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Undo the top bolts and slide the footstraps down into position. They should be in line with the lowest point of the thick portion of the foot cup base.
www.cadillacforums.com/threads/puttin-on-the-ritz-1984-el...
This installment begins back, way way back,back into time. In the days we could have large gatherings, touch our faces, eat inside restaurants, and lived perilously close to the edge of running out of toilet paper. Picture it, Thanksgiving weekend, 2019…Oh wait, back a bit further…August, 1983.
Some dunderhead salesman in southern California takes an order from a buyer with great taste, a beautifully optioned 1984 Eldorado Biarritz in the ultimate color combination of Black/Black/Red. Said dunderhead gets everything right on the order-except for one tiny detail. The desire for a CF5 Astroroof is lost in translation from the prospective buyer and never makes it into the POS.
Car arrives in September. No sunroof. What gives? Our apologies sir, we’ll get that taken care of right away. Car is driven to an ASC installer. Another dunderhead gets out a jigsaw and cuts a hole thru the roof. A 38” (the biggest you can fit in an Eldorado with roof-mounted seatbelts) ASC sunroof is installed. Car is returned to dealership, buyer eagerly accepts delivery, none the wiser about factory vs aftermarket sunroofs.
For those who don’t know, when you order a car with a sunroof, the car is born with a hole in the roof. Mounts are cast into the roof panel, and the sunroof assembly seats in them and the glass panel has a channel for a nice rubber gasket that seals everything up nice. Then a vacuum formed headliner backing board is cast to perfectly hide everything. When you get an aftermarket sunroof, someone gets a stencil and a jigsaw, and cuts your roof panel and headliner open, pops a trim ring in the hole, and hangs a sunroof pan on the trim ring. If you’re lucky they will drill additional reinforcements to marry the pan to the roof structure. Then they get a bunch of headliner material, pull it taught from the corners of the car to the opening in the roof, and send you on down the road.
Anyway, back to Thanksgiving 2019, and the jigsaw dunderhead’s work starts to come undone.
When I had purchased this car, it needed headliner help. The material was loose, but not sagging appreciably. Additionally, someone had tried to superglue the material all around the perimeter. The material was kind of floating in place, which I thought was weird. I ended up getting some super strong neodymium magnets to hold it taught-which worked ok until it was humid out, or driving on the highway with the windows down as the liner would look something like a sailboat in the wind.
My fix was simple-find a factory sunroof equipped car and get the headliner board out of it and pop it into my car. Found out that that was easier said than done, and after a lot of junkyard expedition, kept coming up empty handed. Finally after years, I came into someone parting a factory sunroof Eldo on ebay and after a lot of trouble was able to get it shipped to me
The board needed some help, and after getting all the old foam off of it and some repairs made to restore the structure (the sunroof headliner board is really thin and flimsy, even compared to the stock non-sunroof board) I tore the interior apart to facilitate getting it in and out as I knew I would have to make “some” tweaks to reconcile the aftermarket hole location to the factory one. The sunroof assembly would also need to come out to recover the sunshade; as well as reseal the panel.
We can see here how the trim ring supports the pan assembly from the center. I have to say though, this was about as clean an install as an aftermarket sunroof can come with lots of extra bracing and no factory roof reinforcements cut. We can also see a very chintzy felt seal stuck to the trim ring
Got the sunshade recovered quickly. I later removed the black plastic covered jute that was glued to the pan-factory did not have this and it would have made the board sit too low when installed in the car. The gray rubbery stuff at the front of the pan was also stripped off for the same reason. I also swapped to the factory grab handle that was included with the board.
Also recovered the sail panels. I chose to leave the foam backing on these as it is not the usual headliner stuff that turns to jelly, its more like a sponge material and seemed to be holding up just fine.
I also added PED connectors to the sail panel interior lights that the factory curiously left out. Not sure how they installed these as the harness is one giant piece, but it means that you can’t take the sail panels out without having the lights dangling in the back. This will become important later.
I then devised a new seal. I threw away all the felt and used some 3M Adhesive remover to get rid of the stuff they had glued it with. Nasty stuff but did a good job. The new seal was the first part of this that took a LONG time. Aftermarket roofs from this time use some kind of felt tape to cut down on wind noise and slow water ingress into the pan, and while still available, there is way better out there today. (In spite of how it looked on my car though, it never leaked?!?! Wind noise was an issue with the shade open though) I decided on a rubber seal, and after getting a whole bunch of samples, the stuff I had initially ended up trying was pretty thin, but rigid strip of rubber. After gluing it on with 3M yellow weatherstrip adhesive (which does NOT work as good as the adhesive remover), I put the pan back in the car to see how it would work.
No photos of the failure here, but no good. The material was too rigid and too grippy, and would cause the roof to bind midway thru its travel. Then it tore off in the corners. Ugh! Pan back out, strip off the remaining seal and glue and go back to the drawing board. I ended up buying this
www.austinhardware.com/rubber-seal-single-500-rolls.htm
Which is a hollow piece of rubber that lets the panel travel without binding, and still squishes into a really tight seal. Looks like its out of stock now, but something with close to those measurements in a D-shape is a possibility for someone looking to reseal their ASC aftermarket sunroof. It was another 3M product, that was just a peel and stick affair-way easier than the yellow goopy adhesive route. Seems like a really strong bond, and seals fantastically against wind and water. 0 wind noise now, and no leaks in a downpour when parked, or cruising at highway speeds. Roof moves without binding now
I also decided to put the new seal onto the glass panel itself as it seems like that’s the easier life for it-if I put it around the opening, the pop rivets from the panel would abrade it. Super happy with this.
Next task was of course the headliner. With the pan now back in the car, I could take measurements and properly scribe/cut/fill the board as needed. Again, easier said than done. This was a weeks long ordeal between cutting the board, fiberglassing new material in, more cutting, more filling, coronavirus insanity, etc. Long story short, my roof was installed a few inches more aft than a factory roof would have been, which meant a lot of tweaking to get the kick-up over the rear passengers head in the right spot. Additionally, I needed to build out the map light drop down to accommodate the motor.
Here is the mess I ended up with
I also affixed strips of 3M dual-lock (it is like a heavy duty version of the stuff that holds in an Ezpass) to the back of the board and the pan to hold it tightly-the factory had attempted this with a similar product in the non-sunroof car headliner board. I was super skeptical that my fudgery would cover well at all, but I have to say that foam backed headliner material must be some of the most forgiving stuff around. This took me months to complete, working off and on from November thru April. Ultimately though, I’m happy with it.
While the interior was out, there was another thing I wanted to do. About a year ago, I was following a buddy as he took his Eldorado to drop off at a shop-couldn’t help but notice how small the brake lights (and the rest of the car) seemed compared to all the bulbous modern cars surrounding it. Then I had a couple of SUV’s roll up way too close for comfort on the back of the car-one was close enough that I launched the Eldorado up and to the side to avoid getting hit. Knowing that getting rear ended by a careless driver would probably result in my untimely incarceration, I set out to do something about rear visibility.
The federal government mandated 3rd brake lights for passenger cars for model year 1986. Cadillac was slightly ahead of the curve with this with the 1985 Deville/Fleetwoods which got these in the fall of ’84. Apparently the science is behind them and they do result in fewer rear end collisions. So I decided to add one of them to the Eldo.
There were a few different versions of these things made, with short, medium and long necks to mate with the rear window-one for a Fleetwood Brougham has the tall one, and one for an 80s Buick Riviera like the one seen above is short. The short one is the best size for the Eldo, any taller and it would look pretty bad. Then the gasket that seals it to the window is different for each different model. Fortunately a potato peeler does a great job of cutting things down to size to match the Eldos vertical rear window, and the material can be easily sanded to get out any little imperfections to make it seal nicely and not leak light. An ideal donor for one would be one an 86-91 Eldo or Seville without a factory vinyl or carriage roof.
A quick mockup
All of these lights mount the same way, with this little bracket cutting into the package shelf and screwing in to the metal underneath. This is not possible on the Eldo as the package shelf reinforcement under the center won’t let this happen. So I had to modify the bracket to sit flush on the package shelf, and add two holes to the shelf to get the screws through. They screw right into the package shelf reinforcement.
The next step was wiring. It is not as simple as tapping a brake light wire and running across the package shelf to the light. Since the Eldos tail lights do everything- brake, signal and hazard, just tapping a wire would cause the center light to flash with the signals or hazard. GM rectified this by using a different brake switch to prevent backfeeding. See the original gray switch, with an in and out, and the new beige one, with a supply, and two isolated outputs. This puts the 3rd brake light (acronym: CHMSL “Center High Mount Stoplight) on its own branch-but also means that you have to home run a wire all the way to it. The wire chase made quick work of this however. I had a pretty long link of 3rd brake light harness, but not quite enough to make it to the front of the car. I put another PED connector of the same kind that I used on the sail panels to join this blue wire I ran from the switch underneath the drivers side rear seat arm rest, which is accessible by removing the ash tray if need be. The stock package shelf reinforcement actually ended up being drilled for the wiring, so I’m not sure if this was something that was in the works for the Eldo.
The version of the brake switch I used allowed me to keep the cruise control connector, and only change the brake light connector itself (part 12117354). I wanted to keep this as non-invasive as possible as I hate being upside down under the dash (though I see to find myself in that position a lot…) I will search around for the part number for the brake light switch itself.
