Ownership Verified: My sub-compact ecobox rental-replacement on a budget - 94 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham

Likely cause?
 
200000 miles of wear causing the holes of the backing plate to be a lot bigger than they should be.. we've found others reporting the same..bolts coming eventually a bit lose and if you don't tighten them for too long of a time, the holes just wallow out and it can't be properly tightened anymore .. we tightened this up like 4k Miles ago or thereabouts..
 
Sounds plausible. At least it didn't snap off.
 
My sub-compact ecobox rental-replacement on a budget - 94 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham

GRtak said:
Sounds plausible. At least it didn't snap off.
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Actually, it looks like this may have been happening to the car for a long time and nobody figured it out. It does explain the idiot previous mechanic's badly done hardline swap on that side - the original line must have cracked at some point because of this, he replaced the hardline and torqued everything back down. It got loose again when thomas got the car and it cracked the new hardline yet again. We replaced the hardline and noticed that the backing plate fasteners were a little loose and could wiggle a little. I torqued the backing plate down again but less than six months later I happened to drive the car and it started clunking while braking. I parked it immediately, no questions asked. This is what we found when I got a chance to pull the wheel off.

This is also likely the cause of the ABS/TCS system failures the car has had intermittently - the wheel speed sensor is loose and generally rubbing on the tone ring.
 
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Crossposting from the B/D-body forum to save myself time:

Ended up taking the car to a local specialist shop because... I simply didn't have time to deal with yanking the axle shafts. The shop got the axle apart today - aside from some other bad news, we found this was what the backing plate looked like.



They were a bit... ovoid.

Even worse news is that this is what the backing plate GM's public parts catalog calls out for the car looks like (part number 15650129) which we had pre-purchased and had on hand:





If you look closely, you'll notice that the bottom is shaped wrong and does not have a port for the ABS sensor. I called the dealer again; the parts guy did some digging and found that the correct backing plates for the Fleetwood are 18019660 for the left hand (driver) side and 18019661 for the right hand (passenger) side. They are apparently long discontinued and out of stock. The 15650129 and 15650130 numbers are intended for the Commercial Chassis and Heavy Duty brake packages and do not fit the four wheel ABS cars.

We're going to salvage the backing plate we have by the "weld up and redrill" method.
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After getting the Caddy back from the shop, we then had to renew the registration or "pay road tax". In Texas, the laws recently changed to require a vehicle to be freshly inspected prior to attempting to renew registration. Due the age of the car, Texas requires a safety inspection and an emissions inspection; said emissions inspection for the Cadillac is the ASM test, which is done on a wheel dyno. (In this part of Texas, 1995 and older AWD cars or vehicles with permanent traction control are required to do the more lenient TSI two speed idle test instead and post 1996 cars all do OBD-II). Texas law also says that once the vehicle turns 24 years old it is no longer required to have emissions inspection. Therefore this is the *last* year the car will require an emissions inspection, so thomas can drop a giant 8-71 blower on the car and run the mixture super-rich accordingly. :D

However, the first day's attempt to get it inspected resulted in a comedy of stupid and bad luck as one shop spent forever trying to figure out how to connect the sensors to the car to allow the emissions test to be run; in the end told me they couldn't do it and wasted an hour of my time. After that, all the shops I tried either were booked up, required appointments, had their ASM system down or had already removed/never had the ASM system and were only equipped to test OBD-II cars. The next day I went to a different part of town that had more shops specializing in older vehicles and inspections in general - and after a couple of rejections, I found one.


The inspection stall:


When I rolled in, there was only one car ahead of me, getting its OBD-II inspection.




After the Merc was done, it was the Caddy's turn and they put it on the dyno rollers.


And here's the (redacted for privacy) inspection report:

At least in terms of emissions, the LT1 seems to be quite healthy. Lower emissions than a Dieselghazi VW, I suspect...

Thomas was then able to instantly renew the registration online, so the car is legally good to go for another year.
 
Goodness, from what I'm used to seeing in burner boiler world, that's a whole lot of NOx. Most I've ever seen was 80PPM. Typically I see around 40-60PPM on non-NOx reducing equipment and with NOx reducing, less than 30.
 
93Flareside said:
Goodness, from what I'm used to seeing in burner boiler world, that's a whole lot of NOx. Most I've ever seen was 80PPM. Typically I see around 40-60PPM on non-NOx reducing equipment and with NOx reducing, less than 30.
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Internal combustion engines are generally less efficient/have less complete combustion than a boiler system, if I recall correctly. A steam car actually runs cleaner. Unfortunately, the consequences in an accident are a lot worse even with modern safety systems. :p

- - - Updated - - -

After the rear end work, I started hearing a clanking noise from the rear end of the car. Took it back to the shop and we found this:



It turns out that two totally unrelated bolts that hold an exhaust bracket to the car were missing. It also turns out that there was a run of these cars that the lazy UAW asshole in charge of putting the bolts into the car decided that he only wanted to put one in per bracket. Loosely. Further, the bolt was discontinued by GM and the description was quite cryptic. Nobody on the forums for the car could agree as to what size they were supposed to be, so I took a slow business day off, went down to the junkyard and pulled some bolts off a donor car.

