My dad bought that exact car new, but 2 door, in 1978. After 4 years of HELL, blown headgaskets, breakdowns every month or so, he put in a used 350 gas and it was indestructible.
With some bigger head studs and a few other tweaks, these engines would last a long time. The problem is that GM tried to not only use the same head studs as the gasser 350, but the same amount and in the same pattern. They weren’t strong enough to hold the high compression of being a diesel, and blew head gaskets left and right. They did eventually sell bigger head studs to upgrade. I’m not sure if they were aftermarket or GM recall parts. There also was no water separator for the fuel tank, and a lot of engines were ruined from having water in the fuel. GM did fix most of the problems with the 350 diesel in later years. They also made different displacement and 6 cylinder diesels, but everyone was so turned off by the massive problems they had in the beginning that they didn’t sell at all. Therefor they stopped production of diesel engines for passenger cars all together.
ya I can see that. if the owner actually maintained it and wasn't an idiot than they will last. especially the later DX blocks. with a water separator, they are good engines.
Very nice rare diesel Olds you have. I have 4 Oldsmobile diesels and am looking to buy another one. Mine are all trouble free and original. You just have to know how to care for them.
The 350 diesel was not a converted small block. It was its own design, and much heavier than the gas 350. There were 3 problems. First the should have not had a 5.7 350 diesel, make it bigger or smaller, that confused peopled. Second the head bolts were not capable of controlling the pressure of 22:1 compression, a set of arp bolts fixed it and GM did too but it was too late. Third, no water seperator or light that showed water in fuel. That killed a bunch of engines. I'd also add lack of knowledge in the public on diesel in general. In the right hands these engines were good and lasted.
It had the light, but no actual separator. If your mom was starting the car to go to work, do you think she'd pay attention to that light? Nope, blown heads.
Yeah it was better in winter to just leave them running....object in motion theory....but i drove one across the desert on the floorboards at 80 terminal velocity...in the mid 80s for about 18 hours straight
I had a 1979 olds holiday 88 with a 5.7L diesel in it. Bucket seats, Blue paint, with a Blue vinyl top. I put a 1969 455 c.i. out of a 442 olds in it. .030 over with a small cam and pop-ups. It was one of the fastest cars I ever owned. I kept the 272 rear end gears in it. On the highway, it just kept going faster and faster. Anyway, I owned it in Kansas and had to sell it cause I was short on cash at the time. If you have it and want to part with it, let me know :)
Arrr seeing this one makes me miss my 78 88. 2 door burgundy exterior red interior with the 403ci 4bbl th 350 trans. Had all the hub caps surprisingly. I bought it when I was working at a shop at 15 cause it had low compression in one cylinder. It wasn't as bad as they thought turned out most of the issue was caused by someone putting the plug wires on in the chevy firing order witch put 2 wires on wrong washing the cylinder walls down and causing low compression. I just ran 2cycle oil in the gas and it got the compression withing 15 psi of the rest. Wish I still had it unfortunately a ditch claimed it when the tranny locked up and I had to make a decision between the semi flying up on me or whip it to the right as I was sliding on a gravel road. I was young and I cut it hard right and bent the frame with a hard deep ditch
A real survivor. That's amazing. I didn't think any of them were still around. I had two myself. 1981 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham and a 1984 Olds 98 Regency. It was a bad idea from the start. You can't take a gas engine and put diesel heads on it and expect it to last any time. They were great engines if you didn't run them hard. But when they came out, people were used to a 350, and running them hard. Just an all-around piss-poor design. But boy, did they sound good!!! I sold both of mine, but I wish I still had them. My dream car is a 1983 two-door Cutlass diesel. My aunt had one, and I loved that car. I would give my left nut to find one still running, in decent condition.
the engine blocks are NOT gas engine blocks, they are larger tougher built to handle the compression ratio. and the later DX blocks were even tougher and better, the 5.7 main issue was the lack of head bolts, but arp head studs fix that issue, and the water separator would have been a good idea from factory. but the smaller 4.3 diesels, ive heard are tough little engines from factory, treated properly they will last. and ya I also would LOVE to find some original diesel cars, and at least one gmc 1500 with the 5.7. but the issue is people keep destroying them because they are too retarted to actually take care of them.
Such a shame that GM never took the time to thoroughly test this engine during its development stages it would have been a super reliable power plant and would have held a much better reputation
WOW! An Old diesel that runs. I'm very impressed.I was around in the 80's and I was a car guy. These were the Ford 6.0 Powerstroke of their day in terms of reliability from the factory. Sure, you could fix the problems, but who wants to do that with a brand new car?
I have one of these Delta 88 4 doors with a 5.3 gas engine in it and one owner with only 66,000 miles on it. Mine is bronze with a cream colored top and velour interior. The woman who owned it would never allow anyone to smoke in it either.