The last trick I wanted to pull before I put the interior back together was to replace the horrible rearview mirror. I forgot how bad these things were (or more like, no one ever noticed before there were LED headlights on other people’s cars that are tall enough to be flush with your back window) but it seems like the mirror was good for one thing; blindness. They have two settings-blindingly bright where others headlights fry your retinas at night, or completely blind, where you can’t see a thing behind you.
My daily driver has a great auto dimming mirror that still lets you see everything without blinding you, made by Gentex. About the same size as the Eldo rearview. I was casually browsing their offerings to see what kind of money we were talking, when I noticed they offered an upgraded unit as compared to the one installed on my car-one with an LED compass feature that was *drumroll* amber colored! Just like the center stack on the Eldorado! So needless to say, the project was underway quickly.
Wired it in cleanly to an existing ignition power on the fuse box
I had to buy a new button to mount it, stock Eldo one was too small to hold it. Check out the dashboard illustration on the glue I bought to stick it on with!
And here it is mounted up!
I am super happy with the mirror. It works great and is a really close match to the amber on the center stack. They even have the same segment check timing when you turn the ignition on Unfortunately it does not dim with the rest of the dash panel, so that’s a letdown, but if desired you can turn the compass off if you wanted to dim everything all the way as I like to do when I’m out of the city on a dark road.
Now, you may notice that the visors are all kinds of messed up. Progress has a price I guess. My long-fought for 1988 Deville visors are NG with the new headliner board-they’re just too big and interfere with the bump out for the map light. I wish I would have known as I could have easily shrunk this bump out when I was doing surgery on the board but its too late now. I’m at a crossroads of reinstalling my old red Eldo visors with known good arms swapped into them (which are probably super faded next to the new material but are impossible to reupholster right) or finding another late 80s more robust GM visor and reupholstering/swapping them in.
I still have more stuff to add to this which may come tomorrow as my fingers are about to fall off!
The first step is to drill holes for the bolts that secure the center of the tracks. These holes aren't pre-drilled because of the slight variance that occurs between bases. To make sure your hole is in the right position, place the ends of each track as pictured over the hole below. Make sure the tabs face inwards. Place the wheels in the tracks and roll up and down to ensure the wheels are centred in the grooves. This ensures proper spacing of the tracks. Next, make sure each track is sitting symmetrically on the base compared to its partner. Once you have the tracks sitting properly in their positions, make a small mark in the middle of the open groove under each track and directly over the hole below here. Drill holes straight down to the hole below.
BT ArtBox project celebrating 25 years of Childline
ArtBox Title: Flower Box
Artist: greyworld
Location: Piccadilly Circus
Open-air art exhibition across London - Summer 2012
• BT marked 25th anniversary of ChildLine with launch of open-air art exhibition in London
• BT ArtBox project saw leading artists, designers and creatives transform full-size replicas of iconic Gilbert Scott–designed red telephone box into stunning artworks
• Throughout June and July 2012, BT ArtBoxes were on display in high-profile locations across the capital
• The National Portrait Gallery hosted a gala auction on July 18 where the ArtBoxes were auctioned to raise money for ChildLine
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of ChildLine, BT announced the launch of the BT ArtBox project – a new public art exhibition set to take over the capital Summer 2012.
Leading artists, designers and creatives from around the world were invited to apply their individual talents to re-style that much-loved icon of British design, the traditional red telephone box.
Each artist or designer took delivery of a full-size, fibre-glass replica of the Sir Giles Gilbert Scott-designed original K6 telephone kiosk, which was introduced in 1936 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V.
Participating artists included 2002 Turner prize winner Keith Tyson, Romero Britto and Royal Academician Professor of Sculpture David Mach, along with fashion designers Giles Deacon and Zandra Rhodes.
The BT ArtBoxes were on display in high-profile locations around the capital between June 18 and July 16 before being auctioned off at a VIP Gala Auction at the National Portrait Gallery on July 18 to raise funds for BT’s long-time partner ChildLine.
Esther Rantzen OBE, founder of ChildLine and patron of the BT ArtBox project, said: “I’m thrilled that ChildLine’s 25th birthday is to be celebrated by such a unique and inspiring project as BT Artbox.
“The red phone box is a much loved symbol of British culture and I’m keen to see how the artists involved will create new masterpieces from such an iconic canvas. It’s fantastic that the proceeds from the sale of the boxes will raise vital funds to support the work of ChildLine, enabling us to help many more children and young people to get comfort, advice and protection when they need it most.”
Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery and patron of the BT ArtBox project, said: “The Gilbert Scott telephone box is a truly iconic British design, and I’m looking forwards to seeing how artists and designers transform the replica boxes into works of art on London’s streets.”
David Mach, said: “It’s great to be involved with the ArtBox Exhibition. I get to kill more than two birds with one stone...work with a great charity (hopefully make money for it) and a classic British design. I love all things Gilbert Scott. Anything that encourages us to get his design back on our streets does it for me”.
Suzi Williams, director of BT Group Marketing and Brand, said: “BT has a history of supporting British cultural initiatives and 2012 is no exception. What better way to celebrate ChildLine's 25th anniversary than transforming replicas of the classic red phone box into a public art exhibition that can be enjoyed by all in the build-up to the Games this summer."
Martine Ainsworth-Wells, London & Partners, Marketing and Communications director, said:
“London & Partners is excited to support BT ArtBox in the run up to London 2012. BT ArtBox will bring some of the UK’s finest artistic talents to London’s streets, adding a new creative dimension to the capital at such an important time in its history.”
Artists and creatives who were interested in designing an ArtBox visited btartbox.com for more information about how to get involved.
The BT ArtBox project was supported by the Mayor of London, Professor Malcolm Garrett RDI, London & Partners, The May Fair Hotel, Harvey Nichols, The Times and The Sunday Times and borough councils across the capital.
Images of Malcolm Garrett, Interaction Designer, Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, David Mach RA, Sculptor, Esther Rantzen, founder of ChildLine and Lauren O'Farrell, Artist at the launch of the BT ArtBox project at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, central London today are available at:
imagelibrary.btplc.com/assetbank-btplc/action/browseItems...
Top 10 facts about the K6 red phone box
1. Kiosk number 6 or “Jubilee Kiosk” commemorates the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V.
2. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott also designed Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral, Battersea Power Station and Bankside Power Station now Tate Modern.
3. More than 1,600 decommissioned red phone boxes, mostly K6s, have been sold to local communities for just a £1 under BT’s Adopt a Kiosk scheme. Uses include being fitted with lifesaving defibrillation machines, turned into art galleries and public libraries.
4. The K6 was the first kiosk installed nationwide and the standard kiosk across the UK until the introduction of the K8 in 1968.
5. The K6 kiosk is made from cast iron with a teak door. It is 8’3” tall (2.4 metres) and weighs three quarters of a ton (762 kilograms).
6. The K6 design was approved by the Post Office and the Royal Fine Arts Commission, which endorsed “Post Office red” as the standard colour.
7. Although Scott agreed to the use of “Post Office red” he was never a supporter of the colour and initially suggested the outside of the kiosk be painted silver and the inside greenish-blue. He strongly urged rural kiosks be painted dove-grey.
8. Two K6 kiosks were installed in France during 1995, for the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
9. Several red K6’s have been transformed into combined payphones and cash machines.
10.There are 11,000 red phone boxes in use in the UK.
About ChildLine
ChildLine on 0800 1111 and www.childline.org.uk is the UK’s only free, 24-hour helpline for children in danger or distress. Trained volunteer counsellors comfort, advice and protect children and young people. ChildLine is a service within the NSPCC. In Scotland it is delivered by CHILDREN 1ST on behalf of the NSPCC. Calls to ChildLine on 0800 1111 are confidential, but if a child is in immediate danger the counsellor will let the caller know if they have to break confidentially and contact the emergency services to save the child’s life.
Every £20 raised could help ChildLine answer another five calls from children who dial our helpline. If you are worried about a child or would like to make a donation, please visit the NSPCC website www.nspcc.org.uk
The Flickr Lounge-Photographers Choice
These are the fridge installers. They were very informative and explained a few things about the fridge to us. These are the same two who installed my new dryer recently.
The sPHENIX detector under assembly. A crane installs the 20-ton superconducting solenoid magnet atop the lower sectors of the outer hadronic calorimeter. sPHENIX is a radical makeover of the PHENIX experiment, one of the original detectors designed to collect data at Brookhaven Lab’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. It includes many new components that significantly enhance scientists’ ability to learn about quark-gluon plasma (QGP), an exotic form of nuclear matter created in RHIC’s energetic particle smashups.
Work crews are installing a new underground power supply that will power the Evergreen Line in Port Moody. This is also taking place in Burnaby and Coquitlam.
Almost everyone had experienced food outside, eat outside, cook outside, sleep outside and play outside. So why not have your shower outside?
Reference: quintessentialplumbing.com.au/5-things-you-have-to-consid...
Finally, I catch up with the Sea Installer in Belfast.
The goal of the trip was to get the Svanen. The Sea Installer was a bonus!
These new turbines from MHI Vestas Offshore Wind are very, very impressive!
Sea Installer's previous work:
www.cadillacforums.com/threads/puttin-on-the-ritz-1984-el...
This installment begins back, way way back,back into time. In the days we could have large gatherings, touch our faces, eat inside restaurants, and lived perilously close to the edge of running out of toilet paper. Picture it, Thanksgiving weekend, 2019…Oh wait, back a bit further…August, 1983.
