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1983 Fleetwood Brougham d'Elegance project

203K views 776 replies 73 participants last post by  Maximln 
#1 ·
Hi,
first of all i want to introduce myself. I am Felix from germany and i just bought an '83 FB d'Elegance Sedan, loaded and in beautiful "woodland haze" paint.
I want to say sorry to you if i make mistakes writing english. It is not perfect, but i will try as good as possible. :)

4 Years ago (when i was 18) i bought my first car: a rusty and worse custom '74 Continental Mark IV. You can see my Lincoln restoration here: Link
I restored it and now it is like new but as a daily driver (it was still my only car) it is too expensive on gas. (In germany it is something about 8$/gal)

I always loved 70s and 80s american cars. 80s Fleetwood Brougham always was one of my favourites.
So i looked for one. I had exact criteria:

- Year 80-83 (in germany there is a huge financial advantage for cars older then 30 Years, called historical license plate)
- Sedan (it is hard with these small parking spots and those huuuuge doors. I always have problems with the doors of my Lincoln.)
- Fleetwood Brougham, no Deville
- d'Elegance package with cloth seats (very important, i love these seats)
- paint shouldn't be silver or black (i don't like common colors.... today every car is silver or black)

It is hard to find a car that fits. I searched a lot worldwide but found almost nothing (and if, way too expensive)
In germany those cars are between 1.500 and 10.000€ Compared to the US-prices, they are expensive. Shipping from the US to germany is something about 2.000$.

One day i drove through a city 70 mls away and saw a '80s FB at the street side.
- Sedan :thumbsup:
- Fleetwood Brougham :thumbsup:
- d'Elegance :thumbsup:
- cloth seats :thumbsup:
- 80-83: yes, '83 :thumbsup:
- color :thumbsup:

Holy! A car like out of my dream.
Ok, it is needs TLC, but no problem.
I contact the owner, yes the car is for sale. It was inserted a while ago for 4.300€
I negotiate "a bit" and at the end i bought the car for 800€ (about 1.000$), which is a very good price here in germany for such a car.

And this is it:
(Cadillac next to my Mark IV)


rear:










Ok, and that is the condition:
- front bumper is bent, but chrome is ok
- rear bumper is straight, but chrome is worn
- broken bumper filler
- worn vinyl top
- worn tires
- missing emblems
- engine (HT4100) runs perfect
- transmission needs rebuilt. no movement in reverse
- brakes, suspension like new
- seats like new
- headliner hangs down locally
- some electrical things aren't working
- almost no rust (only surface. undercarriage is like new)
- car is 100% original (exept for stupid german conversions to the turn signals, parking lights, cornering lights, sidemarkers....)

I have a Carfax report and it seems that 30.000 Miles are original.

So far... in february i took the car with me. It drives like a cloud. Awesome!
It only is difficult to remember the missing reverse.... sometimes i had to push the car back on road.

Cadillac at arriving.




Ok. I only can put 15 images in one post so i will distribute the progress to the next posts.

Regards
Felix
 
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#297 ·
Man no way that bastard would go back on without a smear of anti-seize... That's gonna suck to remove regardless.
Should have rigged up a plate to use the stock holes, might not of broke the ears off but hindsight is 20/20.
I would be shooting PB blaster in the keyway slot also.
 
#307 ·
Yes it is designed to save weight. The conventional design is better because on an HT engine you have to remove the whole valve train (which is very fragile and will break apart) to take off the intake. On a conventional engine it is no problem to remove the intake.

This is a very interesting video of the assembling of the HT4100 engine. They said that the heads have a "new lighter design".

 
#308 ·
Never understood why they didn't make the heads out of aluminum. Crazy times in the early 80s at Cadillac. I can only imagine the meeting: "Ok, welcome everyone! Hey, you know all the hard work and hundreds of thousands of miles of testing we put into the revolutionary V8-6-4? Well, forget all that! We're not going to use that anymore. People just don't understand it. No, we can't just use a regular Cadillac big block, GM doesn't make an overdrive transmission strong enough for us! So... you know that new, light, efficient engine we've been working on for those FWD cars later in the 80s? Well, we're going to shove that in our full size RWD cars! Yes, we know it doesn't make enough power, but Cadillac is a LUXURY car! Buyers don't care about power! Rolls Royce doesn't tell their buyers how much HP their engines make. Yes, we know they still use a 6 litre engine that makes big torque. Forget about that! The HT4100 is the way of the FUTURE!"
 
#310 ·
At least the valve covers were chrome:)
Again, i beat the $&*@ out of that motor, but it stayed loyal to me and gasoline.
Hmmm maybe if the 368s were aluminum headed, compression ratio increases would have made a bit more power. Id agree to that idea for weight savings:).

Cheers,
Noé
 
#311 ·
Disassembled the old engine further because I need some parts of it. The timing chain was very loose. Unbelievable that this engine has only 31.000 miles on it. Found a lot of alloy chippings in the cylinder head:





Timing cover, water pump, crank hub installed. Overhauled the oil pump and installed the pan and starter.







installing the crank hub:


timing mark fits great: (crank is still on the timing set installation postion)




Only need to install the valve covers and exhaust manifolds.
Will finish the enigne tomorrow and prepare everything for the installation of it into the car.

Regards
Felix
 
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