1966 Calais 4dr Hardtop : i'm hungry and rice ain't cuttin it

[blink182house]

Hello all! I'm SO glad I found this forum! Especially BIG THANKS to the person who made this: http://mosew.home.comcast.net/~mosew/caddy/index.html YOU MY GOOD SIR ARE AWESOME, I'm so glad to see people who know exactly how to show exactly what someone else would need to know/see, no bullshit included!

Anyways, my name is Scott and I'm the new proud owner of a '66 Calais 4dr hardtop! I'm a import performance mechanic, been into cars/imports all my life. My dad usually does the domestics and I handle imports, but growing up around ALL types of hot-rods I love and respect ALL types of vehicles and can appreciate anyone who put time/work into doing a job RIGHT! I happened to make a run to the local metal scrap to clear up some space at work and saw this '66 sitting off to the side. Apparently, some older fella was sitting at a light in Memphis and someone tried to car jack him. He jumped out in the intersection trying to get away and a car crossing hit him in the pass. front corner. The car is pretty much all original upon my inspection; 72,xxx miles! Seems a new alternator and starter have been put on and that's about it! I just couldn't pass this car up, it was love at first sight!

The car is now in my garage and some parts for replacement are already in order. I've already ordered an entire front suspension kit to redo all of the suspension/steering pieces, which will be followed by brakes. We've started removing all the scrap metal pieces that were destroyed in the accident, and thanks to a vendor in Custer, WI, I've got majority of those parts already paid for on the way. We stuck a new battery in and changed the oil, she started right up! Seems the choke is stuck halfway and so we have a few things to clean-up and free-up, but everything seems to be in very good condition and I'm amazed with this car! A new windshield has already been installed and we're working on getting a key cut (hopefully) to open the trunk, otherwise I'll have to drill out the lock and buy a new one (curious to see what's in there haha!)!

Well that's basically the story so far; I'm a regular hot-rodder of all types (imports, hot rods, lowrider, anything with wheels and upgrades im there). This car seems so original though that I dont think I can stray too far from that old low-slow style. I think, right now, my plans are to do some maintenance and get it all back together and running properly. I think we'll stick some big white walls back on and keep rocking the oem hubcaps, repaint oem color. Do a true dual exhaust to give it some anger to match the eyes, and probably back it in the future. I hope I can keep my plans as simple as that... I have a tendency to go way over my budget haha!

Now that boring is reading I know we all love pics! So I'll get on to that; but before I do please HELP ME OUT! I'm searching for: PASS. OUTER FENDER, chrome fender trim, chrome wheel well trim, and center grill, pass. side grill! IF YOU HAVE SOME PLEASE LET ME KNOW A PRICE ASAP! Shipping would be to commercial address at 38671! PayPal ready if you can help me out on a price!

FIRST DAY HOME:





DISASSEMBLE BEGINS:


WINDSHIELD:





Here's my import, its a 1990 Nissan 240SX. It did look like this with a turbo 4cyl; SR20DET:








Wrecked it in Jan 2011; cut front end off, straightened rails and reassembled (disregard the welds please), and decided to upgrade a lot as well as go with a 4.5l V8 out of a Infiniti Q45; VH45DE:
















^and thats how she sits, awaiting finishing the body work and chassis harness; gotta fix the caddy first before i get back on this project!

[Carnut]

It looks like you and hard work are not strangers. Congrats on the Caddy!

[cadillackeeper]

Congrats on the Cad,And good luck with the nissan.If it was only 2 years later you would be in 472/500
territory and then you could really make that Nissan go.........

[Gary]

Scott
welcome to to the forum.
For parts vendors, look at this thread:
http://www.modifiedcadillac.org/forum/index.php/topic,5742.0.html

I think you've got a great Cadillac underway there: you sure got a great deal.
A V8 in a 240SX.....YIKES. Get to be buddies with a tire dealer.

Gary

[EZ]

Scott,
I think you could benefit from joining us at the '65-'66 Cadillac forum.  Great info and people here at the Modified forum but ours is specific to your car and year so you may find more people with parts and specific info for the '66 as far as modifications.  Go to http://65-66cadillaccommunity.grou.ps/talks. 

Check with jeff@willingtoncadillac.com  Tell him EZ sent ya.  He has lots of '65-'66 Cadillac parts and he's a wealth of knowledge too.

Nice lookin hot rods ya have there.  Keeps the pics coming!!!   

[blink182house]

Awesome, thanks for the welcome guys!



EZ: Jeff has already shot me an email, so thats awesome! And also thanks for the year-specific forum, I'm going to check it out now!

