Can this Oldsmobile diesel engine survive a 400 mile road trip after being broke down for 14 years?
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- čas přidán 17. 10. 2023
- I took my 1981 Oldsmobile 98 on a 400 mile road trip after it was off the road for 14 years with engine issues. It was an awesome weekend with some great friends even with the issues I had!
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I bought a 1985 Delta 88 Royal Brougham Sedan from 100 year old woman. She had the car in her garage for 9 years. Awesome car.
Ryan, I saw one of these at a car show recently, and it really made an impression on me. This C body Olds is a truly handsome beast. I'm sure it's awesome to drive, even with 100 hp!
I think this gets just as much if not even more looks than my 82 Cutlass I had before, it really does grab some attention and it definitely is awesome to drive!
I have just bought a 1978 Oldsmobile 98 with the diesel V8 that's been sitting for 10 years after it was taken off the road due to head gasket issues. Been thinking about uploading the progress here on YT. Seeing yours run so well gives me hope :)
I have been watching your Ninety Eight series. I own a 1996 Ninety Eight. I also own a 1992 Oldsmobile Toronado non Trofeo model. You have a good car there. Keep working on it and getting it on track. I liked the 1980-1984 model design a lot too. I liked it when they made changes to it in 1981-1984. You can and will get that diesel running right. That engine had 105 horsepower new. I like the color of your car too. I know you get a lot of attention. I liked the video for your car and seeing the other Ninety Eight and Toronado and the Pontiac Bonneville as well.
My brother owned one of these, it blew head gaskets like crazy, had to dump it, i have owned a 40 olds coupe, a 64 super 88, a 65 olds Jetstar 1, and a 76 olds cutlass supreme, all great cars, yours is really nice looking, even like the skirts. Nice color also.
Most of the people who blew a lot of head gaskets were because they were revving them too high, especially when cold.
Also, water in fuel.
The pre-chamber design was supposed to enable safe high rpm diesel operation, the fuel pump is supposed to have a governor to limit maximum rpm also. I think the main problem is the heads do not have anymore headbolts than the gas version of the engine. Aftermarket parts are a must - improved headbolts and gaskets! Headbolts would often crack or stretch, the OEM ones were weak. Mercedes Diesels use many more and higher quality headbolts in their designs, my benz's have gone over 250K miles with no headgasket issues even with jacked up turbo and fuel settings.
The 98 looks great!!!
Those Ninety Eights were amazing cars. I owned several and absolutely loved 'em. Fortunately, I never owned a diesel, it's my understanding they weren't very good engines.
That's a beautiful looking example you've got there. 👍
This is the first Ninety Eight I've owned and the first Oldsmobile diesel I've owned as well, have owned two Duramax trucks though. The engine definitely did have some issues upon launch but most of them were fixed by the time the DX block rolled out in 1981, those are fairly reliable and I have heard many stories of them going 200k+ miles with few issues.
Awesome trip! Thanks for the video. Love the Olds diesel.
Beautiful car can’t wait to find me one with diesel engine
You’re not too far from me, I live over in Farwell. I love these cars and have always been intrigued by them! You just don’t see them anymore. My Grandparents had an 81 Olds 88 4 door when I was a kid, I still remember it being the most comfortable car I’ve ever ridden in! Safe travels!
Not far at all, don't hesitate to say hi if you ever see this car rolling around! Can almost guarantee if you see one in this area it's me, sure there's no others like it around us haha!
Love the wheel combo! 😍
New to the channel, cool video! Awesome cars!
Thank you! I'll be posting more as spring comes closer 😎
I've put over 2k miles on my 84 Pontiac parisenne 5.7 diesel this summer. Hasn't missed a beat!!
Beautiful ride.
I remember after I got my '84 Eldorado I decided to take my mother and a friend out to a restaurant. Well it died at a signal light. The idle speed control just needed to be adjusted. Of course it started back up. I just had to keep the rpm's up at a stop. After that my mother would never ride in it. When I was taking care of her I bought a big '84 Cad. Fleetwood. I was getting tired of trying to cram into her Buick Century all of the stuff, wheel chair, oxygen tanks,, etc. just to go to the Dr. Nope she would not ride in it. Then I got a really low mileage '89 FWD Cad. Fleetwood thinking since an uncle had one like it she would ride in it... Nope I'm not getting into that old car. I just had the '84 Fleetwood out last week on Columbus day and drove it around. Big old cruiser like that with seats like a sofa. Lots of room compared to my Camaro.
