Crappy first cars FTMFW!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lex
1988 Cadillac Fleetwood Broughm.... 2 tone Cadillac yellow and rust with tan leather interior... blew the motor 2 months later. Apparently repeated neutral drops aren't good for a car.... who knew?  |
Nice!
Mine was a 1987 Cadillac Sedan Deville. Goldish tan exterior, light tan leather interior. FWD, with the notorious HT4100 V8. It had lots of torque and no horsepower. It had TBI. It had a very cool pre-OBDII on board diagnostic system where you could press buttons on the digital climate control to get codes and live sensor data on the climate and fuel displays.
It was pretty beat up, but if I had it now I know I could fix it up right. At 17 I was not patient or experienced enough to do anything other than hack it into worse condition than when I started.
Headlight mount broken? No need to screw on a bracket, I can just stuff rags behind it until it stops moving. TPS bad? Not necessary to take off the TBI and disassemble it, just use needlenose pliers to turn the screws and a quart of silicone to hold the new TPS in place. Dent in the rear quarter? Hell, I'll just try hammering that out with a carpenter's hammer...
Not everything was a terrible hack. The suspension was worn, the rear sagged and the front was way up in the air; I did some
decent hacks with that. I first tried to rig up manual inflation valves for the OEM air ride system but the bags (or whatever was in those shock absorbers) popped. Then I went to the suspension aisle in Pep Boys where I found rubber blocks for the rear coils and metal clamp-like brackets for the front coils; it was hacky and looked bad if you were a mechanic, but it made the car sit right and handle great along with the upsized rims and tires -- 205/55R16 IIRC, back when the low profile tire idea was still new.
That car was so comfortable, and had so much character...