Hub Caps!

Drove out to Hub Cap City in Austell yesterday and got 4 Cadillac hubcaps. These are not 1971 hubcaps, but they will fit the Eldorado.

I got these for $50. Since that is a lot less expensive than 1971 wheel covers, I am going to store the originals and put these on instead. That way, I won't cry so much if I lose one of these.

Update: Judging by this eBay listing these are from 1969-70 Eldorados and I got a good deal.

Car Cover

Finally sucked it up and bought a car cover last night because the rear window leaks and I want to keep the rain out.

I don't mind bailing out the car after a rain, I just don't want to spend another $50 on a new relay for the top motor. Or worse, have to buy a new top motor.

$89 for the cover (after I get $10 back from the mail-in rebate). It is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow so we'll see if it actually keeps the interior dry.

I also called around to salvage yards/hubcap dealers looking for wheel covers for the Eldorado. The most helpful answer I got was "Good Luck!". It looks like the '71 wheel covers are "one year only", which makes them more difficult to replace.

October 1970

Found this photo of a 1971 Eldorado hardtop on the Motor Trend website. The accompanying text says:

"Cadillac's new-for-1971 El Dorado 'personal luxury coupe' was none of the above. It was about the size of your average Rose Parade float, ran a gas-sucking 500-cubic-inch V-8 underhood, and weighed somewhere around 4800 pounds."

They say that like its a bad thing...

Q & A

I've gotten a few questions which I'll take a couple of minutes to quickly answer.

First, I've supplied a fairly recent photo of Kyra (sans Eldorado) above.

I still have my 10-year old red Dodge Dakota pickup truck. That is what I consider to be the "dependable" vehicle. The Eldorado is for fun - driving around on weekends, little road trips, etc. I have been splitting my driving about equally between the two for the last week or two. The weather has been really nice here so I've been driving the Caddy to work a couple of days a week.

I don't have any idea what the real mileage is. Although the odometer works, and shows less than 80k miles, it could have rolled over and the actual mileage may be close 180,000 miles. Or, somebody may have rolled back the odometer and the real mileage may be somewhere between 80 & 180. I know very little about the provenance of the vehicle.

It's really hard to tell from the condition. It's a 40-year old car and the original carpet was very worn. The seats are in decent shape, though, as are the armrests. The dash has some small cracks. I can't tell if the pedals have a lot of wear.

The original top is in good shape, except for the missing window. The car drives straight and the engine runs well, though noisy (probably need to tighten up the exhaust system). The automatic transmission shifts well. It needs a new water pump.

It has fairly new tires, and the belts and battery have been replaced recently as well. It has fresh engine oil and transmission oil (maybe covering up some problem with the transmission?)

It has a lot of squeaks and rattles, and seems to ride a little too low to the ground. There are times when it sounds like parts are falling off the car, or fluid is leaking. Actually, one thing did fall off from under the front a couple of weeks ago. I have no idea what it is.

The paint is in pretty bad shape, and there is some significant rust on the underbody. Missed that when looking at it initially. It seems like somebody did have it garaged for a large part of its life. I know that it spent some of its life in Maryland. I guess it snows there, with subsequent salting of the roads which would explain the rust.

Looking at eBay, a lot of these vehicles show about the same mileage, but always with the caveat that the mileage is not guaranteed to be accurate.

So, I'm just crossing my fingers that I'll have a few years before spending big bucks on engine and transmission rebuilds.

Anyway, the shop should get the new tire valve stems later this week or early next week. I am still searching for some reasonably priced wheel covers.

Running Errands

This photo was taken on April 9 as Kyra and Daddy are going out to run some errands. Daddy is not happy because the Eldorado is not starting (it needed a jump).

Marcia took cruel delight in photographing me in the non-running Caddy.

Blog Start

While talking to my neighbor, Willie, about the trials of doing minor repairs on the Eldorado, he said I should keep a diary (and perhaps a running tab of expenses) about the experience.

So, I decided a blog would be a more 21st century way of keeping a diary. Here it is. I'll pre-date some blogs to describe my experience over the last few weeks of Eldorado ownership.

Yesterday, though, I drove Marcia & Kyra to the grocery store in the Eldo. It was a beautiful day but Marcia really hates driving around in a convertible. She has no love for the Eldorado.

Hubcap Tragedy

I lost a hubcap on the downtown connector driving to work this morning. This totally bummed me out all day. (I drove the connector a couple of days later looking for it, but didn't see it anywhere.)

