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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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#342 ·
"But I think there is a big problem with the transmission. It won't shift until full throttle (maybe tv cable misadjusting) and need more oil. But it makes heavy noise in reverse and "P" is not working anymore."

No worries Felix. It the adjustment and oil don't do the trick you can rebuild it Saturday morning :)

Terrific thread, keep up the good work.
 
#343 · (Edited)
Yes, this is the transmission I rebuilt at the very beginning.
So I made not a good job but I have no idea what it could be. The transmission made it for 3000 miles.

The tranmission is definately shot. Meanwhile there is no movement in D,3,2 and 1. Only in R it moves.
You can hear the noise it makes in this video:




:gah::crying::crying::crying::crying::crying::help less:


anyone want to buy a Cadillac?
 
#346 ·
Ok on thursday I will do the transmission swap. I hope that new transmission out of the Coupe Deville will work properly. Unfortunately I have not the possibility to check it before putting it into the Fleetwood.

Removed the front seats of the CDV. I will turn them into seating furniture and maybe sell them or keep them.
I sold a lot of CDV parts so at the moment the car was essentially free for me.





Regards
Felix
 
#348 ·
They are, the CDV only had 45.000 miles.
The seats will look great. Of course I will show the finished ones.

They had to go because I "installed" the spare engine into the parts car..... :D :D



Btw if you say I should have taken out the original carpet before... this one is done, completely wet and soaked with rusty water. Not worth of keeping or selling.

Regards
Felix
 
#349 ·
I'd bet that someone with a coupe would like to have those sill plates from the parts car. Sam Buckner (csbuckn) comes to mind. Don't forget to pull and save the heater A/C module too. Here's hoping the trans from the parts car is usable also. Getting most of your cash back from the sale of the excess parts is also a good feeling. Good luck with the change-over.

Cheers..........R
 
#350 ·
Sure I'm selling everything. If anybody needs anything tell me.

Today I did the transmission swap within 4 hours.
I'm better and better, last time it was 6 hours and the first time a whole day. :D









The new oil is coming tomorrow so I will do the test drive tomorrow.

Regards
Felix
 
#353 ·
No oil pressure! I can't believe it...

I wanted to check it but I was busy the last days.
The plan is to open the radiator coolant line from the transmission and start the engine to see if there is at least some oil flow or nothing.
Then I want to remove the oil pump from the old trans and check it. If it is ok and no oil came out of the coolant lines I will replace the oil pump of the new transmission. I hope this is the solution of my problems.

Is it possible to have less luck than me?
Got an engine damage, put in a new one and at the first test drive the trans failed. Swapped the trans and the new one isn't working too...
But I won't stop with it. Too much work is flown into this car and it is in better and better shape, has a new engine and transmission (with some little prob). I think I will handle this problem too and have a hopefully nice driving Cadillac again.

Regards
Felix
 
#356 ·
^^ Felix, be sure that when you remove the offending transmission, you will flush out the trans oil cooler and lines otherwise you might end up where I did with my 81 car. I put in a newly rebuilt TH 400 but neglected to flush out the cooler and lines which resulted in blocked oil delivery to the valve body and no-go for the car. At the time I was not familiar with all the problems that can accompany a transmission blow-up or failure. Result? I tossed a perfectly good reman transmission and replaced it with another not-so-good one. Because I still didn't twig to the necessity of cleaning up all the oil cooler lines (including replacing the torque converter) etc, I had to do it all again. So, my friend you are not alone in this seemingly hopeless swamp of crap. Been there..... done that as the saying goes.

Cheers.........R.
 
#358 ·
A little update. I uninstalled the oil pump from the old transmission and next week I will put it into the Cadillac. I hope this will be the end of this horrible story and I can ride the car again.

I have to empty the CDV because I want to strip that car down to the frame. Inside there were still engine + transmission waiting. I dismantled the engine and drove it into the barn where the Lincoln is sitting during the winter.

It was quite interesting to took off the heads. I loosened the bolts and the heads almost fell off themselves..





head gasket




hmmmm? 33.000 original miles...


what the.... there is debris everywhere. I think the coolant reacted with the alloy block. Anyone has an idea what it is and how to avoid it?




other side...




and:


What do you think about it?

Regards
Felix
 
#362 · (Edited)
I have been a long-time lurker of this thread. Interesting and very informative, most of all, your work seems to be up to "Cadillac" quality, and your passion for keeping the car as original as possible, while still improving and leaving your own mark on the car really separates the boys from the men in a hobby like this. Anyone can put together a 65 Mustang out of a catalog. But few really have the patience and knowledge to restore a luxury car to its former elegance the correct way. Whenever one of these cars comes up for sale that has had a quick "resto" done for resale, it is painfully obvious all the corners that were cut. Your work is not only factory-correct, but better than factory. I wish you the best in putting her back together!

Speaking of a tasteful upgrade, have you ever considered using the 4.5 liners/pistons and building the 4100 to a 4.5? And maybe a 6.0 throttle body? That'd make for a really cool improvement. And give some hope to all 4100 owners out there that there is a (somewhat economical) way to get more power out of some of the most beautiful Cadillacs ever built.

These engines, as we all know, have a bad reputation, some of it deserved, but I think the bulk of the blame lies with owners who did not maintain them properly. The amount of corrosion in that engine is evidence enough that the coolant was not changed on time, combined with the low mileage (probably accumulated by short trips), and amount of oil sludge leads me to believe that this car, prior to your ownership, might have only seen 10 oil changes in its life! It was probably owned by someone who did the 3,000 mile oil change and ignored the "whichever comes first" part of the maintenance instructions. 30,000 miles over 30 years comes out 1,000 miles a year, so about 3 years between changes!

Best of luck!
 
#363 ·
Felix, is it possible that debris we see in the coolant cavities in your engine block is really an aggregate of the partially-dissolved coolant tabs that GM insisted everyone with a 4100 engine use to prevent coolant leaks? It looks as if there was almost no room at all for the coolant to circulate. There should have been some awful hot spots in an engine plugged up as badly as that one was.

Cheers.......R.
 
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