Some dunderhead salesman in southern California takes an order from a buyer with great taste, a beautifully optioned 1984 Eldorado Biarritz in the ultimate color combination of Black/Black/Red. Said dunderhead gets everything right on the order-except for one tiny detail. The desire for a CF5 Astroroof is lost in translation from the prospective buyer and never makes it into the POS.
Car arrives in September. No sunroof. What gives? Our apologies sir, we’ll get that taken care of right away. Car is driven to an ASC installer. Another dunderhead gets out a jigsaw and cuts a hole thru the roof. A 38” (the biggest you can fit in an Eldorado with roof-mounted seatbelts) ASC sunroof is installed. Car is returned to dealership, buyer eagerly accepts delivery, none the wiser about factory vs aftermarket sunroofs.
For those who don’t know, when you order a car with a sunroof, the car is born with a hole in the roof. Mounts are cast into the roof panel, and the sunroof assembly seats in them and the glass panel has a channel for a nice rubber gasket that seals everything up nice. Then a vacuum formed headliner backing board is cast to perfectly hide everything. When you get an aftermarket sunroof, someone gets a stencil and a jigsaw, and cuts your roof panel and headliner open, pops a trim ring in the hole, and hangs a sunroof pan on the trim ring. If you’re lucky they will drill additional reinforcements to marry the pan to the roof structure. Then they get a bunch of headliner material, pull it taught from the corners of the car to the opening in the roof, and send you on down the road.
Anyway, back to Thanksgiving 2019, and the jigsaw dunderhead’s work starts to come undone.
When I had purchased this car, it needed headliner help. The material was loose, but not sagging appreciably. Additionally, someone had tried to superglue the material all around the perimeter. The material was kind of floating in place, which I thought was weird. I ended up getting some super strong neodymium magnets to hold it taught-which worked ok until it was humid out, or driving on the highway with the windows down as the liner would look something like a sailboat in the wind.
My fix was simple-find a factory sunroof equipped car and get the headliner board out of it and pop it into my car. Found out that that was easier said than done, and after a lot of junkyard expedition, kept coming up empty handed. Finally after years, I came into someone parting a factory sunroof Eldo on ebay and after a lot of trouble was able to get it shipped to me
The board needed some help, and after getting all the old foam off of it and some repairs made to restore the structure (the sunroof headliner board is really thin and flimsy, even compared to the stock non-sunroof board) I tore the interior apart to facilitate getting it in and out as I knew I would have to make “some” tweaks to reconcile the aftermarket hole location to the factory one. The sunroof assembly would also need to come out to recover the sunshade; as well as reseal the panel.
We can see here how the trim ring supports the pan assembly from the center. I have to say though, this was about as clean an install as an aftermarket sunroof can come with lots of extra bracing and no factory roof reinforcements cut. We can also see a very chintzy felt seal stuck to the trim ring
Got the sunshade recovered quickly. I later removed the black plastic covered jute that was glued to the pan-factory did not have this and it would have made the board sit too low when installed in the car. The gray rubbery stuff at the front of the pan was also stripped off for the same reason. I also swapped to the factory grab handle that was included with the board.
Also recovered the sail panels. I chose to leave the foam backing on these as it is not the usual headliner stuff that turns to jelly, its more like a sponge material and seemed to be holding up just fine.
I also added PED connectors to the sail panel interior lights that the factory curiously left out. Not sure how they installed these as the harness is one giant piece, but it means that you can’t take the sail panels out without having the lights dangling in the back. This will become important later.
I then devised a new seal. I threw away all the felt and used some 3M Adhesive remover to get rid of the stuff they had glued it with. Nasty stuff but did a good job. The new seal was the first part of this that took a LONG time. Aftermarket roofs from this time use some kind of felt tape to cut down on wind noise and slow water ingress into the pan, and while still available, there is way better out there today. (In spite of how it looked on my car though, it never leaked?!?! Wind noise was an issue with the shade open though) I decided on a rubber seal, and after getting a whole bunch of samples, the stuff I had initially ended up trying was pretty thin, but rigid strip of rubber. After gluing it on with 3M yellow weatherstrip adhesive (which does NOT work as good as the adhesive remover), I put the pan back in the car to see how it would work.
No photos of the failure here, but no good. The material was too rigid and too grippy, and would cause the roof to bind midway thru its travel. Then it tore off in the corners. Ugh! Pan back out, strip off the remaining seal and glue and go back to the drawing board. I ended up buying this
www.austinhardware.com/rubber-seal-single-500-rolls.htm
Which is a hollow piece of rubber that lets the panel travel without binding, and still squishes into a really tight seal. Looks like its out of stock now, but something with close to those measurements in a D-shape is a possibility for someone looking to reseal their ASC aftermarket sunroof. It was another 3M product, that was just a peel and stick affair-way easier than the yellow goopy adhesive route. Seems like a really strong bond, and seals fantastically against wind and water. 0 wind noise now, and no leaks in a downpour when parked, or cruising at highway speeds. Roof moves without binding now
I also decided to put the new seal onto the glass panel itself as it seems like that’s the easier life for it-if I put it around the opening, the pop rivets from the panel would abrade it. Super happy with this.
Next task was of course the headliner. With the pan now back in the car, I could take measurements and properly scribe/cut/fill the board as needed. Again, easier said than done. This was a weeks long ordeal between cutting the board, fiberglassing new material in, more cutting, more filling, coronavirus insanity, etc. Long story short, my roof was installed a few inches more aft than a factory roof would have been, which meant a lot of tweaking to get the kick-up over the rear passengers head in the right spot. Additionally, I needed to build out the map light drop down to accommodate the motor.
Here is the mess I ended up with
I also affixed strips of 3M dual-lock (it is like a heavy duty version of the stuff that holds in an Ezpass) to the back of the board and the pan to hold it tightly-the factory had attempted this with a similar product in the non-sunroof car headliner board. I was super skeptical that my fudgery would cover well at all, but I have to say that foam backed headliner material must be some of the most forgiving stuff around. This took me months to complete, working off and on from November thru April. Ultimately though, I’m happy with it.
While the interior was out, there was another thing I wanted to do. About a year ago, I was following a buddy as he took his Eldorado to drop off at a shop-couldn’t help but notice how small the brake lights (and the rest of the car) seemed compared to all the bulbous modern cars surrounding it. Then I had a couple of SUV’s roll up way too close for comfort on the back of the car-one was close enough that I launched the Eldorado up and to the side to avoid getting hit. Knowing that getting rear ended by a careless driver would probably result in my untimely incarceration, I set out to do something about rear visibility.
The federal government mandated 3rd brake lights for passenger cars for model year 1986. Cadillac was slightly ahead of the curve with this with the 1985 Deville/Fleetwoods which got these in the fall of ’84. Apparently the science is behind them and they do result in fewer rear end collisions. So I decided to add one of them to the Eldo.
There were a few different versions of these things made, with short, medium and long necks to mate with the rear window-one for a Fleetwood Brougham has the tall one, and one for an 80s Buick Riviera like the one seen above is short. The short one is the best size for the Eldo, any taller and it would look pretty bad. Then the gasket that seals it to the window is different for each different model. Fortunately a potato peeler does a great job of cutting things down to size to match the Eldos vertical rear window, and the material can be easily sanded to get out any little imperfections to make it seal nicely and not leak light. An ideal donor for one would be one an 86-91 Eldo or Seville without a factory vinyl or carriage roof.
A quick mockup
All of these lights mount the same way, with this little bracket cutting into the package shelf and screwing in to the metal underneath. This is not possible on the Eldo as the package shelf reinforcement under the center won’t let this happen. So I had to modify the bracket to sit flush on the package shelf, and add two holes to the shelf to get the screws through. They screw right into the package shelf reinforcement.
The next step was wiring. It is not as simple as tapping a brake light wire and running across the package shelf to the light. Since the Eldos tail lights do everything- brake, signal and hazard, just tapping a wire would cause the center light to flash with the signals or hazard. GM rectified this by using a different brake switch to prevent backfeeding. See the original gray switch, with an in and out, and the new beige one, with a supply, and two isolated outputs. This puts the 3rd brake light (acronym: CHMSL “Center High Mount Stoplight) on its own branch-but also means that you have to home run a wire all the way to it. The wire chase made quick work of this however. I had a pretty long link of 3rd brake light harness, but not quite enough to make it to the front of the car. I put another PED connector of the same kind that I used on the sail panels to join this blue wire I ran from the switch underneath the drivers side rear seat arm rest, which is accessible by removing the ash tray if need be. The stock package shelf reinforcement actually ended up being drilled for the wiring, so I’m not sure if this was something that was in the works for the Eldo.
The version of the brake switch I used allowed me to keep the cruise control connector, and only change the brake light connector itself (part 12117354). I wanted to keep this as non-invasive as possible as I hate being upside down under the dash (though I see to find myself in that position a lot…) I will search around for the part number for the brake light switch itself.
The last trick I wanted to pull before I put the interior back together was to replace the horrible rearview mirror. I forgot how bad these things were (or more like, no one ever noticed before there were LED headlights on other people’s cars that are tall enough to be flush with your back window) but it seems like the mirror was good for one thing; blindness. They have two settings-blindingly bright where others headlights fry your retinas at night, or completely blind, where you can’t see a thing behind you.
My daily driver has a great auto dimming mirror that still lets you see everything without blinding you, made by Gentex. About the same size as the Eldo rearview. I was casually browsing their offerings to see what kind of money we were talking, when I noticed they offered an upgraded unit as compared to the one installed on my car-one with an LED compass feature that was *drumroll* amber colored! Just like the center stack on the Eldorado! So needless to say, the project was underway quickly.