My maternal grandparents owned a 1978 Delta 88 Royale, too, but theirs was a coupe, done up in Carmine Red Metallic (exterior) and a Light Camel Beige vinyl top. This one is Light Blue Metallic throughout, with no vinyl top.
ClassicTVMan1981X This car has been repainted. We bought one new in 78 in light blue, much lighter than this one. That to my knowledge is not a factory color.
Some of thoes d blocks did make it to 190 k amazing I saw one that did it the guy used a different brand of oil every time he changed the oil and one set of injectors this was a 1978 delta 88 all free way miles and he always let it idle fore 15 minuets before driveing it. And it did go through some oil pump drive shafts, mondellow sells a nice shaft fore racing engines that's realley strong that works great in the Diesel engines . 190k no blown head gaskets amazing . My car has blown several .
That car has two batteries: one on the driver's side in the front and one on the passenger side in the front of the engine compartment. My Mercedes' diesels only had 5 valve but just one big battery. From the condition of the brake reservoir, it appears most of the other engine components have been replaced because they look new. I had a co-worker who had one of these Oldsmobile diesels and she spent more than the purchase price on repairs and eventually got rid of it and bought a gas engine Cadillac. I think this car had a lot of engine stuff replaced; that's why it looks new because it is new. I know GM had problems with this diesel but I don't know much about them.
I hade a car like that, loved and hated it, unfortunately a lot of problems, dieselpump was bad, electric problems, rust, and at the end the gearbox gave up, that was the final. I wish I could find that car with a gasoline engine, love the body style, just awesome, specially the 78 with those taillights, maybe some day I will have luck to find one, I live in Sweden and its not easy here inspite there are a lot of American cars here.
I remember these (and worked on them) when they came out ... They were GREAT IF you didn't start them up, and soon "shut them off" ! *They liked to be RAN, and those that understood that, had a GREAT Car ! So far as "short-tripping" them (on a cold winters day for example), they didn't like that ! , again: they were of a time, got a "bad rap", but were a GREAT Car ! .. *NOT a "Grandma car" / not a "short tripper" car ! < just my opinion >. GREAT CLIP !! :- )
+TommyZTrains That's probably what happened to the Cutlass my Mother had before I was born though I don't know if it had the 5.7 or the 4.3. What I do know is Father said they never did let it warm up before driving and he was frequently taking it in for repairs, it leaked fuel (and/or antifreeze?) around the cylinder head. Would that have been from the weak cylinder head bolts that came on these stock, I wonder?
@@SuperBooboo02 130 CV for a 5.7 V8 is a joke, hade one of these, was tired, a lot of shit happened, finally the gearbox gave up, nice car tough but much better with a gas engine
I bet these would run better now that we have low sulfur Diesel fuel. One must remember that back in the 70's and 80's diesel fuel was very dirty and didn't have the additives that they have now. I bet these would run fine on the new diesel blends of today.
Nice car it would. a great idea to strengthen the block by using ARP bolts and drill the studs deeper into the block at a machine shop this would save the crank shaft in that great ruining diesel this coverts a d3 block to a dx block almost very nice original car . I always loved driving a olds diesel .
@@elaineewalt8137 Sort of. Oldsmobile had a 2 step starting procedure when they first introduced their diesel engine. The "wait" light let the driver know they needed to wait for the glow plugs do their job. The "start" light meant it was safe to start the engine. The "start" light was dropped by the 1980 model year and only the "wait" light remained. Watch at 04:01 and you'll see what I mean.
@@elaineewalt8137 Sure! You talking about your friend's Peugeot? That's not a GM diesel so it prob only had an orange light. Only Oldsmobile had this arrangement.
I worked as a line tech for Cadillac from '71 till '08. The 350 diesel was horrible. Blown head gskts, broken cranks, oil leaks galore, inj. pumps that failed, popped head bolts, ballooned glow plugs, etc. It was unreal! Yep, yank that turd and screw in a 350 gas eng. and you were good to go. Nobody knew the difference and ya didn't have to smog it cuz DMV never knew the swap took place. All these went to the landfill years ago thank god! Great cars, pathetic engines tho! Oh yea, no turbo so it had zero gutz! I'm tellin' ya!!!!!
Agree, terrible engines, the DX was better or the 6,3, 120 HP from a 5.7 liter V8 is a joke, underpowered for that big car, I wish could find one with a gas engine
+Techman understood. I never owned one but heard at least that the goodwrench engines did not throw a piston thru the oil pan. My son has a 2014 Chevy Cruze diesel, and it is great.
Sounds sweet but I hear it was a modified gas motor which was not upgraded for the extra stress of compression ignition so a bit of a disaster. Does it go well?
This engine along with the 81 Cadillac V8-6-4 and the Cadillac HT4100 v8 turned off so many people to GM. No wonder owners switched to MB and BMW, with GM making junk like those power-trains. I guess the Northstar v8 is ok. Sad for the original owners spending all that $$ for unreliable engines.
