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Total Seal Gapless rings?

WarWagon said:
No way GM was going to overcome the lack of head bolts on the 5.7 Diesel. Further the "new" single use TTY head bolts made repairs useless as no one esp. GM dealer mechanics had ever seen a disposable head bolt before. Manuals and training were not so good back then.

The 4.3L V6 Olds Diesel was a different story. Not sure the 1985 FWD version with aluminum heads would have had better service with the expansion rate difference taken out on the head gaskets. At least the V6 had enough head bolts. Sadly the FWD V6 GM donated to the college I went too had an occlusion in a piston from bad casting that would likely have shattered it eventually. I was the only one who touched it in the engine class since GM had donated it for educational use only. And due to odd lab class size I went it alone without a partner. (They scrapped the engine after that.)



It is one of the most inefficient Diesels out there. If it ran long enough. Other Diesels were out there that could go the distance and deliver even better MPG. GM chose poorly because CHEAP (and no longer having car guys in leadership at the time). Compared to the gasoline engines suddenly strangled by emissions and Unleaded vapor lock prone Gasoline of the era, yeah, they delivered better MPG.

Dad took a oil sample on our 1980 Delta 88. After it broke the alternator bracket under warranty. The oil lab called it was so bad. After they figured out it was a Olds 5.7 Diesel "Oh, they are all like that." Dad didn't keep the smoking underpowered Olds after that. I still recall people coming out of the smoke cloud waving their hands in front of their faces behind us somewhere on a grade to go see Mount Rushmore.

Without addressing the common in the day gasohol used to remove water that ruined the governor flex ring, lack of good fuel filters, and water separators the engine would still be a non-running lawn ornament. Our dirty wet Diesel fuel is just that. Even now ULSD lacking lube for the CP4... Seriously GM had to do a recall to add a Water In Fuel Light. Wow GM owned Detroit Diesel and missed this. (From the 6.2 GM history: GM wouldn't have listened anyway.)

It was typical GM to come: experimental engines turned loose on their customers for R&D. You could have purchased another disaster Cadillac V8-6-4 ... or any Cadillac/Oldsmobile engine of the era that also had camshaft flat lobe trouble let alone the WTF mechanic blank stares from the constant changes on emissions systems during the model year including the coil in burned through distributor cap HEI "mystery".

Regardless the Olds 5.7 Diesel is deservedly the most hated engine in history for what it did to the North American Diesel market.
Click to expand...

I can only share my experience with them and I have to say I’ve never had any major problems with those in 25yrs of driving them.By using arp fasteners in critical areas they can be made to last.

They only have a short stroke configuration so they are certainly no powerhouse but I think the design was rushed into production way too early in trying to compete with Mercedes Benz at the time.

GM always did cut corners to keep costs down.Imagine how great the 6.2 and 6.5 would have been if forged cranks and bedplates were in place.It would have been a different ballgame.Of course that would increase costs by a fair margin.

Head bolts were commonly reused on the olds and stretched bigtime.Lack of Headbolts per cylinder didn’t help either.I’ve been around them quite a long time but with a few improvements such as better fasteners and a good water separator they can be decent power plants for what they were designed for.
 
ak diesel driver said:
I know quite a few guys that ran them for along time. They liked them.
Click to expand...

Anything can beat the odds. The rarest of the rare was an El-Camino (or GMC) on ebay with a 3 PSI aftermarket turbo on the Olds 5.7 Diesel. They were nice comfortable big cars when GM had the largest market share.

Husker6.5 said:
Imagine the little beast it could have been
Click to expand...

On further thought we actually don't have too. Dodge was about to drop the RAM pickup line until the risk taken on dropping in a Cummins, even with the ruined by Olds Diesel market, turned it around. Not only did it save the RAM pickup it made GM partner up and come out with the 6.6L Duramax...

Yes, the 78-80 RAM NA Diesel, Mitsubishi 6DR5, went nowhere. Neither did a lot of other rare and forgotten Non-Turbo gutless Diesels of that era.