Also, it looks like replacing the tire valve stems is going to turn into a saga all its own.

A little background:

The passenger side front tire valve is a little dented/misshapen, so it is hard to get a hose to fit to inflate the tire. The driver side front tire has a slow leak, and the tire had gone completely flat by Wednesday night.

Since I wanted to get the tires repaired on Thursday, I worked on getting the flat pumped up on Wednesday evening. This was quite an undertaking, requiring the car be jacked up, a can of Fix-a-Flat, and borrowing Willie's air compressor. In order to facilitate access to the valve, I took off the wheel cover. And I thought I had fitted it correctly when putting it back on.

But when I got to work Thursday morning I noted with great dismay that the hubcap was missing. Sigh. Anyway, it looks like it is gonna cost about $65 to replace it. I am waiting to hear back from a local hubcap place...

I took the car to a shop near work and asked them to look at the tires. They first looked at the messed up valve. It's different than the valve stems on more modern cars. It has a curved connecting tube that connects the stem to the rim. The younger guys there said "We've never seen anything like this before". The older mechanics said "We never see these anymore". They checked their suppliers and none of them had them in stock.

Then they looked at the tire with the leak. Sure enough, its leaking at the valve stem. So that one needs to be replaced, too.

I left my spare there so they could make sure they got the right part from the supplier. I also asked them to order a couple of extra for me so I could have them available when I need more. Hopefully, I'll hear from them on Monday.

I'll let you know how much this is gonna set me back...

Arabia Mountain

Today we drove out to Arabia Mountain to do a little walking.

http://pathfoundation.org/index.cfm?event=showArabia
http://www.arabiaalliance.org/

This was a nice chance to take the Eldorado on a little road trip. The car drove well on I-20, driving straight and cruising and accelerating well. The wind noise covered the sound of the engine so it seemed quiet until we tried to talk. I did about 60 mph most of way, topping out at about 70 or 75 mph.

Marcia sat in the back on the way there. It is quite windy in the back seat, and she was pretty unhappy with her hair whipping into her face, so we all three sat in front for the return trip - me driving, Kyra in her car seat in the middle, and Marcia in the far passenger seat.

It was a nice ride and a pleasant walk. There is a lot to see there so we want to take another hike out there.

Repairs...

Over the last week, we've been pretty busy with repairs. It was Kyra's Spring Break and I took the week off work.

I had promised Marcia that I would take care of a bunch of stuff around the house, but that was before I bought the Eldorado. Sooo, nothing got done around the house, but a lot happened with the Eldo (though, you can't tell by looking at it...).

• Washed the car: I had planned on waxing it, too, but the pollen has been so bad its not worthwhile. Also, the paint is in such bad shape I don't think waxing is going to help much.
• Primed: There were a couple of big sections on the trunk where the paint had peeled, and some other areas with missing paint and rust. I used steel wool to remove the rust and primed these areas to keep them from getting worse.
• Fixed the rear window: Got a piece of Lexan (about $50 from Lowe's), and some caulk and tape. Marcia and I cut the Lexan to fit the opening in the top and managed to get it in. Lots of nicks and cuts on our fingers.
• Pulled out the back seat to access the top motor and electrical relay. Rain had gotten in through the back window opening and shorted out the relay.
  
• Kyra and I found a mummified mouse when we were vacuuming out the car. It had crawled into a compartment behind the rear seat.
  
• Since the back seat was out, I thought "Why not take out the front seat and replace the carpet?"
• Marcia helped me get the front seat out - this was before I got the electrical system for the top repaired, so it was a lot harder than if the top was down. Marcia is a trooper - it looked real painful to be bending over awkwardly inside the car while lifting that heavy seat.
• Replaced the top relay: The top works now (electrically, that is - mechanically, it has some issues and needs babying). Also remounted the top motor with some kludged together bolts and rubber grommets.
  
• Replaced the carpet: This was easier now that the top can go down. I tried to get the seatbelts out and wound up gouging the dickens out of my thumb when the wrench slipped. Cut the carpet for the car and got it in. It doesn't fit great, but it looks a lot better than the original, ratty carpet.
• Rust inhibited the floor pan: Rust is a killer for these old cars. Discovered that part of the floor pan had been replaced. Tried to scrape some of the other rust, and sprayed some Rust-Oleum (sp?) rust inhibitor on those spots as well.
• Put it all back together.