Wired it in cleanly to an existing ignition power on the fuse box
I had to buy a new button to mount it, stock Eldo one was too small to hold it. Check out the dashboard illustration on the glue I bought to stick it on with!
And here it is mounted up!
I am super happy with the mirror. It works great and is a really close match to the amber on the center stack. They even have the same segment check timing when you turn the ignition on Unfortunately it does not dim with the rest of the dash panel, so that’s a letdown, but if desired you can turn the compass off if you wanted to dim everything all the way as I like to do when I’m out of the city on a dark road.
Now, you may notice that the visors are all kinds of messed up. Progress has a price I guess. My long-fought for 1988 Deville visors are NG with the new headliner board-they’re just too big and interfere with the bump out for the map light. I wish I would have known as I could have easily shrunk this bump out when I was doing surgery on the board but its too late now. I’m at a crossroads of reinstalling my old red Eldo visors with known good arms swapped into them (which are probably super faded next to the new material but are impossible to reupholster right) or finding another late 80s more robust GM visor and reupholstering/swapping them in.
I still have more stuff to add to this which may come tomorrow as my fingers are about to fall off!
www.cadillacforums.com/threads/puttin-on-the-ritz-1984-el...
This installment begins back, way way back,back into time. In the days we could have large gatherings, touch our faces, eat inside restaurants, and lived perilously close to the edge of running out of toilet paper. Picture it, Thanksgiving weekend, 2019…Oh wait, back a bit further…August, 1983.
Some dunderhead salesman in southern California takes an order from a buyer with great taste, a beautifully optioned 1984 Eldorado Biarritz in the ultimate color combination of Black/Black/Red. Said dunderhead gets everything right on the order-except for one tiny detail. The desire for a CF5 Astroroof is lost in translation from the prospective buyer and never makes it into the POS.
Car arrives in September. No sunroof. What gives? Our apologies sir, we’ll get that taken care of right away. Car is driven to an ASC installer. Another dunderhead gets out a jigsaw and cuts a hole thru the roof. A 38” (the biggest you can fit in an Eldorado with roof-mounted seatbelts) ASC sunroof is installed. Car is returned to dealership, buyer eagerly accepts delivery, none the wiser about factory vs aftermarket sunroofs.
For those who don’t know, when you order a car with a sunroof, the car is born with a hole in the roof. Mounts are cast into the roof panel, and the sunroof assembly seats in them and the glass panel has a channel for a nice rubber gasket that seals everything up nice. Then a vacuum formed headliner backing board is cast to perfectly hide everything. When you get an aftermarket sunroof, someone gets a stencil and a jigsaw, and cuts your roof panel and headliner open, pops a trim ring in the hole, and hangs a sunroof pan on the trim ring. If you’re lucky they will drill additional reinforcements to marry the pan to the roof structure. Then they get a bunch of headliner material, pull it taught from the corners of the car to the opening in the roof, and send you on down the road.
Anyway, back to Thanksgiving 2019, and the jigsaw dunderhead’s work starts to come undone.
When I had purchased this car, it needed headliner help. The material was loose, but not sagging appreciably. Additionally, someone had tried to superglue the material all around the perimeter. The material was kind of floating in place, which I thought was weird. I ended up getting some super strong neodymium magnets to hold it taught-which worked ok until it was humid out, or driving on the highway with the windows down as the liner would look something like a sailboat in the wind.
My fix was simple-find a factory sunroof equipped car and get the headliner board out of it and pop it into my car. Found out that that was easier said than done, and after a lot of junkyard expedition, kept coming up empty handed. Finally after years, I came into someone parting a factory sunroof Eldo on ebay and after a lot of trouble was able to get it shipped to me
The board needed some help, and after getting all the old foam off of it and some repairs made to restore the structure (the sunroof headliner board is really thin and flimsy, even compared to the stock non-sunroof board) I tore the interior apart to facilitate getting it in and out as I knew I would have to make “some” tweaks to reconcile the aftermarket hole location to the factory one. The sunroof assembly would also need to come out to recover the sunshade; as well as reseal the panel.
We can see here how the trim ring supports the pan assembly from the center. I have to say though, this was about as clean an install as an aftermarket sunroof can come with lots of extra bracing and no factory roof reinforcements cut. We can also see a very chintzy felt seal stuck to the trim ring
Got the sunshade recovered quickly. I later removed the black plastic covered jute that was glued to the pan-factory did not have this and it would have made the board sit too low when installed in the car. The gray rubbery stuff at the front of the pan was also stripped off for the same reason. I also swapped to the factory grab handle that was included with the board.
Also recovered the sail panels. I chose to leave the foam backing on these as it is not the usual headliner stuff that turns to jelly, its more like a sponge material and seemed to be holding up just fine.
I also added PED connectors to the sail panel interior lights that the factory curiously left out. Not sure how they installed these as the harness is one giant piece, but it means that you can’t take the sail panels out without having the lights dangling in the back. This will become important later.
I then devised a new seal. I threw away all the felt and used some 3M Adhesive remover to get rid of the stuff they had glued it with. Nasty stuff but did a good job. The new seal was the first part of this that took a LONG time. Aftermarket roofs from this time use some kind of felt tape to cut down on wind noise and slow water ingress into the pan, and while still available, there is way better out there today. (In spite of how it looked on my car though, it never leaked?!?! Wind noise was an issue with the shade open though) I decided on a rubber seal, and after getting a whole bunch of samples, the stuff I had initially ended up trying was pretty thin, but rigid strip of rubber. After gluing it on with 3M yellow weatherstrip adhesive (which does NOT work as good as the adhesive remover), I put the pan back in the car to see how it would work.
No photos of the failure here, but no good. The material was too rigid and too grippy, and would cause the roof to bind midway thru its travel. Then it tore off in the corners. Ugh! Pan back out, strip off the remaining seal and glue and go back to the drawing board. I ended up buying this
www.austinhardware.com/rubber-seal-single-500-rolls.htm
Which is a hollow piece of rubber that lets the panel travel without binding, and still squishes into a really tight seal. Looks like its out of stock now, but something with close to those measurements in a D-shape is a possibility for someone looking to reseal their ASC aftermarket sunroof. It was another 3M product, that was just a peel and stick affair-way easier than the yellow goopy adhesive route. Seems like a really strong bond, and seals fantastically against wind and water. 0 wind noise now, and no leaks in a downpour when parked, or cruising at highway speeds. Roof moves without binding now
I also decided to put the new seal onto the glass panel itself as it seems like that’s the easier life for it-if I put it around the opening, the pop rivets from the panel would abrade it. Super happy with this.
Next task was of course the headliner. With the pan now back in the car, I could take measurements and properly scribe/cut/fill the board as needed. Again, easier said than done. This was a weeks long ordeal between cutting the board, fiberglassing new material in, more cutting, more filling, coronavirus insanity, etc. Long story short, my roof was installed a few inches more aft than a factory roof would have been, which meant a lot of tweaking to get the kick-up over the rear passengers head in the right spot. Additionally, I needed to build out the map light drop down to accommodate the motor.
Here is the mess I ended up with
I also affixed strips of 3M dual-lock (it is like a heavy duty version of the stuff that holds in an Ezpass) to the back of the board and the pan to hold it tightly-the factory had attempted this with a similar product in the non-sunroof car headliner board. I was super skeptical that my fudgery would cover well at all, but I have to say that foam backed headliner material must be some of the most forgiving stuff around. This took me months to complete, working off and on from November thru April. Ultimately though, I’m happy with it.
While the interior was out, there was another thing I wanted to do. About a year ago, I was following a buddy as he took his Eldorado to drop off at a shop-couldn’t help but notice how small the brake lights (and the rest of the car) seemed compared to all the bulbous modern cars surrounding it. Then I had a couple of SUV’s roll up way too close for comfort on the back of the car-one was close enough that I launched the Eldorado up and to the side to avoid getting hit. Knowing that getting rear ended by a careless driver would probably result in my untimely incarceration, I set out to do something about rear visibility.
The federal government mandated 3rd brake lights for passenger cars for model year 1986. Cadillac was slightly ahead of the curve with this with the 1985 Deville/Fleetwoods which got these in the fall of ’84. Apparently the science is behind them and they do result in fewer rear end collisions. So I decided to add one of them to the Eldo.
There were a few different versions of these things made, with short, medium and long necks to mate with the rear window-one for a Fleetwood Brougham has the tall one, and one for an 80s Buick Riviera like the one seen above is short. The short one is the best size for the Eldo, any taller and it would look pretty bad. Then the gasket that seals it to the window is different for each different model. Fortunately a potato peeler does a great job of cutting things down to size to match the Eldos vertical rear window, and the material can be easily sanded to get out any little imperfections to make it seal nicely and not leak light. An ideal donor for one would be one an 86-91 Eldo or Seville without a factory vinyl or carriage roof.
A quick mockup
All of these lights mount the same way, with this little bracket cutting into the package shelf and screwing in to the metal underneath. This is not possible on the Eldo as the package shelf reinforcement under the center won’t let this happen. So I had to modify the bracket to sit flush on the package shelf, and add two holes to the shelf to get the screws through. They screw right into the package shelf reinforcement.
