Ill start this off with saying today was a long day of turning wrenches in the sun ... I am now watching the sun set with a cold one trying to do this site some justice with my build thread. My budget is $100 LOL so I will do it the old school way and deal with what I got. I bought this car in 03-04 it was in good shape ran good pretty straight the interior was just re-done it has a 1500 watt stereo... I though it was a good buy at the time and looking back it was. I got into an accident at the end of 04 and this is where it all starts. I have old pic of the work but not available right now I will try to find the time to put them up later. I did some work including all new bushings and ball joints in the front end, new rear ball joint, shocks, electric fuel pump, door poppers, I filled one of the doors and got rid of the body lines in the trunk deck lid... and I have acquired some parts over the past few years that would help me in my asperations for my "Lady Jane" Here are the brass tacks the 1963 had a year specific motor and trans .... this makes finding parts tedious and people who know what they are talking about are few and far between. I found two shops that would work on my trans and one of them included a $2200 rebuild. The delux rebuild kit for the 390 $1200.... for the kit. Everything was leaking including the hydromatic trans and bad. I came to a crossroad: do I rebuild the original equipment and hope it never goes bad... it might work if I had a pet unicorn or two. So after countless hours of reaserch I found a viable option to keep the bad ass style of my 63 but update the drive train and go easy on the pocket book (HA!!!) I was on the hunt for a 69-76 cadillac it would be good if it was an Eldorado because of the rear sump oil pan ... I'm not that picky . After a few weeks of craigslist... I found a target 1975 sedan de ville with registration problems and it had some oveheating issue. I did some reading and found that it is common to find a chevy bb thermostat in a Cadillac 500 and they are not the same. I showed up with a thermostat and a set of wrenches....the A/C compressor was a job to do in this guys front yard so before I started I aked him to start it up. I think my friend John and I had to hook our jaws back to our heads with out this guy seeing us. Not one foul sound no ticks no squeek from a belt no exhaust leak This beat, rusted roofed, in my opinion one of the least attractive years of cadillac purrs like a brand new car! I asked the dude how many miles are on this thing the odometer read 58k. I took it for a test drive and the TH400 trans was slipping you cant have it all I bought it for $650 and had it towed to the house.
I took the front end clips off of both cars to make things easier. That motor and trans is pretty heavy. I have more ill post later. My driveway will never forget this day
The first and best thing you could ever do to a 63 cad is that 500" motor/trans... I love these body cads along with the 64... Good luck, the drivers side exhaust header might be tuff
Before putting the big block in I wanted to take care of my stopping power. A few years back I bought scarebirds disk brake conversion kit. Ill have to say that the swap was pretty straight forward and pretty easy. The calipers that came off of the 75 Sedan received the brake line from the front whereas the drum from the 63 received the brake line from the back. This was the only issue I ran into only because I wanted to use what I had. The task was not that hard either I used all the original equipment I just moved the positions and wleded the clips in. I had to put a new brake line on the drivers side.
Now ... lets seal this big block up. Part of my buying the 75 is to save the $$$. The odometer read 57k and inside the block looked clean so this time I am just going clean and seal her up. I like to do a ton of research before I do anything. I think I will accumulate some 472 heads and whatever else I need to make it that 475hp 500tq moster but for now this will do. New freeze plugs and If you are swapping the oil pan the dip stick moves to the other position.
all cleaned up I have to put the crank hub back on and off to the transmission. Special thanks to my buddy Rob for his help on this project. I was told that the tail shaft of a 78-79 would almost match up with my driveshaft so ill have to check it out. My little one wanted to lend a hand too.
The 75's radiator is such good condition I wanted to mock up the front emd to see if it fit ... no dice its way too wide and the pick up would take a ton of modification including cutting part of the frame.
So it's been a while... ill star by saying she needed some body work. I filled the passenger door handle so she's shaved up. I had some other areas that needed some tlc so 7 sheets of 80 grit and 10 sheets of 220 grit later.... nice and smooth. I went to harbor freight and picked up a hplv gravity feed spray gun "professional kit" it was $50 on sale. The real bonus is that it came with two tips a 1.4 & a 1.8. I got some ppg polyester primer mixed it and experimented. It took some patients but I got it you have thin it out quite a bit to get to go on real even and smooth. I took the heater core out so I had a healthy hole in my fire wall I needed to take care of. It took a couple of tries and measurements but with a little help from a friend I think I covered it just fine. I cleaned off 7-10 lbs of road grime off of the cross member frame and front end. I have this new cool "professional" paint gun so let's experiment some more. Rustolium makes a satin black that comes in a quart for no more then $15 I thinned it with denatured alcohol and it worked awesome! I sprayed one of my fenders just to see what it looked like... I don't think I'm going to paint my car Satin black but it looks pretty good.
I was having problems uploading the pix from my phone last night. I also havent had a computer for months. So here it goes.
nice caddilac bro, keep up the great work. and the cad 500 block is the way to go if you get a chance to pick one up
well after two fires from the welding tons of sanding cleaning blood sweat and tears .... she is finally off to the shop to get her transplant.
I picked up an entire 75 sedan deville with 58K on the odometer for $650 and it is going into my 63 right along with the TH400
You're my hero right now. I also bought a 63 coupe about the same time too but it's only gotten some airride on it but tnever fully plumbed and then I moved so it's sat for almost 8 years untouched. and the bumpers were stolen, probably for scrap $$ is my guess. But yours is coming along really nice! Looking forward to more progress updates and photos. 63's are one of the best looking years in my opinion, not that theres a bad year for cadillacs!
Thanks bro! Its been a long road to here and miles to go I also think 63 is one of the best years.... check out "the best 55 Cadillac build" very inspiring. I'm scouring Craig's list for a 69... I want the bad boy big block money green with the ivory interior. Happy travels and keep em on the road.
The Jalopy Journal