Have to agree with most of the comments P>O>S engine..Parents bought one new .. Parents also took advantage of the new lemon-ed law and back it went back to dealer ..My dad never liked diesels again,, and would constantly ask me why and the hell do you like those turd motors...never said much back except i just do.
+Kevin Cody No it definitely wasn't, what happened was the management decided to rush the engine out and the engineers knew it wasnt ready for mass production and they also cut corners on the budget by reusing bits from the olds Petrol V8 which clearly weren't up to being used in diesel engines. The result was a bad engine to begin with yes, they did improve it later on but overall it was a very hampered design that could've (and should've) worked brilliantly, after all we had diesels here in Britain that were great from the late 50s as far as I know. Sad but atleast they can be made better now.
Mike Hevalow I think alot of these original Olds Diesels have been rebuilt now. The engine itself wasn't the real problem, it was the little things they got horribly wrong that were easy to fix such as the water/fuel separator, using the correct head bolts, plus the lack of any particulate filter as far as I know judging by how smoky these are. They were improved later witht eh DX block apparently but the engine overall was just underdeveloped and shouldn't have been released until the engineers were finished developing it.
Back in the 1980's, I worked at a G.M. dealer that sold Chevrolet, Pontiac, Cadillac, Oldsmobile,Buick, GMC and ANYTHING ELSE that is GM that I may have left off. Standard operating procedure MOST of the time was to replace that engine with a gasoline 350 because of the fact that they were lousy engines that should have never been alowed to be put in a mass production car. I heard and seen various people from GM say the same thing. THIS particular enging,AKA The Dertoit Diesel should have NEVER been piut in a car that was sold to the public. They KNEW did not take the time to propertly test everything. They had a great idea at the time and on paper it looked great- In reality, It was junk-
Mike Hevalow First off this is not a Detroit Diesel, it's nothing like it it's a completely different family of engines. The Detroit Diesel V8 came in 6.2 and 6.5 turbocharged version, might've been other versions I dunno I'm not from the US I live in Scotland. The Detroit Diesel was far more durable and reliable than this and it could've been installed in a car if they wanted, why they chose to design a completely different engine when they owned several diesels already beats me. Actually I've heard the main block of the Olds Diesel is still used in racing because of it's strength so obviously the main bit of the engine wasn't that bad, like I said it was everything else round about it that failed or was crap such as the head bolts, fuel pump.delivery line and such. This engine COULD have been great IF they had tested it more and not cut corners on parts as I say they got the actual block right for the most part. I don't think people saying it shouldn't have been put in a car at all is a great outlook as I've seen these rebuilt and they work fine according to their owners there are no doubt other bad diesel designs around too that are used in production cars. The engineers knew it wasn't fully panned out but the management were the real culprits as they decided to cut costs and rush produtction thus spoiling what could've been a great foray into Diesel cars, especially as it was just ahead of the likes of PSA's great XUD engine ,Olds could've been onto a firrst major car company to launch a modern diesel mass market. Real shame but hey there are still ones out there being rebuilt and with todays know-how they can be made into somewhat decent engines these days.
The real truth from a grease monkeys point of view, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, if you failed to install a water in fuel separator, that could be purchased from any detroit diesel truck dealer, or kenworth, or peterbuilt, international harvester,and if you thought that an engine that size could run on only 7-8 quarts of oil,then all I can say is you were fooling yourself, diesels, especially v8,s take their oil by the gallon, not by the quart,if you bought a car out of dealer stock,then you didn,t get any heavy duty cooling or suspension or block heater without ordering it. I should also add, if you still have a 78 /5.7v8/79 only 4.3 v8 or 4.3 v6 82-84 rwd 82-85 fwd, at the time these engines were made, they didn,t have the best fuel injection or glow plugs,I would suggest an upgrade, for easy starting and strong acceleration , trust me diesels may be gone but not forgotten because unleaded gas won,t be around forever because alot of today,s new 4cyl -v6 engines with high compression ratios cannot run sufficiently on unleaded gas due to low octane levels, at some point future engines will have to use high octane racing gas that cost about as much as aviation fuel, the bean counters don,t see what,s coming but I can, any oldsmobile diesel either V6-V8 that car might be worth it,s weight in gold somrday,believe it or not.
I don't understand why is it that people outside of the united states' had nothing but trouble with especially the first engine and yours still running, how do you explain that????? There should still be alot of these fuckin cars Left out of 31,500 car in1978 yours only one of the fewest left make sure it goes to a smart owner.
