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Cadillac 500: It Begins.

22K views 115 replies 19 participants last post by  The-Dullahan 
#1 ·
Okay, so as anyone who hangs out in the lounge may have heard, I have gotten my new engine.

Without further adieu, let's get some photography going, because everyone complained about a lack of photos.



Freshly pulled from a 1970 Eldorado, sporting some minor modification.

Lacking an engine stand at the moment, I am using a tyre and an industrial dolly.









I have three sets of these. The originals, the chromed tin ones with the Caddy scripting and the aluminum ones, which I actually think I'd like if they had some black enamel on them.



A fancy ignition system.



Here's the fuel pump, the original distributor, and a few necessities. Also, some ridiculous headers.



And lastly, the accompanying transmission.



Not shown are plenty of bolts and a few simple pieces, a new valley pan gasket and an extra set of lifters, also new.

Now I'll need some motor mounts, a new rear axle, preferably with disc brakes, a new radiator (No faith in the 307's radiator, even if it new and a 3-row), accessory brackets and some accessories themselves, an exhaust (going for duals) a custom driveshaft (because the the transmission will be a different overall length), an air cleaner and I am not sure I can even fit that engine into a Brougham's engine bay with that intake. Any expert advice in any of these tasks would be GREATLY appreciated.
 
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#93 ·
+1 on the distributed weight on the bolts, the one observation I would have is that the distribution is probably not equal across the bolts.

I am also very wary of Chinese sourced fasteners--I have lost count of the number of screws that I have snapped with a hand screwdriver and bolts that snapped with a conventional wrench. I am a bit of a moose but I'm not that ham handed.
 
#95 ·
Okay, I have the intake on.

I used the Edelbrock Gasgacinch (Essentially High-Tack sealer) on both sides of each intake gasket, used black RTV to make the front and rear seal, set the valleypan down and coated THAT with the Edelbrock sealer, just in case and got the intake on. Going to let is sit for a moment, then retorque all the bolts. I am having serious second thoughts on whether or not I should have put RTV on the front and back on TOP of the valleypan as well :(

Anyhow, it certainly looks pretty. Hope it works as well as it looks.

I will also have to tweak the choke a bit more. The bracket I made looks nice and works well, but the base on the air cleaner won't quite clear it.
 
#96 ·
:Bump:

Going Bump in the Night here.

Anyhow, I am terribly sorry for not being able to update the lot of you, but I have been terribly busy and have honestly had only a few hours to work on any of this on it's own, so here are some updates as of what I finished today. It's an engine. Yeah, not just a pile of parts, anymore. There are gaskets between them and bolts holding it together and even fluids inside it. Oh, happy day.

Well, to start with, it has power steering. Big deal, nothing special there, but hey, it IS a Cadillac and should definitely have it.


I also pulled and replaced the Harmonic Balancer, the Timing Chain and the Water Pump for some better ones.

Old and new, side-by-side.


Mmmmm, Yummy.


Since the oil pan has to be pulled to do this properly, I got it all cleaned out. No photos of it, but it is spotless and mirror-like. Here's what was under it, though.


Some internal components. I rather like the distributor positioning on Cadillac Motors. It is possibly the greatest position ever used on a V format engine. Ever. Much better than Oldsmobile and Chevrolet, who keep theirs in the back, to make replacing them as hard as possible.


With the new timing chain.


And some other parts, all back in order.


Performance Water Pump. Now, let me explain something about this pump. It follows the design of the later year 500's or 472's or the 425 and 368 engines. These are not EXACTLY compatible with earlier engines, because the pulley will king of want to snuggle with it, which is why the earliest years had a slightly thinner lower connection, as to allow the pulley to spin by freely. Thereby, since my engine is a 1970, the pulley and water pump did not quite fit. Nothing that forty-five seconds with a hand file did not fix.


It actually looks so pretty, I decided not to enamel it.


Also, funny story: There was the lower portion of a bolt in this hole, snapped off in such a way that the bolt I removed looked clean and flawless. I feel it may have snapped as I removed it, after coming part ways out. Whilst putting a new bolt back in, that tiny amount of difference in length, which was so small, I could not notice a difference in it and what I removed, made a difference. Though it was barely finger tight (I literally spun it back out by hand) I guess it hit just right to snap this piece of the intake. Absolutely no damage done and it is holding more than secure enough. I initially believed I somehow snapped a bolt, because of the snapping sound. It took me a second to find out where the sound came from, though that may be because the shrapnel happened to land directly in my eye. Good thing I am indestructible.
 
