1963 Cadillac Superior Crown Royale Combination

[Brendan Martin]

Matthew: I have a 63 MM and the old drums stop her just fine. Just my 2 cents (does that buy else anything anymore??).

I echo this statement. My 63 stops well.

 

[Matthew Burkit]

all of this is not to knock you or your intentions for the car. as I said it's your car and you do what you want. my suggestion would be to start as I do when I get a new car. get it cleaned up good and running first and drive it around some to get the feel of what it needs. just cleaning it out lets you find a number of things you never knew about the car. what goes where and how it works. then get it running. nothing worse then a dead horse in the shop for me. then drive it around sum. that for me is the fun part that first run around the block and tweaking it back into reliable mechanical shape. once you there you will have a clear idea of what the car needs and whether or not you like it enough to put the money into it. mean time you can be locating and gathering parts. forming your plan of attack.

now me I lover the looks of that 63 the superior was a striking body once back together. I just hated driving it. I could not get in or out without striking either my head or knee on something in the door opening. but man I loved working on it. once you got your head around superiors construction techniques and accepted the car for what it was knowing you could do a little better in reassembling it, it was a joy to work on.

so what i'm encouraging you to do is get to know and trust your car first then take it apart.

I agree with these sentiments. But I also know this car has been sitting for a LONG time and things need to be replaced. And if I need to restore the brakes, I might as well just put new disc brakes on it. It was one of the few "upgrades" I knew I wanted, regardless. Beyond that, I'm gonna try to keep it as original as possible when and where I can.

Some other things I have considered as other upgrades were replacing the generator for an alternator, replacing the dual-core radiator, installing a modern carburetor and air filter, upgrading the distributor to something that is linear-induction and lastly replacing the fuel pump with an electric fuel pump. All these things are gonna need to be most likely be replaced anyway, so I might as well make the car slightly more reliable. Alot of these things can be swapped out easily enough for original stock if I ever really feel the need. I'm not throwing anything away; everything original that is removed from the car will be boxed up and stored.

 

[Nicholas Studer]

Mr. Burkitt: That's a beautiful car! I too prefer ambulances.

Just to interject Sir - I feel as though you are perceiving some kind of criticism for your desire to do the disk brakes. From my observation, I don't believe that is what is happening here. Instead - I believe Mr. Martin, Mr. Renstrom, and Mr. Prieur are merely giving you the benefit of their experience in that they believe there will be far many other projects on this car to occupy your limited time and resources - to the point of being near-overwhelming. Thus, they are advising to focus on these prior to choosing to add on a project that may not need immediate replacement.

I myself have a 1970 Cotner-Bevington ambulance undergoing restoration, and while I am quite looking forward to mounting a Federal Q2B on the roof - members wisely advised me to worry about the many other problems my car needs fixed before this reasonable desire for a Q is met. This doesn't mean I'm not thinking or planning on it still - just means I know it's not my priority in the process.

Does this make sense? I'm looking forward to seeing more about your car! V/R, N. Studer, MD

 

[Matthew Burkit]

Oh no, I'm fine with people advising me about the brakes. Its the reason I even posted here to begin with! I've never restored a professional car before, though I have been involved in a friend's restoration over the past 3 years. I have nothing wrong with constructive criticism and so far that's what I feel all I've gotten so far. I was just reiterating why I decided to convert the front brakes, that's all.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

if you don't have anyone locale that can rebuild your carburetor your money ahead to sent it out and get it done. about 300 bucks or so and you have a new one designed for smooth operation on that engine. get you a shop manual and that will let you know how to tune it for best operation. don't do the electric fuel pump, a new mechanical one will run the car just fine and give you less trouble. as will as the stock distributor. yours still has the oiler for the bushings. drop in one of the pertronix units and put on a new cap rotor and wires and you'll never look back. most of your problems will be with dirty or rusty connections and broken wires. once you clean up all of that you will find that 390 will be a good engine the way she came out. you get it running now in the stock configuration and then you will know it works and if any of the changes you make helped or made it worse. if they did not work you have a good original part in that box to swap it out with.