NO the Cadillac 4.1L (4100) ranks high up there on the turd list for blown head bolts and gaskets warped heads. The biggest and most expensive turd that GM made was the 4.6L North star engine will blow head bolts and gaskets around 80k to 130k miles at the cost of 3500.00 to 6500.00 to rebuild depending on the shop. Hints that is why you see a junk yard full of Cadillac's from 1996 and up with the North Star engine but excellent body is because all these turds blew the head gaskets out due to bad head bolts so most of the owners said fuck it and junked the car. The 5.7L Diesel was a turd to but by 1982 when the DX block came out the damage was already done and the owners of these cars lost around 70% of its value rite away. The 4.3L V-6 Diesel was a decent engine too but discontinued by 1985 due to poor sales. The 4.3L D was actually pretty reliable but the public lost interest after the 5.7L fiasco. My neighbor had brought a new 1985 Oldsmobile 98 Regency Brougham with the 4.3L D and drove that car for 16 years with no problems and general maintaince.
Not for 1978; there were still VW Beetles on the road in those days. Not sure, but I think even a CA-spec 6 cylinder Impala was slower than the 48 state Olds 350 D.
Agree, I hade the same car and its underpowered with that Diesel engine, no wonder with only 130 hp under the hood its a joke, beside all problems I hade with that crap engine, that car deserve a big block and than are we talking
Where it all began, that car came out during my last year in highschool, the class of 78" baby.
I just saw one driving in Chicago today, this is why I searched on UA-cam, I had no idea it existed.
That is a clean looking delta 88. Props to the original owner for babying it so much
I am absolutely amazed that there's still a 350 diesel out there still not just in running order, but in GOOD running order. Nice car!
My father had a white one with red interior it was a nice car. My uncle later bought the 81 Cutlass Diesel and still drives it occasionally.
My dad bought that exact car new, but 2 door, in 1978. After 4 years of HELL, blown headgaskets, breakdowns every month or so, he put in a used 350 gas and it was indestructible.
I'll bet the longevity of this diesel was likely because of voluntary replacements of cylinder head studs and the addition of a fuel/water separator.
With some bigger head studs and a few other tweaks, these engines would last a long time. The problem is that GM tried to not only use the same head studs as the gasser 350, but the same amount and in the same pattern. They weren’t strong enough to hold the high compression of being a diesel, and blew head gaskets left and right. They did eventually sell bigger head studs to upgrade. I’m not sure if they were aftermarket or GM recall parts. There also was no water separator for the fuel tank, and a lot of engines were ruined from having water in the fuel. GM did fix most of the problems with the 350 diesel in later years. They also made different displacement and 6 cylinder diesels, but everyone was so turned off by the massive problems they had in the beginning that they didn’t sell at all. Therefor they stopped production of diesel engines for passenger cars all together.
As well they should. Sounded like "engineered junk" to me! 😠
Wow this Oldsmobile looks like it came off the show room floor
What a beuty! These were such great car's these and the Ninety Eights.
I met someone who had a factory original Oldsmobile 5.7 diesel with over 500,000 miles on it.
Sure.......
Yeah...ok
ya I can see that. if the owner actually maintained it and wasn't an idiot than they will last. especially the later DX blocks. with a water separator, they are good engines.
I have seen few driven Soft. Breathing a lot etc. So they have seen a lot of Life. Cylinders dont wear out by nothing.
Why not guys? I'm sure there are folks who took care of those engines, so why not???
Nice ride. Long live the Olds Diesel. It's rare. Someone took care of it & was diesel smart
I’d love to buy this car.
The second generation DX blocks were good.
love how old GM cars sound when they start !
I prefer the sound of the old Mopars (Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth), their starters sounded like a dolphin whining!
Very nice rare diesel Olds you have. I have 4 Oldsmobile diesels and am looking to buy another one. Mine are all trouble free and original. You just have to know how to care for them.
Gorgeous car.
You know when you're old and see a hubcap hurdling past you when you go into a curve, good times.
The 350 diesel was not a converted small block. It was its own design, and much heavier than the gas 350. There were 3 problems. First the should have not had a 5.7 350 diesel, make it bigger or smaller, that confused peopled. Second the head bolts were not capable of controlling the pressure of 22:1 compression, a set of arp bolts fixed it and GM did too but it was too late. Third, no water seperator or light that showed water in fuel. That killed a bunch of engines. I'd also add lack of knowledge in the public on diesel in general. In the right hands these engines were good and lasted.
It had the light, but no actual separator. If your mom was starting the car to go to work, do you think she'd pay attention to that light? Nope, blown heads.
Yeah it was better in winter to just leave them running....object in motion theory....but i drove one across the desert on the floorboards at 80 terminal velocity...in the mid 80s for about 18 hours straight
Also fun fact, the Olds Diesel makes a great gasoline conversion engine. Virtually bulletproof and capable of high horsepower.
Brandon Petroski I remember I believe it was Hot Rod Magazine in the 90's that showed how to build one.
i used red line additive in mine
Oh what a beautiful 🚗 👍🏻👍🏻
Tighten those alternator belts! They're gonna shimmy right off the pulleys!
