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The weather forecast for the weekend was sunny & warm, so I really wanted to take the Caddy out.

Played hooky from work Friday afternoon in order to get the exhaust manifold back on. Long story short - baling wire.

While I was in there, I went ahead and put in new spark plugs and new ignition cables. I was hoping to get Kyra to help me with gapping the plugs, but she has been sick all week and wasn't in the mood to goof around with the Eldorado - or "El Diablo" as my brother calls it.

Anyway, cranked it up Saturday afternoon. Happily, the engine is quieter now with the new gaskets. Even Marcia said so, in a non-sarcastic manner, so it is not my imagination. So, the 6 or 8 weeks of pain was worth it. Somewhat.

Still not as quiet as I would like, though, but I am going to put off any more exhaust work for a while.

Okay, Kyra and I went cruising on Saturday afternoon. First to the car races at Turner Field, that's where the photo above is from. They have these events about once a month: http://www.southeastdrift.com/

Here is the obligatory photo of the Caddy:



Then to the auto parts place to get some power steering fluid. Then off to get some dinner and sweets for Kyra. Back home to pick up the dog, and off to the playground.

Today, I just went for a spin by myself. I always tell myself to take it easy and not go over 70 on the highway. But then something happens to my right foot and ZOOM. Car rides nice. There was a Porsche 911 zipping along too and we gave each other the car-guy nod of respect.

Snow

Well, I was gonna work on putting the exhaust manifold back on today, but it was snowing and cold.





Last weekend, I did manage to drill out and retap the holes. The holes on the number 6 cylinder are pretty ugly, but I think there are enough threads there to hold a bolt. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I did manage to fabricate the two bolts that the heat shield attaches to. I used JB Weld and the bond seems pretty sturdy. Again, keeping my fingers crossed...

Progress...

So, for the last couple of weekends I have been trying unsuccessfully to get those broken bolts out.

The last couple of weekends have seen me trying to get the bolts free by heating & cooling and soaking and soaking them with penetrating oil. And heating & cooling & soaking. And heating & cooling & soaking...

Anyway, the two that are sticking out ain't budging. I tried using an extractor to dislodge the one that broke off flat. That requires drilling a hole through the center of the bolt and twisting in the extractor. The extractor has left hand threads that are supposed to grab onto the bolt and twist the bolt out.

As you may have guessed, the extractor broke. Now, the extractor is made of really hard metal, and drilling that sucker out is a pain!

Okay, so I get fed up trying to unscrew the bolts and decided to just drill them out. After some trial and error, I found the best tool for that is a Dremel with a bit for cutting tile. It is a rough bit and is good at grinding the bolts out of the holes.

After that, I used a tap to clean out the threads on all the holes, starting with the ones the bolts actually came out of. One of those had threads that were crushed for some reason, but I think I have got it tapped so it will hold a bolt.

Then I managed to break the tap on one of holes with the stick bolt. Drilling that out sucked - took me most of the afternoon today, and that hole is pretty ugly now.

So, next weekend I am going to work on cleaning up the holes that had the stuck bolts. I'll see if I can retap them, but I think I'll probably have to install an insert to restore the threads.

Arrgh!

Quick note here - allocated some time this afternoon to pull off the exhaust manifolds in order to replace the gaskets.

The right side manifold came off easily - yay!

The left side - not so much.

Managed to break off three bolts; two of them are special - they have an extension that the heat shroud attaches to. One of the bolts broke clean off, the other two have part protruding, but they are good and stuck:



So, no driving until I figure out how to get those bolts out.

On the bright side, Kyra and I didn't have any trouble replacing the windshield fluid reservoir or the PCV valve & grommet.

Happy New Year!

I spent a bit of time right around New Year's cleaning the Eldorado - touching up flaking paint, cleaning the interior and washing & waxing the car.

The wash & wax was long overdue - the car definitely looks a lot better. Unfortunately, the only way the paint on the hood is ever going to look good is by repainting the entire car. The sides of the car shined up a little better than I expected.

What else? I put a clear vinyl window in the top and cemented it in place with contact cement. That seems to work pretty well, though there is one small leak that I'll have to work on patching. I prefer to leave the car cover off, if possible, as leaves and moisture tends to get trapped under there and make the finish look really cruddy.

I really have to schedule a weekend to take a good look and adjust the top. It is not opening and closing very smoothly at all. Since I have the manual, I'm hoping it won't be too hard to figure out, but I plan on it being time-consuming to make all the adjustments correctly.

I also washed & waxed my truck, and that came out really nice!

What did I leave out? Marcia's Bug! Yeah, the rain arrived so I couldn't do her car, thus giving her another reason to hate the Eldorado.

A side note regarding her Beetle - feeling cocky after replacing the springs, shocks, water & smog pumps and belts on the Caddy, and replacing the rear view mirror on the Dakota (got clipped when somebody drove by too close and too fast), I decided that replacing her burnt-out headlight bulb would be a cinch.

WRONG! Oi, what a pain. I searched the internet on how to do this and what I found is that some of the Beetles' light assemblies are easy to take apart and some are very hard. Guess which one Marcia's is. SNAP!!! "Did this just break off!? Oops!"

Oh well, the guys at the local shop got things pulled apart and back together okay and didn't charge Marcia for the work, but it is another in her growing list of resentments about the Caddy.

But damn, I look good in that car, and that can't be bad, can it?

And finally, I took the car to a body shop to see how much repainting the beast would cost. The guy I talked to was not interested in working on the Caddy - he had enough business and dealing with all the chrome is a pain - if you take it off then it bends really easy and won't fit back on. He did give some advice though. He thought it would cost about $3k to get a decent paint job, but he said I should take it to a place that specializes in restoring classic cars and spend about $8-10 thousand for a good paint job, then about another $5-10 grand for the interior.

Which is a nice thought, but it ain't gonna happen anytime soon unless I win the lottery. I guess I could take it to Maaco and get a crap job for $1000. Another option is to paint it myself, this would be cheaper, though time-consuming. It would be nice if I had a garage so I could set it up as a paint shop.

So, it looks like the goal for the next year is to keep the Eldorado running, keep it looking as good as possible, and enjoy driving it when I can.

Happy New Year!

Here are three photos after I waxed the car:

Repair Update

Okay, I'm finally almost finished replacing the smog and water pumps.

As I mentioned, the top bolt for the water pump was a bit stripped so I had to put in a new bolt and secure it with a nut. This required moving the A/C compressor out of the way.

Also, it was a tight fit to get the pulley onto the new water pump flange - I wound up buying 4 short screws to clamp the pulley down onto the shaft. I couldn't force the pulley on with my hands - too tight. So, after clamping it down I removed the 4 short bolts and attached the fan assembly with the long bolts. This method was kind of nice as the holes for the fan assembly, pulley, and water pump were lined up by using the short bolts, saving some aggravation trying to get the long bolts screwed in.

So, I got everything put together, tightened the belts and filled the radiator. Cranked it and didn't notice any leaks so things seem to be okay. Crossing my fingers!

It was getting late in the day so I didn't take the car for a spin and the weather looks kind of crappy today, so it looks like I'll wait 'til next weekend to warm up the engine with a drive and change the oil.

I noticed that a lot of the rubber gaskets around various emissions components (PCV valve, etc.) are pretty rotted, so I'll have to look into getting replacements.

I still have to attach the fan shroud, but I think I'm pretty much done with this job.

Brochure Photo

Here is a sweet photo of a 1971 Eldorado from a Cadillac brochure. It's a lighter blue than my Eldorado, but the interior is the same. Gorgeous!



I downloaded this from www.oldcarbrochures.com, a really neat site I just discovered the other day.