[pdxmose]

Hello all! I'm SO glad I found this forum! Especially BIG THANKS to the person who made this: http://mosew.home.comcast.net/~mosew/caddy/index.html YOU MY GOOD SIR ARE AWESOME, I'm so glad to see people who know exactly how to show exactly what someone else would need to know/see, no bullshit included

You're welcome.  That's why I put it up there.  Still haven't finished the car yet!

That looks like a great project.

                  ...mose

[blink182house]

Mose, can you send me the template for the front upper plate, the weird shaped one? Any other templates you used as well if you dont mind!

Tomorrow will be pickup from the guy I purchased majority of my replacement panels from, they should arrive at my work Monday or Tuesday of next week!
Really nice guy I found through ebay named Dale with TR Restorer in Custer, WI! He really saved me an arm and leg on pricing and was kind enough to pallet everything upon my request and crate up the pallet! From him I should be receiving next week: inner fender, hood, radiator support, right grill, right fender chrome trim, right headlight assembly and bulbs, center front bumper, right upper & lower front bumper, hood support rods, and all 4 bumper brackets! Waiting to sell another project Nissan 240sx I was building originally for a gas saver and then I'm communicating with Jeff @ Willington Cadillac for the outer fender and center grill! Ready to get this beauty back together and fixed up road worthy! After everything is settled properly, it's time for fresh set of fat ole white walls! Any recommendations? I plan on going with Coker unless highly advised against.

[Gary]

Be sure to check out  DiamondBack:
http://www.dbtires.com/

Gary

[EZ]

I have the Coker gangster wide whitewalls.  They ride niiiiiiice. 

[blink182house]

I have the Coker gangster wide whitewalls.  They ride niiiiiiice. 

NICE; what size? 235/75/15 with the 3-1/8" white walls?

[VOODOO64]

I just scabbed your parts lead and called Dale at TR Restorer to see if I might find some parts for my crusty Deville since I am pretty close to those guys. Very nice compared to a lot of contacts I have made with different parts vendors, sounds like a good guy to keep in contact with when looking for parts. He said he is thinking of getting more involved with Caddy parts and moving away from the other GM stuff because there seems to be a good untapped market for providing good used parts. Music to my ears cause some of this stuff is really hard to find for anything short of the price you would get for selling a kidney or two!!  

[blink182house]

I just scabbed your parts lead and called Dale at TR Restorer to see if I might find some parts for my crusty Deville since I am pretty close to those guys. Very nice compared to a lot of contacts I have made with different parts vendors, sounds like a good guy to keep in contact with when looking for parts. He said he is thinking of getting more involved with Caddy parts and moving away from the other GM stuff because there seems to be a good untapped market for providing good used parts. Music to my ears cause some of this stuff is really hard to find for anything short of the price you would get for selling a kidney or two!!  

Great; hopefully he will lean more towards caddies and we can all benefit haha! He was very very nice to do business with and I highly recommend contacting him; glad to hear you were able to locate him so quickly! Yeah he helped me out big time by charging what I felt was a realistic price for the parts and even CHEAPER than I would've expected on larger items. Some of these other fenders are ridiculous on their pricing! I had 1 company quote me like $600+shipping for a outer fender!!!! I deal with used/rare import car parts all day every day and yes when its hard to find and in high demand it's understandable, but I honestly don't see this chassis being that highly sought after for that price. I enjoyed dealing with Dale as I felt like he was a automotive enthusiast as well and wanted to HELP me fix up my car. Good business in the only way to do it, I'll be trying to bring him repeat customers and thats for sure!

[pdxmose]

Mose, can you send me the template for the front upper plate, the weird shaped one? Any other templates you used as well if you dont mind!

I've sent this to about 4 people now!  Might as well post it up here.

Make sure after you print that the 6" scale is correct.  Just flip it over for L/R as they are mirror image.  Don't have any other templates, was more trial and error.  Here's part of an email I sent on the topic:

"When I did the bags, I looked up at that odd shaped spring pocket and couldn't see how to make a pipe spacer that would sit solid.  Then I noticed that there were enough flat bosses in the area that I could just make a funny shaped plate.  The square tubing just happened to be what I had laying around, and the lower plate is just a circle plate.  I think I still have the cardboard template I used for the spring pocket.  I'd be happy to trace it and email a scan to you if you want.  The fit isn't critical, I just ground the edges until it cleared and sit flat.  The center bolt keeps it tight.
 
However I don't have a good way to give you the dimensions of the spacer pipe as it's all assembled.  I think I cut it at about a 10 degree angle so that when fully compressed the bag was more parallel.  I think I tacked the pipe to the circle plate so that the attachment bolts and airline would clear.  Then I mocked it up and tried to mark the top plate with the pipe location.  Then tack it, check it, and go"


         ...mose

[EZ]

NICE; what size? 235/75/15 with the 3-1/8" white walls?

Yep.  That's them.