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Lil Red Coupe

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About Lil Red Coupe

  • Birthday 07/17/1968

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  1. Thanks George and Carl for taking the time to answer, it's much appreciated. Carl you have made my day with you " still young " comment, I don't feel it some days. I bought my Cadillac as I wanted a luxury cruiser that I could apply a really nice custom paint too and still have all the creature comforts of a stock car. The car I have bought is fairly run down but is completely stock. The interior is shot along with the paint so it suited my plans perfectly. Upon some investigation it would appear that my Fleetwood has as far as I can tell every option available at the time apart from fog lights. It has A/C, Cruise control, power steering, brakes, windows, vent windows, locks, trunk lock with auto close, it had air suspension, E Z eye glass, Autronic eye , 6 way seat, stainless door guards, etc. I think my plan now is to slowly bring this old girl back to her former glory. Maybe I should just get the correct 1960 parts as I reckon she deserves it. Carl I have spoken to Steve on here as my wife recently bought a 1941 Cadillac fastback and he replied to my post. He's quite a distance from me but hopefully we will cross paths at some point.
  2. Wondering if some of you guys could help me. I have just bought a 1960 Cadillac Fleetwood Hardtop Sedan , it's pretty run down but is on the road and it drove the 120 miles home effortlessly. I have just got the chance of parts from a 1964 Sedan Deville from a local guy who is breaking one. I was wondering what parts may be interchangeable with my 1960. He has engine ( 390 same as mine ) , trans, rear axle, brake drums and all the suspension components. He also has the brake booster which I need as mine has had a remote booster fitted, will the 64 fit mine or is it totally different. I'm not opposed to doing some adaption but don't want to stray to far from stock if I can help it. Reason I ask and want to use these parts is because I'm in the UK and the cost of shipping heavy parts is absolutely crippling to the wallet. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance Paul.
  3. Cheers Matt, I found our vin numbers straight away once I knew where to look for them. Thanks again.
  4. As the title suggests my wife has just bought a 1941 Model 61 2 door fastback. Some of you have probably seen it advertised for sale across the web. It's just arrived over here in the UK and Beverly is extremely happy with it. It runs superbly and I have driven it up our lane to check that the transmission, clutch etc all worked and it performed superbly. It has had a full rewire with the correct wiring harness, after slight alterations today to the rear turn signals/brake lights everything now works as it should apart from the temp and fuel gauge. The only thing that lets it down is the paint which although looks great in the photos has been sprayed directly over the top of the original crazed and chipped paint and had absolutely no prep or trim removed prior to painting. This I will rectify in due course. Could you guys help me pinpoint where the vin number might be stamped on the chassis as I will have to show this to get it registered over here. Thanks in advance Paul. Here's a couple of photos.
  5. I am not certain as to what caused the pinion to break. It was broken when we bought the car. I found an old thread on here from a guy called BuickLee who I think was the guy we bought it from ( but that's just me putting 2 and 2 together ) , in the thread he said that he had a half shaft snap back in 2011 it's possible that the pinion went at the same time. Or it could have been that it wasn't adjusted properly and all the force was being put onto the toe of the pinion gear and they gave out.. It definitely wasn't set up correctly when we bought it but I don't know if somebody had already messed with it. I stripped the transmission and clutch off today , good job I did as the clutch plate has just started polishing up the rivets and the pilot bearing had destroyed itself and only had four ball bearings left in the roller bearing.
