My 57 Fleetwood restorations photos with questions.

[57flw]

Roger and Bruce,

I am pretty sure I understand what is required now.
I will do as suggested and all should be good.

There really must be quite some weight involved here.

Thanks for the help.

Ken

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Well, seeing as the car weighs in at just over 2 Tons, there has to be at least 1 Ton at the rear, so yes, there is a bit of weight involved.

Bruce.

[57flw]

Update on my rear spring hangers.

I wanted to fit the rear shocks but could not, due to the distance between the rear axle housing and the chassis. The distance will reduce once the body weight is put back onto the chassis.

I did not have any fancy tools, so this is what I did.

I took a length of steel rod and bent it around my grinder stand into a U shape. I drilled a couple of holes in a piece of box metal to form a top jacking point.
Don't worry about my description too much. I have provided pictures.
I used a small hydraulic jack to drag the axle housing toward the chassis, to reduce the distance between the two. This in turn extended the rear of the rear springs which also caused a rearward movement of the rear spring hangers.

A happy result all round except I could not fit the rear shocks because the top threaded pin is too short. I will need to purchase more shockers.
They were provided by an American Company who said they were correct for a 57 Caddy. They were wrong, I think.
The longest part of this Resto is waiting on parts.

Ken

[Otto Skorzeny]

Hi Ken,

Just curious how the new shocks compare to the old ones. How much shorter are the new ones compared to theones you took off?

[57flw]

Hi Forrest,

Without getting too critical in measuring one end is 2 inches and the other is 1.5 inches.
There is not enough thread to get the nut started.

Ken

[57flw]

Forrest,

Let me qualify my last comment.

The new shockers are the same length as the old ones. I am referring to the end pins that actually hold the shocker in place.
The lower end is fine. The upper end is half an inch too short. By the time I place the two washers and rubbers there is no thread what so ever showing.

Ken

[Otto Skorzeny]

Don't you think that when you put the body on the frame they'll fit?

I'm sure the suspension will squish down more than 1/2" once it's all together. I wouldn't worry too much about looking for  other shocks. I'd finish building the car and put the shocks on then. My guess is that you'll have to compress the shock in order to squeeze it into place rather than installing it at the limit of its travel.

[57flw]

Forrest,

Perhaps my description of the problem was not quite good enough.
I always think a photo is better sometimes than words.
My wife quite often says, "I have no idea what you are talking about, show me a picture".

So here are the pictures.
As you can see 7617 is all OK. Photo 7618 shows there is no way to fit this end using the rubbers and washers provided. There is no thread visible for the nut and the mounting bracket has not come in to play yet.

Ken

[Roger Zimmermann]

As a temporary or definitive solution: cut some mm at the end of each rubber bushing until you have enough space to start to screw the nut. It won't hurt and you can rescue your shock absorbers.

Roger

[57flw]

Thanks Roger,

I had already thought of that. We must think a like. Scary isn't it.

If I was just going to do a temporary fix that is exactly what I would have done.
 I want a more long term sollution, so I will replace the shocks and try and find out what the wrong shocks fit and put them on Ebay.

Ken

[Otto Skorzeny]

Yes. A picture explains it all. That is strange.

As for trying to figure out what they fit, those aren't going to fit anything since it isn't the car causing the trouble. It's obviously impossible to fit them to any vehicle without using thinner bushings.

Maybe weld a piece of threaded stock to the end?

[dadscad]

From the picture I see, you are only a 16" or so from seeing threads on the end there. In cases like that I push upward on the shock body compressing the lower rubber slightly so I can get a couple of threads caught with the retaining nut. Then the wrench will do the rest of the hard work until you have the bushings properly compressed. Looks like what you have should work just fine, the bushings are supposed to be compressed until they bulge to the diameter of the washers.

If the bracket on the frame the shock goes through is thick enough that the mounting stud of the shock is not protruding past the bushing washer as in the picture, then my suggestion is not valid and you do need a shock with a longer mounting stud.