#98 ·
Now onto part II.

So, remember that drop base air cleaner. Well, I learned this ages ago, but never got to update anything here, but it does not work with the factory Quadrajet. Why? Because Quadrajets have their accelerator pumps on top. So, I needed to fabricate an air cleaner spacer JUST high enough to make this work, because any higher may compromise how well the engine even fits in the car.


Likewise, something else that is old news to me, but I never posted is this: The electric choke. Well, the choke plate where it would normally bolt to is not adaptable to the Edelbrock intake. For $1.00 in parts from your local store, you can make a simple bracket like this. Solves everything. You will however have to extend the connecting rod a bit, to make sure it still reaches properly.


Air Conditioning? Hell yes. Okay, so here's the thing. I looked high and low and have not seen any documented encounters with this bracket online. I have seen plenty of places supplying it, but no one has a photo or an accurate description of installation, so I will try to inform the masses through here. If you're looking for an AC unit that adapts to the Cadillac 500 Edelbrock intake, they DO make one and here it is.


It works by connecting the front mount to the factory position on the engine. Simple enough, right? Well, the back plate is two pieces and you have to either drill/bolt or weld them together yourself. Nothing hard, just make sure you line everything up right. The back part is a small L-shaped piece of metal which connects to the front intake manifold bolt on the passenger's side. It then bolts into another piece which lines up to the passenger's side holes of the compressor. Simple stuff, really. Just make sure you have some wrenches, preferably ratcheting ones, as fitting a socket in there just is NOT happening.

note that I keep my distributor and wires numbered. I will have to sort these back out, as when I installed the compressor, I had to adjust the distributor entirely. Word to the wise, I do not think you could ever make this AC compressor work with the factory Distributor, as that thing is a beast and is so ridiculously large, where as the much smaller MSD unit barely fits.


And here is the finished product. It just needs some belts and the water pump pulley put back on as well as set the spark wires back in order and mount the ignition coil someplace (The placement I chose happened to be that front intake bolt, which is now holding the AC on. I will also take the AC compressor off, actually, now that it is all sorted out, that I may properly enamel it and preserve it for aeons to come.

If you look closely, you can see that the Pontiac and Lincoln are looking on in jealousy of how gargantuan the engine is, in spite of their both having bigblocks of their own.


EXTRAS.

When I finished cleaning up my Siren before putting it back into my Hearse, I enameled it. By pure convenience, it now matches the engine, as those were the colours I had.


I also spent $2.00 on Ebay and got this and the ELDORADO script badge from a car someone was parting out. Not the prettiest, but I can always clean it up. Besides...it was two dollars.
 
#101 ·
Very cool. It's going to be too pretty to dirty up! Thanks for the update and good photos. That "chip" still amazes me! Never heard of that before. What a goofy thing.:noidea:

By the way, If you want me to be able to concentrate on something, don't dangle a Mark IV in front of me, I get easily distracted.:drool:
 
#102 ·
talismandave said:
Very cool. It's going to be too pretty to dirty up! Thanks for the update and good photos. That "chip" still amazes me! Never heard of that before. What a goofy thing.:noidea:

By the way, If you want me to be able to concentrate on something, don't dangle a Mark IV in front of me, I get easily distracted.:drool:
Theres one at a local car lot shoved behind a 4k!!! Tercel. Its nice, but the headlight covers don't work, and its probably been repainted.
 
#105 ·
If Chad outlives me, I will leave my '72 Lincoln to him. The Cadillac will probably go to Sting, but only because my descendants will not necessarily need it - I will buy each of them a Hearse as their first car.

Next up, get some belts (and that one pulley I have sitting there) on that engine and start getting myself a 4L80e and get that all set up.
 
#109 ·
The-Dullahan said:
If Chad outlives me, I will leave my '72 Lincoln to him. The Cadillac will probably go to Sting, but only because my descendants will not necessarily need it - I will buy each of them a Hearse as their first car.

Next up, get some belts (and that one pulley I have sitting there) on that engine and start getting myself a 4L80e and get that all set up.
If you're handing out stuff, can I have your motorcycle/ doorstop?
 
#113 ·
If you have a stock cam, I'd go with the stock manifolds unless you want more top end power. If you do headers, I dont know which ones to get. I looked for a good set of headers with no luck. The ones I bought and thought were gonna work didnt and I had to take a hammer to them. Page ten of my "build cadillac 500" thread shows the hammer job I had to do. I havent seen any headers that I think will work without mods.
 
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