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chevy truck and olds 350 diesel???

Supreme70

Supreme70

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I am wondering what years did chevy put the 350 oldsmobile diesel in the trucks and were can I find a 4wd trans and motor mounts for it, I have a very healthy 455 motor that would tuck into my Jimmy????
 
Here try this. Wikipedia is your friend.

LF9 Diesel

The LF9 was a 350-cubic-inch (5.7 L) Diesel V8 produced from 1978 to 1985.
Applications;

  • 350N 1978-1985 Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, and Cadillac cars
    • Early 120 hp (89 kW) 220 ft·lbf (300 N·m) torque
    • Later 105 hp (78 kW) and 205 ft·lbf (278 N·m) torque

  • 350N 1978-1980 GMC and Chevrolet light trucks "pickups"
    • 125 hp (93 kW) and 225 ft·lbf (305 N·m) torque
Variations;

  • 1978-1980 Early block Identified by "D" cast into both sides of block
    • Up to 125 bhp (93 kW)
    • external EGR from 1978-1981(single stud air cleaner)
    • internal EGR from 1982-1985(2 stud air cleaner)
    • Rumored that some early main and head bolt holes were not tapped to bottom
  • Used a conventional flat tappet hydraulic camshaft/flat tappet hydraulic lifters which required 3000 mile oil change intervals.

  • 1981-1985 Improved block Identified by "DX" cast into both sides of block
    • Up to 105 bhp (78 kW)
    • Internal EGR
    • Fully tapped head bolt holes
    • Longer main bolts with fully tapped holes in block
    • Newly introduced roller lifters/rollerized camshaft extended oil change intervals.
Diesel differences;
The Oldsmobile diesel is believed by some to be a converted gasoline engine. While they share the same bore and stroke and some external bolt patterns (transmission and exhaust manifolds) they are quite different.
GM began with a substantially different bottom end when compared with its gasoline cousin.

  • Diesel blocks
    • 3" diameter injection pump mounts are cast into the top of the lifter valley
    • Camshaft nose modified to incorporate injection pump drive gear
    • Block castings are much thicker and heavier. It's possible to overbore the cylinders by 0.125in without sonic testing.
    • Solid heavy cast main webs were used.
    • Reputedly GM used a higher nickel cast iron alloy for the block and heads.

  • Diesel crankshafts
    • Nodular Iron used in all Diesel cranks
    • Main bearing journals increased to 3.000"
    • Vibration damper modified to allow eccentric for crank-driven fuel lift pump

  • Diesel pistons and rods
    • Diesel rods are shorter at 5.886" long.
    • Diesel pistons have large valve reliefs and steel inserts behind the first compression ring.
Fuel systems;

  • No OEM fuel/water separator was factory installed on any Olds Diesel.
  • Crank eccentric driven fuel lift pump mounted in same location as gasoline fuel pump.
  • Fuel line heater between lift pump and filter.
  • Intake mounted 10 micrometre fuel filter.
  • Stanadyne Roosamaster DB2 mechanical diesel injection pump.
  • 1978-79 Pencil Injectors held in by clamp.
  • 1980-85 Poppet injectors screw into head.
Heads;

  • The same 10 head bolt pattern as their smallblock gasoline cousins.
  • The same exhaust manifold bolt pattern as their smallblock gasoline cousins.
  • Have injector pre-chambers and glowplug bosses.
  • Valve springs contained a vibration dampener with rotators.

  • Head variations;

  • Very early castings were stamped D3 and used 5/16" injector hold down retaining bolts and clamps.
  • D3A castings were created a little later and used 3/8" injector hold down bolts and clamps.
  • Both D3 and D3A heads accepted external EGR and pencil injectors.
  • Some D3A heads accepted poppet injectors as well.
    • D3B Later heads
      • All had internal EGR
      • Pencil or poppet injectors
      • 1 or 2 locating dowels
The Oldsmobile diesel gained a reputation for unreliability and anemic performance that badly damaged the North American passenger diesel market for the next 20 years.[6][7]
[edit] Oldsmobile diesel problems

[edit] Head bolts

GM used "torque to yield", commonly known as "stretch" or "angle torque", head bolts. This allowed the bolt pattern to remain the same as the gas powered counterpart with an increase in clamping load when compared to standard head bolts. A total of 10 bolts per head were used. Four per cylinder with the center three pairs shared. This permitted the use of the same tooling and reduced setup costs. This design did not provide adequate clamping force under the severe conditions these engines were subjected to. Overheating or excessive cylinder pressure can breach the seal of the head gasket and in severe cases break the bolts.
High strength aftermarket head bolt sets are now available to make the engine more reliable in this area.
[edit] Pump timing

The Stanadyne pump was chain driven. With normal use, the chain stretches and the pump delivers fuel too late. The pump timing could be adjusted to return to normal operation.
[edit] Water in fuel

Arguably a major portion of the real problem would have been quite simple to avoid. A water separator was not part of the fuel system on these engines. A diesel run in an automobile will pick up water contaminated fuel.
Water will rust the steel internals of the fuel system. Rust will damage the precision parts in diesel fuel injection pumps and high pressure diesel injectors causing erratic operation. Injecting fuel too much prior to TDC on the compression stroke will cause pressure conditions similar to pre-ignition / detonation in gasoline engines. Water in varying amounts will also be injected with the fuel charge. Any rust in the steel fuel lines, fuel filter, pump etc can damage replacement parts and continue to cause injection cycles out of time.
Click to expand...
 
