Projects The Best 1955 Cadillac build

Right on Roger! Hopefully you can make another road trip to Sheridan in August.

 

Way cool.

 

Thats too cool. Glad to hear the Cadi performed well for you. That had to be quit a site to see those big ole Cadi's rolling down the road. Thanks for sharing the experience.

 

Got to see the 'Roadliner' in the flesh with its fresh paint and finish,the pictures don't do Rogers caddy justice.My 56 caddy was supposed to be there with Dans 54 and Rogers 55 but the motor in my 56 caddy dropped a valve a couple of weeks before.Still that didn't stop Roger and Dan making me an honorary member of the Caddy Boys,presenting me with a club plaque and a T-shirt,they definately caught me by surprise. A fun weekend enjoyed by all.

 

Roger:

Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun, despite the fuel costs. Best of all, the Cad had a good all-weather maiden voyage to prove its reliability. Always good to get that confident feeling. Looking forward to running into you guys at some upcoming venue. Let me know where you are headed next. You may get some company.

Tom

 

driving 'em is where the magic is at, too bad it costs so much these days.

 

Rodger, I was at Mountain Man Welding last week and they had a posting for a Rich Barton Memorial Show this Friday. Sorry the copy they burned for me did not have a contact. Unusual to see a Friday day show. Seems cheap as the Mad Mallard runs were.

 

It was a great trip. I really enjoyed seeing you again. Thanx again

 

Thanx Tinlid, Rich didn't live far from me...prolly on a weekday cuz of school...Yeah, at $3.00that's almost as cheap as the Mad Mallard Stomp was...really miss that show,wish they couldv'e kept it going...may have to run over to Eliot Street...

R-

 

Roger man that sounds like you guys had a good time except the drive home.I remember the white knuckle snow drive over vail pass from when we went to Moab Kustoms event in October that year. I am glad you had no damage from the weather ,your paint job is awesome.

 

Roger, your Caddy looks great going down the highway.

 

Glad you got to take the Caddy out to Moab. Bet it was a blast getting it out and cruisin! Hopefully I will catch up with you at GG.

 

Finally some serious miles on your car. Congrats R it really turned out great

 

Great to hear the smooth uneventful rides!! Sounds like she's gonna get some miles now!!

Bill

 

Remember what I said up top about snow around here til the middle of May...??? Well, we got snow in Denver last nite and the foothills got anywhere from 6 to 18 inches of the cold wet stuff...and today it's only 42 degrees, we've gotten a total of over two inches of rain in the past 48 hours and it's still coming down...

Thanx Bill and Johnny C...appreciate all the comments...

R-

 

We got a solid foot of snow where my horse is at in Franktown...only in Colorado would we get more snow in May than March. Always keep layers around. Hope to catch you at a show soon

 

Big thumbs up Roger!

 

More Chrome UPDATE

Bill Klooster (of BillandLori here on the HAMB) kindly donated six pieces of ’55 Cadillac chrome to me…he owns a ’55 Cadillac and had been keeping up on my build thread…and I’d asked if anyone had some cuz I needed four pieces to complete the rear of my Cadillac…he sent them down from Ontario, Canada, (cuz that’s where he lives…!!!!) and I immediately sent them out to Odgen Chrome in Ogden, Utah. The pieces are cast – ‘pot metal’ to most, and Bill’s had some bubbling on them, but hey, ya can’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right…??? I must publically THANK Bill for his great donation right here…

Charlie Thornblad of Ogden Chrome e-mailed me and said there wouldn’t be any problems with them, they’d come out nice so I told him to go ahead with them….

A few weeks later they showed up at my place, of course, they were gorgeous…couldn’t even tell where the bubbles had been…



It took a few weeks after I got them to work up the courage to drill holes in my new paint…but I took out the masking tape and laid out the marks…I wanted them all equal spaced across the rear…once I had the tape marked up, I got out the drill…oh, before I did the drilling, I had to remove the wood/upholstered panels in the trunk so I wouldn’t drill thru them…didn’t need them to have holes.

Each metal “spear” needed three holes…and if you’ll notice, the spears are lopsided…meaning one side is “taller” than the other. The spears are all the same, made the same from the factory, but the designers decided to have these spears “face in” on each side…so on the left side, the three holes are literally upside down…and so are the spears, on the right side they are right-side up. I hadn’t noticed the spears were lopsided when I put the stock ones on after paint cuz the holes were already there…but after I got them back from Ogden, it became obvious one set had to be positioned right-side up and the other set upside down. That meant I had to somehow turn the car over…or stand on my head to drill holes…LOL…!!!

I got the holes drilled, didn’t even chip any paint and attached the spears…take a look:



Now the rear looks complete…it doesn’t look like I forgot to put the rest of the chrome back on… see below for the "unfinished" look...shot on the April trip to Moab...


Talking about the trip to Moab, I got to thinking about my gas mileage on the way over and back…most people I talked to, and a few Caddy owners, said my 15-16 mph wasn’t bad with a 500” and a T-400…but I wasn’t convinced…I figured there had to be a way to up the mileage some. I got to thinking about how restrictive the stock air cleaner is…I mean there’s only two small openings in the front of it…and it’s pulling in lots of hot air from the engine compartment…so I decided to change it.


