1964 Cadillac Fleetwood

Cadillac

Fleetwood

1964

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Mods

1972 Cadillac Eldorado 500 Big Block
A Minor Change To The Front Blinkers (see video for that and read the description)

Build story

I’m not sure if this counts as a rare engine swap, it’s for sure less rare than Roadkill’s Gremlin with this engine but here I am.

So back in 2016 my dad bought this car, I don’t have any pictures from then but it was a construction site. Almost every piece of value was gone but it still had it’s original engine.
My dad tore the engine down only to find out that it was done (don’t remember what exactly because my memory is a mess) but a while after that he found a ’72 Eldorado with a 500 in it and OH BOY this car was done. Lemme explain really quick:
The previous owner of the Eldorado bought it with the plan to get it back on the road and it was in really good shape and had some very nice patina. Lucky for him he worked on a junkyard so he had access to a workshop and everything. Sounds cool right? I mean why was the car ’’done’’? Well... the guy brought it to the junkyard and told one of the workers to unload it. UNFORTUNATLY due to poor communication and the patina, this worker mistook the Eldorado for a scrapcar and crunched it with the excavator in an attempt to unload it. Needless to say that the chassis was more warped than what you have probably ever seen.

Anyway my dad also bought it and the engine was still good, we took it out, disassembled it and restored it because putting an engine in an unknown condition in a car is not the german way.
After that my dad modified the engine mounting points and also the transmission crossmember, then put the engine in. Then nothing... for almost two years he didn’t do anything on this car.
Lucky for him after I finished my Camaro that I also submitted I had the time and the interest to finish this project, it took me more than 6 months I think to build it because I realized that if you take the factor time out of the equasion- anything is possible.
Every piece of the interior, every switch, every screw, bolt, nut, I restored everything because for me it was a way to give something back to my father. I restored every square inch of chrome that is on the car and as you might know and see: IT’S A LOT!
I polished every lens and it made a huge difference, I modified the electrical harness to fit the engine due to the difference in construction years, I repaired the cruise control, the magical eye etc etc.
So much work went into this project and it was worth every second. The chrome is mostly intact, 97,829% of the electrical functions work at this point, the carburetor still needs some work but all in all it’s almost done.

Oh yeah, I rewired a tiny bit of the car harness so that the parking lights are now blinkers aswell as the original ones. Besides that I made a little harness of my own because I wanted the front blinkers to completly turn off and on when the headlights are off and also when the headlights are on. Took me a little while to figure this one out. You can see it in action in the video!

I submitted this in the Original tag since beside the engine the car is 100% original, even the wiring harness was stock without any weird fixes, the original papers that you occasionally find under the carpet were still there, here in germany it’s one of a kind.
Oh yeah the paintjob was done by the previous owner I think, the original color was ’’Impala’’ (really nice color)

Funny thing is: the odometer is at 96.000 Miles so after a little while of driving and with this new engine we can start filling in a new inspection book once it rolls over because on the technical aspect it brand-spanking-new.

What really helped me during the project was an original workshop manual that was used in ’’Lowell’’ Highschool back in the day, it still has the paper in it where you list in so the school knows who took it (sorry, language barrier, hope you know what I mean).
So if anyone of you is interested in seeing this workshop manual just tell me.

And since I’m submitting this car for my dad any prices won (which I doubt will happen) 100% will go to my dad, I worked more on this car than he did but like I said: It’s a way of giving something back to him. Also taking credit for someone elses car is just weird.

ALSO since this is like brandnew and working, I can tick the ’’Can we drive it?’’ box so if you can manage to find a way to germany during these hard times feel free to do so, I think my dad would be happy^^ If not it’s not a problem, I just hope you have fun reading this and looking at the car.

ALSOALSO ROAST ME, not my dad

Greetings from germany

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