Parts

Here is photo of Kyra with the trim for behind the driver-side front wheel. I also got another piece for the other side even though that hasn't fallen off yet. The pieces are more worn than what is on the car, but I think they will polish up okay. They don't have any serious dents or rust, so now its a matter of finding the clips to hold them on.



I also noticed that the trim on the door is getting loose in a couple of places. I had an opportunity to buy all the lower body trim from the same eBay seller and it was quite tempting. Given enough space & money, it would be great to do that and store the pieces until I need them. Unfortunately, most of my discretionary income now goes to gas, and we live in a small bungalow on a small lot with no garage. In other words - we have no storage space!

Driving Around

I took Marcia out to dinner Saturday night - the weather was nice so of course we took the Eldorado.

This car gets a lot of attention - people stare, wave and smile. People come up and ask questions about the car and relate stories about people they knew who owned one. Marcia doesn't travel in the Caddy very often so she's not used to the attention. It kind of feels like being a movie star, I guess.

She was wondering why the car gets notice so much. Here is my theory:

• It's old. You just don't see many cars this old on the road, much less an old Cadillac like this.
• It's huge. It's wider and longer than a lot of SUVs.
  
• It's a convertible. I think convertibles get more attention anyway, but it is rare to see one of these land yachts.

Also, I suspect folks think we must be filthy rich to be able to afford to put gas in this baby. Maybe they are being nice to us hoping that we will start passing out $100 bills or remember them in our will or something.

On another note, I got the little piece of chrome that fits behind the rear wheel off of eBay. Haven't had time to see if it fits yet...

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...