Hi all,

I'm considering replacing my '73 Riviera with a '70 DeVille. The car has ~100k, one owner, looks like it's always been garaged and appears to be in good shape. I'm going to be taking a look at it in person this weekend, hopefully.

Is there anything in particular that I should be looking out for? I'm having the seller do compression and leakdown tests on it and a cooling system pressure check on it... It appears to be rust free but I'm figuring that since it's an early 70s GM product I should probably check around the back window particularly carefully. But outside of that and making sure that all of the power accessories work and stuff, I don't know it there's anything I need to check out.

Any insight would be appreciated,
thanks

Pay close attention to the lower front fenders (between wheel and front door at bottom). That's a very rust-prone area on '69/'70 Caddys.

Awesome, I'll make sure I check them when I look at the car. Or if I look at the car... at the rate the dealership that has the car is going, I may not get the results of the compression and leakdown tests until sometime in 2015. :bigroll: And I'm NOT flying 400 miles to look at the car until I get those.

Actually, that brings up another issue I forgot to mention in my first post; this car is going to have to make it over the grapevine outside of Los Angeles and another 350 miles or so back to the bay area after that before it gets a break, hence why I'm having them pressure test the cooling system. But I'm wondering if I can trust that idiot light for the coolant temp to come on before the engine is damaged. Any thoughts on how often those little temperature switches go bad, and if I should even worry about it?

Thanks

I'd just take it kinda easy on the car, and maybe do a few pit stops every 1/2 hour or so (30-50 miles?) and visually check things out. Be sure the trans and rear-end also have the correct amount of fluids. Someone on this site fried their rear differential because the grease was too low. Probably be a good idea to make sure the front wheel bearings/hubs have enough grease.