TireSmoke.org

It turns out the wheels do fit under the rear with the skirts and that's cool... the bad part is that the fronts are 5" x 5" bolt circle and according to Summit and Weld's website, they don't make a 5" x 5" rim in that style. For the record, the rears are 5" x 4.75"...

I'm also thinking about a wheel adapter so I can put 4.75" on the front...

I ordered 1/2" wheel studs from Summit tonight so at least I'll be able to find a set of steelies that will work for now on the rear.

-BP

Last week I received the wheel adapters I ordered so I can mount my new Weld Pro Stars to the front and have a shiny matched set. Besides looking cooler, they are a TON lighter. This morning I went to The Mecca, Summit Racing and picked up my new 15" x 6" front rims. The backspacing makes them stick out about 1/4" more than the stock rims, and the 1 1/4" wheel adapters get them poked out to where I really want them. Since the rear 15 x 8's fill out the space under the fender skirts completely, I thought the front rims should be out closer to the body.

I also bought another set up rear axle studs since I screwed one of them up when installing them. I also bought new wheel centers for the rear wheels, and will have to do some serious work polishing them up to get them even close to the shininess of the new fronts. Good thing half of them will be under the skirts. I also bought new lugs to mount these things up and stick on weights to get them balanced.

Looks like I have some work to do this week. Once this is done, I just need to order the drive shaft and it should be road worthy.

-BP

Looking forward to the pictures.

Oops. I took pictures, edited them, and forgot to paste them. I'll do it tonight...

-BP

aww damn, nice wheels, huh? Gonna open a 500-inch can o' whoop ass.

huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh!!!!

After buying the new wheels, I realized I need to make the OLD rears look MUCH better to even come close to the looks of the new ones. After about an hour on each wheel with some Stanley polish and a buffing wheel on my drill, I was able to make them look pretty sweet. You can see a before and after in the pics.

Matt was in town from Atlanta this weekend and we were able to dismount 14 rims/tires he had on my Carlisle bought tire machine, and remount two more in about an hour. It's the first real test of the machine and it passed with flying colors. Also, Matt and I were able to dismount my existing Caddy front tires with the machine, and were able to remount them to my new rims without having to use the machine, and potentially scratch them. We just lubed up the tires, and pushed them on... it was great.

They look great on the car with the offset being perfect! The picture show still has jackstands under it, so it seems to sit high, but now I have it on the ground and it looks sweet. Hopefully a new driveshaft is in my near future.














-BP

Looks excellent

MostMint wrote:Looks excellent

Agreed.

Your Grandfather would have been proud!

Right now I'm in a holding pattern. I have the differential assy at a local guy's house getting a "new" 3.50 gear and a detroit locker assy installed. That should be done this week. I also ordered a driveshaft last Friday. That should be here this week also. If everything goes according to plan, I should have both of these pieces by Friday and hopefully get everything installed and on the road this weekend. Let's hope as it's been over a year since I've driven it.

-BP

I checked my notes and the last time the car moved was 9-6-10 when I put the new transmission in it and realized it wasn't the trans...

Yesterday I spent several hours getting the pumpkin reinstalled, installing the driveshaft, and removing the e-brake cables from under the car (they won't hook up to the new rearend). I also realized that I didn't have any u-bolts to attach my new driveshaft u-joints to my new center section (oops!). A friend of mine has a small shop local to me and he had a couple brand new ones he gave me.

This morning I got the new driveshaft attached and took the car out for it's first drive in a loooong time. I drove around my development slowly and found out I have a small tire rub on the RR. After about 20 min of screwing around I had that remedied and ventured out onto the main road. I got it up to (get this) 45 mph! I drove to the local gas station to put some fresh fuel in and drove it home for a good cleaning. It had a year of gathering dust and metal grindings, but after the clean up, I'd say I'm pretty happy with the final result. Tomorrow I'm off and plan to try and put some real mileage on it. I'm going to need to get some tires that aren't completely bald pretty quick though...

Here's a few shots:











-BP

Looks *awesome*!!

Waiting for a smoky burnout or hard-launch video.

-Dave

Very impressive, in its' 42 years, It has never looked better.

I love the old Cadillacs. When I was looking for a project car, they were high on the list.

What a transformation! Those wheels give the ol' Caddy an ATTITUDE. Great choice.