78 cutlass W-31 build

[Clutch]

Well I haven't posted in a while. No guys I'm not dead, not yet anyway. Looks like I never even posted that I drove it home from the shop. Do to other life problems it sat all winter outside uncovered. 2 weeks ago however my now 16 year old Lauren took an interest and we cleaned it and put air in the tires. I've narrowed down the problems to cam timing. I've also spoken to a few fellow oldsfmopeople who shay they experienced the same problem. In my travels I've found eyewitness accounts of cams ground wrong and timing chain sets made or marked wrong. I've been told story's of degree Wheels showing them 4 to 10° off. So I've bought a degree wheel and I'm going to teach myself how to use it magnetic dial indicator and all.
Lauren and I pulled all the accessory brackets and pulleys, fan and rad today. I've got a performer intake I'm going to swap on and take off the aluminum A4. While it's apart om putting the other cam back in it was a larger cam with a little more and chop at idle. If I'm doing all this to make it run then I'm going to make it RUN. I'll get you some photos tomorrow. I'll definitely be working on it because my daily is down and I'm driving a borrowed Impala SS that's needs a front end rebuild and I'd really like to give it back in one piece.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Nice to see you back Eric, thanks for the update. Glad to hear you’re not dead.
😉😅

 

[Clutch]

Nice to see you back Eric, thanks for the update. Glad to hear you’re not dead.
😉😅

Not yet anyway

 

[Tomeal]

Nice to know Lauren takes an interest in it. If memory serves me correctly, isn't there a car for her that you guys were working on?

 

[Clutch]

Nice to know Lauren takes an interest in it. If memory serves me correctly, isn't there a car for her that you guys were working on?

Yes unfortunately we currently don't have a place to give it the attention that it needs.

 

[Clutch]

I had a pretty good day guys after Lauren got home from her photo shoot for the magazine she dove right in with me. We got everything off the front of the motor and this is what I found.

My friends I don't care who you are that's not right that cam is retard! And that is my lazy acceleration. Now I've spoken to several olds guys that have all said this is becoming a common problem so I used a different timing set with 3 choices 4 retard straight up 0 and 4 advance the 0 on it also looked retard so I put it in on the 4 advance setting. Now no I didn't use a degree wheel and there's definitely some guessing and eyeballing going on so to be safe I test fired it while it was still apart. It only ran a second and it was obviously cold but it took fuel and barked like a scolded dog so I'm hoping I'm on to something. Like maybe a drivable car.

Perhaps Tuesday I give back the super sport couch.

 

[Clutch]

We almost got it back together tonight. No issues with the car I just can't work like I used to. I gotta learn to let her do more so I do less and more gets done. She's happy to do it I think I just like showing her so I keep doing it myself and just talking to her about it.

Timing cover water pump balancer all back in. I was trying to get enough together to do a test fire but pain and the New Jersey state bird, you know the mosquito put a stop to the work. Tomorrow is another day and everything is good because the helper is happy

I left the battery on a 2A trickle so tomorrow night we should be good to go. Hopefully tomorrow we take it for a road test.

 

[Clutch]

Well we buttoned it up today and took it out for a shake down run. Temporarily repaired the exhaust toped off the fluids and played with timing a little bit. Really not impressed. Wasn't even scared when the go pedal stuck to the floor. It's missing horribly and can't get out of its own way. I'm not worried about it though I ored a new set of plugs for it and I'm going to fool with it some more. I don't know why it's missing now it didn't before. I think if it wasn't it would probably go pretty good. Lauren said it's the slowest hot rod ever lol she might be right I really don't care anymore I just need it drivable so I can give back the SS couch and fix my truck. After our little ride weo did a walk around like a pretrip looks like it needs 1 headlight but I think I bought a set for it 1 1156 for a cornering lamp of all things yes it has them and one works. I thought that was cool. And it wouldn't be a 78-87 gm mid size car if it didn't need at least 2 194 bulbs it the parking lights. Tomorrow is the wife's day but I'm going to try and put the plugs in it anyway (wish me luck) and I still think I've got the distributor a tooth off but I don't know how much I'll get away with on mother's day. Oh yeah and the wipers don't work so I should probably look into that.

 

[olds307 and 403]

Yeah, I hear you. My Olds V8 have given me nothing but grief lately as well. Maybe the timing is retarded. How old are the plug wires? Make sure the cap is properly seated. What do you have for stall and gears in this car?

 

[Clutch]

Yeah, I hear you. My Olds V8 have given me nothing but grief lately as well. Maybe the timing is retarded. How old are the plug wires? Make sure the cap is properly seated. What do you have for stall and gears in this car?

Still the stock 2:56 open rear or whatever that junk is I think it's a 2200 converter I don't even remotely remember. Tell you the truth it's not bothering me it runs badly because I'm working on it with Lauren.