Posted on 01/01/2009 9:38:24 PM PST by Dallas59
My Pop has a 1985 Cadillac Eldorado. He got divorced the same year he bought it and afterwards locked the caddy up in the garage. I guess he didn't want his second wife to get a hold of it. It still has the original 85 tags, plates, tires on it. It hasn't been driven since 85. Dark blue leather interior, Landau roof, midnight blue paint. After reading that story about the 6 million dollar car being found...how much cash would this 85 Eldorado fetch??????? 12,000?
Correct.
I was in Tulsa 2 years ago when they drug a 57 Belvedere out of a 50 year time capsule.
The poor thing was in a badly designed time capsule. It had leaked and that beautiful Plymouth was basically buried in water.
A total rusted piece of junk.
But the white wall tires??? Man! They still looked brand new.
Jmouse has the right idea. Everything on the car that's made out of rubber will have to be replaced: all four tires and every hose. While you have the hoses off, drain and flush the radiator. Drain the gas tank and replace all the fuel. Drain the transmission and replace the fluid and the filter. Every gasket needs to be replaced too: the head gaskets, the intake manifold gasket, the oil pan and the water pump. Replace the oil and the oil filter. You need to check the water pump while you have it off. The bearings have probably seized up.
Because it was inside a garage, the dash and upholstery are probably still in good shape. Replace the battery, then replace the spark plugs and the spark plug wires ONE AT A TIME (because they have to be kept in the correct firing order), and the distributor cap and rotor. Every time you take out a spark plug, squirt a little motor oil into the cylinder before replacing the plug.
When a vehicle is parked for an extended period of time, the best insurance policy is to start it up once a month and let it run for five minutes. This circulates oil through the cylinders and heads. Since this wasn't done, it has almost certainly seized up. That squirt of oil into the top of each cylinder was just the beginning.
There's a crescent-shaped plate on the bottom of the engine, behind the oil pan and below the transmission bell housing. This covers the accessible part of the flywheel. Take the plate off and use a wrench to turn the flywheel through several revolutions. This will turn the oil pump, and circulate more oil through the engine.
After you've done all that in the order I've described, you should be able to fire it up; and you've increased the value of the car by $10,000 to $20,000.
Of course, don’t forget to replace the belts. When you get your gasket kit for the heads and the intake manifold, it includes the valve cover gaskets. When you get those valve covers off, oil the valves and lifters. Always scrape off every speck of the old gasket material off of every surface with a putty knife before putting on the new gasket, or you will almost certainly get a leak.
A couple of thousand bucks tops.
I collect mid-80s mint motorcycles and do occasionally ride them. Most have at least one original tire. When I ride I ride hard (off road) and have experienced no failures. I do keep a close eye on them. Cracks around the circumference of the tire are the bad kind.
You must live in a high rent neighborhood. Around here, it would be $300 to $500 if the crank, etc., are OK.
None of my 80s motorcycles (for which I am the original owner) have needed any seals or gaskets replaced, BTW. Some have sat for at least 10 years without being started along the way.
Alll tires should be scrapped after 5 years.
You guys must live in a wet sauna or something. Granted, I live in the desert, but there is no detectable difference in the internal condition of our garage-stored vehicles after 20-30 years and maybe more!
That’s absurd. Are you a primary shareholder of Firestone?
I live in the Midwest. The humidity here can reach 90% for days at a time. In the desert you’ve got it made. Of course, with the oil draining out of the engine for 23 years, it could still be seized up. And you’d have a different set of problems. The dash and upholstery are more likely to dry out and crack, even if it’s stored in a garage.
“It’s worth 6 million too...but in Zimbabwe dollars.”
Maybe a bit more if sold through email.
My Dad had a burgundy 84 Biarritz Eldorado convertible.
Wifey and I drove it away from our wedding rec. with cans behind it, got pulled over a mile from home for them too. He sold it a couple years ago. I told him not to. Don’t know what he got but it was mint. I drove it a bunch of times with the top down. Very luxurious.
they looked like Olds Toronados back then
Well over 20 years ago, my late father and law, my wife, various releatives, etc, and I built a pole barn to cover his 67 Cadillac Coupe De Ville, which was in excellent condition at the time. He has passed on, and the CDV has passed to me-my task is to gather the courage to pop the lock on the door and see what’s in the barn. Just to get the car to the road is going to require serious chainsaw time, from all the trees that have grown up in the meantime, then I have to work out a way to get it from Hope, AK, to here in Wasilla. Yep, it’s a barn find and I know where the barn is. Even in a best case scenario I would expect to spend a good year and a few dozen benjies getting it going again. But that 472 ci roar ought to be worth every penny.
Yo! My name is Guido and my main squeeze, Maria think your car is Mint! We cant wait to dive to the mall to buy parachute pants at Chess King and listen to our favorite band “Lime”. When I think about it I get so excited I want to Break dance.
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