Cadillac Allante project

[wings&wheels]

Save the oddballs and forgottens!

 

[Chris142]

I knew about the stop leak and the soft cams. This car had some work done around 2005 that included a cam.

Now you are bringing up nightmares from my brain. The water pump is very large. It's jammed between the engine and the body of the car.

You can barely get a 10 mm wrench on all 15+ bolts and must remove them 1 flat at a time. BUT there is 1 torx T30! To get that out you have to remove your T30 but from its holder and use a wrench on the bit which you will drop and lose forever.

 

[melk]

4.5 was a good engine. I had a 90 Deville with the port injection, good for another 10hp or something. They had minor issues but Too bad the Allante never got the 4.9. Northstar Allantes fetch a premium. Its usually the one people want. It's a great touring car if you have money to burn. I had a 2000 Deville with the Northstar after they figured out almost all the problems. It was still a high maintenance motor. It burned oil like nothing Ive ever owned. I wish I had a Northstar now to try Valvoline Restore and Protect. That would be the ultimate test

2010 was the end of the line for the Northstar. The handful of 2011 models they sold were just whatever they had left over.

My DTS is almost ready for its next oil change in a week or two when it clicks over 155,000. It lives on 5w-30 Valvoline Restore and Protect and if I remember to I’ll scope it for some pics.

 

[hemitom]

Very unique car !
unfortunately GM stuck a very uninspiring engine ( especially the 4.1 ) in it the car deserved better.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

Now you are bringing up nightmares from my brain. The water pump is very large. It's jammed between the engine and the body of the car.

You can barely get a 10 mm wrench on all 15+ bolts and must remove them 1 flat at a time. BUT there is 1 torx T30! To get that out you have to remove your T30 but from its holder and use a wrench on the bit which you will drop and lose forever.

View attachment 315995

Looks like the 4.5 pump, had a paper thin gasket that would blow out. No space and the torx too. It had pressed in studs that often pulled out. Mechanics would just use a self tapping bolt to cut threads into the block. Scary but easy fix. Luckily at the time I had Caddy mechanics in the family as a resource. My granddad had a Cadillac shop from the 1950s-1990s.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

View attachment 315997

2010 was the end of the line for the Northstar. The handful of 2011 models they sold were just whatever they had left over.

My DTS is almost ready for its next oil change in a week or two when it clicks over 155,000. It lives on 5w-30 Valvoline Restore and Protect and if I remember to I’ll scope it for some pics.

I got rid of mine at around 180k. A DTC for the torque converter started to pop up once in a while and the new CA smog test with the automatic fail for visible smoke was the final nail in the coffin. It still looked mint. You have me thinking of reliving the dream and getting a 2010-2011 DTS. They are approaching rock bottom like modern Cadillacs do.

 

[goblin]

The Northstar (came out later, didn't it?) had an amazing emergency cooling mode where the car could drive for another 100+ miles at 80mph even if it lost all its coolant. The reporter who tested it simply drained the coolant to the last drop in the middle of Death Valley on a summer day and drove off. I remember it felt like science fiction when I first read it.

The irony came when plenty of these died from overheating when it turned out the head bolts were undersized.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

The Northstar (came out later, didn't it?) had an amazing emergency cooling mode where the car could drive for another 100+ miles at 80mph even if it lost all its coolant. The reporter who tested it simply drained the coolant to the last drop in the middle of Death Valley on a summer day and drove off. I remember it felt like science fiction when I first read it.

The irony came when plenty of these died from overheating when it turned out the head bolts were undersized.

Bolts were fine. They pulled right out of the block.

 

[goblin]

Bolts were fine. They pulled right out of the block.

There was something with the bolts, right ?
That bearded guy who fixes Hoovie's cars and ended up spinning his own YT channel replaced those once in one of his videos, I remember the kit he used came with the drillbit and whatnot and you had one chance at drilling the block right, then rethread and put the new ones. So what was the fix, did they drill deeper and rethread ? Didn't they put thicker bolts after ?

 

[fantastic]

4.5 was a good engine. I had a 90 Deville with the port injection, good for another 10hp or something. They had minor issues but Too bad the Allante never got the 4.9. Northstar Allantes fetch a premium. Its usually the one people want. It's a great touring car if you have money to burn. I had a 2000 Deville with the Northstar after they figured out almost all the problems. It was still a high maintenance motor. It burned oil like nothing Ive ever owned. I wish I had a Northstar now to try Valvoline Restore and Protect. That would be the ultimate test

1 qt/1,000 miles was normal...as we've previously discussed...ha!

 

[fdcg27]

The body looks good and runs/drives/stops is a plus.
The seats look really bad, but that can obviously be fixed.
For seven fiddy, this looks like a no-brainer.
Always liked these but always thought it was a shame that Cadillac didn't offer a proper SL competitor with RWD.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

1 qt/1,000 miles was normal...as we've previously discussed...ha!

1qt/1000 is better than average

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

There was something with the bolts, right ?
That bearded guy who fixes Hoovie's cars and ended up spinning his own YT channel replaced those once in one of his videos, I remember the kit he used came with the drillbit and whatnot and you had one chance at drilling the block right, then rethread and put the new ones. So what was the fix, did they drill deeper and rethread ? Didn't they put thicker bolts after ?

Sort of. The super fine threaded bolts into the aluminum block would fail. The kit has some aggressive coarse thread to give more aluminum to hold on to. They are larger because they are assuming the threads are trashed. The studs then step down to normal size and thread to allow normal install of gasket,head and hardware on the top end.

 

[JohnnyG]

4.5 was a good engine. I had a 90 Deville with the port injection, good for another 10hp or something. They had minor issues but Too bad the Allante never got the 4.9. Northstar Allantes fetch a premium. Its usually the one people want. It's a great touring car if you have money to burn. I had a 2000 Deville with the Northstar after they figured out almost all the problems. It was still a high maintenance motor. It burned oil like nothing Ive ever owned. I wish I had a Northstar now to try Valvoline Restore and Protect. That would be the ultimate test

'93 Allantes got the Northstar.

Oh, yeah. 10W-30 GC and WOT's fixed to oil burning in my '99 STS.

 

[JohnnyG]

I hope it comes with the hard top too! I always wanted one of these, and almost had one at one point, it just wasn't in the cards.
I understand that one of the easiest parts to break on these were the latches in the front that hold the roof to the windshield.

If one breaks, you are out of luck!

 

[dfarr67]

LS4 project?

 

[ls1mike]

LS4 project?

You know i was thinking about that when I first saw it, even a S/C 3800 would be nice.