Small Fixes Costing Me Fortune on My Survivor 1963 Cadillac Coupe de Ville

here we go guys phase one of the 63 Cadillac repairs what have we found so far let's get started and find out so if you guys haven't watched the video of the reveal of the 63 Cadillac coup DeVille you should go into the description below there's a link and you go check it out I just purchased this not too long ago and I knew it needed some repairs there's not only some repairs I'm going to do there's also upgrades I'm going to do there's things that currently work but they just they're old or worn out I'd like to do some upgrades so we're going to show you all today what my plans are on certain things and also what we found along the way let's go and jump into the interior here we go Mrs wizard whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa I'm not driving with you if you that's how you drive little kids always think that that's the way you drive we know today if we did that we'd end up in a ditch or something but one of the issues it had was the turn signals one way would work the other way would do nothing and I got the steering column off and you can see inside of here you can see there's little cam mechanism that moves back and forth there's nothing wrong with that there's actually if you watch right down here there's a little lever deep inside that moves forward and backwards there's a steel cable that goes all the way through the column all the way down here to the bottom you can watch this little cable when I do the turn signal sign that's all it does is move a switch back and forth I went ahead and took these connectors off and I found the problem is that the housing of this switch right here was just in pieces so here's the switch and it's made out of this Bal light plastic or some sort of plastic and pieces of it were missing it was sitting in there kind of cockeyed and when I actually tried to remove it it just crumbled in my hand there's just pieces everywhere so this switch is no good which is actually part of this metal frame piece here I found a good used one on eBay I think it was $300 but you don't really have an option it's almost like Ferrari prices or Rolls-Royce prices when you get to this old of a vehicle which is really something people never think of specialty parts that are only to this 63 Cadillac here are not going to be five and 10 bucks they're three four five a grand people know what they got if you need the part you're going to pay for it so it's just the way it is there's really No Way Around It no you can't 3D print one of those there's no way so that's pretty much all that's going on in here but let's take a look at this AC I actually had it running and it blows very cold air but while it was running it was shaking the whole car the compressor works it's just old and some of the research I've done is the old York style compressors they just they shake they vibrate they're they're not very efficient they're really not very good they just they actually do cool and that's the only positive thing about them so I got got the AC working the unit that's on the center of the dash there although it's not the prettiest it does work it blows cold air so here we are in the engine bay with our 390 Cadillac engine I don't have any issues with the engine it actually runs pretty good but whenever I would turn on the AC although it would blow cold the old style compressor it looks like a York style it's actually made by tumza and when it's running I mean it just shakes the whole car pretty bad I don't know if something's wrong with it or if that was normal for those in those years it's just you kind of just put up with it that's the way it was and although it did work it wasn't making any bad noises or anything I just this so old and so inefficient that here's what I'm going to do with it I'm not going to e it I don't want to break it but I am setting it down here I'm going to convert it to this sand in style AC compressor which it wouldn't really bolt to this original plate very well as you can see I mean it sits there but there's no real mounting point but this kit that I purchased actually comes with an adapter plate so this plate sits where the old compressor used to be and then the compressor sits on top of that I mean you get the idea it's kind of a rough setup but it sits there bolts up then I'm going to get some elbows I'm going to get new hoses as well get these remade but it'll bolt onto this sanding compressor and it'll run so much smoother and be way more efficient Rob less power from the engine so I'm going to keep the inside AC unit I think it looks period correct it actually is it came in the years when this car was new but I'll use the sanding compressor get new barricade hoses installed and probably keep this condenser also a new receiver dryer with this old of a system the desicant that's inside of the old one is probably used up let me show you where it's at you can see the old receiver dryer there the old R12 system here is a new one I'm going to be putting in it has the same connections and everything and this is being converted to R134 so I actually put some in it before and it actually works very well blew nice and cold so I know it's going to work well with a new compressor system serviced everything back up in operating Condition it's going to