I had a 1979 olds holiday 88 with a 5.7L diesel in it. Bucket seats, Blue paint, with a Blue vinyl top. I put a 1969 455 c.i. out of a 442 olds in it. .030 over with a small cam and pop-ups. It was one of the fastest cars I ever owned. I kept the 272 rear end gears in it. On the highway, it just kept going faster and faster. Anyway, I owned it in Kansas and had to sell it cause I was short on cash at the time. If you have it and want to part with it, let me know :)
By the way, it was a W-2 block or something to that nature...the 455 c.i. was...a block with nickle in it?
Arrr seeing this one makes me miss my 78 88. 2 door burgundy exterior red interior with the 403ci 4bbl th 350 trans. Had all the hub caps surprisingly. I bought it when I was working at a shop at 15 cause it had low compression in one cylinder. It wasn't as bad as they thought turned out most of the issue was caused by someone putting the plug wires on in the chevy firing order witch put 2 wires on wrong washing the cylinder walls down and causing low compression. I just ran 2cycle oil in the gas and it got the compression withing 15 psi of the rest. Wish I still had it unfortunately a ditch claimed it when the tranny locked up and I had to make a decision between the semi flying up on me or whip it to the right as I was sliding on a gravel road. I was young and I cut it hard right and bent the frame with a hard deep ditch
wow, well taken care of! and those 5.7 litre diesel engine are extremely rare, AND EXTRA CLEAN!, and that is neat with the wait and start light!
D-block
@@bobbyheffley4955
Where can you see that?
Wow! What a cool time capsule.
My dad had the Pontiac bonneville/Parisienne version back in 80 or 81. It was on blocks by 36000 miles. Done
Music to my ears.
Its cool just to see a diesel olds 350 still intact today is mind-blowing
GORGEOUS CAR!!!! LOVE THE 5.7 DIESELS
I think it sounds awesome for a diesel, nice motor :)
A real survivor. That's amazing. I didn't think any of them were still around. I had two myself. 1981 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham and a 1984 Olds 98 Regency. It was a bad idea from the start. You can't take a gas engine and put diesel heads on it and expect it to last any time. They were great engines if you didn't run them hard. But when they came out, people were used to a 350, and running them hard. Just an all-around piss-poor design. But boy, did they sound good!!! I sold both of mine, but I wish I still had them. My dream car is a 1983 two-door Cutlass diesel. My aunt had one, and I loved that car. I would give my left nut to find one still running, in decent condition.
check this
www.willhaben.at/iad/gebrauchtwagen/auto/sonstige-sonstige-oldsmobile-cutlass-v8-diesel-4-3l-220906216/
the engine blocks are NOT gas engine blocks, they are larger tougher built to handle the compression ratio. and the later DX blocks were even tougher and better, the 5.7 main issue was the lack of head bolts, but arp head studs fix that issue, and the water separator would have been a good idea from factory. but the smaller 4.3 diesels, ive heard are tough little engines from factory, treated properly they will last. and ya I also would LOVE to find some original diesel cars, and at least one gmc 1500 with the 5.7. but the issue is people keep destroying them because they are too retarted to actually take care of them.
I love this. I want 10 this good.
Such a shame that GM never took the time to thoroughly test this engine during its development stages it would have been a super reliable power plant and would have held a much better reputation
These things were slow as crap but that sound... so intoxicating.
Nice clean survivor car!
WOW! An Old diesel that runs. I'm very impressed.I was around in the 80's and I was a car guy. These were the Ford 6.0 Powerstroke of their day in terms of reliability from the factory. Sure, you could fix the problems, but who wants to do that with a brand new car?
I have one of these Delta 88 4 doors with a 5.3 gas engine in it and one owner with only 66,000 miles on it. Mine is bronze with a cream colored top and velour interior. The woman who owned it would never allow anyone to smoke in it either.
5.3?
Do you mean 4.3?
@@patrickflohe7427 I meant a 5.7 or 350 Olds V/8.
My maternal grandparents owned a 1978 Delta 88 Royale, too, but theirs was a coupe, done up in Carmine Red Metallic (exterior) and a Light Camel Beige vinyl top. This one is Light Blue Metallic throughout, with no vinyl top.
ClassicTVMan1981X This car has been repainted. We bought one new in 78 in light blue, much lighter than this one. That to my knowledge is not a factory color.
beautiful car :)
Gorgeous, a cream puff!
Some of thoes d blocks did make it to 190 k amazing I saw one that did it the guy used a different brand of oil every time he changed the oil and one set of injectors this was a 1978 delta 88 all free way miles and he always let it idle fore 15 minuets before driveing it. And it did go through some oil pump drive shafts, mondellow sells a nice shaft fore racing engines that's realley strong that works great in the Diesel engines . 190k no blown head gaskets amazing . My car has blown several .
+Test Drive (CC) If my understanding's correct, all his idling before driving is likely what saved it as the head bolts on these were a big issue.
beautiful!
