Today I could finally fix the issue with the broken wires in the passenger door. Because of these broken wires there were some issues with the power vent windows. You can read about the problem here.
Today I started to repair the broken wires by soldering them together and put some heat shrinking tubes and electric tape around the repaired areas.
You can see some image below. More of them can be found in the restoration section.
Everything now works as it should! Lets hope that the repaired wires wont break again any time soon

Next up - repair the door jamb switch of my 1967 Eldorado and install a new power seat transmission as the front up/down solenoid does no longer work and therefore does not engage the according seat transmission. This will involve removing the front bench seat which is very heavy... Oh it is so much fun owning these cars!

I removed the kick panel, heater-box and door sill scuff plates to get access to the broken cables.


they broke at the area where all the bending is taking place when the door is opened. Here the first wire is already soldered together


I put some heat shrinking tube around it after soldering


just to be sure I wrapped some more electric tape around it

all the wires are back together


the wires are back together in the metallic tube going through the door


kick panel and everything else back in place. Everything works as it should now.


as I work as a cameraman I had a good film light at hand to light the working area properly.

Tags:Wiring, 1958, Eldorado, Power Vent Windows, Restoration

A while ago I thought that I had already fixed an issue with the wiring of the power vent window in the passenger door.
Yesterday when I was repairing the 6 way power seat which had a contact problem somewhere at a solenoid - suddenly the power vent window started to close itself when I shut the door. So the problem was back! (At least the power seats do work perfectly now!)
So I decided to spend the day in the garage - rewiring the 58´s passenger door as there definitely was a short somewhere in the power vent window circuit. Thats the kind of work I absolutely HATE! 52 years of bending the wires whenever you open the door took its toll.
The bug was easily found after I removed the kick panel, door sill plates, parts of the heat tubing, and the metal tube which is going through the door to protect the wires. 5 (!) cables were broken and only held together by the original fabric covering around it. The cables all broke exactly at the end of the tube where all the bending is going on when the door is opened. I will now have to splice the cables back together somehow and get them back into the tube. No idea how I will do this - I will have to buy some electric supply material first, but the shops are all closed over the weekend. I´m still stunned that the windows still worked and the only sign of failure was that they started to open or close themselves sometimes when I opened the door, and that the battery was drained at one occasion. I guess I was lucky that the car did not catch fire...

UPDATE - Feb. 8th:
I fixed it - read everything about it above or by clicking on this link!

Tags:1958, Eldorado, Wiring, Power Vent Windows, Restoration

My 1967 Cadillac DeVille was featured in the German Cadillac Club Magazine “Der Standard”. Burkhard Briessmann did an excellent article about 60 years of Cadillac deVille, where he used 3 pictures of my car. Click on the image to read the page where my car is featured. © “Der Standard” - Classic Cadillac Club Germany, 2009 - Burkhard Briessmann. Pictures were shot by my wife.

I updated and relaunched my entire website today. Most things were done “under the hood” of the website, so you wont see many changes besides some new cool banner images. The website should be more reliable and compatible with the many browsers now. Whats completely new is the video gallery with all the videos in flash format. This may be convenient if you do not have Quicktime installed on your computer. I still recommend to watch the movies in Quicktime though. The quality is slightly better and its not that CPU intensive on your computer. Please let me know if you run into any issues with my site, as this was a major update I did to it.

Today I finished a short video clip of the Cadillac BIG Meet 2009. This is Europes largest and best Cadillac Meeting held every year at the last weekend of August. The next one will be held on August 29th 2010. More info about the meeting can be found here.
I did some filming at the 2009 event and posted the video in the video section of my website. Enjoy this nice short clip with some fantastic cars.