blow nice cold air and not shake the whole car so that part is solved as mentioned in the last video we noticed that the heater core was probably blown because they had cut the hoses and bypassed the heater hoses and we could see terrible Rusty stuff at the bottom which no longer it has because a brand new heater core I just put it in Junior met put it together formerly we got it all back together painted it black take a look at the old heater core guys so you can see it's all Rusty and crusty and corroded and it was just blowing cooling out the bottom completely unusable so the heater core is done all I have to do is flush the cooling system a second time I've already done it once I'm going to do it a second time put new heater hoses and then I'll have heat again yay but I definitely don't need heat today Mrs wizard no it is really hot in here the next upgrade I'm going to do is take out the old I think it's a 50 something amp alternator and upgrade ated to probably 150 amp 12si out of a newer GM product as you can see it has the old style here it looks kind of like a 10si alternator but it's externally regulated with these wires that go up to this little black box I will do away with that and put it in a box and keep it for originality but I will upgrade it to a 12 SI so it's putting out plenty plenty of power let's take a look at the carburetor [Music] this has the old Carter carburetor it's kind of an AFB style carburetor this was before the quadro jet so it's an older style carburetor it works fine it does okay but what do you guys think about upgrading it to one of those new throttle body style fuel injection where it looks like a carburetor but it's basically EFI that will sit directly in place of this carburetor and even use the stock air cleaner it just just will no longer be the old boiling gas vapor lock carburetor on it or I could just keep this one as it is but I'm thinking I'm leaning towards a holly style sniper or something like that I think it would really work really well if I ever take this thing on a trip up into the mountains or something that was something one of Mrs Wizard's uncles mentioned back in the day he can remember going through the top of mountains to go on vacation and having to change the Jets on their carburetor having to stop every 30 minutes and change the settings because it start it's coughing it's running terrible and I don't want to mess with that I think a EFI would look stock you really wouldn't even know unless you looked and it'll run like a fuel injected vehicle I am going to be keeping this engine it runs very well I'm not going to LS swap it or do anything dumb but those are just some of the modifications I'm going to do with the engine now let's talk about this radiator couple people mentioned in the last video you're missing your fan shroud no I'm not in fact in 63 on the non AC car which is what this was obviously cuz it had aftermarket AC you got a four blade fan with no shroud from the factory that's the way it was oh it came with a factory installed Finger Cutter yes if you got the AC car then you got a five blade clutch fan thermal clutch with a fan shroud but again if you got the non-ac car you got this puny little fan no fan shroud I'm actually contacted some of the people in the 6364 Cadillac parts Forum there's a guy that has a shroud and a five blade fan I'm probably going to upgrade to that and that would really improve the cooling on this thing and wizard you're really get starting to encroach my space back here in my studio yeah it is kind of in the way as you notice we have the hood off so this this channel is out there for you guys and we ask your opinion should I repaint the entire Cadillac or just the hood and you guys have spoken the majority vote is Paint The Hood leave the rest alone don't touch it don't sand it don't mess with it maybe get it polished where it looks a lot better but it's original paint it's only original once so I'm going to have the hood repainted just a single stage paint just black like it was so it'll take care of that nasty nasty looks like someone sanded it with a cender block or something that'll be taken care of the rest of it I'm going to leave alone let me show you the actual data tag on this car some of you mentioned in the previous video that wasn't originally black it used to be a maroon color or some other color no it wasn't it actually I looked at the 63 paint options for the 63 Cadillac year and black is not even listed but look at our tag you can see right there it says paint code number 10 I did look up that GM paint cat and it's ebony black it came from the factory it must have been special ordered this color but it was originally black and if we take a look at some of the panels like behind on the door let me show you when I open the door here we can see it used to have oil change stickers right here all the way back from when it was a fairly new car and this paint is identical to the outside paint underneath is just some primer coating original primer from the factory and its original layer of paint this has not been repainted this is the way it was since new and compared to 2024 cars today that sound like a soda pop can when you close them this is the way a door should sound when it closes it sounds like a bank vault closing these were very wellb built cars or really