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A little background: My brother's daily driver was a 1982 El Camino for about 16 years, and he has had a couple of other Chevrolets from that era. Over the last 14 years, I have rebuilt a restored a 1978 Volkswagen Transporter, including a complete rebuild of the type 4 engine and a massive revitalization of the original Fuel Injection system. So we are no strangers to fixing old cars. I never thought I'd be asking the 'net for help with an Oldsmobile lol.
My brother recently purchased a 1983 Oldsmobile Delta 88. The engine is a 307 with the factory 4 barrel carb. The engine wound up being bad (I don't remember the details) so a new engine was purchased and we installed it a few weeks ago. While it was out we did valve cover gaskets, rear main seal, new fuel pump, new hoses, spark plugs, etc. All the easy stuff. New engine is a 307 from another 1983 that was also running the original 4 barrel carb. He didn't buy that carb too, so we are running all the car's original equipment on the new-to-us engine.
As of right now, the car cranks but doesn't start. My brother determined that spark isn't being delivered to the spark plugs, but that was as far as he got during the last round of the build. I wasn't present, but we are hitting it again this weekend. I'll bring my multimeter.
Anyway, there are just a few connectors on this engine that he couldn't figure out. Would you all be able to tell us what goes where?
Also, do we need to worry about the engine being top dead center? The engine mated with the transmission and it's in the car and it cranks. I assume we're good? The flywheel didn't turn during transit (it was packed VERY securely) and we didn't really touch it except for rocking it back and forth to ensure it's not locked up.
The first is a red wire near the carb with a white connector
The second is a tan vacuum nipple on the LH valve cover gasket.
Would these things not being connected cause our problems?
He currently has the Haynes book for the car, so I can't reference it right now.
Any help is greatly appreciated! He or I will share some pictures of the car this weekend. Mystery connector on 1983 307 Vacuum nipple LH valve cover
That red/pink wire in the first pink is the power source to the distributor. That would explain why you have no spark. Plug that in and go from there.
Plug that into the "BAT" terminal on the cap.
That red/pink wire in the first pink is the power source to the distributor. That would explain why you have no spark. Plug that in and go from there.
Plug that into the "BAT" terminal on the cap.
Not only is the pink ignition power wire not plugged into the distributor cap. but the locking tab is broken off. I've had a similar situation that caused an intermittent loss of ignition power because that connector would vibrate loose without the locking tab. The connector is supposed to look like this. That tab snaps over a locking feature on the outside edge of the cap. You can remove the terminal from the old connector and insert it into a new one without having to splice the wire. Note that the brown connector in this photo is for the TACH wire on the HEI cap.
You also might want to take the HEI module out of the spare distributor if you have one. Keep it in the glove box. The solid state HEI modules are known to be Chinesium junk unless you buy AC Delco or NOS parts.