The next step was wiring. It is not as simple as tapping a brake light wire and running across the package shelf to the light. Since the Eldos tail lights do everything- brake, signal and hazard, just tapping a wire would cause the center light to flash with the signals or hazard. GM rectified this by using a different brake switch to prevent backfeeding. See the original gray switch, with an in and out, and the new beige one, with a supply, and two isolated outputs. This puts the 3rd brake light (acronym: CHMSL “Center High Mount Stoplight) on its own branch-but also means that you have to home run a wire all the way to it. The wire chase made quick work of this however. I had a pretty long link of 3rd brake light harness, but not quite enough to make it to the front of the car. I put another PED connector of the same kind that I used on the sail panels to join this blue wire I ran from the switch underneath the drivers side rear seat arm rest, which is accessible by removing the ash tray if need be. The stock package shelf reinforcement actually ended up being drilled for the wiring, so I’m not sure if this was something that was in the works for the Eldo.
The version of the brake switch I used allowed me to keep the cruise control connector, and only change the brake light connector itself (part 12117354). I wanted to keep this as non-invasive as possible as I hate being upside down under the dash (though I see to find myself in that position a lot…) I will search around for the part number for the brake light switch itself.
The last trick I wanted to pull before I put the interior back together was to replace the horrible rearview mirror. I forgot how bad these things were (or more like, no one ever noticed before there were LED headlights on other people’s cars that are tall enough to be flush with your back window) but it seems like the mirror was good for one thing; blindness. They have two settings-blindingly bright where others headlights fry your retinas at night, or completely blind, where you can’t see a thing behind you.
My daily driver has a great auto dimming mirror that still lets you see everything without blinding you, made by Gentex. About the same size as the Eldo rearview. I was casually browsing their offerings to see what kind of money we were talking, when I noticed they offered an upgraded unit as compared to the one installed on my car-one with an LED compass feature that was *drumroll* amber colored! Just like the center stack on the Eldorado! So needless to say, the project was underway quickly.
Wired it in cleanly to an existing ignition power on the fuse box
I had to buy a new button to mount it, stock Eldo one was too small to hold it. Check out the dashboard illustration on the glue I bought to stick it on with!
And here it is mounted up!
I am super happy with the mirror. It works great and is a really close match to the amber on the center stack. They even have the same segment check timing when you turn the ignition on Unfortunately it does not dim with the rest of the dash panel, so that’s a letdown, but if desired you can turn the compass off if you wanted to dim everything all the way as I like to do when I’m out of the city on a dark road.
Now, you may notice that the visors are all kinds of messed up. Progress has a price I guess. My long-fought for 1988 Deville visors are NG with the new headliner board-they’re just too big and interfere with the bump out for the map light. I wish I would have known as I could have easily shrunk this bump out when I was doing surgery on the board but its too late now. I’m at a crossroads of reinstalling my old red Eldo visors with known good arms swapped into them (which are probably super faded next to the new material but are impossible to reupholster right) or finding another late 80s more robust GM visor and reupholstering/swapping them in.
I still have more stuff to add to this which may come tomorrow as my fingers are about to fall off!
To install the electrical wires we basically take an old radial saw blade, and cut into the wall. We then chisel out the spots for the boxes. The depth of the channels is 2 inches though it only has to be 1 1/2.
HHO Generator installed in my 2002 PTCruiser. The HHO Generator is powered only when the ignition switch is turned on, through a simple 80 amp 14volt relay from Tanners Electronics, Dallas Texas.
www.cadillacforums.com/threads/puttin-on-the-ritz-1984-el...
This installment begins back, way way back,back into time. In the days we could have large gatherings, touch our faces, eat inside restaurants, and lived perilously close to the edge of running out of toilet paper. Picture it, Thanksgiving weekend, 2019…Oh wait, back a bit further…August, 1983.
Some dunderhead salesman in southern California takes an order from a buyer with great taste, a beautifully optioned 1984 Eldorado Biarritz in the ultimate color combination of Black/Black/Red. Said dunderhead gets everything right on the order-except for one tiny detail. The desire for a CF5 Astroroof is lost in translation from the prospective buyer and never makes it into the POS.
Car arrives in September. No sunroof. What gives? Our apologies sir, we’ll get that taken care of right away. Car is driven to an ASC installer. Another dunderhead gets out a jigsaw and cuts a hole thru the roof. A 38” (the biggest you can fit in an Eldorado with roof-mounted seatbelts) ASC sunroof is installed. Car is returned to dealership, buyer eagerly accepts delivery, none the wiser about factory vs aftermarket sunroofs.
For those who don’t know, when you order a car with a sunroof, the car is born with a hole in the roof. Mounts are cast into the roof panel, and the sunroof assembly seats in them and the glass panel has a channel for a nice rubber gasket that seals everything up nice. Then a vacuum formed headliner backing board is cast to perfectly hide everything. When you get an aftermarket sunroof, someone gets a stencil and a jigsaw, and cuts your roof panel and headliner open, pops a trim ring in the hole, and hangs a sunroof pan on the trim ring. If you’re lucky they will drill additional reinforcements to marry the pan to the roof structure. Then they get a bunch of headliner material, pull it taught from the corners of the car to the opening in the roof, and send you on down the road.
Anyway, back to Thanksgiving 2019, and the jigsaw dunderhead’s work starts to come undone.
When I had purchased this car, it needed headliner help. The material was loose, but not sagging appreciably. Additionally, someone had tried to superglue the material all around the perimeter. The material was kind of floating in place, which I thought was weird. I ended up getting some super strong neodymium magnets to hold it taught-which worked ok until it was humid out, or driving on the highway with the windows down as the liner would look something like a sailboat in the wind.
My fix was simple-find a factory sunroof equipped car and get the headliner board out of it and pop it into my car. Found out that that was easier said than done, and after a lot of junkyard expedition, kept coming up empty handed. Finally after years, I came into someone parting a factory sunroof Eldo on ebay and after a lot of trouble was able to get it shipped to me
The board needed some help, and after getting all the old foam off of it and some repairs made to restore the structure (the sunroof headliner board is really thin and flimsy, even compared to the stock non-sunroof board) I tore the interior apart to facilitate getting it in and out as I knew I would have to make “some” tweaks to reconcile the aftermarket hole location to the factory one. The sunroof assembly would also need to come out to recover the sunshade; as well as reseal the panel.
We can see here how the trim ring supports the pan assembly from the center. I have to say though, this was about as clean an install as an aftermarket sunroof can come with lots of extra bracing and no factory roof reinforcements cut. We can also see a very chintzy felt seal stuck to the trim ring
Got the sunshade recovered quickly. I later removed the black plastic covered jute that was glued to the pan-factory did not have this and it would have made the board sit too low when installed in the car. The gray rubbery stuff at the front of the pan was also stripped off for the same reason. I also swapped to the factory grab handle that was included with the board.
Also recovered the sail panels. I chose to leave the foam backing on these as it is not the usual headliner stuff that turns to jelly, its more like a sponge material and seemed to be holding up just fine.
I also added PED connectors to the sail panel interior lights that the factory curiously left out. Not sure how they installed these as the harness is one giant piece, but it means that you can’t take the sail panels out without having the lights dangling in the back. This will become important later.
I then devised a new seal. I threw away all the felt and used some 3M Adhesive remover to get rid of the stuff they had glued it with. Nasty stuff but did a good job. The new seal was the first part of this that took a LONG time. Aftermarket roofs from this time use some kind of felt tape to cut down on wind noise and slow water ingress into the pan, and while still available, there is way better out there today. (In spite of how it looked on my car though, it never leaked?!?! Wind noise was an issue with the shade open though) I decided on a rubber seal, and after getting a whole bunch of samples, the stuff I had initially ended up trying was pretty thin, but rigid strip of rubber. After gluing it on with 3M yellow weatherstrip adhesive (which does NOT work as good as the adhesive remover), I put the pan back in the car to see how it would work.
No photos of the failure here, but no good. The material was too rigid and too grippy, and would cause the roof to bind midway thru its travel. Then it tore off in the corners. Ugh! Pan back out, strip off the remaining seal and glue and go back to the drawing board. I ended up buying this
www.austinhardware.com/rubber-seal-single-500-rolls.htm
Which is a hollow piece of rubber that lets the panel travel without binding, and still squishes into a really tight seal. Looks like its out of stock now, but something with close to those measurements in a D-shape is a possibility for someone looking to reseal their ASC aftermarket sunroof. It was another 3M product, that was just a peel and stick affair-way easier than the yellow goopy adhesive route. Seems like a really strong bond, and seals fantastically against wind and water. 0 wind noise now, and no leaks in a downpour when parked, or cruising at highway speeds. Roof moves without binding now
I also decided to put the new seal onto the glass panel itself as it seems like that’s the easier life for it-if I put it around the opening, the pop rivets from the panel would abrade it. Super happy with this.
Next task was of course the headliner. With the pan now back in the car, I could take measurements and properly scribe/cut/fill the board as needed. Again, easier said than done. This was a weeks long ordeal between cutting the board, fiberglassing new material in, more cutting, more filling, coronavirus insanity, etc. Long story short, my roof was installed a few inches more aft than a factory roof would have been, which meant a lot of tweaking to get the kick-up over the rear passengers head in the right spot. Additionally, I needed to build out the map light drop down to accommodate the motor.
Here is the mess I ended up with
I also affixed strips of 3M dual-lock (it is like a heavy duty version of the stuff that holds in an Ezpass) to the back of the board and the pan to hold it tightly-the factory had attempted this with a similar product in the non-sunroof car headliner board. I was super skeptical that my fudgery would cover well at all, but I have to say that foam backed headliner material must be some of the most forgiving stuff around. This took me months to complete, working off and on from November thru April. Ultimately though, I’m happy with it.