That car has two batteries: one on the driver's side in the front and one on the passenger side in the front of the engine compartment. My Mercedes' diesels only had 5 valve but just one big battery. From the condition of the brake reservoir, it appears most of the other engine components have been replaced because they look new. I had a co-worker who had one of these Oldsmobile diesels and she spent more than the purchase price on repairs and eventually got rid of it and bought a gas engine Cadillac. I think this car had a lot of engine stuff replaced; that's why it looks new because it is new. I know GM had problems with this diesel but I don't know much about them.
GM fixed all the issues with the Goodwrench 350DX replacement engines for the early cars & then all of the cars had this engine beginning in 1981
With the right mechanic...and someone who actually understands them..they can last a long time. Check out the @81oldsdiesel channel.
God i love that sound.
If you close your eyes at 6:54, it is easy to imagine it is a delivery truck audio, and not a full size luxury car!
+LakeNipissing My dads massy 175 is quitter
I hade a car like that, loved and hated it, unfortunately a lot of problems, dieselpump was bad, electric problems, rust, and at the end the gearbox gave up, that was the final. I wish I could find that car with a gasoline engine, love the body style, just awesome, specially the 78 with those taillights, maybe some day I will have luck to find one, I live in Sweden and its not easy here inspite there are a lot of American cars here.
I like the hubcaps better than the wire wheels, but it's up to you since it's your car. 🙂 Great car!
I remember these (and worked on them) when they came out ... They were GREAT IF you didn't start them up, and soon "shut them off" ! *They liked to be RAN, and those that understood that, had a GREAT Car !
So far as "short-tripping" them (on a cold winters day for example), they didn't like that ! , again: they were of a time, got a "bad rap", but were a GREAT Car ! .. *NOT a "Grandma car" / not a "short tripper" car ! < just my opinion >.
GREAT CLIP !! :- )
+TommyZTrains That's probably what happened to the Cutlass my Mother had before I was born though I don't know if it had the 5.7 or the 4.3. What I do know is Father said they never did let it warm up before driving and he was frequently taking it in for repairs, it leaked fuel (and/or antifreeze?) around the cylinder head. Would that have been from the weak cylinder head bolts that came on these stock, I wonder?
@@101Volts
First off, you are supposed to let ANY car warm up on starting. That just lets all fluids circulate thruout the engine.
NICE SEDAN!
Passing uphill must be fun.
low horsepower high torque
@@SuperBooboo02 130 CV for a 5.7 V8 is a joke, hade one of these, was tired, a lot of shit happened, finally the gearbox gave up, nice car tough but much better with a gas engine
My grandpa had The same car in The 80’s in ‘belgium
Excellent 👍
I bet these would run better now that we have low sulfur Diesel fuel. One must remember that back in the 70's and 80's diesel fuel was very dirty and didn't have the additives that they have now. I bet these would run fine on the new diesel blends of today.
I thought the sulfur in the diesel was good for mechanical injection pumps?
Wow, what a beautiful car, liked
looks brand new,
I heard the crankshaft snap at the end
best car ever
I feel so bad for the mechanics back in the day
God.car.man.
Emp proof
Nice car it would. a great idea to strengthen the block by using ARP bolts and drill the studs deeper into the block at a machine shop this would save the crank shaft in that great ruining diesel this coverts a d3 block to a dx block almost very nice original car . I always loved driving a olds diesel .
+TesAlso replace the oil pump drive shaft. They rounded out and ruined many of the first generation of Olds Diesel engines
Did you sell the car? If so how much did it bring... It's a beauty! I had same car but gas 350. Hauled butt
Nice time capsule.
I thought the gauge package was standard on the diesels? Or did that start in 1979?
Hard to believe, to who it may concern, the 5.7 olds as hideous as it was, was actually pointing the industry as a whole in a whole new direction,
Cool
Great car! So clean! Where is it now? I wonder why GM eliminated the "start" light from the ignition process? I liked it!
That start light, U believe, is to let the glowplugs warm up a bit before starting. A friend of mine had a diesel Peugeot and that's what his was for.
@@elaineewalt8137 Sort of. Oldsmobile had a 2 step starting procedure when they first introduced their diesel engine. The "wait" light let the driver know they needed to wait for the glow plugs do their job. The "start" light meant it was safe to start the engine. The "start" light was dropped by the 1980 model year and only the "wait" light remained. Watch at 04:01 and you'll see what I mean.
@@JCNDCIII
Thanks for the info, but I sure don't 'member what yr his car was. 👍
@@elaineewalt8137 Sure! You talking about your friend's Peugeot? That's not a GM diesel so it prob only had an orange light. Only Oldsmobile had this arrangement.
@@JCNDCIII
I remember the orange lite, and had a squiggly line on it meaning it meant a wire, I'm guessing...🤔
is this car still running?
