Project Dadbod, the latest IAAI auction win

Starting the build thread before getting the car. 
 

To set the scene:
We are moving, from a house where we have lived for about 9 years, with two 30x40 pole barns.  
 

To a place with some various barns already full of stuff I need to clean out, and I still have two projects I am "working " on. 
 

we have been fixing up and moving stuff to the new place for about a month now, with the big move of the rest of the stuff this weekend so what is the logical thing to do? 
 

Bid on a salvage car of course, and so that is what I did. 
 

For some reason I have been wanting a RWD North Star, so I have been watching the salvage auction for a 2007+ Cadillac STS or SRX with the 4.6 North Star engine, these years show up on the hptuners vehicle list to be able to tune.

I set my high price that I would go on Wednesday with the auction being today.

Long story short I am now the owner of a 2008 Cadillac STS 4.6  

IAAI.com lists options that they get by running your VIN, some notable features of my soon to be car are:

Heads up display

Rear limited slip

320 HP northstar engine 

No sun roof (good for me as a tall guy)

 1SG package which includes some fancy shocks (which I hope I don't have to replace) 

I think it will need a front fender and also looks like front passengers side wheel is messed up, so who knows what I get into there but I am excited. 
 

Here are some pics from the auction site

Project DadBod  because hopefully he still has some power even though is starting to show his age, and weighs as much as a small pickup truck. 

This should be good!

I've always had a soft spot for the Northstar after growing up with what might have been the only reliable FWD version in history. 200k miles of abuse in my parents' '03 STS with minimal maintenance beside semi regular oil changes. It overheated 3 times (split coolant hose, burst radiator, and failed water pump), but none of these resulted in head gasket failure. Suspension failure finally sent the car to its grave, but the engine still ran great. 

In reply to Somebeach (Forum Supporter) :

Daring undertaking! 

I'll be following along. Hoping to get started on my own 05 STS 4.6 project in the next few weeks. 

After I had won the auction I opted in to the IAAI transport option. Where you agree to a price for them to arrange for delivery to your home or business. 
 

I won the auction last Friday, I got a call on Wednesday saying because the car was missing a tire they wouldn't transport it and they had refunded my transport fee. 
 

Luckily I had taken Friday off work anyways, but already had something set up in the afternoon, that meant I left my house about 4am and drove to Louisville KY and back. All in all not a bad drive except a traffic jam in Cincinnati on the way home. 
 

When I was strapping the car down to the trailer as I was picking it up I noticed that the exhaust looks like it was redone, and not a muffler or resonator in sight. Lol. Cat back is duel straight pipes. 
 

Also in the trunk was a harbor freight tool kit. 

 

and a Samsung cell phone. Not sure what I am supposed to do with the phone. 
 

My parents came over to help me unload it, it was raining the whole time and getting a lower car off the equipment trailer is always and adventure let alone one with two flat/missing tires. But it all worked out. 
 

while we were putting the spare on, I just glanced at the steering and suspension stuff and didn't see anything broken. I am hopping one of the alignment bolts just shifted too far in its slot when it got hit. The spare actually doesn't look too far off straight. 
 

also this thing is loud. I may have to add some mufflers if I am going to drive it to work. 
 

All tucked into its hopefully short term home. 

I located a replacement fender for $110, a manual mirror for $50. In the same color. I will pick those up soon from the junkyard. 
 

I took off the wheel that got hit and looked around a little  better, I didn't see anything broke or bent, I am thinking/hoping that the alignment bolt on the lower control arm just got shoved all the way back. 
 

the headlight on the passengers side works, but the housing is all cracked up I forgot to take a picture, I ordered a replacement, but if I end up taking this the the $2000 challenge then I will need to glue the old one up to work so I don't have the budget hit. 
 

Is there a cheap type of glue or some type of adhesive to stick headlights back together? 
 

Fun project!  It's hard to tell from pictures but I'm wondering about that lower control arm.  It looks like it may have a slight kink in it.

tie rods are the sacrificial link

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Thanks, would it be evident that the tie rod was damaged just by casual visual inspection? 
 

It's been a few months not much has footed done. 
 

The new fender and mirror are on. Unfortunately what looked like the same color of grey in the picture was actually a shade or two darker. 
 

Also ran into new issue of needing to reprogram a key fob for the push button start to work. 
 

The way you program this is to turn the door key (blade key) to unlock 5 times with in 5 seconds. But the blade key that came with the car didn't work. 
 

I called the dealer they could order and cut me a new key based on the vin. Wait for that to come in and it was different than the key that came with the car but still didn't work. 
 

I ended up opening up the door panel and unhooking the rod from the switch that tells the computer the key is turning to unlock? 
 

That worked I got all the way through the 30 min relearn and then the last step is to hit unlock twice on the fob. That last step didn't work so I will try again I guess. 
 

Pictures are the rod I unhooked. To manually flip the switch so to speak. 
 

Fob reprogrammed. 
It is loud. Ha ha. 
 

  A great epoxy is T-88,  aircraft spruce  sells it, although might be available from other sources.  But some types of plastic don't glue very well, or require specific types of glue.  If you rough up the area to be glued with some rough sandpaper, might have better luck.

In reply to TED_fiestaHP :

Thanks. 

Next issue is when ever I have the battery hooked up I hear this loud whine. Any ideas what it could be? 
 

Found a set of tires on fb marketplace for $50. I had them mounted and balanced and took the car for a short trip down the road and back. 
 

Overall impressions were this is a pretty comfortable ride. Man this thing is long. When I turned around to come back to our house it felt as long as my pickup truck. It actually sounds pretty good when you get on it a little bit.

The automatic manual shift feature didn't work so I will have to add that to my list once I get the rebuilt title for it.
 

The heads up display works. I really like that feature. 
 

I need to do a string alignment, and figure out how to stop the buzzing noise so my battery doesn't drain. Then I will be ready to schedule my salvage inspection and get back on the road. 
 

In reply to Somebeach (Forum Supporter) :

Its been a long time for me since I rebuilt a car.  Nothing since covid.  I'm curious, how far out is Ohio for appointments with inspectors?  

If it were me, I would book an appointment now.  They will still pass you if the car has a buzzing noise.  They just want proof that you didn't use stolen parts.  

In reply to John Welsh :

Good advice, I just looked online and they only have one day, Monday September 27th, that shows up as available for the Findlay location. 
 

That day doesn't work with my schedule so I guess I will just have to check back again. It is kinda odd though because last time I remember having a lot of different date options come up to choose from. They also have a lot of time slots available for Monday as well (6 slots available )

Hopefully they will post up more soon  

In reply to Somebeach (Forum Supporter) :

The last car I took through inspection was before covid but they had changed the reservation system.  You used to be able to pick from days and time.  Then, it went to just showing you the few nearest times.  But, I remember there was some way to pass on those few times and seek out another time/date.  Try logging back in and playing with the website.  I'm sure there was a way to get past the few times they offered but in general, the site tried to lead you to believe the few shown were the only available.  

Got my inspection set up for this Thursday, I could only ever find one date option at a time.

Next thing which I probably should have done before setting up the appointment is to check alignment from the wreck to see how far it is off. 
 

This is my first time doing a string alignment so not 100% I got all the steps correct. 

I used some jack stands and string, the problem is I don't know if my strings were all the way square. I think the were. I measured the distance between the strings in front of and behind the car and they were the same. 

i ended up coming up with these distances from the string to the wheels for the front end. 
 

so now I just need to figure out the factory specs and see about getting it back into spec. 
 

The passenger side is the side that got hit and it looks like it is about 4mm more toe in than the driver-side.