Its a **** shame that a crappy injection pump ruined the reputation of diesels in the U.S. I had always heard that the diesel castings were much beefier and wondered why they had such a bad track record. I've even heard that some drag racers sought out the motors in junkyards to salvage the good pieces because of their strength. Of course no crank, rod, or piston is a match for hydrolock, I don't care how strong it is. Just think if GM had the sense to just go with a Bosch IP back then-think of what we could be driving now.

Anyway, about those Fieros. Why buy an exotic when you can just do this? This guy makes conversion kits to stuff a small block into a fiero and Italian style rebody kits so the performance matches the looks. Supposedly with 300 HP its quite easy to hit 200+ mph, I can't even imagine the 0-60 time.

 

I guess it what you expect out of a car. Some people think a Chevy Cobalt is an awesome car. I wouldn't take one if you gave it to me.
We drive refined luxury cars and high end sports cars. The fiero is/was neither. Actually GM doesn't sell any today.

 

I beg to differ. We where crossing a stream that was a little over the hubs on the '69 (4BTA) and caught a wake from opposing traffic and she took in big drink of water. It would seep down and then crank and stop. We pulled the aftercooler and drained a pint if water. She started up finally and ran another 150K till we parked it. Just fired it up after 5 years of sitting and ran like it never stopped. BTW it has a18.5:1 comp.

Randy

 

Anyone, like me , who had a 5.7 oldsmojunk diesel owes a big thank you to GM for it. It made us see the junk they produce. That is when I started to open my eyes to see what other manufacturers built.
I also had a Dodge van at the same time. Best vehicle I had owned to that day.
I bet less than 1% of those motors are still around in factory build condition!!!!

 

A question for you poor souls that have the first-hand knowlege of those old Olds diesels.
Were virtually ALL root-cause failures of that engine related to the injection syst?

Assume for the moment that they had a "real" fuel inj system, what else crapped out on that engine?

K.

 

That's what I always wondered, I mean you never heard about those kinds of problems with the 6.2/6.5L engines. I mean heavier castings they might have been-they're still not heavy duty truck engines like a Cummins, but at least if they had a decent injection system MAYBE we'd see more diesels on the road today.

 

Well, I never had any trouble from the injection pump on my '79 5.7L diesels. In 98,000 miles it threw a rod, broke a crankshaft, and spun a bearing in a main bearing journal. I would have to check with my dad to find out what the two failures in the Olds 98 were, but I'm pretty sure they never had any problems that were less than catastrophic.

I think only the last two years of production were notable for injection pump failures. (The '79s and earilier never lasted long enough to have a pump failure.)

 

I am still driving a 1981 cad with 230,000 miles. Looking for a body in great condition as I have a new recon engine ready to put in it. just replace headbolts and gaskets and they run forever LeRoyhttps://www.dieseltruckresource.com/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=856643#
Whistling
roy

 

We had a 79' custom cruiser 5.7, The thing ran like a dream with a new ip on it, went through a roosamaster about every 50k miles. mom hydrolocked it by driving through a flooded street in atlanta at 6am, towed it home and pulled the glow plugs, turned it over and it looked old faithful 8-times. we changed the oil & filter, put new glow plugs in it and amazingly it fired right up. found out later it had cracked the head and broken a few head bolts. bought remanned heads and installed them and it ran good until the torque converter went out. Rebuilt the tranny and installed new converter and drove a little while longer. It also ate batts and starters. engine was still running when the rollback took it to the crusher after it was rearended. It had 179,000 miles on it. Dad loved that old car, was one of the better riding cars that I've been in, very smooth

 

I've seen head gaskets fail, cranks fail, rods fail, cracked blocks, rings break, but no injection pump fuel system issues. And of course quite a few trans failures also. And that is with a motor that couldn't get the vehicle over 70-75 in the quarter mile!!!!!

My Dad would call about every year or two and ask if I'd be willing to work on another one!!! He could but them for a grand or so and drivem, throw it away when it quit. We got to be pretty good at R+R.
While the Roosamaster pump wasn't much, it did not fail us. BTW, John Deere used the same pump in the 4010's.

 

Yo guys

When I was a kid my folks had a genuine chevrolette chevette diesel

 

genros, (chevette) so did my folks, and its still running around.