Schaefft's Bargain Barge Extravaganza - Fleet Update

[Six-cylinder]

2 hours ago, hairnet said:

4 dr version of @Six-cylinders caddy??

want.

Certainly a FWD Northstar, but ours is a 1994 Eldorado Touring Coupe.

[Schaefft]

10 hours ago, Dave_Q said:

This thread continues to deliver on the title, if anything Extravaganza is probably selling the levels of shitery on display a bit short.

At this point it won't be long before I've owned every makes flagship offering of the 90s😂

8 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

Certainly a FWD Northstar, but ours is a 1994 Eldorado Touring Coupe.

I'd say the closest to a 4door Eldorado is the same generation Seville. The DeVille's platform only differs slightly though, with a longer wheelbase being the main difference. Underneath they are all very similar. Out of curiosity, is your blower motor insulation behind the engine crumbling to pieces as well?

[Schaefft]

I've had a chance to go through the error codes stored in memory today. Aside from anything related to a dead battery things looked good, there's a height sensor that might cause the active suspension error I have but that hopefully is an easy fix.

I've also had a look at the documents that came with the car. Turns out the car was bought by an American company director who moved over to London shortly after buying the car new in Lexington (Kentucky).

Who wouldn't buy a car from this guy? I even have the pre-delivery inspection sheet and window sticker. Check this out!

41k $ would equal to over 77k $ today. I'm not sure how much the Concours trim was at the time but I feel like it wouldn't have been much more to just pick that instead and get all these options included.

He apparently was important enough to get his own Wikipedia article as he was a founder of a large UK container/shipping/railroad company that went under in 2006. The car eventually sold on to the second owner after hardly moving at all (you can see on Streetview that it was replaced by a newer Cadillac DTS sometime in 2007), I don't have much info but it happened to end up in the hands of a used car dealer located literally 5 minutes from my house (in fact I vaguely remember seeing it on Ebay years ago). The 3rd owner who I purchased it from didn't have it for long before dumping it in the storage yard where I found it (along with many other cars, vans, a classic towtruck and a half finished coach camper conversion he needs to get rid of now).

That means that the car was babied most of its life until somewhat recently, when it ended up in the wrong hands and quickly deteriorated. A classic story for many of these cars unfortunately. Being able to puzzle together most of its history adds a lot of value to the car for me though, its always incredible what stories many of these have had in the past (and what type of people owned them before). This one is no exception!

 

 

[Dave_Q]

Man that sort of history is really cool. I quite like the mention of the 50-state emissions option, does this mean it made more power but couldn't be registered in California? They have always been more keen on emissions stuff.

[cort1977]

I think 50 state emissions means it can be sold in California.  As you say, sometimes higher power versions weren't available or detuned for California but not sure how much that goes on any more.  I think there are about 12 Eastern states like Connecticut that require California spec now so I think the tendency is just to have one version for the whole country.

Edit - Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Washington D.C. have all adopted CARB (California Air Resources Board) Standards as of September 2021.

Love the car @Schaefft FWD suits Cadillac I think even though my first love will always be a Fleetwood with the LT1.

[PhilA]

Yup, fifty state is the Cali version.

Must've been specced particularly so and shipped to KY, it's unusual to not have a 49-state car most other states.

[brownnova]

On 13/09/2022 at 20:27, Schaefft said:

Yes, it has happened! As the title revealed I finally own a Cadillac! And what a beast it is.

 

What you see below is a 1996 Cadillac Sedan DeVille, Cadillac's FWD (!) Fullsize offering featuring the famous Northstar V8 (similar to that in my Olds Auroras). Yeah, the one blowing head gaskets left and right...

 

I never really seriously considered getting one as the Rwd, body on frame Fleetwood is way more interesting to me (and even larger). With this DeVille coming up for sale literally 5 minutes from my GFs house, and with a deal to be had, how could I resist though?

I don't have a huge amount of info yet. The car apparently stood in a garage in Sunderland for years before the current owner dumped it in a storage yard only about a year ago sometime around mot time. There it just sat until now, the yard is getting converted into self storage and everything must go. And boy are there some interesting cars there...

The car clearly needs a clean, but with only 77k on the clock and a reasonably easy life it should clean up well enough. Had it run for a while, no signs of omghgf.