One day when she was released from the hospital I went to pick her up in the '89 Fleetwood. She had no choice but to ride in it. Then the A/C quit working about 1/2 way home. Oh well I tried.
Definitely a series of bad luck there!
my '92 trofeo looked just like that. wonderful car, and had the full VIC system.
Such cool cars! My son has one for his first car as well 😎
I LOVE OLDSMOBILES WE HAD 81 DELTA 88 AND A 83 98 OLDS REG
To be fair, I drove a couple of original diesels and was shocked at the lack of torque... One does not expect high RPM with a diesel, but even the Regal (with the dual exhaust they didn't give to the big cars) was pretty depressing with 22:1 compression. I can't imagine putting the 260 into anything bigger than a Starfire/Monza.
I also never understood why the Olds needed glow plugs while big trucks started normally with much lower compression ratios...?
That is absolutely one thing to learn with this car - you are NOT in a hurry 😂
The olds diesel engines actually run somewhat lean whenever the engine is running. Those glow plugs help heat up the fuel air mixture enough for ignition because the ignition timing and valve timing on these motors are not ideal from the factory. Any engine that is designed for low emissions control will have lack luster performance in any department, including starting, revving, idling, cooling and reliability.
@@crash93sseiI would absolutely turn the pump up a little
Nice Olds 98 diesel! Would like to find a DX block diesel and tinker with it. I have the wagon version of your car. It's a 1984 Olds Custom Cruiser. Drives like a couch too!
I love the wagons, even harder to find than the sedans! I admit, I am totally fascinated by this engine, knew absolutely nothing about it when I bought it other than the fact that existed.
Spot on! I owned a '81 Custom Cruiser diesel which was almost magnificent.
Problems:
1. Perpetually blowing head gaskets thanks to the paltry 10 head bolts per bank. Why oh why did they not use the Chevy small block (17 head bolts per bank) or even better, the big block. This could have been the car that would have caused Germans to abandon MBZ.
2. Crappy fragile injection pump with an undeserved good reputation. On the good side, there was no governor (for gasoline like driveability). You could REALLY spin up the diesel and get pretty good horsepower outside the labeled RPM range. I never paid a price for spinning it up for reasonable performance.
3. Lockup converter on later models with the otherwise terrific TH350. The lockup converter was smooth but couldn't take the torque pulses of the diesel.
4. Special water pump with tiny blades presumably to reduce head gasket pressure. Those tiny stamped metal blades wouldn't force enough water by the thermostat for the thermostat to know how hot the engine is. Once the thermostat started to open, it SLAMMED open just long enough for the engine water and radiator water to swap places. This probably caused many warped heads and blocks, and the resulting blown head gaskets. Solution: drill holes in the thermostat so water leaks by and the thermostat opens in a stable manner.
I'd love to take a road trip in one of the GM diesels.
Likely the components in the Delco radio need to be replaced. I send mine to M & R Electronics in MI and they can add a aux jack pigtail for an MP3 player. Sometimes they can add that on the faceplate. Helps to keep the OEM radio to have it repaired. Often aftermarket radios look awful. The antenna is likely the same GM design used by Cadillac and other lines. The blasted antenna used a nylon cable to drive the mast to raise and lower. You can probably find a rebuilt one. If it is like the Cad Fleetwood you get to the antenna unit from underneath and behind the wheel well liner. I don't know of any CZcams video that shows how to replace it. The service manual should have the instructions.
I did find that the main antenna line is unplugged from what looks like the inner fender so it won't be ideal to replace... Radio gets "some" reception but I can use my Bluetooth adapter and it plays great! Well, as great as a 42 year old stereo can play anyway 😂
FYI, my parents had 260 olds diesel Cutlass salon back when these were new. It never had power and bogged down on hills, my dad shifted to 2nd gear and went slower to climb a gradual hill. Just curious if you checked the exact mpg you get on highway, not a guesstimate.. my dad didn't get really good mpg with that car, maybe 20 on highway.. I've heard guys claim they got 30 mpg with the 350 diesel, maybe if you have the overdrive transmission.. theirs had the 200 trans 3 SPD, 1979 was the year.. I have an automotive channel, I am going to be posting some olds diesel stuff, I have Benz diesels..