Tags:Video, Cadillac BIG Meet, Car Show

I spent quite some time during the last weeks in the engine bay of the 67 Eldorado. I tried to clean everything in there as good as possible. After cleaning and degreasing everything I also gave all the metal parts a fresh coat of wax. I also cleaned all the rubber parts and cables and applied some vinyl and rubber conditioner. Everything is sparkling clean now. I´m now thinking about painting some of the parts where the paint has some imperfections or is worn off. I will have to find the right correct paint first. The engine looks quite presentable now. What will get a new paintjob first will be the airfilter housing, which looks pretty worn. It will be stripped to bare metal before painting of course.
Below you can find some pictures of the now clean engine bay.

as seen from the passenger side


from the front

from the left

Tags:Cleaning, Engine Bay, Eldorado, 1967, detailing

Today I managed to solve the issue with the partly non working Automatic Climate Control of my 1967 Eldorado. As described in the entries below, the blower would only come on in full heat modes when the car was accelerating. The AC of the Eldorado is very similar to the one from the DeVille btw.
I suspected a vacuum leak somewhere in the system. Troubleshooting began with going through all the vacuum hoses. I replaced some which were a little worn out at the connectors. I also cut off the ends of most hoses, as they were all becoming a little loose during the last 40 years. I then plugged them in again.
Not much did change though.
When I came to the hose of the hot water valve and the delay relay, I had the first success. At least the blower motor would stay on in all “Auto” modes, even when the car was idling - but would still go off in “Fog” and “Ice”. I then suspected a leak in the power servo or in the dash controller. So I installed the power servo from my 67 DeVille where everything works perfectly, to be able to rule out any problems. Nothing changed though - the blower would still come on and off depending on the throttle position.

I then soon found the culprit of the whole issue - it was the master vacuum switch - which seems to have a problem with the internal electric switch. As I had a spare one around I installed it - and voilá - everything worked as it should. It always looked good when I checked it before.
I´m very happy that everything is back in working order. The only thing which I still have to repair is the fast idle diaphragm which completely dried out and is no longer functioning. Fortunately I do have a spare 429 engine in the garage from where I can grab and use this part - so I will repair it soon.
I then need a new condenser which is already on the way across the Atlantic coming from Old Auto Air.
By the way - Cadillactim has an excellent trouble shooting guide for the ACC on his website.

The best troubleshooting guide for 1967 and 1968 Cadillac´s Automatic Climate Control Systems I got today from Gary Sisk - owner of a 1968 Cadillac.
This is a very easy to follow explanation which will save you a lot of time and you do not even need any special tools.
It was written by Lynn Nicholls and can be found on Stampies Cadillac page - here is the direct link to it.

Below you can find some pictures of my system:

I discovered the first issue at the hot water valve

the hoses around the time relay delay were leaking a little bit

for testing purposes I hung a spare master vacuum switch into the car - this solved the problem

the old fast idle diaphragm is leaking and brittle and will have to be replaced

Tags:AC, Blower, 1967, Eldorado, Restoration, Troubleshooting, 1968, ACC

The 1967 Eldorado is now back home from the restoration shop. They wanted to recharge the AC on the day before I wanted to pick it up only to find out that the condenser is also leaking badly. I´ve ordered a new on from Cold Air Products in USA in the meantime which I will install later. The recharge will then take place in spring.

During the rebuild of the whole AC system I found out that I´m also having a little issue with the blower which does not always come on at full heat. So as a first step I started to go through the numerous vacuum hoses in the car yesterday. I soon found some old and brittle ones which fell apart when I just touched them. The two hoses that fell apart were the ones going to the right headlight doors.
Original color coded hoses seem no longer available anywhere. Thats why I had to buy regular black ones and paint the red and green stripes on them. Looks almost perfect - I did not think that it would turn out this nice.
Will go through the rest of the hoses soon. With the replaced hoses the headlight doors now work 100% simultaneously, whereas before one was slower.
I still have to find the issue with the blower motor - but I now suspect either the AC controller or the power servo. It works perfectly in full cold - only when I set a higher temperature the blower will cut out. Another problem to solve over the winter... I had almost the same problem with the 67 DeVille before which I could successfully repair.
BTW - if you know of any source for the GM OEM style color coded vacuum hoses please let me know.

there are lots and lots of vacuum hoses in the Eldorado to check - here are only a few going to the storage tanks...
I will also give them a good cleaning during the winter.


the new hose with the painted red stripe is already in place - looks some kind of original...

Tags:Restoration, Vacuum hoses, 1967, Eldorado, Blower