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Cadillac 472 question guys!!

SlyDog

SlyDog

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I was at a carshow last night and an old gentleman asked if I knew anyone who would want a 472 Big block and I asked how for how much? He said free, just come get it! So I told him I'd take it :D

Now...Is there anyway to mount this to a SM-465? Custom adapter? And how hard are the new engine mounts? I found maximum torque specialities and it looks like they have some stuff to help but I'm curious.

Thanks !
 
Bolting it in not too hard...

From what I've seen in other trucks with caddy motors,and read online,its not too hard to put the 472/500 caddy into GM trucks,all you need is the rear sump eldorado oilpan and pump pickup tube(some say a 425 pan works in pickups too,or even the front sump ones on 4x4's with enough axle clearance if you have a lift kit).

.The trucks I saw had the chevy motor mounts removed from the crossmember and plates of 1/2 inch thick steel about 9 inches long were bolted in their place,and eldorado motor mounts that use one 1/2 inch stud goes thru the plate--not too much fabrication--sometimes the oil filter or its adapter hits the crossmember,a smaller filter,adapter housing off a 425 with a different angle,or simply notching out the crossmember will fix that problem fast,or you could get a filter relocation kit cheap...only minor mods to the exhaust and a few other things,and it bolts together with a minimum of hassle,from what I've seen and read about GM truck to caddy motor swaps..

The adapters will allow the bellhousing to bolt up (chevy tranny to caddy motor)--but the fun begins when you try to use a manual tranny behind a caddy motor--caddilac never had any manual tranny's,they always had automatics,TH400's all they used with the 472 or 500 motors--

The 500cid website has a custom flywheel available , I think its around 300 bucks,and you have to drill the crankshaft for a pilot bushing somehow--not sure if that can be done while its in the motor,or if you'd have to gut it and put the crank in a lathe or something to do it right...kinda complicated and expensive,while a TH400 will bolt right up with the adapter,or you could use the caddy TH400 with a 4x4 tailshaft installed in it..caddys have a weird bolt pattern on the tranny mount,but that matters little on a 4x4 since they dont use it anyway--it would need a plate to adapt it to a 2wd crossmember bolt pattern..

I might end up selling the 76 500/TH400 setup I have--I can see I'm not going to have much time to fool with it after I get back to work,and my back and knees have about had enough of heavy work on the trucks--getting too old and weak to do this type of crap anymore--I'd rather have the money in many ways--I need FOOD more than I need a gas guzzling 500 under my hood at 2.25 a gallon! :screwy: :crazy:
 
Thanks for that great reply!! I am kinda stuck with the manual tranny since we put about a grand into a custom adapter for that so its 31 splines and would hate to have to toss that out. Since the engine was free I won't feel bad though spending some money to get it fitted right. Thanks again :D
 
Heres some other links for caddy stuff www.cad500parts.com/index.htm and a forum www.cowboyseven.us/forum these guys are really into hotrodding 472's and 500 caddy's. Hmmm come to think of it so am I, happiness could be defined as 2-472 engines complete and 5-500 engines complete plus lots of parts to make power including a set of aluminum heads. Great thing about a caddy engine, it starts making torque at low rpm's so for a wheeler you don't need to spin it as fast as a small block.
George
 
I put a 500 in front of a 465. Got the custom flywheel and mounts etc. form the Caddy500 place, back when they were in Florida. Last I heard, they are in New Mexico now. You have to make some measurements on the flywheel and bell housings to figure pilot bushing depth. I pulled the crank and took it to a machine shop. Told them to drill to 9/16" and install the bushing. It worked perfect. I found that I had to notch the bellhousing slightly to use the caddy starter. No problems were encountered there. I had a new 4 core radiator (Chevy) so I had a radiator shop pop the radiator tanks and install the Caddy radiator inlet and outlet. Used the Caddy radiator hoses.

Driving was sweet! Even with 3.07 gears and 35 inch tires! Usually, I could leave it in 3rd gear from about 20 mph up to 60 mph. Very smooth, with 13-14 mpg on the highway. :D
 
If the olds 350 diesel in the trucks could have been had with the 465, then that bellhousing would work. I've never seen a 5.7 diesel mated to the 465, no idea if they actually exist. Probably too rare to find that bellhousing even if they did.
 
Other GM bellhousings fit...

