Just picked up a new 84 Deville De'elegance. Blue on blue with the soft cloth seats. The outside looks good as does the inside. It has 142K with a bad tranny and a motor that wont idle down. I only had it running for 10 minutes but the temp light came on. I looked under the hood and saw some melted wiring and some small mods but it all looks intacked.
Completely stock interior looks to have survived very well with the only defect being the locks not working.
Then comes the bad parts. The rust on the drivers floor board, its the only part of the floor board with rust
There is a rust hole in this fender thats hard to see. You can see the tire, just not in the pic.
Never did a floor pan though, are they a pain to deal with? I havent had it on the lift yet but the rest of the frame looks good. The plan would be to switch over the complete drivetrain from the 90 to this 84, everything except the interior mods, I like the interior as is. I would need to put some gauges somewhere though, any ideas?
Is it badly rusted...I could use a frame. Im still with my bent frame from last year. All Ive dkne is added shims to correct the angle of the tires, both were tilting out at top and the extra shims helped...
Wish you were closer, the cost would be expensive to ship from you to me
thanks for the picture. I guess I'll have to remove the right inner fender to get to the antenna hole? (or just feed the wire from the interior somehow?)
sam, is your interior getting tossed too? Theres alot of good parts in there.
I'm using the frame, I was talking about how I would treat it.
One thing thats always given me an issue is the rear axle alignment. It keeps walking to the passenger side because my jam nuts on the control arms keep loosening up. Notice the difference from frame to tire...
So, I bet your car, to others, looked like it was driven crooked.I have seen cars like that here on the I-10, looks weird, lol
Have you tried using lock tight? I have an issue like that but it's with one of the upper control arm bolts. It always loosens and always have to retighten it..
Shame you aren't up near me. We always get full size caddys in the yards (not sure how much they charge for a frame, but everything else is fairly cheap).
We get lots of RWD Caddies here. And, there price is pretty reasonable. For the frame it's $99.99 but, it has to be bare, no front or rear suspension on it otherwise, you'll be charged for each other item on it..now what boggles my mind is if you want a section of frame it's only $9.99
Might go that route, I mean it is do able and have been done to hot rods when they put in a sub frame to accomadate a newer front suspension or rear end...
We do this kind of repair to H frames at the shop. Make a cardboard template the complete size of the gussets. Use that template to fashion a new top plate out 1/8" thick medium steel, weld over top in place. Cut a new hole with the right sized whole-saw bit. I'll see if I have any pics you can use as a reference but I'm sure you got the idea.
Edit: I could not find any of my own pics but found these on a Jeep forum. It's not exactly the same but I'm sure you got the point.
^ Exactly how he said. After you get all of the bad rust patched I would suggest you clean and treat (with POR 15 or similar) and then spray on some nice hard protective paint.
Got some new toys for the engine. Unfortunately, while putting these on, I noticed that one of the lifters is collapsed and I can pretty much bottom it out by pushing down on it. Marty said he'd swap it. He did say to take it apart and make sure there is no debris in it.
Got the cast covers since the rockers dont fit under the stamped chrome.
Putting 308s back in since 373s get me to third gear way too early.
Weight distribution almost cost me a car. Nothing but an engine and an empty rear axle almost caused the frame to tip forward. Luckily, I run faster then frozen peanut butter
Got some new toys for the engine. Unfortunately, while putting these on, I noticed that one of the lifters is collapsed and I can pretty much bottom it out by pushing down on it. Marty said he'd swap it. He did say to take it apart and make sure there is no debris in it.
Got the cast covers since the rockers dont fit under the stamped chrome.
Putting 308s back in since 373s get me to third gear way too early.
Weight distribution almost cost me a car. Nothing but an engine and an empty rear axle almost caused the frame to tip forward. Luckily, I run faster then frozen peanut butter
I love that 500. It's such a fitting engine for the car.
I wish I had found a big block at the time I did the car (theres 2 455 rockets in the junkyard right now as well as a buick big block )
Yea, its getting harder to find these engines now-a-days. Theres one on my craigs right now for 1500 rebuilt that hasnt even been broken in. I remember the days when nobody knew about craigs...
One of the biggest shocks of becoming an on-line Cadillac enthusiast a year ago was that there are performance parts and attention to big block Cadillac engines. I remember the days when the only performance modification for them was "scarp them" and put in a Chevy engine!
Took the intake off to check out the lifter. I dont know if yall remember from the first build, but I was having trouble with intake gasket leaking, looks good this time around. The oil in the tray seems from the exhaust crossover which tells me that I'm probably burning oil from the piston rings but this motor needs to be punched to get the cylinder walls tight. Definately not in the budget but one day it will and I'll stroke it and get high compression and so on and so on.
I took apart the lifter and found nothing inside. The weird thing is that, when I put it back together, it was nice and tight for about a minute and then went back to being spongy. I dont know.
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Cleaned up the frame the best I could with a wire wheel. I'm gonna search the web for the best way to coat it.
Also, I'm having a hard time getting this spring to sit right. The other side sits fine but this one sits on the front side of the mount. Any ideas?
I just remembered that the upper control arm on that side is the one thats been walking. Its about an inch longer then the other side. You scared me with the rotated axle thought.
Sam, consider going with stock uppers, and the nice custom lowers. The lowers do all the hard work. Every upper I've taken out/looked at has had mint bushings. Maybe just box a set of stock uppers. Yes, I run custom uppers on the SS, but they are solid, not adjustable.
I read about having issues with running different uppers so I kept them. I'll set it up one more time and see if it walks again, then I'll box the stock uppers and run them.
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