Radio

Sure, the sweet, sweet purr of a massive V-8 is music to my ears, but I thought it would be nice to listen to the radio or MP3's occasionally. I bought a cheap-o system shortly after buying the car but only got around to putting it in yesterday - that took most of the day.

I'm getting really good at taking the back seat out and putting it back in. The rear speakers fit behind there.

Since the new radio won't fit in the old slot, I've got it stashed in the glove compartment. I'll move it out of there eventually and try to mount it under the dash.

First thing I played on the new radio - Master of Reality by Black Sabbath.

MPG

Okay, the bad news is in - it looks like I'm getting about 7 miles per gallon in mostly city driving.

I was hoping for about 8-10 mpg in the city and better than that on the highway. Maybe that is too much to hope for - I think that these cars only got about 10 mpg when brand new (I'll have to check on that, though).

The car has a 26 gallon tank so it will go about 180 miles on a tank. I should mention that the owner's manual specifies premium gasoline. I'll let you do the math on how much it costs to fill up the tank.

I've been getting a strong smell of gasoline over the last couple of days (been driving it quite a bit over the Memorial Day weekend - weather has been great). So, I think that there might be a bit of a gas leak so I'll need to track that down sometime.

Parade

This morning we drove in a parade celebrating the 125th birthday of Grant Park. There were marching bands and floats and I got to drive the Eldorado with four 5-year olds in the back. The three girls had tiaras and fancy dresses and looked like little princesses; their prince got a fancy hat later in the day. We had a great time blowing horns, waving at people, eating candy and having our picture taken.

The photo above is us getting ready for the parade to start.

The photo below is with Council Member Carla Smith and her chief-of-staff Sheryl Bennett riding in the back. Kyra is back there with them, and the other three kids are in the front seat with me (kind of hard to see them, but they're there).

Happy Mother's Day!

For Mother's Day, some mommies get nice gifts, taken to a nice restaurant, maybe a spa treatment, or some other token of appreciation for the hard work and love they put into raising our children.

Kyra's mom gets to put a new CV boot on Daddy's Eldorado!



The car developed a noise about a week ago (or maybe it had been there before - there are so many noises that come and go its hard to tell) and the mechanic said it was the CV joint. The CV boot had cracked and the grease had leaked out.

Yesterday, I pulled the torn boot and a loose clamp off. I noticed the noise disappeared after doing that, so I'm hoping that the clamp was scraping against something and the joint isn't burned up. I don't hear a clicking or grinding anymore, even when turning. So, I bought a boot kit ($8.35) hoping that fresh grease will solve the problem. Also, bought jack stands ($39.99 + tax) to keep the car raised.

Not to get into the details of putting on a new boot, but its a pain, and it turns out Marcia's petite frame and nimble fingers were better suited to the job than mine. That's how she wound up getting stuck with the job.

While under there, we noticed that the other boot could use replacing, so I expect her to get on that within the next week or so. After that, she can think about replacing the shocks and checking out that brake squeal...

Just to show that Daddy helped a little, here is one photo of me under the car:

Tags & Title

The Eldorado didn't come with a license plate for the front and it looked weird with that empty space there. I thought it would be nice if I could find a Georgia license plate from 1971 (the year the Eldo was built) and it didn't take long to find one on eBay for only a couple of bucks.

The car didn't have a title, but it is old enough that a title isn't required to register it in Georgia. Though the line at the tag office was long, the staff was pretty efficient and friendly and I got a license plate for the Caddy pretty quickly. Kyra was with me and the wait wasn't long enough for her to get cranky.

Good news: I got the new valve stems for the front wheels put on today.
Bad news: The passenger side CV joint needs replacing. I'm gonna see if I can kludge together something and put off spending a couple of hundred bucks on that...

Photos

We are racing home after ballet yesterday trying to beat the rain.

We got a few drops on us before we got home. We probably would have beaten the rain completely but we stopped at the grocery store on the way home and a couple of people stopped us to ask questions and admire the Eldorado.



And this photo was taken today - I got some hubcaps on the car. Now I need to start looking for a replacement for the missing chrome on the front fender, behind the wheel...

Specs

From the owner's manual, here are some specs on the Eldorado:

Engine displacement: 500 cu. in. (8.2 L)
Horsepower:
  Gross: 365 @ 4400 rpm
  SAE Net: 235 @ 3800 rpm
Torque:
  Gross: 535 ft. lbs. @ 2800 rpm
  SAE Net: 410 ft. lbs. @ 2400 rpm

Length: 221.6 inches
Width: 79.8 inches
Weight: 4810 lbs.

So, the Eldorado is about the length & width of a 2008 Chevy Suburban. The Eldorado's much larger engine produces less horsepower, but more torque.

As for gas mileage..., I'll save that for another post.