You know come to think of it I don't recall ever seeing one of those old diesels in a K platform. Everyone I ever saw was C-10 and only a C-10. :thinking: Might need to look that up.
 
I'm not so sure any 4x4s ever used the Olds diesel either,I have only seen a half dozen of those trucks with one period,the last one I saw was 3-4 years ago in a local salvage yard,and I'm fairly sure it was NOT a 4x4!..but I bet one can be put in a 4x4 using the 2wd motor mounts most likely..

I seem to recall a thread here some years back,that said someone used Pontiac Firebird 350/403 Olds motor mount pads to swap an Olds 350/455 into a K series 80's truck??...you could use an adpter plate to bolt up the Olds motor to a chevy tranny--or swap the 4x4 output shaft from the Chevy trans into an Olds one..
 
I forget where exactly but I've seen it listed as an option for the 4x4's...but nope, never seen one in person.

Our Romanian member did mention this year that his buddy has a late 70's K5 with an Olds diesel but no clue if that was original or not.
 
I have a 70 oldsmobile motor and I have seen a c10 4x4 with the olds 350 diesel in it, the olds 455 makes around 650 lbs torque and 600 h.p. so I know it would move the truck real nice, My 70 olds with a 455 in weighed 4000 with me and I was running mid 11's with it. A stock olds 455 might be better so I dont have to worry about tearing to much up lol
 
Supreme70 said:
I have a 70 oldsmobile motor and I have seen a c10 4x4 with the olds 350 diesel in it, the olds 455 makes around 650 lbs torque and 600 h.p. so I know it would move the truck real nice, My 70 olds with a 455 in weighed 4000 with me and I was running mid 11's with it. A stock olds 455 might be better so I dont have to worry about tearing to much up lol
Click to expand...

Just nitpicking, but a C10 is 2wd. A K10 would be 4x4.

Martin
 
I saw and heard a 350 diesel in a cadillac was driving by my house last year. Mmmm nothing like a '79 puke gold caddy with a diesel :doah:

It was in pretty good shape though :D
 
My boss had a '79 Seville with the infamous 350 Olds diesel--backed by a Turbo 200 tranny!...how he managed to get it to hit 100K without either of them blowing up,I'll never know..he was a stickler for maintenence thoughmseeing he owned an auto parts store...I remebered one day I set the alarm off in it and I didn't know how to shut it off ,so I dissconnected the batteries..he was SO pissed at me he almost fired me..(because his clock settings had to be re-set!:rolleyes:)...I later learned all I had to do was put the key in the door and lock it,and unlock it,and the alarm would have re-set itself...OOOPS!..:D
 
My ex-FIL loved those things. He'd detune the engine a bit and install a water separater. Weren't fast but got scary good gas mileage. He said you could drive from Lansing, MI to Nashville, TN and most of the way back on one tank of diesel.
 
Yeah, I knew a couple kids that use to drive those things in high school and college. They would always tun them on ruby red. Nobody is gonna dip a Parisienne.

Martin
 
I knew a guy that used a couple of them as passenger shuttles buses in a small town in North Dakota. He had an unreal amount of miles of them. His claim was good oil, never let them overheat and change the timing chain every 75,000 miles. Had 2 of them with something stupid like 300k on each and yeah scary good mileage. Imagine if GM had tried to make them good:wink1:
 
Even though those engines were crude and problematic, they opened the door for the light duty diesel truck market. So they get my respect in that manner. Sort of like the Bantum opened the door for 4x4 market. Ideals well before their time, but a first step none the less.
 
I recall a guy I know who ran a body shop going to a public auction at the telephone comopany around 1983 or so,he ended up buying two like new 1980 C20 pickups with utility bodies (fiberglass!) for the grand total of 2000 bucks--they had aboit 50 of the Olds diesel powered trucks in theire service fleet,and he said at least 30 were either "blown ip" or were about too,so they umped them cheap to get rid of them..

He ended up buying two junkyard 455 Olds engines and said swapping them in was practically a bolt in deal--only boo-boo he made (that wasn't really a big deal) was he didn't know a diesel TH400 had a lower stall speed in the torque converter,so he had to pull the tranny out and swap one from a gas powered car in it instead,after that he knew when he went to swap in the second motor ,to put the torque converter in at the same time..

I rode in one of those trucks,he sold one and kept the other for a work truck,and that thing would have flown if it had wings!..you could burn the tires off it in all 3 gears from a standstill like nothing..
 
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