MikeKnight

I can't find ANYWHERE to re-gas the R12 air conditioning. Yes, I know you can use R24 too (I did this on the Toyota Supra), but finding places that still have R24 canisters knocking about is also quite difficult in the North an I'm not driving 150+ miles just for a re-gas. I bought one of those conversion kits people are raving about, the ones where you swap the connectors over so R134a lines can fit on them. I did a little bit of research and the compressor on this car should be able to handle R134a with absolutely no problems. The kit comes with oil that's inserted at the same time it's recharged, which helps the seals deal with the different gas. I also have a spare AC drier unit that came with the car so I'll swap that at the same time. Opening the system (safely!) should evacuate most of the old gas anyway.
I inspected the tyres on the car currently and while they have tons of tread left on them, the sidewalls have certainly seen better days. I priced up new whitewalls and found these: GALAXY WHITEWALLS
Never heard of Galaxy before but Googling it displays no horror stories and just under £100 a tyre is pretty good. For comparison, MAXXIS also make whitewalls and are a good brand but they're around £150 a tyre. That's £600 for all four. Ouch! A total difference of £200 between the two brands.
I'm contacting Rodley Motors next week to see if they can source the cosmetic items I'm still looking for. Not much needs sorting on this car thankfully, mostly just the drivers side door card, drivers side door seal, rear plastic piece above the bumper, and the front number plate holder which some idiot has mutilated. The drooping headlining does need sorting out and really it needs a new front windscreen as it looks like it's been pummelled with fucking rocks but those are later options. I'll get them to price these anyway, if I can get a windscreen fairly cheaply I'll go ahead and get it replaced sooner rather than later.
I've sourced a "Stormforce" car cover as this car will be stored outside most of its life once it leaves my workshop. It's far too big to store in my garage at home so it'll live on the hard standing.  Once I've got the slight cosmetic work done (a few panels are a bit worse for wear) and the wheels re-polished I need to protect them as best I can. Around £250 for a hand-made cover to accurately fit the car for all weathers isn't too bad at all.

Nah he never contacted me again. Good. ?
Also the only bit I really had to order from the US was the correct radiator cap. One of similar poundage from UK stock would have probably worked, but I'm a sucker for having the right one.
Managed to pick up the coolant additive the booklet talks about, which is supposed to be added on every coolant change. They're simply AC Delco tablets similar to other "stop leak" solutions but should be added anyway according to the booklet.
I discovered paperwork showing one of the previous owners in late 2019 had done a FULL service, plugs, leads, caps, everything! So I don't have to do them. Good. Because I'm lazy.

THE LONG AWAITED UPDATE
I ate the harribo from the glove box.
They were quite nice!
.......
But no really, I've ordered everything I need to fully service it but some parts have to come from the US, so the next proper update might be a while.
Going to remove the radiator soon in the hope it can just be sealed or re-cored.

With some ingenuity you too can have Cadillac seats!

Thanks for the tips eddy, I'll try those.
Yes it is a 6 seater. The lap belt in the front really threw me at first. I can imagine getting stopped by the cops for having an unrestrained front seat passenger.. then they get very confused.
It gets a lot of attention, a lot more people looked at it on the drive back than even look at my Supra (and that's mostly just because of the noise).
I think it's pretty, but in an ugly and wonderful 90's way. There isn't an angle I don't like on it.

Renamed the topic as I'll be using this as the project thread.
Here are some recent pictures of it sitting at my work unit. Yes my unit is full of junk at the moment.. tried to get as many cars squeezed in as possible before closing up because of the virus. The cooker range is my dads, trying to sell it but no one wants a cooker range right now.






The engine is in surprisingly good condition, I need to change a few of the caps and maybe the rocker cover gaskets as they're all a bit leaky and dribbly.
Here's a picture of the inside of the radiator, it's chock full of rust and the "coolant" (it's mostly fucking water) turns brown almost instantly. I'm having trouble finding any parts inside the UK so I'll likely just get it re-cored once the place that does the re-coring for me has reopened.