Yet look at Europe and the adoption of Diesel there.

If we had any sense at all we would be working on CNG vehicles and fueling stations rather than electric now. Natural Gas is cheap vs. other fuels and difficult to ship so it will stay cheap. Some engine manufacturers are in fact doing so now.

Husker6.5 said:
Thank the bean counters and the time/cost to make/fit them on the assembly line.
Click to expand...

This is 100% correct. It's cheaper to make me change the oil every 6 months regardless of miles than it is to put gapless rings in and/or add a 7th dedicated injector for DPF cleaning. As the Biodiesel % increases my 18 Ram Cummins engine will become obsolete having major trouble for DPF Regen and technology like gapless rings may be required. Unicorn "Glowing Government Reports" that require tighter emissions regardless of cost and/or benefit may also force the use of gapless rings if any IC engines are even left.


@dieselolds I salute you for keeping one or more of these going. They are simply museum pieces anymore with only true survivors left. Especially given the odds they left the factory with. I would even consider owning one of the V6 Diesels in a Cutlass or FWD Olds 98.
 
WarWagon said:
Anything can beat the odds. The rarest of the rare was an El-Camino (or GMC) on ebay with a 3 PSI aftermarket turbo on the Olds 5.7 Diesel. They were nice comfortable big cars when GM had the largest market share.



On further thought we actually don't have too. Dodge was about to drop the RAM pickup line until the risk taken on dropping in a Cummins, even with the ruined by Olds Diesel market, turned it around. Not only did it save the RAM pickup it made GM partner up and come out with the 6.6L Duramax...

Yes, the 78-80 RAM NA Diesel, Mitsubishi 6DR5, went nowhere. Neither did a lot of other rare and forgotten Non-Turbo gutless Diesels of that era.

Yet look at Europe and the adoption of Diesel there.

If we had any sense at all we would be working on CNG vehicles and fueling stations rather than electric now. Natural Gas is cheap vs. other fuels and difficult to ship so it will stay cheap. Some engine manufacturers are in fact doing so now.



This is 100% correct. It's cheaper to make me change the oil every 6 months regardless of miles than it is to put gapless rings in and/or add a 7th dedicated injector for DPF cleaning. As the Biodiesel % increases my 18 Ram Cummins engine will become obsolete having major trouble for DPF Regen and technology like gapless rings may be required. Unicorn "Glowing Government Reports" that require tighter emissions regardless of cost and/or benefit may also force the use of gapless rings if any IC engines are even left.


@dieselolds I salute you for keeping one or more of these going. They are simply museum pieces anymore with only true survivors left. Especially given the odds they left the factory with. I would even consider owning one of the V6 Diesels in a Cutlass or FWD Olds 98.
Click to expand...

Thank you warwagon.I try to keep the olds together although it isn’t cheap anymore to do so.Currently the cylinder heads,block and crank are at the machine shop.I had a big list for them to do with it.

I requested them to install the perfect circle bronze valve guides,hardened valve seats with new springs and nos valves.For the block I wanted an align hone performed with milodon main studs in place.And also install new cam bearings and clean the block.It’ll also receive a milodon oil pump driveshaft.

It’s been bored .030 over and decked .006”.Its getting new old stock zollner pistons.I also plan for them to install new rod bushings and arp rod bolts.I’ll bring the connecting rods and arp bolts to them when the bulk of the work has been done and paid for.

The crank is std journals right now but I have a feeling it’ll be a 010/010 when I get it back.Some debris found it’s way to one rod bearing and it’s scored up a little so I think a 010/010 will fix it.

The pencil injectors were reconditioned at accurate diesel in Michigan.It wasn’t cheap but i wanted peace of mind knowing it’s been done properly.Tim is great to deal with.

The injection pump has been rebuilt too.The camshaft and lifters are being replaced with new clevite and new old stock ford roller lifters I found on eBay made back in the 90s so at least I know the lifters are American made and won’t cause me any problems.

