For a little over a week now, the Cadillac limo has been sitting in my driveway, occasionally moving here or there or making a quick trip in on the rural roads where nobody bothers to go. It’s been good to freak out the neighbors with and the in-laws love the beast, I’m sure. The local gearheads have taken a real shine to the car, however, and with the third round of the King of the Heap racing series about to go down at NCM this upcoming weekend, I knew that even if the car isn’t able to run the race itself (we have the wrong tires and the slots have been sold out for a while now), it can at least make an appearance. That meant that the Cadillac’s biggest problem would have to get fixed: the no-charging issue.
We were warned when we bought the car that the charging system wasn’t working well, but driving eighty miles in pitch-dark with no issue whatsoever had us really wondering if there was just a fix that needed to take place that we had performed that night. The next morning, however, the battery that we had stuffed into the tray was flatter than a pancake and no amount of charging it was bringing it back to life. A new battery was sourced and the alternator was taken in for testing. With a fresh battery and a known good alternator on board, surely the limo would charge, right? Nope…once the multimeter got broken out, the voltage at the battery was at 12 volts even and dropping with the lights on. Not good. I really was not looking forward to wire-shooting in the dark pit that is underneath the hood.
Fast-forward to this morning. I had determined that the issue lay in one of three spots: a fusible link near the positive wire at the starter, one of the bulkhead connector junctions on the firewall, or one simple idiot light. One look at the bulkhead connector and my stomach fell flat…it looked like a wire fire had taken place at some point. Fantastic. But with everything else functional, I decided that the simplest solution would be the easiest. On this era of Caddy, the charging circuit requires that the “GENERATOR” idiot light be functional for charging to occur. If the bulb is shot or the circuit board is screwed, so are you. I’d like to say that getting to the bulb is easy, and if this was a well-cared for Cadillac, it would be. This car hasn’t been well cared for, so after fighting a dash screw that refused to extract for an hour and working the mystery bolt out of the hole in the roof of the glove compartment, I got the dash top to lift far enough to get the bulb socket out and into the open. Sure enough, I was greeted with one of the most dead #194 bulbs you’ve ever seen. I raided one from the Imperial’s side marker lights and plugged everything back together, said a few words of encouragement, and hooked the battery back up, praying that it would work (and that I would not have to crawl underneath that barge.) With the Cadillac fired up, the results spoke for themselves: 14.2 volts at the battery. Yes!
So, let’s recap: one cheap lightbulb, six Phillip head screws and one 9/32 bolt, and I have the mother of bad decisions charging like it’s supposed to. And for a bonus point, the car’s “BRAKES” idiot light managed to fix itself in the process! I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not but I’m not asking questions at this point. It’s not Christine but I’ll take a self-healing Cadillac right about now.
So with that anecdote out of the way, our Question Of The Day for you, readers is simple enough: when faced with a major problem that looks like a lot of work or a lot of money (or both), when did you come up with a stupidly simple fix that worked?
My ’62 Vette had the dreaded “droopy wiper cables”, How the f@#$ do I take out the slack? I cut a small rectangle of sheet metal, folded it over in the vise and crimped it on the cable. Once in place bent it in a “V”….the droop was gone.
Back when, I bought a Vega with a good body that was presumed to have the normal Vega motor issues, i.e. it was junk. Only it had recently been rebuilt…but was making terrible clanging noises and couldn’t power up the slightest hill. The disgusted seller was finished dealing with it even after his expenditures and wanted out, Dad and I towed it home behind his work van. Later on when I was ready to work on it, before pulling the motor for a V8 swap I noticed the engine was coming loose from the trans (?!) and tightened it up. Then the fuel filter was clogged nearly solid, 99 cents to replace. Suddenly it ran great, no problems at all. I drove it like that for a few weeks to prove it out then sold the fresh motor for more than I paid for the car.
At the shop I work at we had a customer bring her 1992 Cadillac in with a coolant leak. The little old lady doesn’t have much money and has been bringing us the car since it was new. We bring it in the shop and inspect for the leak. Turns out there is a full on hole in the side of the 4.9 caddy V8. After telling her the bad news, she says can you just plug the hole, I can’t afford to fix it.
After some JB Weld and some time we filled the hole and topped up the coolant.
That car has been driving like that for 2 years now. We had to add a bit more jb weld last week as it was starting to leak again.