It's difficult to see but this is the inside of the coolant bottle. Brown and awful. Poor baby hasn't had a good coolant service in forever.

I'm still pretty sure it's not a HGF on one or both of the heads, as there's no sludge in the oil and no sludge in the coolant bottle. The oil actually looks nice, clean, and pretty golden still. If I had to guess I'd say they'd kept losing coolant so just continually refilled the bottle with water, and since the block is cast iron that lead to a lot of rust.. blocked rad.. rad rusts out and holes because of pressure build up. I need to find a parts supplier still because I'll need a whole engine refresh kit (inlet manifold, thermostat, water pump, belts and tensioners, all liquids).
I'll still run a HGF sniff test when I'm back at work properly to rule out the heads. I'm not too worried even if it is HGF as the engine seems very accessible and easy to work on.
Below is a very rough to-do list for the car... and yes new speakers because the current ones are all original paper cones and utterly fucked.

Values seem all over the place and I can't find many in the UK in order to base prices on. They seem to go for between £500 or £5000 or more. Prices are wild and don't seem to have any basis in condition etc. It's further confused by the fact it's a top end model, but also a bit of a runout model, so.. fuck knows. Throw a dart at a dartboard covered in prices and go with that one.
For comparison the RR L322 I swapped it for had a value of between £4000-£5000.
Yeah.. I don't even want to get back in the car until I go to the workshop on Monday and spend a few hours scrubbing.

New (left) and old (right).
New one was half the weight. I dread to think how much silt is still in the old one, even after a good flush.

YAY! Clean running water! First time this car has had clean liquid running in it in many a year.

It had two flsuhes (one chemical flush, one plain water) then the water changed out for good blue coolant and some of the required* supplement tablets added too.
The car is now running without leaks and currently parked up outside while my workshop floor dries from the insane scrubbing I gave it today, it was bloody filthy. Going to pop the car back in on Monday and clean the tits off it inside and out, then it can go home and go into service wherein it'll be my daily driver for a while so I can work out all its bugs and make sure it's truly road worthy.
The 4.9L V8 monster this car uses to drive it around is also a lot quieter and happier from an oil change. The old oil was black. How the fuck do people let things get that bad. Oh, wait, right, it's because they're morons who don't care.

New (left) and old (right).
New one was half the weight. I dread to think how much silt is still in the old one, even after a good flush.

YAY! Clean running water! First time this car has had clean liquid running in it in many a year.

It had two flsuhes (one chemical flush, one plain water) then the water changed out for good blue coolant and some of the required* supplement tablets added too.
The car is now running without leaks and currently parked up outside while my workshop floor dries from the insane scrubbing I gave it today, it was bloody filthy. Going to pop the car back in on Monday and clean the tits off it inside and out, then it can go home and go into service wherein it'll be my daily driver for a while so I can work out all its bugs and make sure it's truly road worthy.
The 4.9L V8 monster this car uses to drive it around is also a lot quieter and happier from an oil change. The old oil was black. How the fuck do people let things get that bad. Oh, wait, right, it's because they're morons who don't care.

Rest easy with the thought that previous owners tears will someday be dripping onto the dusty slam panel of your old Range Rover as he surveys the engine that has just shit itself in an absolutely spectacular fashion  

New (left) and old (right).
New one was half the weight. I dread to think how much silt is still in the old one, even after a good flush.

YAY! Clean running water! First time this car has had clean liquid running in it in many a year.

It had two flsuhes (one chemical flush, one plain water) then the water changed out for good blue coolant and some of the required* supplement tablets added too.
The car is now running without leaks and currently parked up outside while my workshop floor dries from the insane scrubbing I gave it today, it was bloody filthy. Going to pop the car back in on Monday and clean the tits off it inside and out, then it can go home and go into service wherein it'll be my daily driver for a while so I can work out all its bugs and make sure it's truly road worthy.
The 4.9L V8 monster this car uses to drive it around is also a lot quieter and happier from an oil change. The old oil was black. How the fuck do people let things get that bad. Oh, wait, right, it's because they're morons who don't care.

