Projects 1955 Cadillac Sedan Build

Looks great..Great pics

 

Looks like you are really doing a nice job on her!Bruce.

 

Looking great

 

I've finally finished the patch in the trunk area and put the rear channel support back on. Once I cover this all with undercoating I think it'll look pretty good.





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Looks great.That will be perfect to haul your little blue (green) and white trailer with.


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Thanks! You know what the cool thing is? After we bought that 1956 Shasta trailer while I was dissasembling the dash I found this

It's an old trailer brake controller! And as it turns out, the Shasta we bought came optioned with trailer brakes! Not sure if I'll reuse it since the thing only weighs about 1200lbs, but still cool to know this Caddy used to tow something, back in the day


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That car is talking to you!
Between the size of the Caddy, and having a trailer, you can plan some serious trips!
Watching.

 

I wanted to replace the body to frame rubber mounts but places like caddy daddy wants $620 for a set! So I just bought a strip of similar dimension rubber from McMaster and drilled the holes my self.

Now I've finally got the body mounted and centered (which was pretty hard to do on the ground with two floor jacks) and I've established my ride height using a strap on the leaf springs



My universal triangulated 4 link kit came in from Welder series. They're an alliance member, extremely personal and easy to work with, and the parts look great. Comes with everything you need, but requires welding (hence the company name). It keeps the price super affordable though and lets me do all the fun stuff. I'll be cutting an access hole in the trunk soon to start installing this.



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Four link attaches to the rear diff,right?No leaf springs?

 

Correct. Im using the leaf springs to locate my differntial, then I'll be welding on a bracket to hold the differntial relative to the frame and removing the leaf springs to make room for the 4 link bracketry


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ok thanks!

 

Starting to mock up the upper and lower links. I made a box on top of the frame to support the upper link. Everything is just tacked for now until I get it all assembled



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Following!

 

Not sure if gifs work on this but worth a try


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Looks good!How do you make sure that the welds will not crack or break upon rapid acceleration?

 

Thanks! Well I guess there are a few factors that play into it, but I would say the two main ones are equipment capability and weld experience. I feel comfortable enough in my ability to tackle a project like this, and my welder is capable of working with this thickness material. I also test welded a few pieces to ensure I had adequate penetration


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For the front, I’m using Ridetech shockwaves. I liked the idea of not having to mount a shock somewhere else. They only sell one advertised for a 1956, but a 55 and 56 shared the same front suspension components involved so it worked for me. It requires opening up the coil pocket and installing a new lower control arm bracket that comes With the kit. It was very straight forward and looks great!

This is how much I had to notch out

I cut a vacuum hose in half and glued it to the edge, just in case


And here she is laid out. Still have about 5” of ground clearance which is perfect for me.




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Yep!Looks like you hit it right!

 

Wow what a great thread my Grandpa had a 55 Cadillac coupe and I'm subscribing to this!

 

Keep it up!

 

I had a pair of Packard tail lights I felt would fit the car very well. The bottom shape of the light is almost perfect, and the height is perfectly level with the body across the car. I love the arc shape that the bumper end and light make!




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Save the parts you cut off as someone building a custom on another make body will want them with the original tail lights.

 

You might want to remove the stuff on the bags

 

I took this idea from someone else here on the H.A.M.B. used 3/16” steel rod and framed the tail light around the groove originally meant for the o-ring seal, then I’ll build the body around it. You can see how close to perfect this light fits on this car, but it’s slightly wider at the base, I’ll have to figure out a smooth transition or possibly massage it into place

 

Those lights were meant to be there. - Really enjoying this thread!

 

Very smart building an armature.Gives you a solid base when you graft in the new sheet metal.

 

Thanks to all for the input! I was able to hammer/dolly the bottom metal closer to true, and I used a clamp with a reversed arm to spread the body open a bit. This allowed me to get the outer edge pretty much flush with the wire frame, and will only require a small flare out on the inside edge. I’m learning a lot from this first one to hopefully help with the second one

 

That's looking real good.


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Real skill welding that armature without warpage.Really cool headlight treatment!

 

Well I got put on a project at work for 2 months so I hadn't been working on the caddy, but finally got some time this weekend to continue. I don't really have a lot of metal shaping tools, so i used my shrinker stretcher with small 2.5" sections to try and match the body contour. There's probably an easier way to do this, but its working pretty well so far.