I have no idea how that worked but it works well.
when i was a teen my dad had a guy in tiling the bathroom,we got talking about cars and he informed me about an old car niether he or his mechanic could get running right,it was a loaded 68 fury 383 ,i bought it and had it towed home,turned out to be an overtightened holley with a cracked baseplate-should have kept that one…
Fire .
An easy one that may help a few folks. A few years ago I had a 66 International 4×4 pick up with a snow plow on it.REAL RUSTY,and so was the inside of the gas tank. Every time I plowed snow,and it is cold out.I had to replace the inline fuel filter on it a couple times .I would plow for a couple hours each time. I was not taking the fuel tank out and getting a new one. Its an International,didn’t have another old tank to rig up in the bed. But I did have a 2 quart hydraulic filter with cast iron mount.I rerouted the fuel line to were I self tapered the Hyd. filt housing to the fenderwell. plumbed it down on both sides to 3/8″barb .Presto chango ran it for a few more years and never had an issue with the fuel filter clogging up again.
Sold the damn car.
While working at a Benz dealer, I ran across a ’95 E320 sedan six cyl. that wouldn’t run over 3000 rpm. No fault codes and fuel pressure ckok. Spent a day and a half performing various exorcisms to no avail. Finally, I disconnected the remote air cleaner box from the intake tube and it ran great. Hmmm. The filter box lies behind the r/f headlight in front of the wheel well. I opened up the box and removed the square filter. In the bottom I found about 2 gallons of dry Alpo kibble packed into the housing by some enterprising squirrel using it as his winter stash. I saved the offending Alpo and showed it to the owner and chastised him for not storing the dog chow in a metal container in his garage. All’s well that ends well……..
My wife’s Oldsmobile Achieva had a leak in the cowl vents that would leave water on the floor every time it rained. And this proved nearly impossible to track down. Finally, I poured glue into the cowl vents, hoping it would get into the tiny crevices that were leaking but drain out of the correct drain holes without clogging them up. It worked.
After my Chevelle was released from it’s 4 year sentence in paint jail, it was time to cruise. I assembled the motor prior to it going into the body shop. The car would idle all day and never go above 195 degrees. Drive it and temp would climb to 220 degrees or higher within 15 to 20 minutes. Ok, new radiator, water pump, T-stat, acid flush block and fan clutch and no change. Still overheating. Finally my buddy suggested pulling the swap meet Accel distributor and stabbing the factory single point back in. Problem solved. I never knew an advance curve could make a motor overheat so bad.
my Beloved yet butchered and rusted beyond safe 1985 4WD 6.2L diesel suburban had many issues. One was the rear cab mounts being rotted off the floor. I was 35 miles away from home at a buddies house. He’s a Chrysler FWD guy. My taillight harness had a short and was popping fuses. In the dark in the street we could not find where the caked on dried mud covered harness was. The simple and Quick fix: He had a blade fuse sized Chrysler Lebaron Convertible Circuit breaker. I had to pull off the highway twice and wait for the circuit breaker to reset. Yet it got me home and the wires were replaced with an extension cord running back in a different path.
I drove that truck until the timing chain was too stretched for the injection pump (it was ‘clocked’ all the way). Even then I managed to get it to run enough to go Mudding until I popped 2 tires and blew up the front differential gears. Best $600 truck ever.
I worked at a Toyota dealership in the early 90’s. A guy and his wife came in with an old but very clean Corolla. The engine was making a terrible noise and smoke from under the hood. As l greeted them they both exited the vehicle and started telling how upset they were and how the husband tried working on the car and how they were sure he messed something up and that the engine was blown. I took me a few minutes to calm them down and finally they asked where the new car show room was. I escorted them to the showroom, introduced them to a salesman and told them l would park their car in the service lot. I assured them they could leave the car there for as long as they needed and to come see me when they decided what they wanted to do. An hour later they came to my desk and were so happy that they just purchased a new Corolla and asked me how they could dispose of their old one. I told them l would give them $100 for it as l could use it as a “parts” car. They handed me the title and l ran across the street to the local ATM and purchased the car. That evening as closing time came, l went out to the car to get a closer look. I opened the hood and was greeted by a loose spark plug still attached to the wire. I borrowed some tools. Reinstalled the loose plug and checked the other 3 to be sure. It started up and ran and drove perfect. Two dsys later the salesman handed me a $100 referal bonus. So essentially l got a 4 year old car with 89,000 miles for free. I finally sold it 13 years later with almost 250K on it for $300.