I’ve rebuilt a few of these engines over the years.This will probably be my last 5.7 rebuild as parts are expensive not to mention machine work services have gone through the roof since the last time I did this sort of thing.
 
WarWagon said:
Anything can beat the odds. The rarest of the rare was an El-Camino (or GMC) on ebay with a 3 PSI aftermarket turbo on the Olds 5.7 Diesel. They were nice comfortable big cars when GM had the largest market share.



On further thought we actually don't have too. Dodge was about to drop the RAM pickup line until the risk taken on dropping in a Cummins, even with the ruined by Olds Diesel market, turned it around. Not only did it save the RAM pickup it made GM partner up and come out with the 6.6L Duramax...

Yes, the 78-80 RAM NA Diesel, Mitsubishi 6DR5, went nowhere. Neither did a lot of other rare and forgotten Non-Turbo gutless Diesels of that era.

Yet look at Europe and the adoption of Diesel there.

If we had any sense at all we would be working on CNG vehicles and fueling stations rather than electric now. Natural Gas is cheap vs. other fuels and difficult to ship so it will stay cheap. Some engine manufacturers are in fact doing so now.



This is 100% correct. It's cheaper to make me change the oil every 6 months regardless of miles than it is to put gapless rings in and/or add a 7th dedicated injector for DPF cleaning. As the Biodiesel % increases my 18 Ram Cummins engine will become obsolete having major trouble for DPF Regen and technology like gapless rings may be required. Unicorn "Glowing Government Reports" that require tighter emissions regardless of cost and/or benefit may also force the use of gapless rings if any IC engines are even left.


@dieselolds I salute you for keeping one or more of these going. They are simply museum pieces anymore with only true survivors left. Especially given the odds they left the factory with. I would even consider owning one of the V6 Diesels in a Cutlass or FWD Olds 98.
Click to expand...
Ok
Will L. said:
I think the fuel change killed a lot of that.
How many guys here swear their truck used to get 25, but now 18
Click to expand...
I resemble that remark.
I got good mpg's with everything until the fuel change
 
I had an Olds 5.0L (307) gasser in my '83 Caprice station wagon I had back in the early 90's (you never knew when you ordered the 5.0L back then if you were getting a 305 Chevy or 307 Olds in your GM "Corporate" car). That was a giant piece of shit motor that burned a quart of oil every 150 miles and totally lacked power due to the three wiped camshaft lobes, by the time the car had 90K on the odometer when I got it as a "family truckster" when my first was born in '92!

@WarWagon, NOPE! Cadillac's biggest piece of crap motor was by far the HT4100 aluminum block/heads V8 that came from Cadillac the next year in my '83 Coupe d'Ville! They were built "loose" - like .004" main and rod clearances from the drawing board for better mpgs - as well as having some very questionable design quirks - like the outside head bolts were like 19" long or something like that and went through the head, through a hole in a flange on the outside of the block deck, OUTSIDE the block and then threaded into an about 1" deep hole in a bulge out on the oil pan flange that they liked to pull the threads out of if not properly torqued/too much compression. They also had floating cylinder sleeves in them, and liked to leak antifreeze from nearly every cooling system port, be it head to block, block to intake manifold, manifold to thermostat outlet or water pump to block - for which GM's "official fix" was to dump 8oz of GM stop leak into the cooling system, does that sound familiar, like with 6.5 coolant issues? So not only did they leak like a sieve, but would routinely spin/throw rods before getting 30K miles on the odometer.

My Coupe had its first motor replaced in '85 at 27K under the original new car warranty, the second one got replaced under its own warranty at 52K in '89 with a lot of bitching to the local Caddy dealer and motor #3 had some out of warranty issues (like a head gasket leaking coolant from the cylinder passage to the outside of the block due to the threads had pulled out of the hole at the bottom of the block, which my mechanic cleverly repaired by filling the hole with JB Weld, then using a 2' long extended drill bit down through the head/flange hole to drill it out the cured JB Weld and then used a tap on the hole. It held until the night in '96 I was coming home from work and began hearing that all too familiar sound of a rod bearing getting ready to let go.

