Next Project (non-914) Options

[East coaster]

Time to get rid of the cone filter…..I used a 50’s Cadillac “Batwing” style air cleaner and created a plenum below it to duct in the intake elbow. It’s sort of a statement piece for the engine compartment, and of course it had to get a laser cut stainless steel “Radillac” emblem.

[East coaster]

Another 914 part added to the mix. I needed trim for the carpet where it meets the door sills and I had some 914 threshold trims laying around. Believe it or not, the front door pieces fit perfect without modification. The rear doors needed a couple inches removed to fit.

[Shivers]

Oh dude, it’s coming out so cool. The air cleaner is perfect.

[East coaster]

Thanks! This project has been a lot of fun

[East coaster]

Ok, so it came time to do a test fit. This is going to be a beach cruiser and jetski mule. I had to modify the rear speaker shelf to get clearance, but it fits….yay!

[jd74914]

That is so cool!!

[East coaster]

Ok, incorporating more 914 parts……The caddy had vacuum powered wipers that had these funky wiper posts with little chain driven shafts turned by cables. This was never going to work for me, I wanted real wipers with multi-speed and intermittent like the stock GMC.

I ended up building my own wiper mechanism following some of the 914 design. I used the threaded posts from a 914 wiper system and welded up the frame out of 3/4” tube. I used the GM motor and modified the pivots to give me the geometry (swing) I wanted. These also needed to be opposing wipers vs standard, so that was built into the mechanism.



Next was addressing the hvac. I had to chop off 8” of the hvac unit to fit within the narrow 41 Caddy firewall. This completely removed the blower assembly. So, time to improvise…..I found a high output blower and made a plenum to make it a down feed vs end feed.



Then it was on to the ducts. I made plenums for the defrost ducts and dash vents. The defrost ducts are the 2 with hoses attached in front of the 4 tubes for the dash vents (kinda looks like a pipe organ). The 4 tubes will feed 2 vents in the center of the dash and 2 at each end of the dash.





Trying to wrap up everything behind the dash so I can install the dash permanently. It’s the little things that take all the time.

[East coaster]

And speaking of defrosters, with the wiper system installed it completely blocked the use of the stock defrost vents, which came up directly under the defroster openings. The only way was to come in from each side, and even at that, it would take some pretty special shapes to clear the wiper levers.

Time to break out some foam and carve some custom ducts. Once I had the shape right, I laid them up in carbon fiber. I’m pretty sure this is the only 1941 Caddy with carbon fiber defrosters (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)







They’re installed and they seem to work pretty well.

[East coaster]

With the items behind the dash sorted out, it was time to finish the dash itself. I need to add some area to the bottom of the dash for switches, AC vents, HVAC controls, and also to join the dash to the center console. There was also a tricky little section to be dealt with under the steering wheel. It needed to cover some factory GMC stuff and also provide access to a fuse panel in that area. All pieces were fab’d out of 18 gauge steel and TIG welded.

[East coaster]

With the pieces fab’d and fit it was time for paint. I looked into a few options including restoring the dash to its original faux burlwood, but decided on something more suited to my theme…

[Shivers]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smilie_pokal.gif)