  6. Thanks for the info Don, I got the drive shaft out this morning, came out quite easily with a bit of help from a hefty hammer. To my surprise the pinion separated from the shaft very easily once the pin was removed. I held the shaft in the vice and applied a little heat to the end of it and then the pinion just tapped out with ease with the use of a drift and hammer. Same with installing the new pinion, took a bit more force with a large rubber mallet to avoid damage to the pinion gears it drove home nicely. I think my drive shaft may have been remade/had a new end on at some point as the welding has all been cleaned down and almost looks machine done whereas the old piece that was left on the replacement pinion looks to have been arc welded and looks original to me. I have at the close of day got the whole rear axle back together and ready to slide forward again once I have checked out the clutch plate tomorrow ( thought I'd check it while the rear end is off as the clutch bites very high on the pedal ). One thing I did notice and couldn't find much info on was the diff bearings, the ones on my old broken diff were tapered bearings with a separate race, the ones on the replacement diff are roller bearings. I'm not sure which are correct but the replacement diff is second hand and has been used so I checked them over and went with them. I think I got the pinion shims right first time as once assembled I painted the gears and spun them and the rub marks are spot on now that I have set up the crown wheel. Some photos of the progress.
  7. Thanks Don that's exactly what I wanted to hear. I thought it was just a matter of drifting the whole lot out, just wanted to make sure before I started hitting away. I have a good soft lead mallet and will use a piece of timer as well to protect the shaft. I have seen the puller/pushers for the pinion removal and I can make one of those relatively easily if needed. Regards Paul.
  8. Hoping some of you Buick guys can help me here with a bit of info. I am in the process of removing a broken pinion and re installing a good replacement pinion and diff assembly on our 1937 90L McLaughlin limo. I have removed both drive shafts from the axle, stripped out the diff assembly, disconnected the front of the torque tube from the transmission and pulled the whole torque tube and axle backwards. I now have good access to the front of the drive shaft in the torque tube. I have removed the three screws on the third member which I think locate in the collar between the two pinion bearings. I also have a small set screw at the front of the torque tube which I have also removed ( not sure if this is a locating bolt or whether it held a bracket at some point ) My question is should my drive shaft now just pull out of the rear of the third member complete with the pinion still attached ? I think it must as my torque tube is riveted to the third member. How do you guys remove the pinion and shaft ? I have searched and can find loads of info about how to split the pinion and shaft but not the actual removal of them. I don't want to go and use any force and damage anything by not going about it the right way . If it does just drift out as I presume it does is it just a matter of drifting the front end of the drive shaft until it starts to move ? Are there any retainers that I haven't seen or mentioned on here that retain the pinion or shaft in place ? Thanks in advance for any help. Paul.
  9. I'm in the UK . The old Buick is in good company as it currently shares it's stable with Beverly's 37 Ford coupe, 37 Dodge coupe and my 37 Zephyr coupe. There is also a 57 Lincoln Premiere which we have just purchased that will be on its way over from the states to be used as a wedding car alongside the 37 Buick. Beverly also has a 49 Ford V8 Pilot that I will be restoring that will also be used. I run my own business restoring classics so the work and maintenance isn't an issue. Paul.
  10. Hi guys thought I would bring this post back up to the top. We have just bought the 37 Buick 90L that was in the ebay advert . We didn't pay anywhere near the original asking price that was quoted here by the original poster. It's a very nice car, still exactly the same as when it was on ebay a year ago. Still has a broken diff which I was just doing some research on and ended up here. The restoration was a long way from a full resto, the paint is indeed very nice and is still as fresh as it was when it was done 11 years ago, same goes for all the chrome. The underside hasn't really been touched and although still very good with no rust issues that I have found so far it hasn't got a touch of paint on it, definitely a job to be done. Just had the diff cover off and it's lost pretty much 2 full teeth from the pinion. It came with a very good spare identical diff ready to install. The guy we bought it from was the same guy who had it for sale last year. It belonged to his father and they had it restored so his father could enjoy his retirement with it. His father sadly passed away four years ago and it's taken him this long to let it go. Possibly why the high asking price as he really didn't want to sell it. He got quite emotional when we bought it a couple of weeks ago. It is now going to be used in my wifes new business venture as a wedding car. It wasn't running great when it turned up on Saturday , running rich and smoking badly ( both black and blue smoke ). It had a terrible flat spot just of idle as well. I played around with the holley that they had installed and found that the accelerator pump was not coming in until almost 1/2 throttle. I altered the cam to lever settings and played with it for a bit and it now runs pretty good. It was flooding up as well as the float height wasn't set properly , reset that and it looks to have cured the richness, it's also cured almost all the smoking so I reckon the flooding was washing the bores a bit and causing it to burn oil. I have a new set of plugs on order and going to give it a full oil change and see how it goes. Paul.
