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1958 Cadillac Eldorado Bairitz


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This is the 1958 bairitz that I am restoring. it was shipped to me by a customer who purchased it straight from a somewhat lackluster restoration and we are going to fix the issues. the restoration has already began so i will have to play catchup on the pics. It didn't look too bad but needs some sheet metal work and the frame needs attention

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we disasembled and cataloged each piece but there was a lot of missing origional hardware and some pieces.

you can see by pictures 6-9 of the engine running that almost as much exaust is coming out of the oil filler as the tailpipes. the engine seems to have some blow by.

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Edited by foxhole (see edit history)
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we decided that the body needed far more extensive repairs than what could be done on the roticery and it needed to go back on the frame for support. as i mentioned earlier the frame had some issues. the front crossmsmber was torn out around the lower a arm mounts in the usual spot so it needed a new front crossmsmber and some other sections as well. we had a mint non convertable frame shipped from california to strip and cut up for parts to repair our convertable frame and keep the numbers matching. it also provided us with some origional hardware and clues as to how some items such as exaust were supposed to be.

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two weeks of cutting, welding, jigging, measuring, riviting and we have a perfect, numbers matching, convertable, frame that is probably closer to spec and better welded than origional. We had to build 2 complete sets of stands for the chassis jig to hold it both upsidedown and right side up as we had to flip it several times in the process.

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Edited by foxhole (see edit history)
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Guest South_paw

When you look at the first round of pictures, one would never suspect a "restored car" to have all of these rust issues.

Did you source out a parts car for the floor sheet metal or are you going to make your own parts?

Keep the pictures coming!

Edited by South_paw (see edit history)
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A way too familiar story. Hopefully your customer sticks with you. Change the make of car in your pics and those photos could come right out of our scrapbook. We did a '53 Skylark that was mostly "restored" and it ended up looking about like your Cad before we were able to turn the tools around and start restoring it the right way. Good luck!

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We are quite far along now but like I said it will take some time to catch up on pictures. I think we are somewhere between 3-4 thousand hours and it's coming along nicely and starting to see the light at the enable the tunnel. The car should be flawless with it's only arguable flaw being it will be slightly over restored and better than new.

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Guest Jim_Edwards

Absolute great series of pictures. Also a perhaps not so subtle warning to those entertaining the purchase of a so called restored car. As we can see a little Bondo (I hate Bondo) and fresh paint can hide a getting close to terminal case of rust maggots merrily eating away out of sight.

That engine with blow-by may present a major challenge as well. 365s were somewhat notorious for cracking heads and it's getting harder and harder to come up with a set of good ones. We had hell coming up with a good set for my '57 Eldorado Seville several years ago. I can only imagine how much more difficult it may be today.

Good luck and keep the pictures coming. It's always neat to see something being done right, not just the most expedient and cheapest way.

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Also a perhaps not so subtle warning to those entertaining the purchase of a so called restored car. As we can see a little Bondo (I hate Bondo) and fresh paint can hide a getting close to terminal case of rust maggots merrily eating away out of sight.

I agree - frightening.

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The body was bad but the fenders, hood, doors, tailpanel and trunklid were worse. We dsided it nessesary to bring in a parts car. The closest were were able to find was a not running, basketcase seville with some terminal rot of its own. It also in time proved to be a valuable road map of correctness as it was a never touched collector car. As you can see with the carpet out, the floor and rockers were a lost cause. luckily in many spots it had different problems than the bairitz

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So i cut it up.... there were about 4 weeks of carefull disasembly and cataloging that went along with this and 2000 or so detailed pictures for reference. Before any of you jump to the conclusion that this will be a seville converted into a bairitz. It is not. It is closer to a Scratch body build.

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I cut it up a lot. we plan to use the seville fire wall down to the seem where it meets the floor pan. The front body mounts are better from the bairitz. The rear clip of the seville is rough but there is more of a pattern than the rear of bairitz. The rear wheel tubs, front inner quarter structer, and trunk hinge area are bairitz only so no choice but to use those. pretty much have to heavily repair or make the rest.

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Then I cut up the bairitz into a few thousand pieces. This left me with two equally compleatly disasembled rusty bodies, still no inner, mid or outer rockers. no floor, a trunk lid that turns out is six inches longer than the bairitz and some slight worries and mild anxiaty.

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I'll bet the owner is ....... annoyed. I know I would be.

I know the buying and selling of cars operates on the premise of buyer beware but to bog up something as badly corroded as that and then paint it and sell it as a good car almost borders on fraud in my opinion.

I am sure if it was mine, the seller would be getting it back one way or another.

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I'll bet the owner is ....... annoyed. I know I would be.

I know the buying and selling of cars operates on the premise of buyer beware but to bog up something as badly corroded as that and then paint it and sell it as a good car almost borders on fraud in my opinion.

I am sure if it was mine, the seller would be getting it back one way or another.

It's always disheartening to find out your new jewel is not as good as you have hoped but the owner has kept good spirits and kept his head up and moved forward. there hits a point where you are commited. I found some pics of cutting the bairitz up so i went back and added them back in here. We hovered the body in the air and slipped the chassis jig with the frame under it to work off of and began to drill it apart.

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Edited by foxhole (see edit history)
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As far as the disasembly of both the cars i carefully planned where i seperated each piece and what i was using from each car as well as what i sourced from ebay from even more cars. On the bairitz i first drilled off the rear inner tail structure so the new seville one would cartrige in to it. i then drilled the center of the rear structure away from the passanger area so it could be repaired(convertable top mounts, forward most trunk lip, rear wheel tubs etc.). I then drilled the bairitz floor pan away from its crossmembers. The firewall had serious rot at the main seam and some bad repairs so i drilled it off down to the two front bodymounts. I then drilled the rotted inner rockers away from the crossmembers and the front mounts. I braced the two front mounts together so as not to loose the reference point and made templates of what was rotted and cut out and repaired them as the starting point for the body build. Each piece that gets repaired also gets sandblasted inside and out and epoxied.

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Edited by foxhole (see edit history)
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on some crosmembers we got lucky and were able to join one half bairitz with one half seville and put a reinforcment plate in the middle. Some only needed new tapped cage plates made and installed. i like to beef them up when i do them too. nothing worse then a spinning plate inside a body cavity you cant acess.

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Edited by foxhole (see edit history)
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From left to right the first one is mine which i redesigned a bit from origional by making it a box section to stiffen it further, the center one was origional and the third is what I was shipped when I ordered a pair of these. while the aftermarket one may have done the job, I was looking to have a more seemless repair. IF YOU CAN TELL ITS BEEN REPAIRED, IT IS NOT RESTORED.

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