New (left) and old (right).
New one was half the weight. I dread to think how much silt is still in the old one, even after a good flush.

YAY! Clean running water! First time this car has had clean liquid running in it in many a year.

It had two flsuhes (one chemical flush, one plain water) then the water changed out for good blue coolant and some of the required* supplement tablets added too.
The car is now running without leaks and currently parked up outside while my workshop floor dries from the insane scrubbing I gave it today, it was bloody filthy. Going to pop the car back in on Monday and clean the tits off it inside and out, then it can go home and go into service wherein it'll be my daily driver for a while so I can work out all its bugs and make sure it's truly road worthy.
The 4.9L V8 monster this car uses to drive it around is also a lot quieter and happier from an oil change. The old oil was black. How the fuck do people let things get that bad. Oh, wait, right, it's because they're morons who don't care.

New (left) and old (right).
New one was half the weight. I dread to think how much silt is still in the old one, even after a good flush.

YAY! Clean running water! First time this car has had clean liquid running in it in many a year.

It had two flsuhes (one chemical flush, one plain water) then the water changed out for good blue coolant and some of the required* supplement tablets added too.
The car is now running without leaks and currently parked up outside while my workshop floor dries from the insane scrubbing I gave it today, it was bloody filthy. Going to pop the car back in on Monday and clean the tits off it inside and out, then it can go home and go into service wherein it'll be my daily driver for a while so I can work out all its bugs and make sure it's truly road worthy.
The 4.9L V8 monster this car uses to drive it around is also a lot quieter and happier from an oil change. The old oil was black. How the fuck do people let things get that bad. Oh, wait, right, it's because they're morons who don't care.

New (left) and old (right).
New one was half the weight. I dread to think how much silt is still in the old one, even after a good flush.

YAY! Clean running water! First time this car has had clean liquid running in it in many a year.

It had two flsuhes (one chemical flush, one plain water) then the water changed out for good blue coolant and some of the required* supplement tablets added too.
The car is now running without leaks and currently parked up outside while my workshop floor dries from the insane scrubbing I gave it today, it was bloody filthy. Going to pop the car back in on Monday and clean the tits off it inside and out, then it can go home and go into service wherein it'll be my daily driver for a while so I can work out all its bugs and make sure it's truly road worthy.
The 4.9L V8 monster this car uses to drive it around is also a lot quieter and happier from an oil change. The old oil was black. How the fuck do people let things get that bad. Oh, wait, right, it's because they're morons who don't care.

BLOODY HELL, THE RADIATOR HAS ARRIVED
HOW???
I checked and it definitely did not come from the UK. Has US stickers all over it.
Did they send it by personal private jet???
Very impressed.

The tiny amount left in the system won't do any harm. I doubt it's even still under pressure, as it doesn't blow cold at all.
The clutch on the A/C engages so the fault will be that most of the R12 has gone bye-bye.
I'd evacuate it "properly" but absolutely no one I can find in a 150 mile radius has an R12/R24 evacuation system.

The guy told me he'd call back if he couldn't get the gearbox fault to clear and we could swap back over.
I was diplomatic, I told him "yeah I'm a decent fellow, I'd honour that".
Then blocked his number.

