967 Continental Convertible
1973 Eldorado Convertible
1975 Eldorado Convertible aka Cabernet Caddy

gary griffin

Jason and Graham, thanks for the input. I had purchased Steele in the past without problems.

Some purchases were through other vendors who were actually selling for 25% less than Steele list prices.

Having said that Steele has acknowledged the problem and said yesterday they would ship today. I called back and said I was in rainy Seattle and no room in the garage and the old rubber was stripped from the car. They said they would "Overnight" it yesterday afternoon because of my situation. Now to see if they follow through. We have a dry spell predicted so I will concentrate on this problem and report the results as a followup item when done.
Gary Griffin

1940 LaSalle 5029 4 door convertible sedan
1942 Cadillac 6719 restoration almost complete?
1957 Cadillac 60-special (Needs a little TLC)
2013 Cadillac XTS daily driver