1983 Cutlass Calais “The Cripples Cruiser”

[Stupidquestionspro]

Well speakers are in and look worse than I wanted but I guess not as bad as they could.

Wish I would have thought it through a little more.
New throttle cable is in. Adjusted the shifter cable.

Got rid of a bunch of scrap

Public service announcement damn near gave myself heat stroke. So y’all be careful out there didn’t check the weather and was outside working for 6 hours straight. Didn’t check the weather and come to find out it was 95 with 55% humidity today. Needless to say I drank 1.5-2 gallons water and feel like sh*t now that I’ve stopped working on it

So don’t do that


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[Stupidquestionspro]

Put on the 307 brackets I had and luckily I had a crank pulley that pretty much matches the crank pulley from the 307 was oval so that wouldn’t work and of course my luck the aluminum portion of the alternator bracket was broken off so I had to make it work it seems to be doing fine. Because I messed up it cost me buying another water pump again so new water pump and now a new 160 degree thermostat. Ac is running better and power steering isn’t going out. The temps are also running lower which is nice I also did a new non thermal fan clutch because mine was old and seemed to be going unfortunately I somehow put a pin hole in the radiator so for the moment it’s plugged with quicksteel

Still have quite a bit of work to do and concerned my throttle cable doesn’t have enough travel to fully open the carb with the pedal it can from the linkage but haven’t been able to tell if it can from the pedal as well I can’t honestly tell if my vacuum secondaries are opening so I have to look into that but not quite sure how yet still researching.

Haven’t had time or money to do the rear end or count the gears so I’ve just been driving as is and of course being curious about my rpms but have accepted I’ll have to count teeth or buy another tach to get an answer

Need to get the aluminum alternator bracket so my belts are right because who knows what my current settings will do to my accessories.

Also need to still do more tuning gas mileage seems to suck. And the car essentially bogs or just does terrible at WOT from 2800-3500 or so it sucks for sure definitely sounds good but truth be told I’m fairly certain a 4 cylinder accelerated faster.

Have to shake down the front end because I have a shake at 60 or so.

It was all replace with moog but that was probably 6 years ago so may be time again


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[Stupidquestionspro]

Sooo definitely gonna have to do some serious work soon because stuffs happening now and i am beyond lost on what’s going on.

The other day it actually knocked or rattled once or twice after I shut off the ignition. It’s been rattling some on start up and has died a couple times idling. And of course is terrible to
Hot restart.

Also have noticed I’m fairly certain my ac clutch isn’t cycling I believe it is constantly engaged as well my temp is getting higher than before with a brand new water pump and 160 thermostat only when sitting still idling. That’s probably my fault though because of pure laziness and to cut costs I haven’t bought anymore coolant so it’s mainly water so I assume it’s boiling or something.

So needless to say my DD project has thrown some new awesome problems at me.


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[Stupidquestionspro]

Ok so finally have some time to work on her and have more WTF moments and questions than answers. Boy am I learning a lot.

#1 on the auto parts stores there is a listing for a switch for the R4 compressor that mounts to the compressor I have nothing like that on my R4 only my clutch plugin. Am I missing something? I do have a switch on my drier. And the reason I was looking is while it’s highly unlikely because I assume the pressures would get to high I believe my compressor clutch is constantly engaged because I hear it engage when I start the ac but never hear it cycle at all even on a 45 minute drive on max.


#2 chasing my mpg issue I checked my plugs and regapped them after a lot of research and considering my low compression and the fact I want to lean out the mixture and my msd ignition I have gapped to .50 for test purposes I was previously at .35 I took pictures of the plugs because while I’ve been working on cars a long time there are a lot of dark art skills I never learned since the computers made my life so easy.

Here are the pictures honestly the plugs made me scared for the internals and who knows what issues I’m going through.

Cylinder #1

Cylinder #3 first picture how did the strap end up offset?

Cylinder #5 what the hell is that color?

Cylinder #7

Cylinder #2

Cylinder #4

Cylinder #6

And what seems worst of all for last which the previous plug in this cylinder looked terrible too
Cylinder #8

What the hell am I doing to make my plugs look so bad?

3. I reset my mixture screws and after thinking about it I believe they were 1.5 out not 3 like I said in my other thread I believe i counted 3 because like an idiot I counted each 180degree revolution not each 360 degree revolution.

4. From what I could tell my oil did not smell like fuel at all I checked twice but plan to check again but my plugs did smell like fuel pretty bad.

5. Even though the car hasn’t been warmed up today at all and was only started for barely any time to back out of the garage the carb up top smelled badly like gas any idea why? My floats are down to a quarter window to combat my fuel leaking out and it seems that stopped fuel from coming out of the throttle shaft when hot but I’m not sure what’s happening.

6. My temp at times from what I can tell typically when sitting idling such as a drive through on a hot day can shoot all the way up to 220 even though it has a new water pump and new 160 thermostat when driving it’s typically down lower than it was with the prior 195 thermostat and water pump but when sitting and idling it ends up warmer what did I do wrong? Radiator is full can’t get any air out of it hoses are tight with no leaks though the coolant water mixture may be too much water would that cause it? I was thinking maybe the cap is old and worn and not holding pressure causing a lower boiling point but even at 220 nothing makes it out of the cap from what I can tell and when hot pressure still releases a lot if I loosen the cap once again stumped and confused.