To go with the big stupid Toyota Supra. Which decided to drop one of its repeater lenses on a road somewhere.. after randomly losing its nose badge at 70mph.. which are £100 used. Fucksake.
ANYWAY, this is about another big stupid dumb white car with terrible MPG because I sure do love buying four hundred gallons of petrol at a time.
I put my Range Rover L322 Supercharged on eBay because I fucking hate the thing and its millions of computers that throw a fit if the battery drops below a perfect voltage. Got very little in the way of interest, I had it priced correctly but no one is buying expensive RR's right now.
Then some random bloke in Leeds messaged me with "you wouldn't happen to fancy a swap for a Cadillac would you?".
WHY YES, YES I WOULD. BECAUSE I'M AN IDIOT.
So, messaging happened, time arranged and off to Wetherby services I go as it's roughly a half way point and easy to get to, with plenty of parking since most of its services are closed. Met the bloke, we both liked each others vehicles so the V5's were filled out and we both went on our merry way in the swapped vehicles.
THEN the Cadillac overheated, when it had driven there flawlessly.
THEN he called me and told me the RR was throwing up gearbox faults, when it had driven there flawlessly.
THEN the services I was cooling down at (half way home) with its lovely quiet car park suddenly had four police interceptors in it boxing in a druggie VW Golf. Right next to me. I did not take pictures, I did not think the angry looking officers would appreciate it... and the caddy was on another persons insurance temporarily so I didn't want them looking too closely at me anyway.
THEN I got home, the radiator pin-holed and the rad cap failed. Explains the overheating at least. It's not a Northstar engine thank God so the HG's in this are pretty bullet proof. It's the 4.9L version of the wonderfully named "Cadillac High Technology Engine".
------------
So I left the gorgeous, hateful, wonderful, spiteful fucking thing in the workshop to be looked at another day. Will need a new radiator, may as well do the pump and thermostat and flush the tits off it too since the current coolant mix is 50/50 tap water/sand.
Oh I should probably tell you what it is.
It's a 1991 Cadillac Fleetwood, import so LHD, came from Florida and is pretty much rust free. Guy had young kids so it needs a deep clean, everything is sticky and disgusting.
I only have the pics he sent me as I'm a lazy bastard and didn't take any of my own. I probably should at some point.
My head tells me I need to sell it and recoup the money that was unwisely spent on the RR it replaced. But my heart tells me to keep it held in a death-grip and hiss like a xenomorph at anyone who tells me to sell it.

BLOODY HELL, THE RADIATOR HAS ARRIVED
HOW???
I checked and it definitely did not come from the UK. Has US stickers all over it.
Did they send it by personal private jet???
Very impressed.

With some ingenuity you too can have Cadillac seats!

Renamed the topic as I'll be using this as the project thread.
Here are some recent pictures of it sitting at my work unit. Yes my unit is full of junk at the moment.. tried to get as many cars squeezed in as possible before closing up because of the virus. The cooker range is my dads, trying to sell it but no one wants a cooker range right now.






The engine is in surprisingly good condition, I need to change a few of the caps and maybe the rocker cover gaskets as they're all a bit leaky and dribbly.
Here's a picture of the inside of the radiator, it's chock full of rust and the "coolant" (it's mostly fucking water) turns brown almost instantly. I'm having trouble finding any parts inside the UK so I'll likely just get it re-cored once the place that does the re-coring for me has reopened.

It's difficult to see but this is the inside of the coolant bottle. Brown and awful. Poor baby hasn't had a good coolant service in forever.

I'm still pretty sure it's not a HGF on one or both of the heads, as there's no sludge in the oil and no sludge in the coolant bottle. The oil actually looks nice, clean, and pretty golden still. If I had to guess I'd say they'd kept losing coolant so just continually refilled the bottle with water, and since the block is cast iron that lead to a lot of rust.. blocked rad.. rad rusts out and holes because of pressure build up. I need to find a parts supplier still because I'll need a whole engine refresh kit (inlet manifold, thermostat, water pump, belts and tensioners, all liquids).
I'll still run a HGF sniff test when I'm back at work properly to rule out the heads. I'm not too worried even if it is HGF as the engine seems very accessible and easy to work on.
Below is a very rough to-do list for the car... and yes new speakers because the current ones are all original paper cones and utterly fucked.

