I figured I'd finally start a thread on my 1986 fleetwood brougham project car. For those of you who don't know the backstory on this car (or forgot), keep reading.
In April of 2010, I decided to look for a V8 RWD mid size or full size car for my first car. After finding nothing but lemons on craigslist, I finally found a good one. I was at my mechancis shop with my dad because he needed to pay the mechanic for work on his wagon. When we pulled in, I noticed an old tan cadillac sitting on the parking lot. Wen I was talking to the mechanic, I mentioned something about how I liked that old tan caddy on the lot. Well, the owner walked up behind me and said "so you like my car?" I said yes, to which he replied "you wanna buy it?" I laughed, figuring he was joking. My mechanic then said, "no, he's seriously selling it." I asked him how much and he said $1500, which was within my $2000 budget. I looked it over and figured it was worth it (it had some body damage and reeked of cigarettes, but it looked nice). He told me that the car belonged to his boss' mom, who was the original owner (she was 90 when he bought it, so she would have been 67 or so when she bought it new). He said that his car died, and his boss sold him the car because his mom hadn't driven it in 5 or 10 years and he needed transportation to get to work. It did burn alot of oil thanks to the leaking valve covers. The niece of the owner and my dad met the next day to buy the car (since both of us were busy) and my dad paid $1500 for it. the leftover money went towards plating the car and fixing the severely leaking head gaskets and missing exhaust pipe.
I then spent a few weekends cleaning the interior to make it smell less like a nasty bowling alley and cleaned off a couple years worth of dirt off the body.
pics right after I got it. Oddly, despite the rust on the doors, the body is clean.
I originally bought the car with the thought of getting cheap reliable transportation to take me to and from college. I had no plans of fixing it up or keeping it for anywhere past a year or 2. Then I got attached to it. In december of 2010, I was sideswiped by an old lady in a malibu, and the impact blew the headgasket on the left cylinder bank. I already had a couple grand into fixing pretty much everything that goes wrong on these old cars (well, everything except the shocks), so I parked it while I saved up to do a drivetrain swap (which I was planning on anyways).
this is what happens when an old lady in a 90s malibu changed lanes across your front end. I don't have a pic, but her drivers side rear door was caved in 3 inches.
Fast forward 1.5 years, and I had bought a set of bravada buckets for it. not bad for $42 + $3 of goop to clean them (matching console was an additional $15)
I also started treating the rust on the car. Paint hides alot of damage.
I left the rust holes (treated the rust with naval jelly and duplicolor rust converter in a can) and have had 0 problems with the door holding water anymore.
Thanks to the local junkyard, I also picked up some clear front signal lights, fillers, and audio equipment for my car (spend $40 or $50 total).
In April of 2010, I decided to look for a V8 RWD mid size or full size car for my first car. After finding nothing but lemons on craigslist, I finally found a good one. I was at my mechancis shop with my dad because he needed to pay the mechanic for work on his wagon. When we pulled in, I noticed an old tan cadillac sitting on the parking lot. Wen I was talking to the mechanic, I mentioned something about how I liked that old tan caddy on the lot. Well, the owner walked up behind me and said "so you like my car?" I said yes, to which he replied "you wanna buy it?" I laughed, figuring he was joking. My mechanic then said, "no, he's seriously selling it." I asked him how much and he said $1500, which was within my $2000 budget. I looked it over and figured it was worth it (it had some body damage and reeked of cigarettes, but it looked nice). He told me that the car belonged to his boss' mom, who was the original owner (she was 90 when he bought it, so she would have been 67 or so when she bought it new). He said that his car died, and his boss sold him the car because his mom hadn't driven it in 5 or 10 years and he needed transportation to get to work. It did burn alot of oil thanks to the leaking valve covers. The niece of the owner and my dad met the next day to buy the car (since both of us were busy) and my dad paid $1500 for it. the leftover money went towards plating the car and fixing the severely leaking head gaskets and missing exhaust pipe.
I then spent a few weekends cleaning the interior to make it smell less like a nasty bowling alley and cleaned off a couple years worth of dirt off the body.
pics right after I got it. Oddly, despite the rust on the doors, the body is clean.
I originally bought the car with the thought of getting cheap reliable transportation to take me to and from college. I had no plans of fixing it up or keeping it for anywhere past a year or 2. Then I got attached to it. In december of 2010, I was sideswiped by an old lady in a malibu, and the impact blew the headgasket on the left cylinder bank. I already had a couple grand into fixing pretty much everything that goes wrong on these old cars (well, everything except the shocks), so I parked it while I saved up to do a drivetrain swap (which I was planning on anyways).
this is what happens when an old lady in a 90s malibu changed lanes across your front end. I don't have a pic, but her drivers side rear door was caved in 3 inches.
Fast forward 1.5 years, and I had bought a set of bravada buckets for it. not bad for $42 + $3 of goop to clean them (matching console was an additional $15)
I also started treating the rust on the car. Paint hides alot of damage.
I left the rust holes (treated the rust with naval jelly and duplicolor rust converter in a can) and have had 0 problems with the door holding water anymore.
Thanks to the local junkyard, I also picked up some clear front signal lights, fillers, and audio equipment for my car (spend $40 or $50 total).