So as per usual multiple crazy problems not what I expected from a motor that was rebuilt less than 50k miles ago ran with synthetic oil with a brand new carb and all the other parts what the hell is going on. Hopefully it’s not my inexperience.

Thanks for helping.


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[Ribbedroof]

IMO, the non-thermal fan clutch is not going to help you, should be a thermal clutch.

The T-stat has nothing to do with cooling efficiency, that's just where it fully opens..a lower t-stat will not make it run cooler...once it's open, it's open.

Are you using a fan shroud?

Age/condition/construction of radiator?

Looks to me like the rearmost cylinders are sucking oil into the cylinder, based on the plugs. Plug color looks good to me otherwise.

 

[Stupidquestionspro]

IMO, the non-thermal fan clutch is not going to help you, should be a thermal clutch.

The T-stat has nothing to do with cooling efficiency, that's just where it fully opens..a lower t-stat will not make it run cooler...once it's open, it's open.

Are you using a fan shroud?

Age/condition/construction of radiator?

Looks to me like the rearmost cylinders are sucking oil into the cylinder, based on the plugs. Plug color looks good to me otherwise.

Dang I bought the non thermal because I read it lasted longer and in hot places like Florida the lack of thermal wouldn’t make a difference and I figured a lower triggered thermostat wouldn’t make a large difference I just prefer the coolant to circulate earlier because in my previous experience it was useful.

I do have a fan shroud and I believe the radiator is a 2 row I think copper one because it has metal tanks I believe it was purchased new in 2011 when the motor was still being built but unfortunately I don’t have the records to know it is in good condition with the exception of a single pin hole in one of the pipes that I temp fixed with quicksteel until I can buy another radiator it does not seem to be clogged with any debris but I have no sprayed it out or anything.

So as far as the plugs with the exception of the rears they look well? How did the strap end up off center on the one is that indicative of contact with something?

Also how exactly would I be getting oil in the rear cylinders considering I have recently redone the intake gaskets and have not been experiencing any vacuum leaks?


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[Ribbedroof]

Unless you ensured the plug ground straps were aligned exactly with the electrode, the plug looks like some I have seen come out of the box.

I know some people prefer the old copper/brass radiators, but they do not transfer heat as well as the aluminum ones. And a 2-row copper/brass radiator is usually not a high capacity unit, 3-row were common on A/C cars, and some got 4-row. It's pretty widely accepted that a 2-row aluminum radiator (usually 1
inch tubes) cools better than a 4 row copper/brass, as the 2 row has more surface area to remove the heat. Also, paint on a radiator is detrimental to heat removal, that's why you won't see it on newer cars. The old units had to be painted to avoid corrosion, which also reduces heat transfer capacity.

I'm not an Olds expert, so this is a wild guess, but it could be that oil is pooling around the rear valve guides and either running down the guide, or the valvestem seals are weak and it's sucking oil in when started. Only reason i can really think of for the oiling to be an issue at the rear cylinders. Again, the above scenario might not even be possible, but I'm not familiar with the Olds engine cylinder head layout.

 

[Stupidquestionspro]

Unless you ensured the plug ground straps were aligned exactly with the electrode, the plug looks like some I have seen come out of the box.

I know some people prefer the old copper/brass radiators, but they do not transfer heat as well as the aluminum ones. And a 2-row copper/brass radiator is usually not a high capacity unit, 3-row were common on A/C cars, and some got 4-row. It's pretty widely accepted that a 2-row aluminum radiator (usually 1
inch tubes) cools better than a 4 row copper/brass, as the 2 row has more surface area to remove the heat. Also, paint on a radiator is detrimental to heat removal, that's why you won't see it on newer cars. The old units had to be painted to avoid corrosion, which also reduces heat transfer capacity.

I'm not an Olds expert, so this is a wild guess, but it could be that oil is pooling around the rear valve guides and either running down the guide, or the valvestem seals are weak and it's sucking oil in when started. Only reason i can really think of for the oiling to be an issue at the rear cylinders. Again, the above scenario might not even be possible, but I'm not familiar with the Olds engine cylinder head layout.

Thanks for all your input even if it doesn’t apply info is always good and yea I certainly can not afford an aluminum rad I looked into it however I was planning on doing a rad for the 83 307 with ac and heavy duty cooling I believe it’s aluminum core with plastic tanks with only one row but the piping I think is 1inch the reviews I’ve read have people being satisfied and cooling effectively without breaking the bank especially since my build isn’t exactly high performance unfortunately.

Yea the valve stem seals were supposed to have been replaced when the heads were redone though one of the seats was crack and welded so that may be leaking but I wonder about the other. Hypothetically if I did a shitty job of sealing the back of the intake I assume the oil could leak in that way? Is there anyway to tell if there is signs of that without popping the intake again?


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[Ribbedroof]

I know everybody lusts after the all-aluminum TIG welded radiators, but the reality is that the aluminum core/plastic tank radiators work very well in literally MILLIONS of vehicles and are much more budget-friendly.

You could use ether (starting fluid) to check for intake leaks.

Hoping some of the Olds guys can give you some better guidance on the plug oiling.

 

[Stupidquestionspro]

Thanks I figured as much about the radiator and I know I don’t have any external intake leaks how would I check for an intake leak internally because I would assume the only way for it to be leaking in is for the very bottom of the intake internally to be leaking and sucking in oil considering I’m using felpro gaskets and mondello windage tray with no external vacuum leaks


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