So, I pulled up in the driveway to that familiar knocking at idle and thought to myself, "Hmmm, that's a pretty good knock at idle, I wonder what that sounds like at about 2,000 rpm?"

So I pressed down a little further on the gas and brought it up to about 2,000 for about 10 seconds. "Hmmm, that's a pretty healthy sounding loud hammering, I wonder what that would sound like at about 4,000 rpm?"

So, I pressed in a little further and had that motor really a hammering loudly for about another 10 seconds when, KA-BAM, BAM, CLANG, BAM, THUNK! and dead silence as the motor completely stopped on the thunk. As I got out of the car, I could smell antifreeze and hot motor oil and I said to myself, "Screw it, I'll see what it did in the morning."

I came out the next morning to find the puddle of antifreeze that had ran about 20' down the driveway, the 4 qt oil slick that covered the driveway area under the car and underside of the car and the really cool sight of the battered big end of a rod - less the cap and bolts - sticking a couple of inches out the side of the block!
 
Husker6.5 said:
I had an Olds 5.0L (307) gasser in my '83 Caprice station wagon I had back in the early 90's (you never knew when you ordered the 5.0L back then if you were getting a 305 Chevy or 307 Olds in your GM "Corporate" car). That was a giant piece of shit motor that burned a quart of oil every 150 miles and totally lacked power due to the three wiped camshaft lobes, by the time the car had 90K on the odometer when I got it as a "family truckster" when my first was born in '92!

@WarWagon, NOPE! Cadillac's biggest piece of crap motor was by far the HT4100 aluminum block/heads V8 that came from Cadillac the next year in my '83 Coupe d'Ville! They were built "loose" - like .004" main and rod clearances from the drawing board for better mpgs - as well as having some very questionable design quirks - like the outside head bolts were like 19" long or something like that and went through the head, through a hole in a flange on the outside of the block deck, OUTSIDE the block and then threaded into an about 1" deep hole in a bulge out on the oil pan flange that they liked to pull the threads out of if not properly torqued/too much compression. They also had floating cylinder sleeves in them, and liked to leak antifreeze from nearly every cooling system port, be it head to block, block to intake manifold, manifold to thermostat outlet or water pump to block - for which GM's "official fix" was to dump 8oz of GM stop leak into the cooling system, does that sound familiar, like with 6.5 coolant issues? So not only did they leak like a sieve, but would routinely spin/throw rods before getting 30K miles on the odometer.

My Coupe had its first motor replaced in '85 at 27K under the original new car warranty, the second one got replaced under its own warranty at 52K in '89 with a lot of bitching to the local Caddy dealer and motor #3 had some out of warranty issues (like a head gasket leaking coolant from the cylinder passage to the outside of the block due to the threads had pulled out of the hole at the bottom of the block, which my mechanic cleverly repaired by filling the hole with JB Weld, then using a 2' long extended drill bit down through the head/flange hole to drill it out the cured JB Weld and then used a tap on the hole. It held until the night in '96 I was coming home from work and began hearing that all too familiar sound of a rod bearing getting ready to let go.

So, I pulled up in the driveway to that familiar knocking at idle and thought to myself, "Hmmm, that's a pretty good knock at idle, I wonder what that sounds like at about 2,000 rpm?"

So I pressed down a little further on the gas and brought it up to about 2,000 for about 10 seconds. "Hmmm, that's a pretty healthy sounding loud hammering, I wonder what that would sound like at about 4,000 rpm?"

So, I pressed in a little further and had that motor really a hammering loudly for about another 10 seconds when, KA-BAM, BAM, CLANG, BAM, THUNK! and dead silence as the motor completely stopped on the thunk. As I got out of the car, I could smell antifreeze and hot motor oil and I said to myself, "Screw it, I'll see what it did in the morning."