Plans are to get it thoroughly checked asap, put an mot on (unless it needs a ton of work, which hopefully is not the case...) and then slowly restore it as I've done with my other cars before. More info soon!

But wait, there is more... There may have been another car... More soon...

That is sub zero cool!!! I love it!! 😍

[hairnet]

you have one already

eddy no he wont swap for the jaaaaag

 

[1970mgb]

Seeing Quantrell Cadillac does my heart good

Growing up I had two friends whose parents each had Caddies. One had a gold 92(maybe?) Deville and the other a black 94 Fleetwood. The ones with the Fleetwood, BTW, the dad drove a 94 Impalla SS-in itself a bit of a cult status car now in the US. Around the time I went to high school Fleetwood got traded for a new DHS.

Since I grew up 30 miles outside Lexington, though, and we didn't have a Cadillac dealer in my town, everyone who had a Caddy got theirs from Quantrell

And yes they are still there and still in the same location on New Circle Road.

[Schaefft]

Haha, gotta love the Autoshite community, we even got people close to the dealer. I've already looked up their address, they are indeed still around! And yeah, the RWD 90s LT1 Fleetwood is easily one of my favorite Cadillacs, I'd love to own an Impala SS as well, the seller of my first Aurora had both an Impala SS and Saudi B-body Caprice SS which I really would love to own. I already have the Dutch '92 Caprice though, so theres that.

Remember when I mentioned there might be another car...

Well here it is! Yes, not only did I pick up the Deville the other day, part of the deal was also this Azurite Metallic 1999 Mercedes R129 SL320 that was dropped off yesterday! I didn't plan to be there and buy it, but one thing lead to another and I ended up doing a bundle deal that was just too hard to resist! The hardtop was included as well of course. And since I've been interested in the R129 and I love my W140 so much I'm very excited to get this one back on the road asap.

Being a '99 its got the M112 V6, same V6 you find in pretty much any Benz of the time, including many recent W210 of the community. This makes finding parts much easier and cheaper compared to most other cars I own which is a welcome change. This one currently has no spark so I'll replace the crank sensor before digging in much deeper. Fortunately its easy to reach and only 23 quid for a Bosch one.

Like the Cadillac its been standing in this muddy storage yard for a year so a thorough clean is long due. I'll start working on it properly tomorrow and write a list of bits it'll need. This is the first convertible I own, together with the first Cadillac theres definitely plenty to get excited about right now.

It came with a set of used brake rotors and Lemförder control arms so it has seen some love in the past. Theres no doubt this will take much more time to get back into an acceptable state than the Caddy though.

Not a lot space in those back seats. Trust me, we tried.😂

More updates soon!

[1970mgb]

16 hours ago, Schaefft said:

Haha, gotta love the Autoshite community, we even got people close to the dealer. I've already looked up their address, they are indeed still around! And yeah, the RWD 90s LT1 Fleetwood is easily one of my favorite Cadillacs, I'd love to own an Impala SS as well, the seller of my first Aurora had both an Impala SS and Saudi B-body Caprice SS which I really would love to own. I already have the Dutch '92 Caprice though, so theres that.

I do like these 90s Cadillacs, but growing up my family's only experience with them was a 98 Catera my mom had for a while. I realize now that it really was a great car, and in fact she still had it when I was learning to drive and I did drive it some. I remember getting behind the wheel and thinking how "right" it felt with the tight steering and just overall feel of a good RWD "sporty" sedan.

Unfortunately, the ownership experience was less than great partially because I don't think any Caddy dealers were ready to deal with a car that said Cadillac but really was an Opel under the badging. It didn't help too that it got caught up in all the Dex-Cool "fun", although fortunately that one was a warranty fix(or maybe recall).

The next car after that was the 98 Continental that my dad bought and fell in love with, and that made us a Lincoln family for a while. Actually I guess we still kind of are-I'm on my second Lincoln(an MKZ, which I'm not as enamored with as the LS I had 2008-2016) and my dad has a 2019 Continental. In the interim, he "stockpiled" 98-02 Continentals-he had 4 pass through his hands, held on to two for a while(my mom joked about us running a car dealership) then didn't get rid of his last until like 2014. My mom went through a few Town Cars in there also, 98, 02, and 08 from what I remember.