You might ask why I didn't pull one from the other side and go match it up in a store. Well, that was more work and time that I didn't want to spend on the hot concrete of my parking lot; pulling it off the donor car showed why that would have been a bad idea - access is rather a bitch - you have to work blind and reach around the muffler, which blocks access. The sides of the bracket are very close to the bolt head which prevents putting a box end or ratcheting wrench on the bolt for much of the time; there isn't much room to stick a ratchet and socket in there, depending.

The donor car also showed me that it's most likely that the stupid bolt(s) just fell out; the bolts in the 96 weren't torqued down much, just more than hand tight - but were recessed in such a way you couldn't really get to them easily. So that will get done this week or weekend.

While I was there we scavenged some additional parts and I'll post up about them later.
 
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Wrong year, but I think my ass might like it at half the price. :D
 
So.. lets get this up2date:

As posted by Spectre before, in preparation for the latest trip, the backing plate was taken care of. Sadly not as cheap and easy as expected, but all in all $350 to fix that shit, what could have been bolting on a $20 part. If it had been the correct one. Oh well. On the plus side: I can confirm that the repair has worked and it is still rock solid many miles later. The detail of the exhaust hangers was also resolved in due time as he mentioned.

Forward 2 weeks, I arrive in Texas. What fell through? All scheduled attempts to replace some O-rings on the AC and recharge it via either some connections or some shop. So, no AC. Great! I had one day and a few things I wanted to do, before I headed for Atlanta. Eventually a shop was found that was willing and able to get the AC done that day. Say: fully evacuate the system, replace O-rings (AC->Firewall->evaporator), check for further leaks, recharge it. That sadly set me back $250, but I wasn't going to go on a 900 mile / 12 hours drive, twice, without that. Or 3 more weeks in Texas for that matter.

In addition to that, had 3 small fixes that I wanted to attempt, and all in all I was mostly successful.

#1: Window rollers! The front passenger window came off tracks several times or refused to move at all, so I knew I had at the very least broken rollers/guides. This is a very common issue, but the fix is in the end not all that hard. Required things: New OEM guides, or aftermarket rollers, some grease, a few tools. Looks like this:

Door panel off, water barrier out of the way, and limited access to the mechanics inside is granted.




There are 3 rollers, one on the bottom for vertical movement, but that one has basically no load and usually doesn't fail, and it is already a roller, so I ignored it...




And then you have the two upper ones that move horizontally.. and as expected, one was broken. But I ended up replacing both, just because. And I added all the grease (dupond white lithium something bla bla). I also inspected both rear windows, but all rollers were intact. The driver side works like a charm, I didn't check, but I suspect it was fixed at some point. The driver side also has the by far strongest window motor. The rear ones are meh, but ok. The passenger front motor is, as it turns out, basically dead. Even with the fixed rollers and plenty of grease, it has issues moving under its own power, requiring some help to start.. so note to self, and everyone driving it: Don't roll the passenger front window down all the way, but just far enough to have something to pull on to kickstart the motor...





The second project was an attempt to fix the driver door armrest, which is disintegrating and has annoying sharp plastic/leather bits poking into ones arm. The attempt made was: Take vinyl, spray a matching(ish) color, cut to shape(ish), spray-adhesive that shit on! The result: Lasted about 3 days before the lower part came off thanks to gravity. Plus getting the shape right was more guesswork than anything else on my end. BUT: It's comfy where it matters. It'll be either have to cut back a bit or redone, but in the long run I'll keep trying to buy a color matching door card that isn't ruined.






Project #3: Steering damper. Straight forward.. I never bothered to check its condition, but it didn't look new at a glance, and the repalcement was like $26. So I just ordered one and swapped it out. And just looking at old v new, it wasn't a bad call. Can I tell a difference? Not really. But then again, I hadn't driven it in 5 month..







And some random shots ..





In the end the car survived the trip without any noticable issues. The retrofitted Roadmaster AC control panel kinda came loose and its backlight failed, so that may need some attention (or another junkyard part, or the kept OEM part reinstalled again). The license plate light in the trunk lid failed and got me pulled over. Apparently 1 year is the lifespan of that cheap LED. I had spares with me and replaced it a day later. The car is still pretty good at drinking fuel in short distance and city driving.. I didn't dare calculate it, but it felt like I was filling up ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME while I was in Austin ;). On the long trip to Atlanta and back I averaged 18-18.5 MPG going 75-85mph cruise controlled. In total I put about 4200-4300 miles on the car in 3.5 weeks and never had the feeling there is a chance that it'll leave me stranded.