good ways to lose your fingers yeah it would probably smash your thumb or fingers really bad if you were to close it on it I do have good news the radio works I was thinking I'm going to have to figure out something the radio doesn't work I really don't want to hack this thing up it's so nice but I checked the fuses and it had a tiny little one amp fuse that should be two or five or something like that so I put a five in it and it came alive obviously I can't play music but I'll turn it on and let you hear the [Music] static I don't know that we get to too many AM stations here there but it does work it does work there is a station I like is 1070 which is a country station I will be putting it on that listening to music I also thought it would just have one speaker in the dash up front and it does have one but it actually has a rear speaker let's go take a look so back then they didn't have stereo where if they did it wasn't in this car and I think you could get an FM option I don't know if it was stereo but AM radio we know is not stereo so it has one in the front one in the back only one in the back let's take a look you can see to the right there there's a little foil oval shape there that is the speaker and it actually sounds very good when I did have music playing it sounds just like it did when it was new it's nice warm tone it sounds actually really really good I'm not going to hack it up and put 6x9 and different speakers in it I just I just can't I don't have the heart to do that I am going to look for an AM transmitter that I could Bluetooth some songs over to the current stock radio but I've seen a few of these at car shows 62 65s and they have holes in the partial shelf in the back where they've put in 6 by9 I'm just like oh that's disgusting that's terrible as Mrs wizard pan you can see some grid pattern there that's where the speaker is underneath you can't really see it unless you shine light on it and that's the way I'd like to keep it if you do the same thing on the driver's side there is no grid pattern there's no holes and I'm not going to cut any either so just leave it just like it is some of you commented in the previous video this is the incorrect tires it should have the thin stripe around there the the White Walls just a thin 1in little stripe not the solid white walls basically I don't care I really don't care about that and in fact it's just a tire is it correct to this year no even if it was a 65 Cadillac I'm still going to put those on it cuz I love the way they look when you see this thing cruising down the road I want Bright White Walls where people go wow that's beautiful I like it I'm going to leave it alone just like it is so it is what it is also one last thing let me get this little emblem I'll show you oh yeah that's really nice bring that a little bit closer little closer a little closer oh good no no no no no no no you don't get to keep it Mrs wizard but it make a great emblem for a part work no it goes to this car it's not going on a part work in fact when Mrs wizard gave the interior review on the last video you saw that the Cadillac emblem on the glove box is broken and missing I found one on eBay so it'll replace that and won't be missing it'll look a lot better that thing is so big it's hard to get you in the frame there dear it is a long car and amazingly if you were to put like a 76 Cadillac right next to this or 79 Lincoln they're wider and bigger than this by inches like a lot so as big as this car is it's not as big as that the big cars get in the late' 7s or mid late '70s so that's kind of phase one we're doing everything What I Call On Top of the car we're getting the engine things upgraded seals replaced leaks fixed everything operating properly nice cold AC just the hood repainted leave the rest of the car alone phase two is going to be on a lift underneath the car with the blown shocks the exhaust and several other things that need to be addressed underneath once I get all those things done phase three is going to go through do minor little detail maybe upgrade the radio like I mentioned with an AM transmitter and a few other items and this thing is going to be Cruise ready it's going to be done it doesn't need tens of thousands of dollars worth of work it's such a nice example it just needs a little bit and once we get to that point we'll take you guys on a ride and you can take a trip back to 1963 where the mafia were taking people out to the desert who whoa wait wait wizard no I don't know if that's a story of this car or not if it is I don't want to know please don't let me know I I I want to pretend that the trunk has never had that happen in it please don't they were cruising the strip cruising the strip okay that's what they were doing yes like I mentioned this car is from Vegas it spent his life in Vegas if you're curious what kind of tools we're going to use to work on this Cadillac or really any other car in the shop check our Amazon and F it Link in the description below if you purchase anything there we get a small cut and we really appreciate it it has all the tools we use in the shop for sale there also hit the Subscribe button because you want to keep up with this Cadillac and there's some really other cool cars that just showed up today which means more videos for you guys thanks for watching [Music]