While the interior was out, there was another thing I wanted to do. About a year ago, I was following a buddy as he took his Eldorado to drop off at a shop-couldn’t help but notice how small the brake lights (and the rest of the car) seemed compared to all the bulbous modern cars surrounding it. Then I had a couple of SUV’s roll up way too close for comfort on the back of the car-one was close enough that I launched the Eldorado up and to the side to avoid getting hit. Knowing that getting rear ended by a careless driver would probably result in my untimely incarceration, I set out to do something about rear visibility.
The federal government mandated 3rd brake lights for passenger cars for model year 1986. Cadillac was slightly ahead of the curve with this with the 1985 Deville/Fleetwoods which got these in the fall of ’84. Apparently the science is behind them and they do result in fewer rear end collisions. So I decided to add one of them to the Eldo.
There were a few different versions of these things made, with short, medium and long necks to mate with the rear window-one for a Fleetwood Brougham has the tall one, and one for an 80s Buick Riviera like the one seen above is short. The short one is the best size for the Eldo, any taller and it would look pretty bad. Then the gasket that seals it to the window is different for each different model. Fortunately a potato peeler does a great job of cutting things down to size to match the Eldos vertical rear window, and the material can be easily sanded to get out any little imperfections to make it seal nicely and not leak light. An ideal donor for one would be one an 86-91 Eldo or Seville without a factory vinyl or carriage roof.
A quick mockup
All of these lights mount the same way, with this little bracket cutting into the package shelf and screwing in to the metal underneath. This is not possible on the Eldo as the package shelf reinforcement under the center won’t let this happen. So I had to modify the bracket to sit flush on the package shelf, and add two holes to the shelf to get the screws through. They screw right into the package shelf reinforcement.
The next step was wiring. It is not as simple as tapping a brake light wire and running across the package shelf to the light. Since the Eldos tail lights do everything- brake, signal and hazard, just tapping a wire would cause the center light to flash with the signals or hazard. GM rectified this by using a different brake switch to prevent backfeeding. See the original gray switch, with an in and out, and the new beige one, with a supply, and two isolated outputs. This puts the 3rd brake light (acronym: CHMSL “Center High Mount Stoplight) on its own branch-but also means that you have to home run a wire all the way to it. The wire chase made quick work of this however. I had a pretty long link of 3rd brake light harness, but not quite enough to make it to the front of the car. I put another PED connector of the same kind that I used on the sail panels to join this blue wire I ran from the switch underneath the drivers side rear seat arm rest, which is accessible by removing the ash tray if need be. The stock package shelf reinforcement actually ended up being drilled for the wiring, so I’m not sure if this was something that was in the works for the Eldo.
The version of the brake switch I used allowed me to keep the cruise control connector, and only change the brake light connector itself (part 12117354). I wanted to keep this as non-invasive as possible as I hate being upside down under the dash (though I see to find myself in that position a lot…) I will search around for the part number for the brake light switch itself.
The last trick I wanted to pull before I put the interior back together was to replace the horrible rearview mirror. I forgot how bad these things were (or more like, no one ever noticed before there were LED headlights on other people’s cars that are tall enough to be flush with your back window) but it seems like the mirror was good for one thing; blindness. They have two settings-blindingly bright where others headlights fry your retinas at night, or completely blind, where you can’t see a thing behind you.
My daily driver has a great auto dimming mirror that still lets you see everything without blinding you, made by Gentex. About the same size as the Eldo rearview. I was casually browsing their offerings to see what kind of money we were talking, when I noticed they offered an upgraded unit as compared to the one installed on my car-one with an LED compass feature that was *drumroll* amber colored! Just like the center stack on the Eldorado! So needless to say, the project was underway quickly.
Wired it in cleanly to an existing ignition power on the fuse box
I had to buy a new button to mount it, stock Eldo one was too small to hold it. Check out the dashboard illustration on the glue I bought to stick it on with!
And here it is mounted up!
I am super happy with the mirror. It works great and is a really close match to the amber on the center stack. They even have the same segment check timing when you turn the ignition on Unfortunately it does not dim with the rest of the dash panel, so that’s a letdown, but if desired you can turn the compass off if you wanted to dim everything all the way as I like to do when I’m out of the city on a dark road.
Now, you may notice that the visors are all kinds of messed up. Progress has a price I guess. My long-fought for 1988 Deville visors are NG with the new headliner board-they’re just too big and interfere with the bump out for the map light. I wish I would have known as I could have easily shrunk this bump out when I was doing surgery on the board but its too late now. I’m at a crossroads of reinstalling my old red Eldo visors with known good arms swapped into them (which are probably super faded next to the new material but are impossible to reupholster right) or finding another late 80s more robust GM visor and reupholstering/swapping them in.
I still have more stuff to add to this which may come tomorrow as my fingers are about to fall off!
Credit: Eric Derleth/USFWS
The Muddy Creek project site is a tidally-restricted estuary with fringing degraded tidal marshes. The project enhances coastal natural defenses against storm surge by restoring a mix of estuarine and subtidal wetlands, improving water quality and restoring passage for fish that migrate between fresh and saltwater. Restoration actions included the removal of twin undersized stone culverts and replacing them with a 94-foot span bridge and open channel.
To learn more about the Muddy Creek project, please visit: www.fws.gov/hurricane/sandy/projects/MuddyCreekWetlands.html
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www.cadillacforums.com/threads/puttin-on-the-ritz-1984-el...
This installment begins back, way way back,back into time. In the days we could have large gatherings, touch our faces, eat inside restaurants, and lived perilously close to the edge of running out of toilet paper. Picture it, Thanksgiving weekend, 2019…Oh wait, back a bit further…August, 1983.
Some dunderhead salesman in southern California takes an order from a buyer with great taste, a beautifully optioned 1984 Eldorado Biarritz in the ultimate color combination of Black/Black/Red. Said dunderhead gets everything right on the order-except for one tiny detail. The desire for a CF5 Astroroof is lost in translation from the prospective buyer and never makes it into the POS.
Car arrives in September. No sunroof. What gives? Our apologies sir, we’ll get that taken care of right away. Car is driven to an ASC installer. Another dunderhead gets out a jigsaw and cuts a hole thru the roof. A 38” (the biggest you can fit in an Eldorado with roof-mounted seatbelts) ASC sunroof is installed. Car is returned to dealership, buyer eagerly accepts delivery, none the wiser about factory vs aftermarket sunroofs.
For those who don’t know, when you order a car with a sunroof, the car is born with a hole in the roof. Mounts are cast into the roof panel, and the sunroof assembly seats in them and the glass panel has a channel for a nice rubber gasket that seals everything up nice. Then a vacuum formed headliner backing board is cast to perfectly hide everything. When you get an aftermarket sunroof, someone gets a stencil and a jigsaw, and cuts your roof panel and headliner open, pops a trim ring in the hole, and hangs a sunroof pan on the trim ring. If you’re lucky they will drill additional reinforcements to marry the pan to the roof structure. Then they get a bunch of headliner material, pull it taught from the corners of the car to the opening in the roof, and send you on down the road.
Anyway, back to Thanksgiving 2019, and the jigsaw dunderhead’s work starts to come undone.
When I had purchased this car, it needed headliner help. The material was loose, but not sagging appreciably. Additionally, someone had tried to superglue the material all around the perimeter. The material was kind of floating in place, which I thought was weird. I ended up getting some super strong neodymium magnets to hold it taught-which worked ok until it was humid out, or driving on the highway with the windows down as the liner would look something like a sailboat in the wind.
My fix was simple-find a factory sunroof equipped car and get the headliner board out of it and pop it into my car. Found out that that was easier said than done, and after a lot of junkyard expedition, kept coming up empty handed. Finally after years, I came into someone parting a factory sunroof Eldo on ebay and after a lot of trouble was able to get it shipped to me
The board needed some help, and after getting all the old foam off of it and some repairs made to restore the structure (the sunroof headliner board is really thin and flimsy, even compared to the stock non-sunroof board) I tore the interior apart to facilitate getting it in and out as I knew I would have to make “some” tweaks to reconcile the aftermarket hole location to the factory one. The sunroof assembly would also need to come out to recover the sunshade; as well as reseal the panel.
We can see here how the trim ring supports the pan assembly from the center. I have to say though, this was about as clean an install as an aftermarket sunroof can come with lots of extra bracing and no factory roof reinforcements cut. We can also see a very chintzy felt seal stuck to the trim ring
Got the sunshade recovered quickly. I later removed the black plastic covered jute that was glued to the pan-factory did not have this and it would have made the board sit too low when installed in the car. The gray rubbery stuff at the front of the pan was also stripped off for the same reason. I also swapped to the factory grab handle that was included with the board.
Also recovered the sail panels. I chose to leave the foam backing on these as it is not the usual headliner stuff that turns to jelly, its more like a sponge material and seemed to be holding up just fine.
I also added PED connectors to the sail panel interior lights that the factory curiously left out. Not sure how they installed these as the harness is one giant piece, but it means that you can’t take the sail panels out without having the lights dangling in the back. This will become important later.