I worked as a line tech for Cadillac from '71 till '08. The 350 diesel was horrible. Blown head gskts, broken cranks, oil leaks galore, inj. pumps that failed, popped head bolts, ballooned glow plugs, etc. It was unreal! Yep, yank that turd and screw in a 350 gas eng. and you were good to go. Nobody knew the difference and ya didn't have to smog it cuz DMV never knew the swap took place. All these went to the landfill years ago thank god! Great cars, pathetic engines tho! Oh yea, no turbo so it had zero gutz! I'm tellin' ya!!!!!
Agree, terrible engines, the DX was better or the 6,3, 120 HP from a 5.7 liter V8 is a joke, underpowered for that big car, I wish could find one with a gas engine
I have Land Rover with the same engine never had one problem goes like a bullet what grade oil do you run in yours
Very nice! Is it for sale?
Original LF9 engine? (D block)
Is this still for sale??
how's the car running today
Time capsule!
Que ruido¡¡¡
Is this car for sale?
That car has been resprayed.
Nice only if it has the replacement goodwrench engine in it. All the original engines explode.
+David James 38 years later, this one seems to have defied the odds.
I'd say put a Cummins with 600 ft-lbs into it and have a nice sleeper.
The last couple years of production they worked the bugs out of them.
+Techman understood. I never owned one but heard at least that the goodwrench engines did not throw a piston thru the oil pan. My son has a 2014 Chevy Cruze diesel, and it is great.
The 5.7L diesel DX replacement engines are bullet proof. I wish I had a barn full of them!!!!
Sounds sweet but I hear it was a modified gas motor which was not upgraded for the extra stress of compression ignition so a bit of a disaster. Does it go well?
Museum piece.
This shit wont even get me to the shelter
Real ones know
This engine along with the 81 Cadillac V8-6-4 and the Cadillac HT4100 v8 turned off so many people to GM. No wonder owners switched to MB and BMW, with GM making junk like those power-trains. I guess the Northstar v8 is ok.
Sad for the original owners spending all that $$ for unreliable engines.
The north star engine is not ok. Google north star .
Northstar is worse than the 4.1 and the 350 diesel🤣
Northstars have warping headbolts and the starter is in the engine block valley. Horrid nightmare engines.
Have to agree with most of the comments P>O>S engine..Parents bought one new .. Parents also took advantage of the new lemon-ed law and back it went back to dealer ..My dad never liked diesels again,, and would constantly ask me why and the hell do you like those turd motors...never said much back except i just do.
The GM 5.7L Diesel. Possibly the worst idea ever.
+Kevin Cody No it definitely wasn't, what happened was the management decided to rush the engine out and the engineers knew it wasnt ready for mass production and they also cut corners on the budget by reusing bits from the olds Petrol V8 which clearly weren't up to being used in diesel engines. The result was a bad engine to begin with yes, they did improve it later on but overall it was a very hampered design that could've (and should've) worked brilliantly, after all we had diesels here in Britain that were great from the late 50s as far as I know. Sad but atleast they can be made better now.
+Kevin Cody Yes. They were HORRIBLE engines, HOWEVER THIS is a very well kept example of that car.
Mike Hevalow I think alot of these original Olds Diesels have been rebuilt now. The engine itself wasn't the real problem, it was the little things they got horribly wrong that were easy to fix such as the water/fuel separator, using the correct head bolts, plus the lack of any particulate filter as far as I know judging by how smoky these are. They were improved later witht eh DX block apparently but the engine overall was just underdeveloped and shouldn't have been released until the engineers were finished developing it.
Back in the 1980's, I worked at a G.M. dealer that sold Chevrolet, Pontiac, Cadillac, Oldsmobile,Buick, GMC and ANYTHING ELSE that is GM that I may have left off. Standard operating procedure MOST of the time was to replace that engine with a gasoline 350 because of the fact that they were lousy engines that should have never been alowed to be put in a mass production car. I heard and seen various people from GM say the same thing. THIS particular enging,AKA The Dertoit Diesel should have NEVER been piut in a car that was sold to the public. They KNEW did not take the time to propertly test everything. They had a great idea at the time and on paper it looked great- In reality, It was junk-
Mike Hevalow First off this is not a Detroit Diesel, it's nothing like it it's a completely different family of engines. The Detroit Diesel V8 came in 6.2 and 6.5 turbocharged version, might've been other versions I dunno I'm not from the US I live in Scotland. The Detroit Diesel was far more durable and reliable than this and it could've been installed in a car if they wanted, why they chose to design a completely different engine when they owned several diesels already beats me. Actually I've heard the main block of the Olds Diesel is still used in racing because of it's strength so obviously the main bit of the engine wasn't that bad, like I said it was everything else round about it that failed or was crap such as the head bolts, fuel pump.delivery line and such. This engine COULD have been great IF they had tested it more and not cut corners on parts as I say they got the actual block right for the most part. I don't think people saying it shouldn't have been put in a car at all is a great outlook as I've seen these rebuilt and they work fine according to their owners there are no doubt other bad diesel designs around too that are used in production cars. The engineers knew it wasn't fully panned out but the management were the real culprits as they decided to cut costs and rush produtction thus spoiling what could've been a great foray into Diesel cars, especially as it was just ahead of the likes of PSA's great XUD engine ,Olds could've been onto a firrst major car company to launch a modern diesel mass market. Real shame but hey there are still ones out there being rebuilt and with todays know-how they can be made into somewhat decent engines these days.