So I took it off...

I went to the auto parts store and purchased a new chrome air cleaner…then decided to spend more money to purchase a cleanable K & N filter…These are supposed to be good…but the best part is…the filter is purple…looks like it was made for my Caddy and the new chrome really brightened up the engine compartment.

If looks were mileage…I’d have it made…but I haven’t taken the car on any long distance trips yet to check out my theory of more air equals more mileage, but it sounds logical, doesn’t it…??? The NSRA Pueblo Nats is coming up the end of this month and that’s 120 miles from my home…we’ll see if what I did makes any difference.



If you’ll notice in the above pic, I made some new “covers” to cover the Cadillac head/exhaust area…I felt the burned exhaust detracted from the rest of the engine…I made some cardboard patterns first, then transferred them to 22 gauge metal and trimmed them out to see if they’d fit…I had to add some 1/8” aluminum washers to the underside of the covers so the edge on the valve cover wouldn’t get smashed down when I tightened them up.


The before look.

Once I had them fitting well, I transferred that pattern to a piece of polished stainless and trimmed them out with my plasma cutter…the edges were burnt good but by the time I got done filing, the burned portion was almost gone…there was a little bit of discoloration still there so I took both pieces down to my buddy Jose, to have him polish them completely…now they hide the burnt portion of the exhaust and even hide part of the headers and they look like chrome…!!!



They look painted purple here, but they are polished stainless.

As you can see in the pic, I’ve now got the A/C lines ran…I had to use hard lines to get to the condenser on the front cuz I didn’t want to bore some huge holes in my perfectly painted radiator support cover…and ruin the look. So I had the tech bend some hard lines for me…it looks good this way. I’ve got to have him shorten one hose for me cuz I don’t like how it “sticks” up near the drier…but that’ll happen when I put the A/C unit in. Now all I have to do is go buy the Vintage Air underdash unit…hope to have it in by the time we head out for Salina, Kansas…the Kansas heat/humidity can be brutal.

Here’s a funny story about that…a friend of ours decided to go to tag along to Salina with us last year. We told him it was going to be hot and humid…but he said OK. We left here on a Thursday, spent all day Friday at the park in Salina and just before we were to head out to the drag races Friday nite, he announced he was “going home.” What…??? Yep, he was going home in the morning …I asked why? He said he’d hadn’t had anything to eat but hot dogs since we got there, had met more people than he’d ever remember and saw more cars then he’d ever see again…besides, it was too damned hot. He left at 4AM and was home by noon on Saturday…needless to say, we won’t be asking him to go anywhere East with us.

Oh, I had my hubcaps “colorized” too…plus added the small Cadillac emblem in the center of the Olds cap…looks better now, yes…???


Guess that about covers the updates this time...

Oh, mileage on the engine...so far about 1200...the engine feels good and seem to get stronger every day I drive it...it's a torquey sucker and the combo of headers and Flowmasters really make it sound good...

R-

 

That is a beautiful car! I love everyting about it.

 

Looks great Roger!

 

Looking good Roger you have more miles on your Caddy then my Merc. I had a hiccup
coming home from Mulvane last weekend. Smelled gas fumes real bad on the way home
and I traced it down to a cracked gas tank. I didn't want to use JB weld so I ended up
replacing the tank. I've been smelling them for a while... God is good.

Love the Hub cap treatment, I'm running the same cap on my drivers side. After looking
at yours, I'm thinking about replacing the bullet with a Merc emblem.

Look forward to seeing ya guys soon.

Happy Trails, Mick

 

I just went threw 36 pages and this is the nicest caddy I think I've ever seen. Great job you should be proud of it.

 

I've just spent an hour going through the build of your Caddy. Time well spent! This car is work of art! Enjoy!!

 

Way Cool! Very Very nice.
Thanks for your time to post.

 

Thanx guys...my friend John asked me tonite @ the local cruise where I put those six pieces of chrome...he could only figure out where I put four of them...told him the other two were still on the counter in my garage...I only needed four to complete the look...

R-

 

Well. 2 pieces of chrome left over time to build another caddy.
Nice job. This car just forces ya to look at it, there is so much to see.

 

Impressive build with a beautiful result. Great work!!

 

wow...such a beautiful car...very impressive!

 

Thanks for the kind words Roger!! (its Bill Klooster btw!! lol)

The extra pieces really add to it. The hub caps look fantastic!!

I had a teacher in trade school swear up and down that I needed to run a stock GM snorkle air cleaner with a heat riser to get the best fuel economy. I could hardly make it home the thing drank so much gas!! I took it off and threw that turkey in the garbage. Put the open element filter back on!!

Happy cruising!!! You have created a fine car there Sir!!

Bill

 

OK Bill, I changed it...wonder where I got "Rogers" from...??? Oh wait, that's on your e-mail address...!!! No matter, we both knew who we were talking about, right...???

Thanx to everyone for the compliments...

R-