You can bolt a pontiac,buick or olds bellhousing or blowshield to a caddy 472/500 too,but the flywheel is the main "fly in the ointment"--no other flywheel will bolt to a caddy crank,so far the only way is the custom flywheel setup and having the crank drilled for a Pilot bushing ..too bad there isn't a way to "cheat" and do it some other way,or there was a tranny that didn't need one...

.Not sure,but I think I recall a friend having a 5.7 olds diesel with a SM465 in it years ago--but like you said,its like looking for hens teeth--have to be pretty lucky to stumble across one of them in the junkyard now..even the "gold mines" I have here(several HUGE yards)are getting wiped out fast--there was a pile of tranny's and transfer cases the size of a city bus at on yard for years,it was a gold mine for adapters,couplers,and parts--even got 2 NP205's complete for 25 bucks each that worked fine- :laugh:

(They sold them cheap beacause they were exposed to the weather and might have gotten water in them--I just flushed them out with kerosene and threw them in,worked fine!)--but that whole pile is history now--as are about 40 or more GM 4x4 trucks that were there only a month or two ago are gone too..its a bad time to be restoring an older truck here now--all the parts are getting crushed--unless you intercept the truck before it goes over the scales,your screwed.. :frown1:
 
Problem is, the 465 bellhousing isn't the same as any others that were used, none will just bolt up AFAIK...so even though a BOPC bellhousing is easy enough to come by, they won't bolt to the 465. :(
 
Ned Kelly said:
'CaddyCarlo' has a website and some info on a manual swap to 500. Check it out:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/caddycarlo/caddycarlo.html

Caddycarlo has the easiest way to drill the crank and fit a pilot bushing, he made some up he sells for about $25. He driils the crank in the block himself and it works for his richmond 5 speed, and it worked on a guys NV4500 after he took out the Dmax 6.5. He got more power just not the fuel economy he wants

On the bellhousing what I would do is get a chev to BOP bellhousing adapter for $60. from Jegs-Summit racing and go that way.

The next trick is real farmer engineering and no I wouldn't do it myself so you are on your own. For the flywheel get a sbc 350 flywheel (neutral balance) and remove the ring gear from it and have the crank bolt pattern redrilled to fit the caddy crank. Install the caddy flexplate and the sbc flywheel together and bolt it down. The flexplate gives you a starter drive and the flywheel mounts the clutch. I know someone else who did this, I have to admit it works, just that it sounds way to booty fab for me. Personally I would spend the $$$ for a new flywheel that was a bolt in, instead of this
George
Click to expand...
 
Wow, thanks guys..Think I got it all figured out now ! :D Appreciate it and I'll try and get some pics up of the beast..Just picked it up today...boy was it heavy!! (650 lbs or so ) :cool1:
 
I actually got my best mpg running 75 mph. Around town I got 10-11 mpg. Supposedly, the Cad 500 has 500 ft/lbs of torque. 1970 had the highest horsepower ratings. The new diesels don't have much on them. I bought a swap package that included fly wheel, motor mounts, bellhousing adapter and pilot bushing (stock chevy, brass) for right around $700 in 1999. If you can get the heads to stay sealed, putting early model closed chamber heads on later model 500's, gives you a compression ratio of just over 13:1. Run that on propane and you might get some interesting results.
 
Cadillac specs

Horsepower specs are all over the place from GM on this, depending on the years they range from 190hp to 370hp and they got these numbers at an rpm many stock caddys couldn't turn because of valve float.....so if the valves float at 4400rpm and the hp rating is at 4600rpm, how did you get there? Neat trick huh. The stock caddy valve spring has really low seat pressure like 50~60 pounds and an open pressure of around 200 pounds.

spec 472 500 454 chevy
bore 4.300 4.300 4.250
stroke 4.060 4.300 4.000
deck height 10.814 10.814 9.800
rod length 6.750 6.750 6.135
rod ratio 1.662 1.569 1.533

The only parts difference between the 472 and 500 is the crank and pistons, all the other parts are the same. It really doesn't take much to get 500hp from a 500, going up from there gets expensive.
George
 
Core engines are usually cheap to find $25~125 complete. Torque is your friend in a wheeler, more so if peak torque occurs at 2750rpm. That seems to me to make it an ideal rock crawler just my .02 of opinion.
George
 
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