Projects 1955 Cadiallac Convertible Conversion

danny looking great. cool to see you driving and enjoying it!

 

Started in on a custom engine cover that I plan to sink a gold Caddy crest into the top when finished. First time using a bead roller. Lines turned out OK but not perfect. Will see how the rest of it comes together.

 

After a bit of hammer welding and metal bending its starting to look like I imagined.

 

Now that I have had a chance to take some road trips and work out any kinks that may have come up with the front brakes or steering, I am comfortable installing the front bags. Not quite a before and after... but here's what I have for progress pics.

 

It has been a long journey and hard to imagine the day that the operational features, (steering, cooling, engine, trans, suspension, brakes, fuel, exhaust, etc...) would actually be done (knock on wood) and I could actually move on to body work! I did need to put a delay on relay and modified to 10 seconds so that the air bag pumps would not come on until after the can was running, and a several minute delay off for the ECU and TCU to allow communication after shut down. Now onto the eye soar of cancer on the rear quarter.

 

I used an OEM rocker that I bought 5 years ago for way too much and cut down and hammer and torch welded an extension piece to fill the new cut hole.

 

keep it going!!!!!!!!!

 

I hit the quarter with a roto air sander and then some primer. Turned out pretty smooooth!

 

Now onto the front quarters. The driver side was pretty bad and the lower passenger could use a little patch. I found a guy on line that looked like he produced some clean work so this will be the first piece of my project I will out source. Time to cut them free and UPS to Phoenix.

 

Quick update to the front quarter work. Based on the pic it looks like I made the right choice having someone with stretching and shrinking equipment to re-make these.

 

Thanks to the handy work of hubcap1 here on the hamb, the install of the new brace and fender quarters turned out great!

The driver side cleaned up pretty good so I just cleaned it up and shot it.

 

1 set of 55 Cadillac fender quarter panels installed!

 

Here is a before and after of the rust repair to the passenger side.


I am working on some scoops and taped off my rough plan for a side visual.

 

One final pic of the trim back on and finished with white primer coat.

 

Just read the whole thing. Great project and congrats with having it on the road. I actually found your build on a different website but now i can follow on HAMB. Keep up the good work. Subscribed.

 

Thanks I always appreciate the acknowledgment of knowing the amount of work it is... especially for just a weekend warrior.

 

Brought my car home for the first time in about 5 years! Thought it would give me a chance to just enjoy and drive it for week. I have been playing with the idea for scoops for a long time so I decided to mock some up and stare at it for a bit.

 

Rich Evans designs in only a couple miles away so I called him up to see if he could lend a hand, advice, materials, or all of the above. He of course was willing to supply all 3. I drove over in the Caddy and held the template up to give him an idea of what i was thinking. He traced it onto some 20 gauge and cut one out then traced that piece and cut the second. We bent the metal between pipes and over my knee until both pieces not only laid flush with the car but were uniform to each other. He advised using 1/8" steel rod for the lip and within one hour of arrival, I was on my way. Now back at my shop for the weekend, I cut out the left side to the shape of the body line and tacked in for trimming.

 

I attempted to remove the trim while in place and it was hung up pretty good. So I cut away the scoop to be, and removed the trim. Only 3 hours of cutting and fine adjustment grinding, I got it to slide out of the new slot.

 

Finally able to weld the scoop in for good and grind smooth and shoot a little primer for protection.

 

Looks good...did you see how I did the side scoop on my '55 Caddy...???

R-

 

I will do final clean up of perfecting the edges later, but for now, here is the "finished" product after a total of about 6 hours. Now on to the passenger side another day.

 

Sweet looking scoop!

 

Thanks!

 

Headed out to the Pomona swap meet today but came home empty handed so I ran down to sneak in a couple hours on the Caddy before going home. Started by tacking the passenger scoop and bending the steel rod for a nice.

 

Didn't get to fully finish welding in the scoop or grinding the bullets for smooth removal, but got the bulk of it done.

 

Great work on those scoops!!

 

Thank you, I think they will be worth the hours and finite details when finished.

 

Gday grease4life!! Where abouts is this guy's shop who sells the ower rack conversion?? Looking for one for my bagged 55 Buick build. Thanks in advance mate!!

ps love your build pics!!

 

Rack is off late 80's - 92 Chevy Cavalier. Ron is located in Palm Desert CA. There ended up being a TON of modification needed and still working out some tweaks. If you want to PM me, I can walk you through what is needed to make everything fit and function. -Danny