´74 Olds Delta 88 straight out of hibernation, Q-jet´s fixed, now it´s wheels

Skimmed through the thread again.
Olds engines often used a back pressure activated EGR valve. If original AC Delco valve there would be an additional 'BP' stamped to indicate a back pressure valve, these valves cannot be tested unless the engine is running. There is a little check valve that closes when there is exhaust pressure, when vacuum is applied to the nipple with engine running the valve will open. With the engine off, or the valve removed, simply applying vacuum will not activate the valve.
A good valve may appear bad if not tested correctly.

350/403/307 Olds use EGR 'injectors' screwed in under the primaries of the QJet on the intake. Those can be removed to clean out, a drill bit makes easy work. Hardest part is cleaning out the passages inside the intake. Long hooked picks make the work easy, but there will still be many blessings given. Piano wire is an alternative. Not sure if the 455 used similiar setup.



Do you have more pictures of this oil cooler adapter and setup?
Does it have a part number on it?
May want to verify it is functional and not a flow inhibitor.
Front con rods/main are the last spot to get oiling.

 

Mike, I tested the EGR valve, and it does open when vacuum is applied, but it won´t be operable once the engine is rebuilt, I´m just gonna delete it. Same on the Oil cooler adapter, I didn´t check it for numbers, I will and take better pics, but I did check it for a thermostat and the is none. My best guess is , the open cooler circuit stole enough oilflow to starve the rotating assembly of oil. Why would someone need an oil cooler on a 4dr landyacht? I´m not going to put it back on. It does have an oil temp sensor brazed into the oilpan, that´s probably a good idea, but an ungoverned oil cooler circuit is just asking for trouble in my honest opinion, but I´m just a hairdresser,so what do I know, hahahaha

 

Diesels had oil coolers, maybe it used to be a diesel car? but that came later in the 70s

 

Hahaha, Jim, a good idea, but I don´t think so. That´s obviously an aftermarket item, looks a little cobbled in, zip ties, not something the factory would do. Not that cobbling things together is a bad thing, I may have done that myself occasionally....

 

I need to pick your brains once more. I just checked main bearing clearances and all were perfect at .002“. I lubed everything up , rolled the presoaked rope seals in and put the crank back. The more I thightend the caps the more resistance I got turning the crank, up to the point where it was locked up tighter than county jail. 120 ft-lbs wouldn‘t budge it. I loosened the rear main and it was free, but still to much drag for my taste . The ropes are perfectly seated and all caps on the right direction. The rope seals ride partly on this knurled area , and the knurling is thicker than the rest of the journal…. I’man idiot as I’ve already scrapped the old crank , so I‘ve no comparison. On one photo it also shows that the rear main bearing seems to be slightly tinted forward, like the rearside of the cap could not seat all the way.
… so I guess now I need to find out what the journal diameter on a GM 455 crank is. The Eagle crank measures 80.02 mm ( 3.15“) on the smooth side of the journal and 80.95mm ( 3.187“)on the knurled side.
I don‘t mind having this crank turned down a bit, but it sure would be great to know by how much

 

seems like I‘m not the first one to run into this..
would still be great to find out what the factory spec are…

 

AFAIK, Olds 455 cranks use a 3" main.
The fact you are getting .002" clearance is weird with 3.15" mains.

I'll dig around.

What is the cast numbers on the block next to the oil fill tube pad?
75/76 engines are slightly different than 70-74.

Did you have the block checked for line bore concentricity?

Verify the crank is true.

70-74 120ftlbs for mains
75/76 110ftlbs for mains.

.0005-.0021" clearance for mains 1-4
.0020-.0034" clearance for #5.
.004-.008" endplay

 

Mike, you´re right, mains are all 3", but the journal the rear main seal rides against is partly smooth and partly knurled as shown in the photo, and that journal is also bigger than the mains. I also verfied its a 74 Block.

 

Perusing the forums, seems the Eagle Olds 455 crank can use a bit of a cleanup out if the box according to a few users, your machine shop should be able to verify its dimensions.

455 mains need to be checked for egging, Hi-po guys say to run run .003" on #1-4 Main and .0035" on #5 main bearing clearance.

Blathering on Olds oiling.

Shim the pump relief and plug the filter bypass on the oil filter adapter.

HV pump can cause more issues by itself without improved drainback and oil capacity, it will suck the pan dry to fill the valve covers with oil.

Head to block drainback needs the lip on the block ground down. Can use the head or head gasket to mark out this area allowing faster oil return.

 

Btw, I just checked the numbers on the block, 396021F, and the partial VIN also matches the car. So it‘s certainly a 1974 455.

 

There are options to using the factory rope seal.
Some have used a 460 Ford 2 piece rear main seal in place of the rope seal.
Worth taking a look over on Classicoldsmobile.com for advice and a good part number.

 

Thanks for the heads up! I already ordered a 2 piece rear main seal for a 460 Ford to get rid of the rope seal...There´s a lot of good info on that site!

 

I got the crankshaft back from the machine shop with the rear main seal surface turned down .007“ and now the crank spins freely. The 460 Ford seal also seats perfectly. I got the engine buttoned up over the weekend and hope to get it into the car before the stand gives up…

 

G M, overshot their wad, thinking a filter sock, in the gas tank would be a good idea. Yes you can blow air back to the tank and the filter sock expands, the car runs fine. BUT the suction from the fuel pump collapses the filter sock, restricting fuel to the carb. If the Olds has never had it’s gas tank removed and that filter sock is still on the end of the fuel inlet tube. It’s like SCHRODINGER’S CAT. You don’t know until you open it up. Could be why the Olds is being a dog.