I keep having to chuckle at what the yanks thought "luxury" was.
Everything in the interior is plush, I'll give them that, but everything is also.. slightly off.. in a way that's very difficult to put into words. Like how the arm rests are nicely made.. but wobble all over the place when you shut the doors. Or how the controls on the arm rests are painted black, but underneath the paint is a lovely plain stainless steel piece of trim. Why the hell paint it?? The paint just ends up flaking off and looking awful.
Then there are the things are literally make no sense. You have indicator flashers on the dash, so why do you need a pinhole bulb above the back shelf that flashes too to tell you the indicator is on? Then MORE things that flash on the wings, pointed at you, to tell you the indicator is on. You know, just in case you didn't get the hint from the other two flashing things telling you that.
I'll have to get some more pictures of the handbook and repair book that came with the car, some parts of it are absolutely hilarious.


That's not counting the part of the book that tells you, in detail, how to wear a seatbelt. Or the part that shows a woman laying down on the drivers seat with a warning, "Do not operate the vehicle like this.", like yeah I wanted a nice nap while driving but whoops I better not because the book told me not to.

The guy told me he'd call back if he couldn't get the gearbox fault to clear and we could swap back over.
I was diplomatic, I told him "yeah I'm a decent fellow, I'd honour that".
Then blocked his number.

Best thing about it; a tiny packet of unopened Harribo in the glove box.
SCORE.

To go with the big stupid Toyota Supra. Which decided to drop one of its repeater lenses on a road somewhere.. after randomly losing its nose badge at 70mph.. which are £100 used. Fucksake.
ANYWAY, this is about another big stupid dumb white car with terrible MPG because I sure do love buying four hundred gallons of petrol at a time.
I put my Range Rover L322 Supercharged on eBay because I fucking hate the thing and its millions of computers that throw a fit if the battery drops below a perfect voltage. Got very little in the way of interest, I had it priced correctly but no one is buying expensive RR's right now.
Then some random bloke in Leeds messaged me with "you wouldn't happen to fancy a swap for a Cadillac would you?".
WHY YES, YES I WOULD. BECAUSE I'M AN IDIOT.
So, messaging happened, time arranged and off to Wetherby services I go as it's roughly a half way point and easy to get to, with plenty of parking since most of its services are closed. Met the bloke, we both liked each others vehicles so the V5's were filled out and we both went on our merry way in the swapped vehicles.
THEN the Cadillac overheated, when it had driven there flawlessly.
THEN he called me and told me the RR was throwing up gearbox faults, when it had driven there flawlessly.
THEN the services I was cooling down at (half way home) with its lovely quiet car park suddenly had four police interceptors in it boxing in a druggie VW Golf. Right next to me. I did not take pictures, I did not think the angry looking officers would appreciate it... and the caddy was on another persons insurance temporarily so I didn't want them looking too closely at me anyway.
THEN I got home, the radiator pin-holed and the rad cap failed. Explains the overheating at least. It's not a Northstar engine thank God so the HG's in this are pretty bullet proof. It's the 4.9L version of the wonderfully named "Cadillac High Technology Engine".
------------
So I left the gorgeous, hateful, wonderful, spiteful fucking thing in the workshop to be looked at another day. Will need a new radiator, may as well do the pump and thermostat and flush the tits off it too since the current coolant mix is 50/50 tap water/sand.
Oh I should probably tell you what it is.
It's a 1991 Cadillac Fleetwood, import so LHD, came from Florida and is pretty much rust free. Guy had young kids so it needs a deep clean, everything is sticky and disgusting.
I only have the pics he sent me as I'm a lazy bastard and didn't take any of my own. I probably should at some point.
My head tells me I need to sell it and recoup the money that was unwisely spent on the RR it replaced. But my heart tells me to keep it held in a death-grip and hiss like a xenomorph at anyone who tells me to sell it.