Your Mark VIII is one of my "bucket list" cars-I love everything about them. Way back in the past my dad had a 92(ish) T-Bird, which was on the same platform but of course didn't have all the same goodies. In those days he drove 30K+ miles a year for work and would often trade cars at least annually. He kept the T-Bird for 3 years or so from what I remember, so he must have really liked it!

[RoadworkUK]

You are literally living my dream. Astonishing work.

 

[horriblemercedes]

I really like the Cadillac. I've always kind of fancied one of those

[Bren]

I used to watch videos on YouTube about ghe northstar's foibles. No expensive rebuilds just a bottle of blue devil poured into the expansion bottle.

[Schaefft]

On 9/17/2022 at 2:57 PM, 1970mgb said:

I do like these 90s Cadillacs, but growing up my family's only experience with them was a 98 Catera my mom had for a while. I realize now that it really was a great car, and in fact she still had it when I was learning to drive and I did drive it some. I remember getting behind the wheel and thinking how "right" it felt with the tight steering and just overall feel of a good RWD "sporty" sedan.

Unfortunately, the ownership experience was less than great partially because I don't think any Caddy dealers were ready to deal with a car that said Cadillac but really was an Opel under the badging. It didn't help too that it got caught up in all the Dex-Cool "fun", although fortunately that one was a warranty fix(or maybe recall).

The next car after that was the 98 Continental that my dad bought and fell in love with, and that made us a Lincoln family for a while. Actually I guess we still kind of are-I'm on my second Lincoln(an MKZ, which I'm not as enamored with as the LS I had 2008-2016) and my dad has a 2019 Continental. In the interim, he "stockpiled" 98-02 Continentals-he had 4 pass through his hands, held on to two for a while(my mom joked about us running a car dealership) then didn't get rid of his last until like 2014. My mom went through a few Town Cars in there also, 98, 02, and 08 from what I remember.

Your Mark VIII is one of my "bucket list" cars-I love everything about them. Way back in the past my dad had a 92(ish) T-Bird, which was on the same platform but of course didn't have all the same goodies. In those days he drove 30K+ miles a year for work and would often trade cars at least annually. He kept the T-Bird for 3 years or so from what I remember, so he must have really liked it!

Its great to see that your family had such a broad range of interesting cars, I wouldn't mind owning most of these! Those  '95-02 Continentals were unfortunately known to blow their tansmissions, aside from that they seems like a great cruiser. Same engine as in my Mark VIII as well, just transversely mounted.

On 9/17/2022 at 3:28 PM, RoadworkUK said:

You are literally living my dream. Astonishing work.

 

Still need a proper workshop with a lift, then we are talking😂

On 9/17/2022 at 8:07 PM, Bren said:

I used to watch videos on YouTube about ghe northstar's foibles. No expensive rebuilds just a bottle of blue devil poured into the expansion bottle.

I'm inclined to try that should there ever be any issues. Anything else would mean an engine out job anyway. My green Aurora leaks exhaust gases into the coolant so it wouldn't help much there unfortunately.

I spent today finally having a closer look around the SL as well as cleaning the outside. Without an inch of filth I can at least tell what I am working with.

Still have to do the wheels and reg plates. I'm not a huge fan of these original 5-spokes I have to admit, I need some inspiration what OEM or aftermarket wheels would suit the late R129 the best. The 8 hole wheels so common on 90s Mercedes would be an option but I think they suit the earlier pre-fl cars better.

Years of crud and clean:

The car will really benefit from a polish, that might have to wait for a bit longer. The engine bay received some attention though:

Night and day compared to before. All fluids still look good, too!

I took the covers off as there naturally was a lot of crud  underneath as well. Judging by the RTV someone might have done the valve cover gaskets before. There's also some on what must be the upper timing cover? The engine is Mercedes' M112 3.2l V6, producing slightly over 220hp in the SL which should be okay for a cruiser, if not the 320hp+ in the 5.0l V8 (which my W140 has, amazing engine). Oddly enough the previous owner thought it was a V8... Twinspark too for added service costs yay. At least parts are cheap and easy to find as far as I can tell and it seems very easy to be worked on, it's so much smaller than the M119 5.0.

While I'm still waiting for my replacement crank position sensor to arrive I've went through all the electric features to see what does and what doesn't work. I'm happy to report that everything works flawlessly including the Kenwood aftermarket stereo. I'm definitely missing one of the speakers in the drivers door though so I'll have to check whats up with that another time. I can't remember whether I felt the seat heaters either but its a good start! Obviously the soft top is the biggest potential issue. To test it I'd have to take the hardtop off so that'll be a job for another time.

I had a look through all the junk in the boot as well. Fortunately everything that belongs in there seems to be present, including the original wind deflector, some tools and the original first aid kit. 

I just had to check the CD changer magazine and once again it didn't disappoint. Things like these always give you a pretty good idea of who might have owned the car before, and it seems to be a pretty similar story to the S8 in this case...

When your sparewheel looks better than the actual wheels on your car...

What must be the hydraulic pump for the softtop.

The lower right corner is the only serious rust in the back. It's an odd spot, right above where the towhook sits. Must be where dirt collects? Should be an easy repair for someone with the skills hopefully.

I also happened to find the service manual, which has stamps from Mercedes dealers and specialists around Worcester up until 123k miles. That was in 2013. However, with the car having only done 5k miles in the last 9 years (less miles than the typical oil change interval - ignore the time!) having the next stamp in there would mean I do indeed have a full service history with this car.😂 More cleaning tomorrow!

[hairnet]

i have four of those cd's

 

[1970mgb]

5 hours ago, Schaefft said:

Its great to see that your family had such a broad range of interesting cars, I wouldn't mind owning most of these! Those  '95-02 Continentals were unfortunately known to blow their tansmissions, aside from that they seems like a great cruiser. Same engine as in my Mark VIII as well, just transversely mounted.

What I wouldn't give to still have a bunch of them! My dad also had a 1980 Porsche 924 from about 1990-2000, and I would LOVE to have that car back. Unfortunately the circumstances of him getting it are loaded with a bunch of baggage for him and I think it would bother him if I bought it(and I do know its whereabouts...).

The 32V Intech is a good engine, although I know it doesn't get a ton of love. From what I remember it showed in the Navigator(or maybe Aviator? Seems like the Navigator might have been the 5.4L, which I don't think was ever made as DOHC) and the Mercury Marauder. My dad always was warned of transmission issues but he never ran into them, and he drove his first one up over 150K.

I will say too that the Contis were mean SOBs when it came to torque steer, and they also needed pretty gentle tip-in to not chirp the tires. The only thing I can think of that was worse that I've personally driven was an 07 Monte Carlo SS...

[Schaefft]

A few quick updates!

As mentioned in the car theft thread, some idiot attempted to steal my Opel Senator last week. It was parked right in front of the house, with the battery disconnected. They made it all the way down to the bottom of the estate where they must have run out of fuel. For god knows what reason they decided to cut off the steering wheel, obviously ruining the steering column shaft.

I didn't touch the car for a day waiting for police to respond (which they did at 1:30 in the morning, with not consequences for the thieves Im sure). I used the Saturday morning to get the remains of the shaft into a shape where I can easily clamp some vice grips onto it (its very soft metal so surprisingly easy) and drove it like that back to my house...

Being a LHD Opel I now need to order a replacement column from Germany, as well as a replacement steering wheel etc. It is however interesting to learn how they managed to steal it so easily so theres that lol. I've made sure that the Corona and E38 aren't going anywhere now.

On the Mercedes SL front:

I've managed to get the SL started after screwing around with the crank position sensor on the back of the engine for 2 days. Naturally it was seized in place, making removal a joyous experience.

In the end the tool of year (Dremel) saved the day again by drilling out the plastic casing around the magnet core of the sensor. Thats better:

Naturally the car didnt start after that ordeal. So I checked the fuses, realizing that the fuse for the ignition coils was missing... I don't regret replacing the sensor as it clearly was original and would have died relatively soon anyway (and the sensor was cheap). What I am however wondering is why the fuse was pulled in the first place (the previous owner checked for spark and probably never bothered checking fuses either).

As mentioned the car runs now, but only in a limp home mode where it doesn't take much throttle at all, it won't rev above 1500rpm, opening the throttle body manually results in bad misfiring. It does run perfectly otherwise and goes into gear easily. My guess is a bad MAF that has no clue how much air is going into the engine.

The alternator also turned out to not charge, I've ordered a used replacement on ebay that only cost 39 quid, hopefully that will sort that issue. Getting the old one out is an easy job on these, remove the fan cowl and you got all the space you'd ever need:

While removing the alternator I unfortunately must have damaged one of the high pressure power steering lines. Naturally that particular line is not available from Mercedes anymore so I now need to check how I can patch a high pressure line...

Any advice would be appreciated, it started leaking right behind the fitting, probably rotting through below where the pipe bracket sits. I might be able to fabrice something if I can find out what fitting Merdedes is using.

Meanwhile, not much progress on the Cadillac. My insurance provider never bothered calling me back regarding their investigations whether a Cadillac Seville is close enough to a Cadillac Deville, as the later isn't in their database... I ordered a new battery and wiper blades though, and will get it ready for an MOT this Saturday hopefully.

 

 

[Rusty_Rocket]

Sorry to see the damage on the Opel

The steering column has sheared because they were trying to break the steering lock by wrenching the wheel round.  The column shearing has most likely saved the car.  I guess they took the steering wheel with them to remove any fingerprints.  It may well be sitting in a hedgerow somewhere!

Good luck with the repair.

[Schaefft]

6 minutes ago, Rusty_Rocket said:

Sorry to see the damage on the Opel

The steering column has sheared because they were trying to break the steering lock by wrenching the wheel round.  The column shearing has most likely saved the car.  I guess they took the steering wheel with them to remove any fingerprints.  It may well be sitting in a hedgerow somewhere!

Good luck with the repair.

They actually got the car around quite a few corners so I'm not sure how it exactly happened. The steering lock was gone by the time I found the car as I could just turn the wheels using the vice grips.

[Dave_Q]

Recommend somewhere like Pirtek to get the hose made up, take the old one down and plonk it on the counter and they should be able to make one to match.

https://www.pirtek.co.uk/service-centres/tyne-and-wear/

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, Schaefft said:

As mentioned in the car theft thread

Another new one on me. Really sorry to hear the lowlifes have struck and for the damage. Hope you can get it sorted relatively painlessly.

[Asimo]

12 hours ago, Schaefft said:

For god knows what reason they decided to cut off the steering wheel

Thieves don’t do LHD so quick RHD conversion?

[Schaefft]

10 hours ago, Dave_Q said:

Recommend somewhere like Pirtek to get the hose made up, take the old one down and plonk it on the counter and they should be able to make one to match.

https://www.pirtek.co.uk/service-centres/tyne-and-wear/

This is perfect, thank you!

10 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Another new one on me. Really sorry to hear the lowlifes have struck and for the damage. Hope you can get it sorted relatively painlessly.

As long as they don't do more damage on the other cars I'm not terribly worried about it. It'll be about 300 quid to get it all sorted I think. It's just a huge hassle and waste of time as I've got plenty of other things to sort, replacing a steering column wasn't on my to-do list.

1 hour ago, Asimo said:

Thieves don’t do LHD so quick RHD conversion?

This is the only logical explanation!😂

[horriblemercedes]

An interesting car to steal. Are Senators in big demand? I know they're rare now, but are they valuable? I can't imagine there's a big, lucrative market for one to be stolen to order. Obviously there's some value in the parts, but how much?

 

Maybe they're very nostalgic thieves or have been living under a rock for 25 years and don't know how to defeat modern security systems, so they just go around looking for Senators, Sierras and Montegos to steal

[paulplom]

I have a disclok you're welcome to if you want to call for it.

Same as this.

https://www.halfords.com/motoring/car-security/disklok-steering-lock-silver-small-743849.html

[Schaefft]

On 9/28/2022 at 10:29 AM, horriblemercedes said:

An interesting car to steal. Are Senators in big demand? I know they're rare now, but are they valuable? I can't imagine there's a big, lucrative market for one to be stolen to order. Obviously there's some value in the parts, but how much?

 

Maybe they're very nostalgic thieves or have been living under a rock for 25 years and don't know how to defeat modern security systems, so they just go around looking for Senators, Sierras and Montegos to steal

They aren't, I think someone just saw it as an easy target. The whole thing was entirely pointless but there are plenty of morons out there unfortunately.

A few more updates this week. The Cadillac went in for an Mot yesterday and everything went so well, until the fuel pump died without a warning while on the roller to test the brakes... And unlike my (very similar underneath) Auroras which have an access panel underneath the trunk carpet to make the fuel pump replacement job a breeze the Deville naturally requires the tank to come out. Thanks GM. I've ordered a new pump and a few other bits it'll eventually need, I hope that its not as bad as it might appear...

On the SL front I finally managed to remove the damaged high pressure power steering pipe. In the end I just snapped the end with the fitting off the pipe and used an impact wrench to seperate it from the other pipe, they were so badly corroded together. Even setting them on fire didn't help, the fitting just started to round off. The steering box end of the pipe wasn't much better, with the banjo bolt being surrounded by the exhaust manifold of the V6, the steering box itself and the return line.

I ended up bending the return line enough to get a socket in there, I have absolutely no clue how you would do this any other way without removing the driverside exhaust manifold or steering box. Thanks Mercedes. Hopefully the local hydraulic hose company can fabricate something that will fit perfectly back in place.

The Toyota Corona also received some attention today. A few weeks back I bought a replacement set of taillights, including the heckblende, and front indicator unit, in Ukraine of all places! A nice bloke on Instagram helped me find the parts in Odessa after me spotting them on one of their local JDM community accounts. With the help of an Ukrainian colleague his mates were able to meet up with the seller, not get stabbed, and ship the parts all the way to Edinburgh where I picked them up on Friday. A real logistical masterpiece and a great example of to what lengths you need to go to keep a car like this in decent shape. Easy to understand why most people wouldn't.

Before and after. The taillights came with bulbs and wiring loom which allowed me to replaced the bodged mess the previous owner left after integrating the rear foglight. No warning light for burnt out bulbs on the dash anymore.

The indicator was full of moisture and grime as well, surprisingly the bulb was still working.

I could have bought replacement headlights as well, but with mine only missing the chrome trim on the passenger side I didn't feel like forking out all the money the seller wanted for them.

A few rust spots that will eventually need sorting behind the lights. The bodyshop I got a quote from has not contacted me yet again (despite telling me that they'd plan for it to go in around end of September) so I'll have to chase them up and see if I can get the sills sorted soon. Cosmetics would be next, hopefully thats the point where it really starts to look like a clean car again.

Speaking of rust, the Celsior is still waiting for a few quick patches before in can pass an MOT. Soon hopefully!

[Spottedlaurel]

27 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

Hello old friend!

Well done all concerned in getting those parts to you.

[Schaefft]

On 10/2/2022 at 6:38 PM, Spottedlaurel said:

Hello old friend!

Well done all concerned in getting those parts to you.

Was the LS400 on the right yours at some point?

Some Cadillac news: The fuel pump apparently is not the reason why it suddenly stopped running. Unfortunately it already received one before, which means that this issue had been encountered previously and has not been fixed. The question now is, what is the issue?

In Mercedes land: I've bought an iCarsoft scanner for Mercedes vehicles which happens to be able to read control modules of older non-OBD2 Mercedes group cars, something that has always been an issue as the kit typically used by enthusiasts is VERY pricey. It is able to access all modules for the R129 which is great news as I still haven't been able to diagnose the bad running issues it has.

Unfortunately the error code memory of the ECU actually didn't store much of use as it only shows an idle speed implausable code that might as well be a result of the car being in limp home mode... I was able to run a few tests at raised idle though, unfortunately I do not have the experience to interpret most of these values however. If someone on here has experience with fuel adaptions and ignition timing, please let me know! This is after replacing the crank sensor and MAF which I was hoping would be the cause...

[Dave_Q]

Sorry I have no idea what any of those numbers mean but in my experience you really need the MB star/xentry.

I have the kit here with a C3 multiplexer which should be able to read everything on the car, if you ever happen to be heading this way (near Halifax, between Leeds and Manchester) or thinking about it they do sometimes (fairly rarely) make me go to Darlington for work so could maybe organise something.