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

When I came into the garage to take something out of the trunk of the 1958 Seville yesterday, I pushed the trunk release button in the glove box and... nothing happened. I pushed again and instead of hearing the trunk pop open and the sound of the pull down motor going up, there was just nothing happening. This was when I noticed that the interior lights did not come on either... The battery was completely dead.
So there was no other way than hooking up the charger. Two hours later, the battery was strong enough to start the car. I checked all electric components and everything seemed to work - so I was wondering what drained down a fully charged battery over night? This was the moment when I noticed a clicking noise coming from the passenger door. I opened all windows including the power vents . When I opened the passenger door the vent window started to close itself! So even when the vent window was fully closed, the window motor would still draw current. At a test drive with the door closed (of course)- the window would eventually start closing itself again.

So I had to remove all the window switches and unscrew the kick panels. Of course some of the cables behind there were broken or had the isolation coming of at the areas where they had to bend each time the door was opened or closed. I replaced one section of a cable and isolated the other ones.
So far everything seems to be working o.k. now. After an extensive test drive and opening the doors multiple times - everything seems to be well.
It is really a pain to get access to all these cables and trying to repair them. Some smaller hands would be very handy in this cases.

Thats the area behind one of the 1958 Eldorado kick panels where the cables have to bend all the time. After 51 years they seem to get tired.

Tags:Wiring, short, 1958, Eldorado

Per Rubien from Denmark sent me the following message about his great 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Seville which is for sale now:

“I want to sell my 1958 Eldorado Seville. The car is 100% complete and in very fine condition. Everything is working and it drives like a new car. The interior is 100% original and in super condition.”

If you are interested please contact Per Rubien in Denmark directly! Phone: +45 98134480 or mail:
He is asking around € 35.000.- - which is a very reasonable price for a car like this!

Tags:For Sale, 1958, Eldorado

I found some of the missing 1958 and 1967 Cadillac ads and added 13 of them to the ads gallery.

1958 Eldorado Brougham ad

1967 Cadillac ad

Tags:1967, 1958, Ads

With winter already around the corner - the first snow is already visible on the surrounding mountains-- today I took the 58 Eldorado Seville for its last spin before it will finally go into winter hibernation.
Today was a picture perfect fall day, so my wife and I drove around a little bit. I filled the gas tank up to the brim and overinflated the tires for the long storage period.

I will soon change the oil, give the exterior a fresh coat of wax, clean and treat the leather with a conditioner, remove the battery and then put the car on blocks over the long winter. I only drove the car 640 kilometers (397 miles) this season. Somehow I did not make it to many shows this year and it was a very humid summer and fall.

pretty fall colors


over-inflating the tires for storage


filling the gas tank


There is already snow in the background!

Tags:1958, Cruising, Eldorado

A picture of my 58 made it into the daily newspaper "Kurier" 2 weeks ago. You can see a scan below, click on it for larger view! Its an article in the travel magazine - not sure why they selected the image of my car - its not explained in the text at all...

Tags:1958, Eldorado

I´ve updated my website with a brand-new video of my 1958 Eldorado Seville today.
My wife Afra (a professional cinematographer) shot it as she had to test a new camera for work. As it turned out we wont buy the camera - but she edited the test shots into a nice short 2 minutes clip.
Enjoy!
Click here for the high quality version in Quicktime (30mb)

Tags:Video, 1958, Eldorado

Today was the last evening before I´ll put the 58 into winter storage and return the license plates until next May. As it was a picture perfect evening with a great sunset I wanted to shoot some nice pictures. Unfortunately my wives Hasselblad camera quit working during the shooting and so I could mainly only shoot digital images.
More of them can be found here.

Tags:Photoshooting, 1958, Eldorado

I´m on vacation this week and I´m using my time to prepare my Cadillac for the Cadillac BIG Meet which is coming up this weekend. I´ve repaired the AC on my 67 and cleaned and detailed both cars for the show. My friend Tayfun is also in town and we´ll do the same with his 81 Pimperado as well. We´ve spent around 14 hours in the garage each day so far.

working on the AC

installing the new backup lenses - which had to be custom fitted...

Tags:Cadillac BIG Meet, Restoration, 1967, Deville, 1958, detailing, Eldorado, AC

Today it was time to do some interior cleaning on both of my cars. My friend Tayfun was in town once again and brought one of these wet cleaners with him to do all of our cars. It really worked wonders and the cars turned out great. I could not believe how much dirt I could extract from the carpets and floor mats.

cleaning the trunk of the 58

Cruising night!

After cleaning we had a nice cruising trip around the lake with friends and our ladies.

Tayfun

on a hill

the ladies

Alex

Tayfun

Richard

I took the 67

Tags:detailing, 1958, Eldorado, Cruising