Just trying to make it road worthy (1958 Cadillac Eureka)

[Dickey]

Disc brake happening:

As you can see, I wasn't able to mount my reservoir where I originally intended. No big thing, but I've had the master cylinder in and out of this car at least 20 times for all the fitting and refitting details.


btw - the mess on my frame rail is a lesson in doing more than finger tight for brake line fittings, hehe. I got in, pressed the pedal a few times and thought "shit, this pedal sucks." Then heard the dripping and climbed out to see the mess I made. Retightened and now I have a solid pedal but damn it needs a booster.

//and a 2psi residual pressure valve I'm expecting to arrive Thursday.

[Beladona_13]

I went through the same sh** on my '58 Superior... but I went a completely different direction. I eliminated the heater on the drivers side ( I grafted a '59 A/C heat combo in on the pass. side), blanked out where the air box was, mounted a swing pedal from a '59 Cadillac, and a master / power booster from a '73 Coupe Deville. My front suspension was rotted real bad, so I cut the frame off at the firewall and grafted on a '79 Trans Am frame clip. After the welding was done I swapped over to '79 Coupe Deville spindles and rotors for 12" vented discs and the correct 5 lug bolt pattern! all custom, but now I have modern brakes and suspension I can get parts for...

[Dickey]

The airbox stuff is a lot more work than I want to do and in the end, I'd like to be able to dress this up so it looks fairly close to factory. Last weekend I picked up a hydraulic booster like you'd find on just about any GM diesel and perhaps even some of their 70's era mobiles. Preliminary measurements suggest it will fit, though my reservoir will be moving on up the firewall, hehe. I'm mostly just concerned with adapting the hydroboost to tie into the powersteering setup as I do not have provisions for making custom hydraulic hoses. btw - If I recall correctly, you had a lot of pictures taken while you did all the work to your front end. I really appreciated looking at those. Thanks for posting them.


Left on my list of things to do that actively reside in my head:
install new valve cover gaskets
order and install new water pump (current one leaks like a sieve and I'm not one to hassle with coolant messes longer than I have to)
get my gas flap cluster to work (rusted shut)
drop fuel tank, inspect, replace with fuel cell as necessary
replace fuel line
replace rear brake line
rebuild or replace rear brake drums/cylinders (only after I have a booster ready to roll)
electric cooling fan (try one without an extension cord this time)
new tires

Got it yard driveable at the very least:

[pyro]

That looks sooo sweet. They just dont build them like they used to.

[Dickey]

Well shoot. So I noticed that my water pump was leaking whenever I ran the engine, I ordered a replacement and unbelted the old one so as to keep it from pumping coolant onto my shop floor when the car is backed up enough to give me room to do some wrenching in the evenings. I noticed that even after unbelting the pump, I had the leak when the engine was only run for 20-30 seconds. While it might have been possible that the heads were simply heating up enough in that amount of time to force the coolant out of the pump a compression check was in order. Completely cold, I had ~150psi on every one except 2 and 4 which were at 135. Within tolerance but curious just the same. The matter was settled entirely when I rechecked the compression on 2 and 4 and noticed coolant had started coming out of the water pump. Bummer. Maybe just an old gasket letting go, but my suspicion is some scoring between the cylinders since they are both reading low. I'll know tonight after I pull it.

Does anybody make a composite style head gasket for the old 390's?


//Oh, and in other news all my brake stuff for the rear axle showed up yesterday. I aim to get it installed by Saturday and depending on how this head gasket business pans out, have the water pump replaced this weekend or early next week. That will leave me with just the fuel system and a power brake assist to fret about for Halloween.

[SmoothNlow]

That's one beautiful SOB. I must say I'm a bit envious of such a gorgeous and rare coach. Don't wanna get too far ahead, but you got an idea on what color she'll be painted? This classy little beauty would look great on wide whites and all black and chrome!

And thanks for all the pics and updates, excellent progress and killer tech info in there.

[Dickey]

Definitely going to do white with red fins...











hehe


As it stands, I intend to keep it similar to the two tone blue that it has though I am entirely likely to change my mind. If I really like the car and decide to keep it, it will likely be a lighter color just so I don't have a 600 degree passenger compartment on a pleasant August day in South Carolina.

[Dickey]

I think I may have lucked out. I pulled the passenger side head this evening and could see no evidence of scouring across the cylinder wall between 2 and 4. I'm going to go ahead and order a gasket set for the engine tomorrow, pull the other side and reassemble it this weekend. Puts me back a day or three for the rear brake details but I'll have complete confidence (or loathing) in the engine once I'm finished so its not all bad. Grabbed a dozen pictures or so that I put on my site. They are at http://www.dickeysgarage.com/images/hearse and cleverly prefixed with 58-eureka-head-removal if anyone is curious to see the whole show. Below are two shots of the block and cylinder head after removal. Aside from needing a solid coolant flush and a kerosene oil change after getting it back together, I think it is in mostly good repair.