 

Thanks for bringing this up! That‘s very valuable information for me… who would have thought?
In the meantime I put the engine back in the car and the first test drive went flawlessly.

 

I am very glad to hear it went well!
Those first drives are exhilarating and nervous all wrapped up in one.

 

Im just building 455 with same pistons.
If you dont mind, please check what compression pressure you got.
Did you use stock camshaft?

 

Right now I´m trying to put some miles on the new engine. I played with the vacuum lines and I switched from ported to manifold vacuum, the engine seems to like that. It´s pretty cold here now, but sunny and dry, so perfect break in weather.

 

Yeah the cam is stock, only thing altered from the factory specs are the pistons and the Ford 460 rear main seal. I can check the compression pressure , but that won´t happen before Saturday or Sunday...

 

I hate to admit it, but at first startup I thought I had the distributor wrong by 180°. Not so, the Olds distributor turns counter clockwise and I´m a Chevy guy. So I had it wrong. Even more embarrasing is ,that once i found it was turning counter clockwise, I still went 18436572 clockwise and wondered , why it would still cough.... I built so many Chevys, it seems to be in my genes. I couldn´t bring myself to go backwards , it was just against my nature, hahaha I cheated myself and wrote down the firing order backwards, so I could go clockwise. For your information, Olds BBs built in South Bavaria use the following CLOCKWISE firing order :12756348
Next thing I always do after the break in and test drive, pull the oil filter and dump it out through a paint filter, to see it theres any metal . There was some greyish stuff from the piston rings and assembly lube, but no metal flakes... But the tension is always nerve wrecking, hahahaha

 

Those roadside sobriety tests are getting harder!
Glad it is working for you. I'd be quite a bit past annoyed the crank required work to install!

 

Yeah, that was a bummer, but I sent out a "heads up" to Eagle Performance to let them know and give them a chance to correct that for their next batch of cranks. Unfortunately they never got back to me. Maybe my email ended up in their spam folder. Luckily my wife´s kindergarden buddy is running a machine shop now and has a lot of cnc whatnots that do all the magic stuff I ´m not familiar with. I just gave him my measurements and he fixed it. I think he ground 18/100mm off, the knurled area had to be removed anyways to work with the 460 neoprene seal ( which seals perfectly by the way, I usually use GM parts to fix the Ford flaws, but with Olds it´s counter clockwise, hahaha).

 

I notice you caught the beverage I snuck into one or two photos....

 

As of today I ´ve put around 200 miles on the new engine , the oil pressure is great, motor also performs and runs well. Rings must have seated, there´s no smoke and the performance is great. I´ve yet to check compression, maybe it´ll be tonight that I get my buddy over to work the starter while I´m diving into the engine bay. I also noticed that the engine mostly started the moment that I let off the key, which I thought was kinda weird. I also knew that someone had put in a new no name coil, probably the mechanic that tried to get the car running before me. The old coil was still in the trunk, so I just gave it a try and swapped them out. "E viola", like we Southern Bavarians say, now it starts on the first hit, no matter if it´s hot or cold. I guess the new no name coil may have the resistor already built in and the car most likely has the resistance built into the ign wire. So I learned that too much resistance is not good, I´m sure my wife agrees.

 

Glad to see the Delta on the road again.
And the restraint from doing all those typical, 'while I'm in there..' budget destroying, timeline increasing add-ons when simply fixing an issue, is commendable.

That is one blue engine.

It was hard for me to find the correct smog era Olds 'corporate' blue 20years ago. It looks faded like your original paint, there is also a slightly lighter blue that was on Chevy 305s of the era, and then the darker GM(Cadillac)/Ford(not really) corporate blue. Throw in the ~3 Ford blues and the Chrysler blue, it gets annoyingly complicated to just not have your engine rusty

 

Mike, thanks for the kind words. I did do some improvements, as in putting the pink ( heavier) spring in the new oil pump and raising the compression, did some deburring,but I saw no reason to put a different intke or heads on or such things. It´s just a nice and smooth cruiser, it drives nice and tight, it won´t become a hot rod anyway.
As for the blue, yes it is darker than I hoped it would come out, but it is still a lot lighter than it appears in the photos. The real color is more like the "post reply" button below this page, or even a bit lighter. My cell phone does crazy things with photos...hahaha

 

Well that did escalate... Nice to hear the car is running right. Oh and I'm envious of your garage, my car is at what used to be a Schweinestall so working on it when temperatures are near 0° c is for serious masochists only...

 

It´s carnival in southern Bavaria, and I hate it. So we went for a little winter cruise today, weather was nice, but temp just above freezing. The little guy was riding shotgun and my friend Manuel in the back seat, both clowning around, as you can see. It already smells like spring outside.... we had a great time today. Manuel and I also went to look at a pink 883 Sportster which he bought, because it was cheap---very cheap----and very pink... coincidence? hahahaha

 

He should be able to find a great deal on Pink leathers to match!

 

It won't take that much paint to change it to a more acceptable color!