Continuing car saga

In the spring of 1990 we moved back to Ohio. At that point most of the cars we owned were just the average run-of-the-mill transportation type cars. We had two Oldsmobile Cierra Cutlass. We also had the following: a Chevette, a Toyota Nova, a couple Caprice cars, and my current truck. The Toyota Nova was actually a Chevrolet Nova built by Toyota.

My son Steve, gifted me money to buy a collector type car. I ended up purchasing a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. I bought it at an auction, I should've shopped more I bought it at a good price however it did need some work. It needed new brakes, brake lines, fuel lines, plastic inserts or bumper fillers as they are called. I also replaced all the fluids.

The car still needs quite a bit of work. I've replaced the top, done other extensive repairs. I replaced the bumper fillers I have a blog concerning that ordeal. Because it sits so much we've replaced two fuel pumps. At present it needs a paint job, trunk liner, interior work and Lord knows what else.

I like convertibles and this car is a lot of fun, however it has a 500 CC engine and it gets 8 to 10 miles per gallon. So in the days of four dollar gas I have not driven it as much as I would like. The Cadillac Eldorado's are front wheel drives, which were unusual in the 70s. This car was to be the last of the convertibles and Cadillac made 14,000. A lot of these cars are still around as people thought they would be collector cars. At this point they are not worth anymore in a nice convertible of that era. The exceptions are a very very low mileage auto in perfect condition. Cadillac also made about 200 Bicentennial editions which are highly collectible.

1976 Cadillac Eldorado Bumper Fillers

I have this 1976 Cadillac convertible that I bought a few years ago. My son Steve gifted me the money to buy it. It was missing front bumper fillers. I thought it should be an easy fix. I found out later that Cadillac = neither easy nor inexpensive.

So after years of missing bumper fillers I bought the replacements thinking it should be an easy fix. The original material the fillers were made were of poor quality rubber like stuff, and are not reproduced. If you can find new old stock of these parts more than likely they rotted right in the box. So you have a choice of fiberglass or ABS plastic. Neither fit as they should, the molds these company use are at best poor.

After lots of research I found that the fiberglass were less expensive but most owners preferred the ABS. The fiber glass ones are sold by one company in Alabama and the ABS are made by one company and sold by many vendors. I found one ABS seller recommended by others at a reasonable price. They were slow to ship and left out two pieces. They quickly shipped the missing pieces after I called them so no problem.

The installation process was a real pain. I looked on line and found a very helpful source for instructions to install the rear set but nothing for the front other than you need to remove the front bumper. The rear fillers I got installed after hours of fiddling and cutting brackets and dremeling the fillers to make them fit.

The front required removal of the front bumper , parking and headlights. The access to the bolts to attach to these fillers do not accommodate these huge hands I inherited. So thanks to my daughter and grandson for their help. Then bumper removal is not a one person job. Thanks to my oldest son for his aid..

I now have the replacement fillers on the car. Moral of the story Cadillac bumper fillers are a pain, not cheap, not easy to replace.