Projects 1955 Cadiallac Convertible Conversion

It's not as pretty with still some evidence of grind and cut marks out of it, but will get the job done.

 

I ran out of light so I couldn't finish the last two pieces of trunk. Here is where I left off. Obviously didn't get to the engine mounts either. Pretty disappointing still.

 

Hey, at least you made progress. Santa Claus in the big brown truck finally brought my christmas present, used shockwaves for the rear of my 55. Time for me to get crack-a - lackin on mine.

 

Subscribing....Looking forward to seeing how the engine transplant works out for ya.

 

Make sure you post pics so I can check it out!

 

Very impressive!

 

Great project and craftsmanship. Congrats on an addition to your family.

go man, go!!!

 

Minor progress but lots of effort. I must have 5 hours into the valve and relay harness since we thought it was done. Some reading lead me to believe that having my remote module and toggle switches power the same relay may cause power to kick back and fry the remote module when operating the toggles... SO I re wired EVERYTHING limiting the air bag adjustments to just the front and back. Don't really need side to side, I just ran a 16 valve setup to avoid air transfer from one side to the other while rounding corners in such a heavy car. Here is the finished product. Just plug er in now! The bundles of wires at the bottom plug into my door actuators on my shaved door kit.

 

Also got the engine mounted but may either need to cut into the trans well in the floor or cut and lower the mounts, or both. Going to take some serious time to get it perfect but here's the start. The headers look awesome but left them off for the pic so you can see the mounts.

 

nice caddy

 

Coming along nicely...are you going to remove the half round air boxes on the firewall...??? Looks like it might give you a bit more room.

Sure would llike to see a shot of the whole engine compartment with the new engine sitting in it...

R-

 

Yeah I noticed that you did that on yours and it turned out nice! I have plans to modify the engine compartment pretty extensively, but step one is to remove those air boxes. I have already unbolted them and noticed they are glued/sealed on as well. Funny you mention that. I actually PM'd you a few days ago about any issues I should be ready to anticipate. Check your inbox, I left my number!

 

Send it to me again...I went from an "Alliance" member to an "old school" member...and my message box went from 500 PM's to 300...needless to say I had to delete a whole bunch...and if you sent me a PM last week, it didn't come thru cuz my message box was plumb full...!!!

R-

 

Awesome work! Ill Check out Cadillac Kings and would be up for a cruise sometime in the future. To answer your question Im in the San Dimas area. Did you ever sell your 331? Just wondering ... im selling my 390 and I have had no luck.Illbe taking it to the pomona swap meet next month. If you plan on going ill have a cooler stop by my booth.
I can't agree more about the updated motor it makes it way easier on the family if you happen to break down in the middle of Fesno with nuthing but a stick and a old bike tube. The kid just went to sleep and I am trying to mock up the 500's radiator in my 63.
Keep on Keeping on!

 

Very nice work, lots of progress since i checked it out last time.

 

really digging the conversion and build! trying to finish my 58 cad with ls swap so i can start my 57 cad conversion. keep up good work keeps me motivated as well on mine.

 

again great job your doing, i'm removing the parts of my donor convert this weekend.

 

this is a great thread i,m in to caddy,s and this is going to me killer keep up the great work

 

Cool project. I'm a big fan of the LS engines. They're great in anything.

 

So after I mounted my motor last, I realized quickly that due to a large seam I would need to cut my floor and then fab up a new trans tunnel... So here we go!

 

Sorry for the poor quality pic. Anyways, I now feel a lot better knowing that with some adjustments to the motor mounts height and position, my drive line should be a good angle at the end of the day. I was a little nervous after seeing how huge this trans is! I also removed ALL of my steering components and sent the steering box out to Ron at RPM so he could use as a template for the custom rack and pinion he is building me. I am happy that I can now see the light at the end of this tunnel and hope to have this thing firing up sooner than later.

 

You've got a beautiful car there man! BTW, if you go into the edit portion on each of your pics in Photobucket and make them no more than 640 wide they will fit in these posts. Just remember to save it as new and delete the old. For some reason, the re-size doesn't work when you hit save/replace.

 

An R+P steering set up would be trick! That is something I would be very interested in for my Cad!!

Bill

 

Funny thing, when I visited my car this week the unbolted air box cover had un-sealed itself due to the heat and was laying in the engine compartment. Problem solved!

 

Ron is very knowledgeable and produces great work. He no longer has access to a computer for the most part, so for this reason he does not have email or a web site. So if anyone wants disc brakes that they can use their stock wheels with, here is his # 760-329-1886. Leave a message and he will return your call.

 

Thanks!! Sounds very cool!!

Bill

 

Just got my new motor mounts in from Energy Suspension. I also had the lowers fabbed up to the spec of some stock square 1/4" bushings from ES that will go in between them and the frame. Plane to install this weekend and will add pics. Also, for those wrenchin in SoCAl, I found a sweet place for any grade 8 hardware you can imagine! McFadden Dale Hardware in Santa Ana is huge and has everything! They also had a ton of DOT brass fittings for air suspension that I couldn't even find online!

 

Ended up accomplishing what I set out to do this weekend but with a big twist of added labor. I installed the new motor mounts and everything lined right up. They also look much better in chrome!

 

Then I walked to the other side of the car to find that it was sitting on something causing the mount to have about a 1" space in between it and the frame. Turns out, when I swapped mounts to bring the engine 1" forward, a section of the oil pan now sat on the cross member.