1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham

[gdouaire]

I am still alive, and so is the car 🙂

activity is running low on the Oldsmobile; I'm focused on my 1981 Cadillac, which is a very demanding car 🙂

I did run my Cutlass for two weeks straight earlier this year, as my daily driver; will probably do it again later this summer -- a couple of weeks of commuting, to keep the car healthy.

May want to work on 1) wiring my fog lights 2) wiring my cornering lights 3) repairing some shorts in the wiring for the power seat.

 

[gdouaire]

Just found your thread and read every page. That's a really cool project you've got! I like that you keep it drivable so you can enjoy it as you work on it. I'm going to steal some ideas from you!

Thanks!

I like re-reading myself via the thread -- it's a motivator to see how far I have gone and how much further there is to go 🙂

 

[gdouaire]

My car still exists 🙂 I will take it out of storage in April 2018 // plan to drive it more next year.

 

[gdouaire]

Not dead yet. And neither is the car.

This year, major changes... I will do two things:

1) Change the transmission to a 200-R4. Planned August 10th,
2) Change the body mounts, shortly thereafter... because the 'before' state is BAD. I hear the body slamming on the chassis on every harsh bump. BAD!

.

the third thing I will do is plan a long-time storage on my 1981 Cadillac, because I need to focus.

The car drives reasonably well for now. It's a beautiful car and sometimes, I think how I liked 1957 Chevys back in 1988... well, a 1984 Cutlass is an old car for the current era. Let's enjoy _that_.

 

[GroceryGetter83]

I'd love to know more about the wiring for the seats. My motor went and I need to address it at some point.

LOVE the sedan btw 😀

 

[gdouaire]

Soooooo... the trans swap did not happen. In the past, we did a similar swap ( TH350 to 200 4R) on a 1973 Cutlass, and we only had to move the crossmember in the rear position and that's all. So our assumption was -- the same for this car. But no. Crossmember will not be re-used going from 200 metric to a 200 4R. Need to buy an appropriate crossmember...

We did fix an oil leak while the car was there.

You'll see quite a few Olds in the area --- my father (who is 87) drives a 1991 Regency, and my daily driver is a 2003 Aurora.

So the trans swap is postponed. I'll browse through this forum to see what nice aftermarket crossmember are out there for this swap.

 

[gdouaire]

The TH200-4R is in the Cutlass. Used an adjustable TV cable, and the proper crossmember (a used OEM crossmember). The car drives and backs up, but i did not test it on the road yet, so all I know is that it runs on first gear. Testing later, later.

Last time I had done this was with a 1973 Cutlass, swapping the TH350 (which I bought with an insane shift kit that made any gear change go BANG!) with a TH200-4R, in 1998. LONG TIME AGO. And to be frank, I did not miss transmission swap that much!

 

[gdouaire]

Shift points are ok on the new TH200-4R as I adjusted it initially.

1->2 25km/h
2->3 52 km/h
3->4 80 km/h

 

[olds307 and 403]

A SS 2004R should shift nice and firm compared to regular 2004R. Full throttle will be 5000 rpm plus, my 260 sounds awful at 4000+ with the regular governor. Good call on an adjustable aftermarket TV cable. I picked up the last good 2004R from our wrecker. I used a stock 2004R 307 Qjet TV cable and bracket with the Dualjet. Thinking it would be same as a Qjet considering it would have been a TH200 car stock. Way too little pull, adding zip ties till I got full TV pull. As long as you have gradual and full TV pull, it should be good. You can fit 2.5" dual exhaust under the passenger side hump. I did with the stock 2004R crossmember. Sanderson shorty headers, custom front pipes, compact X pipe in place of the Y pipe into a Hooker catback setup.

 

[gdouaire]

A SS 2004R should shift nice and firm compared to regular 2004R. Full throttle will be 5000 rpm plus, my 260 sounds awful at 4000+ with the regular governor. Good call on an adjustable aftermarket TV cable. I picked up the last good 2004R from our wrecker. I used a stock 2004R 307 Qjet TV cable and bracket with the Dualjet. Thinking it would be same as a Qjet considering it would have been a TH200 car stock. Way too little pull, adding zip ties till I got full TV pull. As long as you have gradual and full TV pull, it should be good. You can fit 2.5" dual exhaust under the passenger side hump. I did with the stock 2004R crossmember. Sanderson shorty headers, custom front pipes, compact X pipe in place of the Y pipe into a Hooker catback setup.

Oh that's a good idea -- use the OEM crossmember and make the X pipe right at that spot 🙂 Never seen this before, you should get a copyright (or a copyleft!) 🙂 In my case, the car will be turbo'ed at some point, so that "takes care" of the dual exhaust.

I did notice how smooth the shifts were, and without any noticeable lag, which the original TH-200 was "famous" for. I bought the transmission on Kijiji, it was a leftover from somebody else's abandonned project, freshly rebuilt, so I had to trust whatever work had been done on it 🙂

I was very scared about the TV cable adjustment, and well, turns out the TH-200 kickdown cable bracket can be reused as is; the length of the cable is a bit more tricky, hence the adjustable part. I simply pulled the cable until I felt some tension, and locked it there.

Next step is installing a 8.5 - 3.73 posi rearend. That will help a lot on acceleration and still be freeway-friendly with the overdrive transmission! 🙂