79 Seville Diesel

Capri

See this for sale on DD - 79 Seville diesel

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/vintagecars/3759869

For anyone interested I've known this chap Mihai since he bought my Suburban years ago - he went to the US and bought this Seville about 3-4 years ago so it's a genuine seller / car ( unlike some here :eek: ) Nice motor if I had the bobs . :cool:

Oldsmobile car diesel engines

In the face of the 1970s gas crisis, GM turned to Diesel power for economic benefit, directing the Oldsmobile division to develop a V6 and two V8 engines, to be shared with all divisions.

These Diesel engines were designed to fit into the engine bays of gasoline powered automobiles, but despite popular belief, they were not "converted" gasoline engines. Oldsmobile's diesel engines, the 5.7 L LF9 and 4.3 L LF7 V8s and 4.3 L LT6/LT7/LS2 V6, were notoriously unreliable, particularly in the earliest versions, though reliability had improved by the early 1980s with the advent of the DX block, along with better fuel filtering and water separators. By the early 80s,the 5.7L diesel was a fairly reliable engine with the introduction of the rollerized camshaft/roller lifter combination and had many improved enhancements that the late 1970s 5.7L diesel engines did not have. Many of the reliability issues these engines developed were a combination of faults not just related to design. Many of these engines suffered major malfunctions from poor quality fuel, mechanics not properly trained in diesel repair, and even improper owner service and maintenance. Although over one million were sold between 1978 and 1985, the failure rate of GM's engines ruined the reputation of Diesel engines not just built by GM, but overall in the United States market. Eventually, a class action lawsuit resulted in an arbitration system under the supervision of the Federal Trade Commission where consumers could claim 80% of the original cost of the engine in the event of a failure.

The Oldsmobile 5.7-liter engines experienced a wide gamut of malfunctions. One of the common failures was with crankshaft bearings. This was frequently attributed to owners and maintainers running the engines on SG rated oil (intended for gasoline engines), versus CD oil (intended for Diesel engines). This prompted GM to introduce the DX block which then allowed extended oil change intervals to 5,000 miles (8,000 km). D block engines required frequent oil change intervals because of the friction created between the typical flat tappet camshaft and hydraulic lifters. When the oil change interval was ignored, excessive wear was placed upon the camshaft and lifters. In 1981 when the DX block was introduced, the rollerized camshaft and roller lifters did away with any possibility of worn camshaft lobes because of reduced friction. These engines also suffered from blown head gaskets, warped heads, bad injector pumps, and bad injectors. The beginnings of these problems can be attributed to poor quality diesel fuel that may have contained water or other contaminants. These materials would damage the inside of the injector pump, and then eventually clog injectors. If water was injected into the engine or leaked in from the coolant system, it could cause a "hydrolock" which would blow head gaskets and bend valves / connecting rods because water is incompressible. Water in the fuel also causes the injectors to rust internally, affecting injection timing and causing the engine to run excessively hot, which can warp heads. This was the reason GM equipped later cars with water detectors and double filtration systems on their vehicles.

Torque-to-yield fasteners - which stretch and can only be used once, but provide higher clamping force than traditional head bolts - were used to retain the Diesel cylinder heads. When a hapless owner took the vehicle in for repair, the mechanic would resurface the head, making it thinner, install a new head gasket, and then reuse the old, stretched-out fasteners. Within a few thousand miles, the vehicle was in the shop again for head gasket failure or a warped head. Nowadays high-performance head bolt kits are available to do away with the problems the 5.7L diesel engines had such as the blown head gasket fiasco. Performance bolt fasteners when used within the 5.7L diesel will then make it a bulletproof, reliable design. The frustrated owner would frequently just get the shop to convert the engine to gasoline after a few repeated failures like this. As a side note, these diesel engine blocks were frequently sought by hot-rodders to build high-performance gasoline engines because of their extra heavy duty components which would withstand extreme horsepower.

kasper

its a pity he didnt clear the clutter out of the car before he took the photos

bijapos

.......and fix the battery/connector issue. For €7000 I'd expect to be able to start it and drive it around. Seller should also clarify if any of the original problems with that engine have been sorted, your article quote doesn't exactly leave me with a lot of confidence in it OP.

As kasper said, clean it, wash it, give a bit oif a write up on it, it's history and how it came to be in Ireland and finally stick up the max amount of photos that donedeal.ie allow and he might have a better chance of selling it.

Capri

:eek:

bijapos wrote: »

.......and fix the battery/connector issue. For €7000 I'd expect to be able to start it and drive it around. Seller should also clarify if any of the original problems with that engine have been sorted, your article quote doesn't exactly leave me with a lot of confidence in it OP.

As kasper said, clean it, wash it, give a bit oif a write up on it, it's history and how it came to be in Ireland and finally stick up the max amount of photos that donedeal.ie allow and he might have a better chance of selling it.

I always like to give both sides
1) I know the chap since I sold him my Suburban 6.6 TD, (I'd say , without checking, it's basically same engines ) but
2) I wouldn't gloss over 'issues' with that engine just because I know him.

( If you tell it like it is, nobody can accuse you of being an 'Arfur Daley' )

~And here's another side - 77 one for sale in the US $19k
http://www.autotraderclassics.com/classic-car/1977-Cadillac-Seville-794836.xhtml?conversationId=171019

and in Germany €9k
http://www.autoscout24.de/Details.aspx?id=207477041&cd=634612931980000000

So IF the diesel 'issue' was resolved it'd be ok value - or not ???

Anan1

I'd have thought the diesel kills that car, but maybe that's just me.

Capri

Anan1 wrote: »

I'd have thought the diesel kills that car, but maybe that's just me.

Well, there's some here would take out a petrol V8 and stuff an ol Merc diesel 5/6 in so this saves them the trouble.:mad:

68deville

a friend of mine had an Oldsmobile 98 diesel bout 10 years ago and it was
an absolute pig of a yoke!!:o,a 4.1litre V8 petrol unit in a similar seville
of that early 80s would return ok economy and considerably more refinement!

Esel

Drove one of these around a (big) parking lot in the States in 1986. A pedigree dog, imo.

carchaeologist

Capri wrote: »

Well, there's some here would take out a petrol V8 and stuff an ol Merc diesel 5/6 in so this saves them the trouble.:mad:

Or put a 2.8 V6 and a cage in it and take it round the short oval..

The engine in that must make some racket!?

Capri

carchaeologist wrote: »

Or put a 2.8 V6 and a cage in it and take it round the short oval..

The engine in that must make some racket!?

I was trying to sell my Suburban as a hearse, but I reckoned the truck-like sound would wake the dead