Of course, just after I left, Spectre got unlucky and ran something over with the tires, and the pucture is in a spot where it's apparently not fixable.. there goes one tire after just 1 year and <15000 miles. And it turns out the spare wasn't all that great at holding air either. He sourced a replacement on the spot to get it roadworthy again, but the tire will be replaced matching the others eventually, making the current temp-fix the new spare.

Spectre also got an oil change done after I lefet, since someone put alllll of the miles on it..!? :p


And while I had the fullest intention to not spend ANY money on the car for the forseeable future, ... well you all know how that works. I have a bunch of caddy items on a dedicated list on amazon.com to check for price drops and warehouse deals, and a few days ago I noticed something: The silly fancy electronic distrubutor on the Gen2 LT1, called OptiSpark, is at least by all accounts known to fail. I assume mine is pretty low milage because 2009 crate engine and all, but given prices of $110+ for good OE-style aftermarket parts, $200 for the OEM one, and upwards of $500 for fancy aftermarket (MSD etc), I had a few on my watch list, just in case.. And a few days ago, the Cardone OptiSpark suddenly dropped from $115 to $50. Sold by amazon directly, not a warehouse deal. And the part in question is not just a new one and no refurb, but also the "Cardone Select" line, which comes with lifetime warranty! So.. yeah.. I jumped on that and ordered it. It'll be living in Spectres spare parts corner until it is needed.

71oUkQAZ%2BIL._SL600_.jpg



And in the same spirit, just today, I spotted thast there was a warehouse deal to be hand on the one piece of front suspension that is not new yet.. a front upper control arm for the passenger side, in this case made by Moog, was listed as "Like new" condition for $40. New price is $86 for this specific one, $75-$100 for the other brands I was watching.

61sZYRUX7NL._SL600_.jpg



And because I just could not stop myself, I also ordered another item that was on my watchlist for a year today, because it dropped from $195 to $102 with only 1 in stock. And this isn't even something I'm likely to put to use too soon. But I just had to.. I couldn't resist.. What is it you're wondering? I even told Spectre that I spotted that last night.. but didn't buy it and went to bed.. but this morning it was still available, and I just pulled the trigger on it. He still doesn't know, so sshhh.. don't tell him!

71MlHrB0NyL._SL600_.jpg


It is a Motive Gear Ring and Pinion Set. Gear ratio 3.73, the "Performance" version, since it is allegedly quieter and stronger than the regular one. I picked 3.73 because based on the calculations I did, that will bump the rpm at 80mph from ~2000rpm to ~2400rpm, so not all that bad, while getting it up there noticably swifter. My plan with this though is to get a second full rear axle and rebuild that around this new set. I am not sure I want or need any form of locker in there, because that's a $500 addon that is probably never going to do anything.. outside of nicer burnouts ;). For now the plan is either the cheapest or free rearaxle that can be found and just replace everything on it, or aquire a used low milage one with good axle shafts and reseal it while swapping the gears. A disc conversion is also a nice idea, but probably just as financially unviable (custom job required due to special ABS system) for the gained profit and the expected usage. I would like to have the rearend replaced for the next trip, which I hope to be able to do in the spring, but I am reasonably sure that won't happen.

That's it from me for now. The car is almost at 214000 miles now, and given the amount of parts and money invested, ideas of maybe selling it or replacing it with something else that came up just before the trip, are off the table. It's here to stay for a while longer. The next updates are probably going to be things Spectre does to it within the next few month.
 
About two years after this thread was started, the car finally got the windows tinted.

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The door panel repair in the prior post turned out to be very unhappy with Texas summer heat and the 'cover' kept slipping off and flapping about despite the adhesive. Luckily, a donor car with an identical color interior was found and its door card was swapped in after some repairs and reinforcements:

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There was also a problem immediately after thomas' last trip wherein the car died on me in a far flung Dallas suburb. Turned out to need a new fuel pump, which I replaced only to find out the thing wouldn't start any more with an apparent timing issue. I then kind of screwed something up that caused me to have to go to a junkyard a hundred miles away to get another PCM, When replacing that, I found some old wiring damage at the PCM connector and spent some time repairing that. It fixed some things, but still wouldn't fire up. Eventually I ran out of time and had the thing hauled out to the Parrot Farm where an ex-GM tech confirmed that the Optispark module (the one in the last post above - the GM Optispark mounting location is really stupid and lends itself to Optispark death) had indeed died as is common with these cars. He replaced the dead one with the spare on hand, which brought the thing back to life but now we have no spare Optispark.
 
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