Put different heads, maybe intake and then you can have a gas motor lol
The real truth from a grease monkeys point of view, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, if you failed to install a water in fuel separator, that could be purchased from any detroit diesel truck dealer, or kenworth, or peterbuilt, international harvester,and if you thought that an engine that size could run on only 7-8 quarts of oil,then all I can say is you were fooling yourself, diesels, especially v8,s take their oil by the gallon, not by the quart,if you bought a car out of dealer stock,then you didn,t get any heavy duty cooling or suspension or block heater without ordering it. I should also add, if you still have a 78 /5.7v8/79 only 4.3 v8 or 4.3 v6 82-84 rwd 82-85 fwd, at the time these engines were made, they didn,t have the best fuel injection or glow plugs,I would suggest an upgrade, for easy starting and strong acceleration , trust me diesels may be gone but not forgotten because unleaded gas won,t be around forever because alot of today,s new 4cyl -v6 engines with high compression ratios cannot run sufficiently on unleaded gas due to low octane levels, at some point future engines will have to use high octane racing gas that cost about as much as aviation fuel, the bean counters don,t see what,s coming but I can, any oldsmobile diesel either V6-V8 that car might be worth it,s weight in gold somrday,believe it or not.
Really nice except that engine. I would put a regular 350 in it.
Better yet put a duramax diesel under that hood.
I have a 1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale with a 5.7 350 and it's not a diesel. It's still running like a champ!
Swap a modern diesel in it
LMAO, 5.7 Olds motor turned diesel. The GM most major fuckup
Right, only the later DX were the better choice
WHY PUT THIS LEMON ON HERE!!!!!????? IT LED TO OLDS' DISAPPEARANCE!!!! A JUNKBOX IF EVER THERE WAS ONE!!!!!
I don't understand why is it that people outside of the united states' had nothing but trouble with especially the first engine and yours still running, how do you explain that????? There should still be alot of these fuckin cars Left out of 31,500 car in1978 yours only one of the fewest left make sure it goes to a smart owner.
Drop a 455 in it and have some fun !
Hell NO. Some of us are 350 Diesel fans!
Yeah right! That diesel stuff never again, a 5.7 V8 with only 120 HP is a joke for that car, it deserves a big block, period
Ты русский?
Звучит как турок или перс .
your drive belts are lose
Possibly the worst engine ever built. Period.
NO the Cadillac 4.1L (4100) ranks high up there on the turd list for blown head bolts and gaskets warped heads. The biggest and most expensive turd that GM made was the 4.6L North star engine will blow head bolts and gaskets around 80k to 130k miles at the cost of 3500.00 to 6500.00 to rebuild depending on the shop. Hints that is why you see a junk yard full of Cadillac's from 1996 and up with the North Star engine but excellent body is because all these turds blew the head gaskets out due to bad head bolts so most of the owners said fuck it and junked the car. The 5.7L Diesel was a turd to but by 1982 when the DX block came out the damage was already done and the owners of these cars lost around 70% of its value rite away. The 4.3L V-6 Diesel was a decent engine too but discontinued by 1985 due to poor sales. The 4.3L D was actually pretty reliable but the public lost interest after the 5.7L fiasco. My neighbor had brought a new 1985 Oldsmobile 98 Regency Brougham with the 4.3L D and drove that car for 16 years with no problems and general maintaince.
Hell NO! The 350DX Diesel engines were damn near bulletproof if you cared for them!!!!
slowest car ever made
Not for 1978; there were still VW Beetles on the road in those days. Not sure, but I think even a CA-spec 6 cylinder Impala was slower than the 48 state Olds 350 D.
My diesel chevette was slower. I was lucky to get 65 downhill on the highway and some hills I never got past 30. It did get 60 mpg so was worth it.
Here in Finland they use Mercedes 190 and 200 Diesel for taxi and olds too . Mercedes did maybe 120 kmh olds 160 loaded. So ...
Agree, I hade the same car and its underpowered with that Diesel engine, no wonder with only 130 hp under the hood its a joke, beside all problems I hade with that crap engine, that car deserve a big block and than are we talking
My father had the 5.7 V8 gas.
Piece of shit.
Endless problems.
Why? Those engines are far better then that diesel stuff!
Damn that car is super clean for the year but just so damn ugly lol!!
Ugly? Are you joking? That car is in fact one of the best looking Olds ever, love the bodystyle
Good morning, and God, and Jesus bless y'all, these places, them vehicles, and our stuff. 🧋🥪🍻🍦💛✝️