Those old Benz diesels are awesome, I'll be sure to check it out! So far I have gotten around 25 mpg calculated and that was giving it hell with it not running great and surely the timing being off. Anxious for spring to get it back out and start tinkering with it again 😎
From what I have heard on Olds Diesels, advancing the timing may be risky, may cause the head gaskets to start leaking. I don't think it will result in that much more power, these diesels have torque and will drive a heavy car decently but lack higher rpm power for hills, passing. Even my Big Benz s350 3.5 turbo diesel lacks higher rpm power and most people would consider my car too slow compared to what there use to. I would treat your diesel with Slick50 Ceramic - check my video review of slick50 for story about my dad's olds diesel. Make sure fuel filters are clean and it's getting enough fuel, pre-pump is working well but don't mess with the timing. @@crash93ssei
Is there a way to modify these engines to make them more reliable? I can not find much information online related to this subject.
A water separator for the fuel and head studs make them quite reliable from what I have seen, planning on that over the winter for this car.
What type of wheels you got on the Oldsmobile?
They are 1991 Cadillac Brougham Appliance wire wheels with 235/70/15 Vogues.
No turbo right ? That would be a cool add on.
They don't hold more than 8 psi boost. Not worth it, parts are obsolete enough for these.
Yup, no turbo. I've heard stories of people adding turbos and doing other mods to make them reliable but even then they don't hold up well if trying to make a ton of power.
Timing meter?
I thought you just align a mark?
I’m curious now.
With a gas engine you just align the tab on the timing cover to the line on the balancer using a timing light, with the diesel it's different. You turn the injection pump to change the timing of the injection pulse. A special meter is required to get a timing pulse from either the injection lines or through the glow plug hole. Snap-on MT480
@@crash93ssei
I know how it’s done on the gas engine, but thought I’d heard there were alignment marks for the fuel control.
Like two vertical stake marks, that you could put a razor blade or something in (to align them).
How much you want for the olds?
Not for sale 😎
Ryan, I have the snap on meter, with the luminosity probe. I'm located east of Lansing mi. Respond if you are interested. Thanks Dave
I am absolutely interested, that's what I'm looking for to get this thing timed properly. CZcams doesn't have a way to message or anything, shoot me a message ryandtoth at Hotmail and we'll see if we can work something out. I am in Midland, about 1.5 hours North of Lansing.
Dave, I've been trying to reach you for the Olds stuff, not sure if the comments didn't come through since I sort of included my email, but I would really like to work something out for the parts you have!
Look in your spam folder. Topic.Diesel.
I just saw this reply, I do not see anything in the spam folder.
Every GM vehicle there unfortunately are the most troublesome ones they ever built.
Maybe, still love all of them though. I've had several G Bodies, over a dozen Bonnevilles, my youngest sons first car will be a 92 Toronado Trofeo and my oldest sons first car is a 2000 Cadillac Seville STS 😂
Ryan Tooth: Advance the injection pump or having one rebuilt is a futile endeavor. When I was a kid,my dad had a new 82 loaded-up Cutlass Brougham sedan. It went through 3 engines in 18 months. Fortunately for us,it was a free company car....but the fleet buyer for dads company he worked for put an end to buying Olds diesels. They smoke and are slow as hell even on flat roads, our family Mercedes and Peugeot turbo diesels back then would run circles around the Olds and their engines did not blowup after a few months of real world driving.
Very unfortunate the reliability issues these cars had, I really believe a lot of the issues were shortcuts in engineering to get the engine out to the public which then required more care on the user end which people weren't used to and the mechanics really didn't understand it either so it led to so many issues. I am really enjoying it and love all the looks it gets when people hear the engine fire up 😂
Rip the diesel out and put a 403 in
I know no one cares, but the noise.....music ruined it for me.
I kinda care, don't want to be driving people away. I appreciate the feedback! Was it just the style of music? To much/too long? Too loud? Just don't like any music in videos in general?