I give you this advice because I have been there, done that. don't get the cart ahead of the horse. get tires on it make sure it will stop and get it running first then make your changes.

one may decide that fixing the interior or platting the trim, painting the and repairing the body may take precedence from making changes right now. those things can be done latter one at a time when you can or when you need to. nothing wrong with disk brakes. fairly easy conversion with all the necessary parts out there. to do it right you get about the price of a transmission overhaul, if you get my drift. not a lot of sense in it stopping on a dime if it won't go.

 

[Mike Boyer]

My question is ..............why would Superior built it with suicide doors if it was a combo and no 3-way table ??
I don't know anything about it, never seen a combo with suicide doors before.
thats why I'm asking

 

[Ron Devies]

Because

As you can see with the 1959 Superior Crown Rescuer, formerly owned by Dan Skivolocke, it had suicide doors. Kind of a elegant style I think. The car is now owned by Bob Smith.

 

[Steve Lichtman]

My question is ..............why would Superior built it with suicide doors if it was a combo and no 3-way table ??
I don't know anything about it, never seen a combo with suicide doors before.
thats why I'm asking

Mike, a lot of ambulances and combinations were built with suicide doors. Why would Superior build it that way? Because the customer was buying it that way.

Now why would a customer order it? Some just liked the look I suppose. But the only reason I've heard is that it allowed the stretcher to be loaded/unloaded through the side doors if there was some reason why you could not use the back door. It was said this was in case of a rear-end accident, for example, or if the back of the ambulance was somehow blocked in at the scene of an incident. To me, it sounds like an irrational fear, but to the folks in that era, apparently that was a reasonable request.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

spending the time on the two I did the 66 combo and the 63 ambulance I can say it made getting in a lot easier. the door opens at a right angle to the body now this 58 has had the doors off more than on so I can't say how handy it is yet. hanging off the quarter made for a stouter hinge point then off the B pillar. letting them use a bigger door. there was also a deeper hole to hide the bigger hinge into which lets it swig wider. the disadvantage is the lock to keep it closed when in motion. superiors solenoid was problematic. hard to figure out the operation and to many points to fail. Eureka's manual one is a pain to get into from the outside as you have to open the front door to flip it while you pull the handle with your other hand. that latch was the first thing to come off when I started working on it.

 

[Steve Loftin]

My question is ..............why would Superior built it with suicide doors if it was a combo and no 3-way table ??
I don't know anything about it, never seen a combo with suicide doors before.
thats why I'm asking

When you get some time, take a look through this thread; you'll find many combinations and ambulances - hightops as well as lowtops - with C pillar door hinging:

http://www.professionalcarsociety.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3677&highlight=cadillacs

 

[Daniel Scully]

Suicide Doors

When you get some time, take a look through this thread; you'll find many combinations and ambulances - hightops as well as lowtops - with C pillar door hinging:

At one time there was a 66 Crown straight hearse end loader in the local pick a part yard and it had suicide doors.

 

[JR Rotramel]

Front spindles are the same from 1961-1969 Cadillac.
Stock disc caliper parts from 69 bolt right on. (69-73 rotors)
Add proprtioning valve and move flex lines from back of drum to front of rotor
New vacuum booster and master cylinder.
(Drum brake wheels don't clear front calipers)

Around $300.00

 

[Rocky Fluegge]

Jr thanks for the info, im think I will switch my brakes up front on my 62 in the future here. I just had all that stuff freshend up on the car. But I drive my cars hard and I know as I start to use it more I will appreciate the up grade on it.

 

[Daniel Scully]

Brakes

Brakes

Front spindles are the same from 1961-1969 Cadillac.
Stock disc caliper parts from 69 bolt right on. (69-73 rotors)
Add proprtioning valve and move flex lines from back of drum to front of rotor
New vacuum booster and master cylinder.
(Drum brake wheels don't clear front calipers)

I picked these up for a future project. I knew the spindles would interchange . I was on one site and one of the posters said you just take the caliper brackets and dust shield and bolt in place of the drum backing plate. Any experience with doing just that? I thought you needed to change the whole spindle take the 69 spindle and put it on your car . For that to work the bearings and spacing would have to be the same in a drum and disc rotor.

