Thread: New Project

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Love the lasalles. My uncle has been holding on to this one probably longer than I have been around. Has a 500 cadillac in it. My cousin started working on it a few years ago with his dad, I think my pickup truck build has inspired some other family members to start getting things moving, also my uncle is in his 80's and I am sure he is tickled pink about spending time with his children building these.

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Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Navy, I noticed your Cadillac has the factory IFS as well like the 39 oldsmobiles we have. Have you given any thought to what you will do with the front suspension? I have been pondering which 39 Olds chassis to build for Colt's car. One of his frames has already had a GM stub grafted on and I think we'll use that chassis. I think a person would have to cut the frame and add straight rails to install a MII type cross member and make it look decent. I thought for a bit to keep the original front suspension but I wonder how much of the parts are actually available and will be in the future. Let alone disc brake upgrades etc.

I'll see if anybody wants to buy any of the stuff I'm removing, there's a LaSal forum that may have some interest.

Originally Posted by Hotrod46

If you do decide to clip the front with a later model front suspension, here is a piece of advice that I was given by some old timers that had clipped many cars.

Take something like 1" square tubing and build a triangulated jig that bolts to the firewall and duplicates all the radiator and front sheet metal mounting points. Do this before you cut the original frame. Then, after the clip is on, all you have to do is bolt the jig in place and build permanent mounting points for the front sheet metal. Makes the job 10X easier.

Thats a great idea ! thanks

Originally Posted by FordyG

Love the lasalles. My uncle has been holding on to this one probably longer than I have been around. Has a 500 cadillac in it. My cousin started working on it a few years ago with his dad, I think my pickup truck build has inspired some other family members to start getting things moving, also my uncle is in his 80's and I am sure he is tickled pink about spending time with his children building these.

Attachment 75628

That looks to be in great shape, are there any spare parts available for sale ? looking for tail light lenses. I wish I had the money to install a 500 in mine but that's way out of my league.

“…….I wish I had the money to install a 500 in mine but that's way out of my league……..”

One of the big drawbacks for the 500 Cadillac (and it’s smaller brothers the 472 and 425 cubic inch engines) is the cost of rebuilding one, when I did the 500 in my El Camino it was very very close to the cost of rebuilding a first generation HEMI.

All it takes to turn a 472 into a 500 is a 500 crankshaft and 500 Pistons (the 472 and 500 share the same bore size and the 500 pistons are required because the wrist pin is located lower (but that does allow the connecting rods to interchange.

While physically the same size as the 500/472s the 425s are in less demand, so cheaper.

All in all any of the engines are very reliable though, I’ve got about 95,000 miles on my 500 and it’s still going strong, uses about 1 qt of oil every 4000 miles or so, I and would still drive it cross country.

The engines are also pretty wide, but as FordyG Uncle’s car proves they’ll fit.

I know the thread has moved on a bit from the offset engine question but I thought I’d throw this out there.

Trans Tunnel by M Patterson, on Flickr

This is the engine bay of my parts car 68 Plymouth Valiant. If you look at the torsion bars which are centered in the car, you can see how far Chrysler off set the transmission tunnel (and drive train) in these cars. Of course as wide as the HEMI is it’s going to have to be almost centered in the engine bay to fit so this should be interesting.

Do I know how to pick a project or what


.

If it was easy, everyone would do it..

Just a few pic's of the car as the tear down goes.
pile of parts is growing

The Tin Worm doing its best work. This will be the hardest panel to fix on the whole car so I'm happy.

Update for the Caddy. Its all torn down and repairs are started. Started repairing the worst of the Tin Worm's work while waiting for other parts to be purchased.


This is a bad job I did and cut it off.


replace with this piece

[IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/af21/Navy7797/caddy_repair_1.jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds[/IMG]

its a start
Going to Johnson's radiator works tomorrow and get things started on a new radiator and maybe a shop tour if they will.

Got a tour of the Rod shop and Radiator shop. I was very impressed with the radiator shop, Lots of tooling and machines for making them all from scratch. The folks there were very friendly and interested in what I needed. Can't wait to see how my rad turns out.

The latest.
Got the Rad back from Johnsons and it's just what I would expect from a professional shop, very nicely built.
Been working on the rockers and collecting parts.



Engine from 06 Vette 6.0
Rear from 2000 Explorer 8.8

Trans 4L60 from a 03 Yukon

Progress! You've been busy.

Good pickins from the salvage yard. Good choice on the rear, I finally broke down and bought the same for my '57 project. Did you get a 3.73 posi?

it's a 3:73 with Limited slip. 31 spline axels.

a few pic's of tin worm works an patch
this patch is in a void between back seat and trunk so it's not getting any fancy metal work just solid and sealed

Out with old and in with the New . New Fatman stub going on the caddy frame




A-arm mock up