I came out the next morning to find the puddle of antifreeze that had ran about 20' down the driveway, the 4 qt oil slick that covered the driveway area under the car and underside of the car and the really cool sight of the battered big end of a rod - less the cap and bolts - sticking a couple of inches out the side of the block!
Click to expand...
I guess that HT4100 was the worst engine.Sounds like they were in fact worse than the olds diesel.The 6.4 power stroke isn’t that good either.Sorry for the derail guys….🍻
 
And wasn't the 6.4 just a larger displacement "improved" version of the 6.0, iirc? I seem to remember something in an article in DieselPower in which a shop swapped cranks/rods or something about the lower end to make a hybrid with better reliability, or just to see if they could do it. The first decent "Ford" diesel since the 7.3 was the blank sheet of paper Scorpion 6.7L that Ford itself designed, so Ford claims.
 
Austrian firm AVL designed the 6.7. Ford does claim "in house", but the truth is the the Duramax was more "in house" because GM owned 80% of Isuzu's truck division at the time. The 7.3 is a great motor.
 
WarWagon said:
No way GM was going to overcome the lack of head bolts on the 5.7 Diesel. Further the "new" single use TTY head bolts made repairs useless as no one esp. GM dealer mechanics had ever seen a disposable head bolt before. Manuals and training were not so good back then.

The 4.3L V6 Olds Diesel was a different story. Not sure the 1985 FWD version with aluminum heads would have had better service with the expansion rate difference taken out on the head gaskets. At least the V6 had enough head bolts. Sadly the FWD V6 GM donated to the college I went too had an occlusion in a piston from bad casting that would likely have shattered it eventually. I was the only one who touched it in the engine class since GM had donated it for educational use only. And due to odd lab class size I went it alone without a partner. (They scrapped the engine after that.)



It is one of the most inefficient Diesels out there. If it ran long enough. Other Diesels were out there that could go the distance and deliver even better MPG. GM chose poorly because CHEAP (and no longer having car guys in leadership at the time). Compared to the gasoline engines suddenly strangled by emissions and Unleaded vapor lock prone Gasoline of the era, yeah, they delivered better MPG.

Dad took a oil sample on our 1980 Delta 88. After it broke the alternator bracket under warranty. The oil lab called it was so bad. After they figured out it was a Olds 5.7 Diesel "Oh, they are all like that." Dad didn't keep the smoking underpowered Olds after that. I still recall people coming out of the smoke cloud waving their hands in front of their faces behind us somewhere on a grade to go see Mount Rushmore.

Without addressing the common in the day gasohol used to remove water that ruined the governor flex ring, lack of good fuel filters, and water separators the engine would still be a non-running lawn ornament. Our dirty wet Diesel fuel is just that. Even now ULSD lacking lube for the CP4... Seriously GM had to do a recall to add a Water In Fuel Light. Wow GM owned Detroit Diesel and missed this. (From the 6.2 GM history: GM wouldn't have listened anyway.)

It was typical GM to come: experimental engines turned loose on their customers for R&D. You could have purchased another disaster Cadillac V8-6-4 ... or any Cadillac/Oldsmobile engine of the era that also had camshaft flat lobe trouble let alone the WTF mechanic blank stares from the constant changes on emissions systems during the model year including the coil in burned through distributor cap HEI "mystery".

Regardless the Olds 5.7 Diesel is deservedly the most hated engine in history for what it did to the North American Diesel market.
Click to expand...
I would love to have one.
 
Now, the 4.3L V6 Olds diesel that was based off of the disastrous 5.7L V8 was actually a pretty good and reliable little diesel with outstanding fuel mileage numbers on the highway (41mpg EPA) in the GM G-bodies. It was reengineered with SIX head bolts per cylinder - unlike the 4 on the 5.7, a BALANCED nodular iron crank, longer main and rod bolts and I believe beefier caps on each and a water separator before the IP, unlike the 5.7 that had none at all. It wasn't a brute at 85HP and 165 lb/ft, but it did move those G bodies down the road efficiently from 1982-85!
 
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