I've enjoyed following your progress.
David

[mgbeda]

I once had a similar problem with front shocks on Bessie; the threads were just a tiny bit too short to engage.  What I did was I (temporarily) put them together leaving out the top bushing.  Now it fit easily and I cranked the nut down very tight.  Then I let it sit a few hours.  After that I took the top nut and washer off, and quickly put on the top bushing, washer and nut.  The first torquing squished and settled the bottom bushing enough that I could now engage the threads with the nut even with everything in its proper place, so when I tightened it up this time I was done.

Of course having the right length of top threads would be a lot easier.

-mB

[57flw]

Hi Forrest,Roger,David,mb,

Thanks for your suggestions.
All of those have gone through my mind.

I sent the photo"s off to the place that supplied the parts and the Guy responded immediately. He asked me to provide him the part numbers of the shocks and the bushings  he sent me.
He obviously got one of them wrong.

Stay tuned for the outcome.

Ken

[57flw]

Well the rear shockers are finally in place.
The guy off eBay I bought them from (greghire1) was very, very helpful. Greg is from Fort Wayne IN. 46805.
After checking his entire stock of rubbers, which by the way were exactly the same as the ones he sent me, he modified a new set and posted them to me. He used Rogers suggested method.
They fitted without any problems at all.
I used my little compression rig and it worked well.
The spring hangers are now looking good and are heading in the right direction. They should be in the correct place once the weight of the body is applied.
I have plenty of new parts due to land shortly which include the new body to chassis mounts. There should also be a lot of engine parts and body rubbers so I will have plenty of things to do.
I have been held up waiting for parts for quite a while.
Here are some photo's of the rear spring hanger.

Ken

[57flw]

I almost took over another persons request for help in regards to a hard starting problem. Sorry about that. I won't do that again. It makes it too difficult to keep on the subject and for everyone concerned to get the right answers.

By the way Dave Yaros  I will find somewhere to connect that pipe during the rebuild.

I started talking about my heat riser and whether I should keep it or not. At the time of stripping the car mine was frozen and wired in the open position. See photo.

I must admit though I am a little confused now about keeping or discarding the heat riser. I have read up on why it is there and what it does and answers such as remove it, keep it but make sure it works, keep it and maintain it, remove the butterfly and keep the spacer, all have merit and are worth considering.

The people that have made comments are the ones I look to for the good answers and this time they all do not agree with each other. This is rare and also good.
I do not see snow where I live and ice is kept in the freezer, to put in my glass when I have a rum and coke. Perhaps my last statement would have an effect on the advise.
Over to you all.

Ken

[Glen]

Well you know my position.  I believe it should not be removed. 

In the other thread some one said the valve should not be lubed.  That is half right.  It should not be lubed with any petroleum product because the heat of the exhaust pipe will cook the oil to a hard mess and the valve will be non fictional. 

If you don’t lubricate it the rust will cause it to freeze up and you will have to break it loose at every oil change as someone else has suggested. 

The only lubricant that should be used on the heat riser is graphite. 

As I said in the other thread once I put the Part Ease on the valve I never had to worry about it again. 

I live in the only state that did not have snow this winter and I have experienced symptoms of carburetor icing, mostly because of the high humidity.

Keeping the heat riser improves drivability in the first few minutes of driving.  But many people think the problems caused by not having a heat riser are just the way these old cars back in the day. 

[Stem]

Maybe someone know where I can find this part for my Fleetwood 57, or maybe someone have it:
I need this small part:


And it is located in wiper arm:


PLEASE HELP 

[Roger Zimmermann]

I'm afraid you have to look for another wiper arm. It seems to me that the spring is broken; I don't remember that it can be removed from the arm; however, I'm not sure.

Roger

[57flw]

Well does it take a long time to get parts from the US or what.

I had a whole bunch of parts sent to Wilmington for shipping to Australia and it just took forever to get the parts loaded into the container, the container on to the boat, the boat across the huge amount of water, the container off the boat and then the really big step, through the Australian Customs mob. Then finally to me.

Well enough complaining. I used all the parts and hopefully have used them correctly to make a previously sick engine into a good one.
Here is a couple of pictures.


Ken