Can we Drive the WORST Diesel Engine 600+ MILES and TOW A BOAT!?

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That car literally sounded like a 379 Peterbilt coming out of that shed! 😂😂

THANK YOU for not gas-swapping the engine and spending the time to fix it up instead. Much more interesting and you did a great job showing your work!

I'm a mechanic in the military, and let me tell you, that startup after the head gasket repair sounded almost identical to a Humvee

In 1980, my dad speculated that gas prices were going to soar, so he bought an Olds Cutlass Diesel and the car never ran right. Besides the craptacular engine, the AC condensate outlet plugged up easily and would drain into the passenger footwell. In 1984 I got it into a car accident and after it was assessed, my dad had a conversation like this: "I'm really torn. You didn't quite destroy it enough. I could choose to not get it repaired, take a credit hit and let the bank repossess it or I could get it fixed and we're stuck with it." He got it fixed. Wrong choice.

When I was a kid we had a neighbor, old Jimmie - he was a old school trucker that worked for CF. Jimmie loved diesels and he absolutely loved picking up these GM diesels for pennies. This was mid 80s when they were a couple years old but people were dumping them for pennies on the dollar. He had a couple and he always laughed how cheap he got them and could do a couple basic things to them to make them run "great". I loved riding in them, and watching his dog when he was out of town driving and his wife was riding with him. RIP Jimmie, you taught me a lot. I'm not sure if you were right about early 80s GM Diesels but you sure loved the damn things.

Kevin=optimism Angus=realism

Fellow Iowan here. Since I live 20 miles from the University of Iowa, when I was a student from 1991-95, I made the daily commute in my 1980 Olds Delta 88 Royale diesel equipped almost identical to yours (no clock or rear defrost). August 1994 I took a road trip from Iowa to Michigan, 900+ miles, without incident. It rode like a yacht and was a great road trip car. The fuel economy was great. Parts were easy to find. The engine never failed me. The transmission and exhaust…those did.

I still have a '79 Toronado diesel that has 160,000 miles on it, original block reringed at 120K. I'm surprised you made it that far with the pump going out! Back in the day my dad and I had a diesel repair shop and worked on lots of these. We always used the thicker head gasket whenever we replaced them to lower the compression a bit for durability but also to give more piston to head clearance as a common problem was carbon buildup that would do things like hammer the upper ring groove tight, knock out wrist pin bushings and even break cranks. This was usually an issue on city driven vehicles that didn't get up some highway speed and clean the carbon out once in awhile. A lot of times I'd do a service on one that wasn't running so great, take it out for a drive and pin it on the governor in second for a mile or so, the highway would dissapear in a cloud of soot behind me but eventually it would clean up, get back to the shop and it would be running like a million bucks. Couple suggestion I'd recommend is disabling the EGR valve so it isn't plugging up the intake with soot and run a fuel additive that lubricates the pump and injectors. I use both Diesel kleen and Lucas upper cylinder in mine. Great to see a few of these dinosaurs still alive!

I am glad these 1h+ long videos do well, they are some of favorite content on youtube.

That phone call to Wyatt and getting priceless information that gave you a roadside fix in 5 minutes to get you back on your way is a perfectly distilled example of what the car community is all about.

My dad had a regal with t tops fully loaded with the olds diesel. The original sticker price was like 27k. It blew a headgasket not long after he got it, my dad was resourceful, the block had puckered around all the headbolts and he (probably could) couldn't afford taking it to the machine shop. So he bought good flat files and filed the deck flat, he said he pretty well had to go back and buy every file the store had, but he managed. He done this in the dirt driveway over a weekend I believe. I was little when he done this but I do remember him working on it. Then it spit out rods, so he bought another car with the same 5.7 diesel and swapped it in.... I was just a kid when they sold the car but I remember loving that thing

Glad to see Angus was prepared for the worst. He wore his safety glasses with the side shields for the whole trip!

Anybody can get an old GM gas engine running. Only mad men would run an olds diesel. And for that, I thank you.

I love these episodes with the Olds Diesel. So rare now and a flashback to a time GM would like to forget. Keep em coming, someone has to keep these old engine alive.

My late stepfather was a huge fan of the 350 diesel. He had 3 Cadillacs and two Oldsmobiles with that engine. 2 of the Cadillacs and 1 Oldsmobile were mint low mile survivors. 1 of each was a daily driver. He put over 400,000 miles on one of the Cadillacs and on of the Oldsmobiles. He said as long as you added a aftermarket water separator to the cars and bought stronger aftermarket headbolts they will run forever. I know the water separator is crucial and have seen beefier aftermarket headbolts advertised. I wish I could have gotten one of the low mile survivors but they all went to an estate auction and sold for ridiculous prices.

I should hope so! I towed a corvette on a car trailer from Montery, CA to LA over Tejon Summit in July behind a 1979 Cad Seville with an Oldsmobile diesel in it. Rules for this diesel were: 1. Replace head gaskets at about 60K, 2. Replace head gaskets and injector pump at 120K, 3. Change oil every 3K. Nothing else went wrong, except for belts and hoses. Drove that car for 300K miles. PS We owned 2 more Cad Diesels during from 1988 through 2004. My mother drove an 81 Sedan De Ville and l also bought a 79 El Dorado. That one had an extra fuel tank in the trunk, so it could hold enough for a 1K Mile RT to LA/OC from the Monterey Peninsula: It ran at about 30 mog average at 65 mph.

As a professional diesel mechanic who specializes in GM's and Detroit's I really enjoy when you get these as I can never find them near me. It's also vindicating when you have to call for advice with them since I often have trouble with carbs and have to refer to your videos. We are all good at different things! Sorry Angus but I want to see more diesels, Maybe a 1980's VW diesel soon? Those make the 5.7L Oldsmobile look like a powerhouse.

Actually, a GREAT engine that the cheap ass bean counters at GM ruined simply by lack of proper head bolts an no water separator. Get a little water injected, and there goes the head gasket. I drove a couple of these well over 200k miles just by installing ARP racing head studs, and a water separator

My uncle has a Cat 966 front end loader from the 1950's........and that turbo, indirect injection diesel engine was a major pain in the ass, because of head gasket leaks. He eventually came across the solution......he put anti-seize on the head bolt threads and did them up to spec.........which makes the bolts much tighter and the head gasket stopped leaking. Its been perfectly reliable ever since.