  11. I may be able to help a little here. I have a french flathead v8 in my 37 zephyr, it has the 11" commercial clutch that the french army used and is linked up to the stock zephyr linkage. My clutch pedal is very light to push down. So light it can be very easily pushed with two fingers. It's definitely lighter than most modern cars I have driven. The clutch works fine and has the stronger pressure plate but the pedal pressure is brilliant. Paul.
  12. Hey Cecil, I think you are right, but when you look at oldbuicks pics you can see what looks like a hole cut in the same place as the heater outlets on yours. It's a bit obscured by the cowl vent handle but from what I can see it looks like it could be a heater hole (especially if there is one each side. Maybe somebody cut some in over the years. I thought the holes that oldbuick was asking about were the top holes and not the bottom holes. I could well be wrong though Paul.
  13. Hi guys,Thought I'd post this, although maybe some will not be interested I'm sure others will. Well I got my 37 coupe road ready just in time for my trip to Pendine beach in Wales. Pendine is the home of land speed records over here and has some great history. The likes of Sir Malcolm Campbell and Parry Thomas raced there in the 1920s setting world land speed records. The beach was also home to many regular speed trial races for motor bikes as well. The challenges between Campbell and Thomas Parry carried on for a few years , each attempting to break the others records, ultimately stopping when Thomas Parry had a fatal crash in 1927. Beach racing was pretty much ended from then on apart from the odd special event/practice. Fast forward several years and the VHRA are invited to hold a vintage hot rod race on the beach, running timed speed trials over the flying mile. Something not to be missed and an honour to anybody able to attend. So the race was on to get my zephyr (build thread here http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=720735 ) on the road and ready for the 750 mile round trip. With literally hours to spare ( see the build thread , it was a mad few weeks leading up to it) we managed to get it ready and loaded up for the trip and the weeks holiday that a few of us were having there. The trip down was hampered by some running issues with the old flathead v8 tapping the plug gaps shut on the rear cylinders.This was overcome by doubling up the crush washers on those plugs. The engine needs a rebuild as it's done way over 80,000 miles and I didn't have the time or money before Pendine. The racing was absolutely unbelievable, almost 100 cars in the pits on the beach ready to race, not one of them later than 1949, accompanied by the pit vehicles which again were not allowed to be any newer than 1954, almost everybody wearing period attire too.. This really was an authentic meeting. A photographers dream. Racing took place almost all day Saturday (well as long as we could get between the tide going out and it coming back in again). We had around a half mile run up a timed 100 yards and another half mile run down . Fastest time of the day was set by Neil Bennet in his blown flathead V8 special who recorded a speed of just over 114 mph. Check out this link for some good pictures and a full write up of the event- http://www.vhra.co.uk/VHRA/News/Entries/2013/9/15_Pendine_Sands_Amateur_Hot_Rod_Races.html Meanwhile here's some pics of my old zephyr on the beach I covered just over 760 miles on it's first trip out, raced up the beach and still returned a very reasonable 23 mpg average, and had an absolute ball. The best time I've ever had. Paul.
  14. Nice looking sedan, congrats. Good looking colour too, but then I may be slightly biased there. The cowl vent handle can bolt on either side of the vent (for right or left hand drive I guess), easy fix if it bothers you. The holes you mention , if you mean the ones in the closing panels from the lower dash panel to the firewall then they are for the heater outlets. They should have an adjustable chrome pod in them. Paul.
  15. Thanks for the very kind words guys. Birdman this one is most definitely a keeper. I have wanted a zephyr coupe for years and never thought I would get the chance to own one. Now I have it it's not going anywhere without me in it I am still chipping away at it. Check out the link below to see the updates. 37 Zephyr build thread - Page 7 - THE H.A.M.B.
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