I then devised a new seal. I threw away all the felt and used some 3M Adhesive remover to get rid of the stuff they had glued it with. Nasty stuff but did a good job. The new seal was the first part of this that took a LONG time. Aftermarket roofs from this time use some kind of felt tape to cut down on wind noise and slow water ingress into the pan, and while still available, there is way better out there today. (In spite of how it looked on my car though, it never leaked?!?! Wind noise was an issue with the shade open though) I decided on a rubber seal, and after getting a whole bunch of samples, the stuff I had initially ended up trying was pretty thin, but rigid strip of rubber. After gluing it on with 3M yellow weatherstrip adhesive (which does NOT work as good as the adhesive remover), I put the pan back in the car to see how it would work.
No photos of the failure here, but no good. The material was too rigid and too grippy, and would cause the roof to bind midway thru its travel. Then it tore off in the corners. Ugh! Pan back out, strip off the remaining seal and glue and go back to the drawing board. I ended up buying this
www.austinhardware.com/rubber-seal-single-500-rolls.htm
Which is a hollow piece of rubber that lets the panel travel without binding, and still squishes into a really tight seal. Looks like its out of stock now, but something with close to those measurements in a D-shape is a possibility for someone looking to reseal their ASC aftermarket sunroof. It was another 3M product, that was just a peel and stick affair-way easier than the yellow goopy adhesive route. Seems like a really strong bond, and seals fantastically against wind and water. 0 wind noise now, and no leaks in a downpour when parked, or cruising at highway speeds. Roof moves without binding now
I also decided to put the new seal onto the glass panel itself as it seems like that’s the easier life for it-if I put it around the opening, the pop rivets from the panel would abrade it. Super happy with this.
Next task was of course the headliner. With the pan now back in the car, I could take measurements and properly scribe/cut/fill the board as needed. Again, easier said than done. This was a weeks long ordeal between cutting the board, fiberglassing new material in, more cutting, more filling, coronavirus insanity, etc. Long story short, my roof was installed a few inches more aft than a factory roof would have been, which meant a lot of tweaking to get the kick-up over the rear passengers head in the right spot. Additionally, I needed to build out the map light drop down to accommodate the motor.
Here is the mess I ended up with
I also affixed strips of 3M dual-lock (it is like a heavy duty version of the stuff that holds in an Ezpass) to the back of the board and the pan to hold it tightly-the factory had attempted this with a similar product in the non-sunroof car headliner board. I was super skeptical that my fudgery would cover well at all, but I have to say that foam backed headliner material must be some of the most forgiving stuff around. This took me months to complete, working off and on from November thru April. Ultimately though, I’m happy with it.
While the interior was out, there was another thing I wanted to do. About a year ago, I was following a buddy as he took his Eldorado to drop off at a shop-couldn’t help but notice how small the brake lights (and the rest of the car) seemed compared to all the bulbous modern cars surrounding it. Then I had a couple of SUV’s roll up way too close for comfort on the back of the car-one was close enough that I launched the Eldorado up and to the side to avoid getting hit. Knowing that getting rear ended by a careless driver would probably result in my untimely incarceration, I set out to do something about rear visibility.
The federal government mandated 3rd brake lights for passenger cars for model year 1986. Cadillac was slightly ahead of the curve with this with the 1985 Deville/Fleetwoods which got these in the fall of ’84. Apparently the science is behind them and they do result in fewer rear end collisions. So I decided to add one of them to the Eldo.
There were a few different versions of these things made, with short, medium and long necks to mate with the rear window-one for a Fleetwood Brougham has the tall one, and one for an 80s Buick Riviera like the one seen above is short. The short one is the best size for the Eldo, any taller and it would look pretty bad. Then the gasket that seals it to the window is different for each different model. Fortunately a potato peeler does a great job of cutting things down to size to match the Eldos vertical rear window, and the material can be easily sanded to get out any little imperfections to make it seal nicely and not leak light. An ideal donor for one would be one an 86-91 Eldo or Seville without a factory vinyl or carriage roof.
A quick mockup
All of these lights mount the same way, with this little bracket cutting into the package shelf and screwing in to the metal underneath. This is not possible on the Eldo as the package shelf reinforcement under the center won’t let this happen. So I had to modify the bracket to sit flush on the package shelf, and add two holes to the shelf to get the screws through. They screw right into the package shelf reinforcement.
The next step was wiring. It is not as simple as tapping a brake light wire and running across the package shelf to the light. Since the Eldos tail lights do everything- brake, signal and hazard, just tapping a wire would cause the center light to flash with the signals or hazard. GM rectified this by using a different brake switch to prevent backfeeding. See the original gray switch, with an in and out, and the new beige one, with a supply, and two isolated outputs. This puts the 3rd brake light (acronym: CHMSL “Center High Mount Stoplight) on its own branch-but also means that you have to home run a wire all the way to it. The wire chase made quick work of this however. I had a pretty long link of 3rd brake light harness, but not quite enough to make it to the front of the car. I put another PED connector of the same kind that I used on the sail panels to join this blue wire I ran from the switch underneath the drivers side rear seat arm rest, which is accessible by removing the ash tray if need be. The stock package shelf reinforcement actually ended up being drilled for the wiring, so I’m not sure if this was something that was in the works for the Eldo.
The version of the brake switch I used allowed me to keep the cruise control connector, and only change the brake light connector itself (part 12117354). I wanted to keep this as non-invasive as possible as I hate being upside down under the dash (though I see to find myself in that position a lot…) I will search around for the part number for the brake light switch itself.
The last trick I wanted to pull before I put the interior back together was to replace the horrible rearview mirror. I forgot how bad these things were (or more like, no one ever noticed before there were LED headlights on other people’s cars that are tall enough to be flush with your back window) but it seems like the mirror was good for one thing; blindness. They have two settings-blindingly bright where others headlights fry your retinas at night, or completely blind, where you can’t see a thing behind you.
My daily driver has a great auto dimming mirror that still lets you see everything without blinding you, made by Gentex. About the same size as the Eldo rearview. I was casually browsing their offerings to see what kind of money we were talking, when I noticed they offered an upgraded unit as compared to the one installed on my car-one with an LED compass feature that was *drumroll* amber colored! Just like the center stack on the Eldorado! So needless to say, the project was underway quickly.
Wired it in cleanly to an existing ignition power on the fuse box
I had to buy a new button to mount it, stock Eldo one was too small to hold it. Check out the dashboard illustration on the glue I bought to stick it on with!
And here it is mounted up!
I am super happy with the mirror. It works great and is a really close match to the amber on the center stack. They even have the same segment check timing when you turn the ignition on Unfortunately it does not dim with the rest of the dash panel, so that’s a letdown, but if desired you can turn the compass off if you wanted to dim everything all the way as I like to do when I’m out of the city on a dark road.
Now, you may notice that the visors are all kinds of messed up. Progress has a price I guess. My long-fought for 1988 Deville visors are NG with the new headliner board-they’re just too big and interfere with the bump out for the map light. I wish I would have known as I could have easily shrunk this bump out when I was doing surgery on the board but its too late now. I’m at a crossroads of reinstalling my old red Eldo visors with known good arms swapped into them (which are probably super faded next to the new material but are impossible to reupholster right) or finding another late 80s more robust GM visor and reupholstering/swapping them in.
I still have more stuff to add to this which may come tomorrow as my fingers are about to fall off!
Well this is what you have to do in order to install Leopard on an unsupported G4 :D use an supported Mac in my case a 1.42Ghz eMac G4 system, boot the Quicksilver into target disk mode and install Leopard on the quicksilver hard disk via firewire
On March 8, 2018, crews install a work deck to the flyover girders as part of ongoing construction for the I-405/SR 167 Interchange Direct Connector Project in Renton.
www.cadillacforums.com/threads/puttin-on-the-ritz-1984-el...
This installment begins back, way way back,back into time. In the days we could have large gatherings, touch our faces, eat inside restaurants, and lived perilously close to the edge of running out of toilet paper. Picture it, Thanksgiving weekend, 2019…Oh wait, back a bit further…August, 1983.
Some dunderhead salesman in southern California takes an order from a buyer with great taste, a beautifully optioned 1984 Eldorado Biarritz in the ultimate color combination of Black/Black/Red. Said dunderhead gets everything right on the order-except for one tiny detail. The desire for a CF5 Astroroof is lost in translation from the prospective buyer and never makes it into the POS.
Car arrives in September. No sunroof. What gives? Our apologies sir, we’ll get that taken care of right away. Car is driven to an ASC installer. Another dunderhead gets out a jigsaw and cuts a hole thru the roof. A 38” (the biggest you can fit in an Eldorado with roof-mounted seatbelts) ASC sunroof is installed. Car is returned to dealership, buyer eagerly accepts delivery, none the wiser about factory vs aftermarket sunroofs.
For those who don’t know, when you order a car with a sunroof, the car is born with a hole in the roof. Mounts are cast into the roof panel, and the sunroof assembly seats in them and the glass panel has a channel for a nice rubber gasket that seals everything up nice. Then a vacuum formed headliner backing board is cast to perfectly hide everything. When you get an aftermarket sunroof, someone gets a stencil and a jigsaw, and cuts your roof panel and headliner open, pops a trim ring in the hole, and hangs a sunroof pan on the trim ring. If you’re lucky they will drill additional reinforcements to marry the pan to the roof structure. Then they get a bunch of headliner material, pull it taught from the corners of the car to the opening in the roof, and send you on down the road.
Anyway, back to Thanksgiving 2019, and the jigsaw dunderhead’s work starts to come undone.