Relating to a more personal reflection that I hope is able to lend perspective to someone else who finds themselves busting knuckles on one of these; holy damn is everything heavy on this engine. It has been many years since I fussed with a cylinder head that wasn't aluminum and I nearly shit myself when this 390 head popped loose from the block. My flip flop made it to the other side of the bay from me kicking my feet in the air trying to ballast myself from falling over the fender into the motor. "never go full retard"

[Abnorml]

I like this way it looks now, it's got that rat rod look. It would look good painted back to the original blue.

[pyro]

Looks like the exh studs broke off? Do you have a secret on getting them out?

[Dickey]

Looks like the exh studs broke off? Do you have a secret on getting them out?

Only one broke, the other threaded out exactly as needed. My plan at the moment is to separate the manifold from the head, put it in a vice and while using some penetrating oil and torch magic, drill out the remaining bit of the exhaust stud. I think I can use a regular drill bit from the opposite side, but I have a set of reverse cut drill bits should that not be the case.

//also, composite gaskets do appear to be available for these motors should anyone be curious.

[Dickey]

Pulled the driver's side head last night, no surprises. I believe I have deteremined where the passenger side gasket let go as well. My gasket set should arrive today so I'll pick that up, run some 180 grit over the faces on the block and the head surfaces, then put everything I took off into the parts washer prior to reassembly. I'll likely have the heads back on this Sunday and may even be able to start it up if I don't run into too much hassle with some bolt remnants that need to be drilled out. On the passenger side head, one of the valve cover bolts and intake manifold bolts were broken off at some point in this engine's past and that needs to be addressed before it goes back in the car.

[travlinman]

I don't know how old or brittle Your valve seals are, but if I was that far down I would consider changing Them, have been known to deteriate and end up in the pick up screen.

[Dickey]

I agree. When I rinse the heads in the parts washer I'm going to poke at them and see. If they aren't pliable, they'll get replaced.

[Dickey]

Well if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans...

So I partied a bit too hard Friday night, which just wrecked the rest of my weekend. I spent all day Sunday working on a chicken coupe and when it came time to setup the parts washer and get down to it that evening, I actually read the label on the cleaner solution that the man I bought it from gave me. Not be used with metal products unless you're prepared to dry it off in a hurry to keep stuff from rusting. Given that I was still kind of feeling Friday's good times (I am that old) I decided to just put it off until tonight. So tonight I dumped 5 gallons of kerosene into the washer, took two fuel cans to the gas station and got 10 more gallons and loaded up the washer with about 10 gallons. This being the first time I've used this washer since I bought it last year, I goofed around with the rocker shafts and what not while using the handy dandy sprayer. The shafts and the pushrods are currently soaking overnight and I'll deal with them tomorrow. From there, I began prep work on the block.

Before anyone flips their shit about the method I employed, please understand that this motor is not original to the car, and is definitely not going to be the engine I keep in the car full time if I decide I like driving a hearse. I suspect the engine has 60-70k miles on it and while I really only need another 5-10 thousand to make my decision, the following QD method should be good for 35k miles or so before the gasket lets go again and the motor would need a proper rebuild at that time anyway. For me, had I known the head gasket was blown from the get go, I would have already swapped the drivetrain and dealt with the Caddy engine at my leisure. I'd already bought $115 worth of ignition components along with a 185 dollar water pump before I was able to add 2 and 2 about my coolant leak. At that point, may as well spend another $90 on gaskets and be done with it rather than commit to an engine swap so late in the game (still trying to have this roadworthy by Halloween).

Below is the tool I used. Pictured is a 10" or so piece of 2x4 with a strip of 240 grit sand paper stapled to it. Anything in the 200-250 range should be adequate. The name of the game isn't to remove any material from the block, just to get the residue from the old head gasket off and have a reasonably flat surface for the new gasket to seal against. This is also the reason why I was hunting composite gaskets. They tend to compress more and add a greater tolerance to these kinds of endeavors.


Stuffed in some shop towels and then sprayed them down with some pb blaster, though wd-40 would work just fine as well.


Ran the board over the deck at a diagonal without applying very much pressure at all. Again, this is one of those events where you can always do more sanding but unsanding is incredibly awkward. Once I did the back three, I shifted the number 8 towel position to the number 2 spot and continued on my merry way.


The result after about 10 minutes of prep (towel stuffing, oiling, etc), five minutes of light sanding, and another few minutes to wipe the whole show down with a brake cleaner soaked rag:

Rinse and repeat for the other side.


Obviously some quick succession oil changes are in this engine's future. When I get it back together, I intend to drain two quarts of oil from the pan, add in two quarts of kerosene and let the engine idle up to operating temperature. Once that is met, I'll shut off the engine and immediately drain the oil and remove the filter. I'll rinse the filter out with some kerosene, put in three quarts of new oil and two quarts of kerosene and repeat the idle up to operating temperature bit or ten minutes, whichever comes last. From there I'll do the shut off, immediate oil change routine one more time and put a new filter and oil in the crankcase as normal people tend to do.


Oh and If I still have a head gasket leak I'll be putting this pile of shit up for sale quicker than you can say "will drive onto trailer for transport".