 

[Matthew Burkit]

I just want to take a moment to clear the air about something, since a member of this site decided to attack me in my welcome thread. There are 3 specific pieces of information I would like to relay to this community, to make it clear of my intent with my car:

1) One of my other hobbies is I build replica movie props (one of my favorite films being Ghostbusters)

2) I plan to restore this car back to being relatively as original as possible, with the except of it being more of an ambulance than a hearse.

3) I do NOT plan on making this into an Ecto-1. As I pointed out in my welcome thread, this isn't even the correct car to be that famous movie car! Heck, in my first post about this car, I even stated I want to paint this thing white and Diplomat Blue! Though it has not been stated yet, when I finally register this car in my state, I plan on getting the plates "NOT-ECTO" for it for christ sakes!

Everyone has been extremely welcoming on this website to me, with the exception of one member, Mr. Atti Bethlenfalvy. He decided to dig through my facebook and post pictures of my other hobby to make accusations about my intents of my posts here and of my plans with my car in his attempts at a witch hunt.

At the end of the day, I can do whatever I want with this car, because I am the one that bought it. I stand by what I have posted so far in this thread and will continue to update it as I move forward with trying to restore this car.

 

[Matthew Burkit]

In other news, I found 2 commercial chassis wheels for my car. When I got it, the car only had 2 of the 4 original wheels on it along with 3/4 of the tires were flat and none of them were the same size. I got 2 wheels off of a '64 limo, so now I have a complete set! I also got some cheap used tires on the wheels. Now I can roll this beast around the garage if need be!

Sorry all my photos are from this side of the car. Its pretty much up against the wall of the inside of the garage so its difficult to take photos of the driver side. Eventually I will be moving the car over once my buddy's car gets back from having body work done in California.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

she is a worthy project. save the money from the vanity tags and put it into the car. no matter what you'll get the ghostbusters comment on the car.

but it is your car. we never tire of seeing them restored back to original. even if you do that there is some critic who will come along and knock something.

me as the members of the CLC club on there Black Hills toure were admiring my 86 6 door, one fellow in a neutral voice said "you seem to drift to the modified cars". I acknowledge that I did.

somewhere in this world someone right now is criticizing both of us. I'm always reminded of people in glass houses and rocks. when wading through knee deep chicken feces in the chicken farm it is hard to remember how good mom's southern fried chicken really is.

 

[Matthew Burkit]

Thank you Mr. Renstrom!

I appreciate the post. Yeah, this isn't the first time I've had to interact with individuals of differing opinions on the internet. It just felt kinda out of no where, especially considering I've been doing my best to be as open as possible about what I'm doing with my car. But I guess some individuals do not have the best reading comprehension in the world.

As far as the car, vanity tags in PA only cost an extra $20 bucks, so I don't mind throwing a little pocket change in to get a goofy license plate. I know this car will be slow going (mainly because I'm trying to do much of it myself) but I hope it will end up being something myself and the rest of the community here can be proud of.

 

[Joe Rackov]

Mike, a lot of ambulances and combinations were built with suicide doors. Why would Superior build it that way? Because the customer was buying it that way.

Now why would a customer order it? Some just liked the look I suppose. But the only reason I've heard is that it allowed the stretcher to be loaded/unloaded through the side doors if there was some reason why you could not use the back door. It was said this was in case of a rear-end accident, for example, or if the back of the ambulance was somehow blocked in at the scene of an incident. To me, it sounds like an irrational fear, but to the folks in that era, apparently that was a reasonable request.

Or like in the case of the Chevy/GMC G series vans, once you have heard the ominous sound inside one of the back doors of a "tink" upon operation of the inside handle you will never forget it. Nothing says "professional" when you are at a scene and have to pound on the windows to get someone outside to open the doors........ask me how I know

 

[Doug Lemon]

For what it's worth Matthew,
I think you will find that your Facebook account is out there in the public domain.
Your suggestion that Atti has been "digging through your account " implies a breach of privacy which I find a bit offensive.
You have thrown mud on a respected member of this site.
When I check this thread I see he has been nothing but complementary to you and your car.
If you have problems on other sites perhaps you should air your grievances there.
I would respectfully request you to remove your post after which I will remove mine.