When I had purchased this car, it needed headliner help. The material was loose, but not sagging appreciably. Additionally, someone had tried to superglue the material all around the perimeter. The material was kind of floating in place, which I thought was weird. I ended up getting some super strong neodymium magnets to hold it taught-which worked ok until it was humid out, or driving on the highway with the windows down as the liner would look something like a sailboat in the wind.
My fix was simple-find a factory sunroof equipped car and get the headliner board out of it and pop it into my car. Found out that that was easier said than done, and after a lot of junkyard expedition, kept coming up empty handed. Finally after years, I came into someone parting a factory sunroof Eldo on ebay and after a lot of trouble was able to get it shipped to me
The board needed some help, and after getting all the old foam off of it and some repairs made to restore the structure (the sunroof headliner board is really thin and flimsy, even compared to the stock non-sunroof board) I tore the interior apart to facilitate getting it in and out as I knew I would have to make “some” tweaks to reconcile the aftermarket hole location to the factory one. The sunroof assembly would also need to come out to recover the sunshade; as well as reseal the panel.
We can see here how the trim ring supports the pan assembly from the center. I have to say though, this was about as clean an install as an aftermarket sunroof can come with lots of extra bracing and no factory roof reinforcements cut. We can also see a very chintzy felt seal stuck to the trim ring
Got the sunshade recovered quickly. I later removed the black plastic covered jute that was glued to the pan-factory did not have this and it would have made the board sit too low when installed in the car. The gray rubbery stuff at the front of the pan was also stripped off for the same reason. I also swapped to the factory grab handle that was included with the board.
Also recovered the sail panels. I chose to leave the foam backing on these as it is not the usual headliner stuff that turns to jelly, its more like a sponge material and seemed to be holding up just fine.
I also added PED connectors to the sail panel interior lights that the factory curiously left out. Not sure how they installed these as the harness is one giant piece, but it means that you can’t take the sail panels out without having the lights dangling in the back. This will become important later.
I then devised a new seal. I threw away all the felt and used some 3M Adhesive remover to get rid of the stuff they had glued it with. Nasty stuff but did a good job. The new seal was the first part of this that took a LONG time. Aftermarket roofs from this time use some kind of felt tape to cut down on wind noise and slow water ingress into the pan, and while still available, there is way better out there today. (In spite of how it looked on my car though, it never leaked?!?! Wind noise was an issue with the shade open though) I decided on a rubber seal, and after getting a whole bunch of samples, the stuff I had initially ended up trying was pretty thin, but rigid strip of rubber. After gluing it on with 3M yellow weatherstrip adhesive (which does NOT work as good as the adhesive remover), I put the pan back in the car to see how it would work.
No photos of the failure here, but no good. The material was too rigid and too grippy, and would cause the roof to bind midway thru its travel. Then it tore off in the corners. Ugh! Pan back out, strip off the remaining seal and glue and go back to the drawing board. I ended up buying this
www.austinhardware.com/rubber-seal-single-500-rolls.htm
Which is a hollow piece of rubber that lets the panel travel without binding, and still squishes into a really tight seal. Looks like its out of stock now, but something with close to those measurements in a D-shape is a possibility for someone looking to reseal their ASC aftermarket sunroof. It was another 3M product, that was just a peel and stick affair-way easier than the yellow goopy adhesive route. Seems like a really strong bond, and seals fantastically against wind and water. 0 wind noise now, and no leaks in a downpour when parked, or cruising at highway speeds. Roof moves without binding now
I also decided to put the new seal onto the glass panel itself as it seems like that’s the easier life for it-if I put it around the opening, the pop rivets from the panel would abrade it. Super happy with this.
Next task was of course the headliner. With the pan now back in the car, I could take measurements and properly scribe/cut/fill the board as needed. Again, easier said than done. This was a weeks long ordeal between cutting the board, fiberglassing new material in, more cutting, more filling, coronavirus insanity, etc. Long story short, my roof was installed a few inches more aft than a factory roof would have been, which meant a lot of tweaking to get the kick-up over the rear passengers head in the right spot. Additionally, I needed to build out the map light drop down to accommodate the motor.
Here is the mess I ended up with
I also affixed strips of 3M dual-lock (it is like a heavy duty version of the stuff that holds in an Ezpass) to the back of the board and the pan to hold it tightly-the factory had attempted this with a similar product in the non-sunroof car headliner board. I was super skeptical that my fudgery would cover well at all, but I have to say that foam backed headliner material must be some of the most forgiving stuff around. This took me months to complete, working off and on from November thru April. Ultimately though, I’m happy with it.
While the interior was out, there was another thing I wanted to do. About a year ago, I was following a buddy as he took his Eldorado to drop off at a shop-couldn’t help but notice how small the brake lights (and the rest of the car) seemed compared to all the bulbous modern cars surrounding it. Then I had a couple of SUV’s roll up way too close for comfort on the back of the car-one was close enough that I launched the Eldorado up and to the side to avoid getting hit. Knowing that getting rear ended by a careless driver would probably result in my untimely incarceration, I set out to do something about rear visibility.
The federal government mandated 3rd brake lights for passenger cars for model year 1986. Cadillac was slightly ahead of the curve with this with the 1985 Deville/Fleetwoods which got these in the fall of ’84. Apparently the science is behind them and they do result in fewer rear end collisions. So I decided to add one of them to the Eldo.
There were a few different versions of these things made, with short, medium and long necks to mate with the rear window-one for a Fleetwood Brougham has the tall one, and one for an 80s Buick Riviera like the one seen above is short. The short one is the best size for the Eldo, any taller and it would look pretty bad. Then the gasket that seals it to the window is different for each different model. Fortunately a potato peeler does a great job of cutting things down to size to match the Eldos vertical rear window, and the material can be easily sanded to get out any little imperfections to make it seal nicely and not leak light. An ideal donor for one would be one an 86-91 Eldo or Seville without a factory vinyl or carriage roof.
A quick mockup
All of these lights mount the same way, with this little bracket cutting into the package shelf and screwing in to the metal underneath. This is not possible on the Eldo as the package shelf reinforcement under the center won’t let this happen. So I had to modify the bracket to sit flush on the package shelf, and add two holes to the shelf to get the screws through. They screw right into the package shelf reinforcement.
The next step was wiring. It is not as simple as tapping a brake light wire and running across the package shelf to the light. Since the Eldos tail lights do everything- brake, signal and hazard, just tapping a wire would cause the center light to flash with the signals or hazard. GM rectified this by using a different brake switch to prevent backfeeding. See the original gray switch, with an in and out, and the new beige one, with a supply, and two isolated outputs. This puts the 3rd brake light (acronym: CHMSL “Center High Mount Stoplight) on its own branch-but also means that you have to home run a wire all the way to it. The wire chase made quick work of this however. I had a pretty long link of 3rd brake light harness, but not quite enough to make it to the front of the car. I put another PED connector of the same kind that I used on the sail panels to join this blue wire I ran from the switch underneath the drivers side rear seat arm rest, which is accessible by removing the ash tray if need be. The stock package shelf reinforcement actually ended up being drilled for the wiring, so I’m not sure if this was something that was in the works for the Eldo.
The version of the brake switch I used allowed me to keep the cruise control connector, and only change the brake light connector itself (part 12117354). I wanted to keep this as non-invasive as possible as I hate being upside down under the dash (though I see to find myself in that position a lot…) I will search around for the part number for the brake light switch itself.
The last trick I wanted to pull before I put the interior back together was to replace the horrible rearview mirror. I forgot how bad these things were (or more like, no one ever noticed before there were LED headlights on other people’s cars that are tall enough to be flush with your back window) but it seems like the mirror was good for one thing; blindness. They have two settings-blindingly bright where others headlights fry your retinas at night, or completely blind, where you can’t see a thing behind you.
My daily driver has a great auto dimming mirror that still lets you see everything without blinding you, made by Gentex. About the same size as the Eldo rearview. I was casually browsing their offerings to see what kind of money we were talking, when I noticed they offered an upgraded unit as compared to the one installed on my car-one with an LED compass feature that was *drumroll* amber colored! Just like the center stack on the Eldorado! So needless to say, the project was underway quickly.
Wired it in cleanly to an existing ignition power on the fuse box
I had to buy a new button to mount it, stock Eldo one was too small to hold it. Check out the dashboard illustration on the glue I bought to stick it on with!
And here it is mounted up!
I am super happy with the mirror. It works great and is a really close match to the amber on the center stack. They even have the same segment check timing when you turn the ignition on Unfortunately it does not dim with the rest of the dash panel, so that’s a letdown, but if desired you can turn the compass off if you wanted to dim everything all the way as I like to do when I’m out of the city on a dark road.
Now, you may notice that the visors are all kinds of messed up. Progress has a price I guess. My long-fought for 1988 Deville visors are NG with the new headliner board-they’re just too big and interfere with the bump out for the map light. I wish I would have known as I could have easily shrunk this bump out when I was doing surgery on the board but its too late now. I’m at a crossroads of reinstalling my old red Eldo visors with known good arms swapped into them (which are probably super faded next to the new material but are impossible to reupholster right) or finding another late 80s more robust GM visor and reupholstering/swapping them in.
I still have more stuff to add to this which may come tomorrow as my fingers are about to fall off!
Sea Installer doing what she does best!
Installing the new MHI Vestas V164 8.0 MW turbines onto the monopiles at Burbo Bank extension windfarm
These are currently the largest offshore wind turbines in the world!
Sea Installer's previous work: