![[exploded switch]](nsafety.jpg)
You can find more service tips on Dave's Cadillac page.
The installation of course goes in reverse steps. Putting the upper panel back was hard work though - the retaining clips ought to go into the spring loaded hooks on the cowl, but I still couldn't get it to align quite right. It's there now though without any squeaks, at least until next time...
Tips of the day, relevant to all work with DC generators: they rely on remaining magnetism to "know" which polarity to generate. If the polarization is reversed, you'll have the generator in series with the battery instead of in parallel once you start the engine and the regulator cut-out contacts kick in. This will damage the regulator, the generator wiring and might actually cause a fire. To avoid reverse polarization:
Replacing the thing is no big deal, but of course I didn't think what I was doing and started by removing the two bolts holding the P/S pump to its mounting bracket. That doesn't help much, since you'd have to pull the pulley off the pump to be able to remove the pump from the bracket, and getting the bolts back on was a real bitch... Instead, you'll need to remove the bracket itself to be able to move the pump out of the way and get to the sender unit. Do not do this when the engine is hot - you'll need to remove two bolts on the thermostat mounting flange and two bolts on the water pump. I didn't bother draining the water from the engine before finally replacing the sender unit, it won't leak much fluid if you're quick and the radiator cap is on. The unit has a conical thread - don't use any gasket cement or sealer, but tighten it to the correct torque (40 ft-lbs).
(Open the picture in another browser window for reference if you like) The vacuum part of the switch works like this: in park and neutral positions, the switch slider presses on the piston through the bottom plate. The gasket resembling a hat is pressed against the bottom of the vacuum housing, closing out vacuum. In the same time, any remaining vacuum from the brake release diaphragm escapes through the openings in the bottom plate around the piston, so the brake will stay on.
When you turn the selector lever past neutral to drive, the spring pushes the piston the other way. The vacuum port gasket opens and at the same time the piston presses the o-ring against the bottom plate, so the vacuum will only go through the output port to the brake release diaphragm.
Now there are a few things that can go wrong:
The electrical part of the switch is pretty simple. The contacts and the slider looked quite robust, I don't think that they will ever wear out - if they don't work (use an ohmmeter and slide the switch back and forth to check their action), try taking that part of the switch apart too and see if you only need to clean the contacts. Lubricate the parts with some grease before putting the switch back together.
When reinstalling the switch, you'll need to adjust it - it has an oval shaped fixing hole and can be turned a little around the steering column. I used the reverse position for this to check that the backup lights came on only in reverse (note that the ignition current needs to be on, as well as the headlights). The neutral safety part should fall in the right place this way too, but it's better to check it too and make final adjustments if necessary. Use an ohmmeter for this to avoid accidentally cranking the engine with the transmission in drive!
The other one was more complex, because the shop manual was of no help in getting access to the motor (it starts with "lower the window halfway" and I had already diagnosed the motor itself to be broken...). I managed to lower both the window and the regulator assembly along with the motor by taking all of the mounting bolts & screws off. Then I managed to separate the regulator and motor from the rest of the window hardware through the access hole. At this point I was afraid I'd never get the window back together, let alone get a new motor in time to get the car out of winter storage without delays.
So, I proceeded to try and fix the motor itself, even though they're not supposed to be serviceable. It was actually easy - one of the brushes had gotten stuck in its holder. The resulting sparks in turn had burned the commutator black and pitted it badly, so the motor no longer worked. I cleaned it and turned the commutator with some fine sanding paper. Apply 12 volts. Whirrr... $100 saved.
If you have dead window motors, it pays to take a look inside. If the sealing is intact, they shouldn't be corroded. And the motor has an internal circuit breaker for overload protection, so they're unlikely to have burned windings either.
Safety precaution - the window regulator assembly has a strong counterweight spring. Do not try to separate the motor from the regulator before you have drilled a 1/4" or so hole through the regulator gear cam lobe and body and fixed them with a bolt and nut so they can't turn! From the looks of the thing, it might be possible to lose a finger due to mishandling.
The reassembly was rather uneventful, but of course I adjusted the rear windows while the front windows were down, and according to Murphy's law never tried them until assembling the interior, too. Now I have to raise the front windows before the rear quarters, or the doors won't close since the quarters move too far to the front... Have to fix that sometime.
The shop manual tells you to remove the seat first, but I found the solenoid/gear drive unit can be removed and installed with the seat in the car, at least if the seat hasn't stuck very low. The unit is attached with two special bolts and a rubber spacer under the front of the seat. Once those are off, the unit slides off the motor shaft (there's a rubber coupling in between). Then you can remove the two screws holding the cable brackets on both sides of the unit (they have some funky "anti-tamper" heads, but a suitable screwdriver will work) and the cables will slide off.
Once I disassembled the gear unit, I expectedly found a lot of dirt and old grease which had turned into a hard, sticky plastic like gunk. I cleaned everything and reassembled the unit using lots of lithium grease. If you don't have the shop manual, be sure to document what you're doing -- the unit has quite a lot of parts. Installing the solenoid unit was a bit difficult since the square heads of the drive cables wouldn't agree to enter the solenoid axles simultaneously. Slide the attachment brackets back on the cables so you can push the cables in one at a time, and turn the solenoid shafts with a screwdriver if needed to align them. Remember the correct order of the cables -- the yellow ones belong in the front, black in the middle and the blue cables in the rear.
Do not run the seat with some of the cables disconnected; if the gears in the opposite ends of the seat end up "out of phase", you'll most probably need to remove the seat to be able to sort this out.
While you're under the seat, lubricate the worm gear that actually moves the seat, located under the counterbalance springs in the seat mechanism. It is rather well exposed at a certain seat position, easily accessible from behind the seat.
Now the seat works, even the sideway directions of the control stick (up and down), which never worked before! It operates both front and rear control solenoids in the same time, and requires a bit more oomph.
I had already been told by several places that new hoses aren't available and I'd have to have one custom made. Easy enough and not too expensive either, but the old hose has to come off first. The pump end was easy, but the other end in the steering gear just would not come loose. It is in a cramped place, and my 11/16" flare nut wrench wouldn't work, it gave way and I was afraid of deforming the nut beyond all hope.
I decided to cut the damn pipe and try my luck with a six point socket, never mind that if that failed, I'd need to remove the entire steering gear from the car on the yard. Sawing and filing were out because the steering gear doesn't like metal shavings. I bought the smallest pipe cutter I could find, and managed to wiggle it around enough to make a ~60° cut on the side of the metal tube and snapped it off. The nut came off pretty easily with the socket *phew*.
Of course the escaping ATF made a mess, until I realized I can turn the pump by hand and have it spew the remaining fluid into a bottle. I went to the hydraulics shop with the mangled remains of the hose, and a new one was ready in 20 minutes. They had to reuse the old fixing nuts -- this is good to remember when deciding how to get the old hose off...
I had the new hoses in place in another 20 minutes, filled the reservoir, crossed my fingers and fired up the engine. One small leak on the steering gear fitting when turning the wheel at a standstill. I decided to live with that, since there was simply no room for a wrench to tighten it further.
First the steering made quite a bit of noise; bangs and groans and squeals from the pump belt, as it was working against the air bubbles. The noises have mostly disappeared after some driving, and the leak seems to have disappeared by itself, too! I can finally clean the engine compartment properly...
I measured horrible voltage drops across all the points that should've been grounded, plus the voltage was jumping off the multimeter scale (20V) at times on the generator, meaning bad connections. I had previously connected the generator ground wire which was missing when I got the car, but this time I did it right with proper connectors.
Then I cleaned the points in the regulator, got it warmed up and started tweaking. I got the idle charging voltage adjusted up to relatively steady 14 volts on the battery terminals, meaning it's fine now. It's still a little less with the lights on and the gear in drive, but that's normal for a DC charging system.
Bad grounds are the main reason to electrical problems in cars and should always be the suspect, but you keep forgetting that all the time...
GAB 82109 Front shock absorber, '61-'64 2 pcs 60 euros/pair...and ordered them right away. These were gas shocks made by Gabriel. They sat on the floor for maybe two weeks, because I didn't think I could replace them on the yard. Nevertheless, I decided to try the easily accessible upper nut on the driver's side while doing something else, and it came off surprisingly easy. So did the nut on the lower bolt, and in 10 minutes I had the new shock in place, all without jacking up the wheel!
The other side took about an hour, because I had to whip out the ol' rubber mallet in order to persuade the lower bolt out of the tube in the old shock, and the upper nut is in a much worse position under the generator (and of course that nut was stuck). But the difference in handling was well worth the effort and money. The old rear shocks have to go sometime too, though.