Were '70 W30 4 speed cars available with manual front drum brakes?

 

During the first few months of production, manual drum brakes were available on the 70 W-30s.

Don W

 

FYI,
From 1970 Oldsmobile Chassis Manual Section 5, page 43.

 

Manual drum brakes are listed as an option for the W-30 on the dealership's 442 Wholesale Order Form. Would be interesting if one was found with the option. Not certain if the same option was offered for the W-31, but would suspect it was available. The option is not listed in the January 1970 SPEC booklet. Does anyone know if it is listed in the August 1969 SPEC booklet or the Inspector's Guide? That would confirm what Mr. Shifty Sidney mentioned about the option being available for a few months. Too bad the 15" SS-II wheel & G60-15 tire option was suddenly cancelled in late August 1969 for some unknown reason.

 

Going from memory, I think the manual drums were available for the first month on 70 production before they were canceled. Again going from memory, I think there is a bulletin stating manual front drums were no longer available on the W-30s.

Don W

 

OK, sorry, but time to clarify this thread. The manual drum brakes on 1970 W-30 and W-31 cars were available under RPO JL7. This is a little-known option developed by Dale Smith for drag racing only. It shows up in the Inspectors Guide and in a service bulletin only. It was not an "early production" thing (the 1969 W-30s already offered manual disc brakes). The whole point of JL7 was to allow drag racers to back off the adjusters on the front drums for less drag. Disc brakes always have some drag (well, they did in 1970, newer cars have calipers with retracting pistons). In NHRA stock classes, this little bit of drag could make the difference between winning and losing. And I have to add that JL7 was EXTREMELY rare and only used on cars intended to be race cars. Finding manual drum brakes on a run of the mill W-30 or 31 is highly unlikely.

Here's the page from the inspector's guide:

 

Here is what I have from my notes. This is from a discussion on this forum from June 2011. The following is from member BlackGold.

Here's my list of Factory documentation of the existence of option JL7, Disc Brake Delete, for 1970 model year W-30s and W-31s:

1970 Salesmen's Prices, Equipment, Colors & Trims, Specifications pocket book:
-- The August 1969 edition lists on the 442 page:
"JL7 Brakes, Delete Manual Front Disc -- W30 required. Replaced by drum brakes."
-- A similar listing appears on the F-85 and Cutlass S pages, for W31.
-- On the back cover, Principal Revisions in Available Equipment:
"JL7 Brakes, Delete Manual Front Disc. Added for W Machines."

-- The January 1970 edition of this Salesmen's pocket book makes no mention of option JL7.

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70 Product Bulletin, Bulletin No. 1, Sept 26th 1969
(I believe this is a Canadian document):
"Subject: Oldsmobile Sales Handbook Changes."
-- Option Page 8: "Option JL7 Deletion of Manual Front Disc Brakes has been cancelled."

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1970 Oldsmobile Inspector's Guide, Aug. 1, 1969
-- pages 22 - 23: Accessory Codes -- 1970 Models
The copy of these pages I've seen is heavily pixelated, but it appears that Box 74 Line 1 is: "JL7, Delete Power Disc Brakes (W30, W31)"
-- page 26 is much more legible and definitely mentions option JL7.

***************************
Option JL7 does NOT appear on the Wholesale Car Order Form for 442s dated January 1970. I don't know if it appears on any earlier edition of this form.

************************************************

So it appears that there was a very small window, at least between August 1 and September 26, 1969, when you could delete the disc brakes on your W30 or W31. Of course, the next question is: what dates did the factory actually build with the deletion? If I ordered JL7 in September and the car was built in October, would I get discs or drums?

Complicating this is the fact that I'm not aware of any 1970 W-30s built before October of 1969. (They might be out there, but I haven't seen them.) So if no W-30s were built during the window that JL7 appeared on the books, were any built with it?

Don W

 

Don,

Normally I would agree with your very thorough analysis of the factory literature, but let's keep in mind what was really going on here. Dale Smith wanted to ensure that Olds Stock class drag racers could legally use manual drums on the 1970 W-cars in sanctioned competition. The whole point of the JL7 option descriptions in these documents was to ensure that NHRA Tech would recognize manual drums as a legal, factory-available option on the 1970 cars. NHRA didn't care if the drums were installed on the car at the factory or not, only that the option was factory-available and thus legal for racing. To be honest, I'd be surprised if any 1970 W-cars actually came from the factory with manual drums, and if they did, I suspect you can count the number of cars built this way on your fingers. The important thing was having the literature in place in time to get the option recognized in the NHRA tech materials for the 1970 model year. Once that was done, it didn't matter if the JL7 RPO code stayed in the Olds ordering system or not - the configuration was legal for racing and racers were free to legally swap out their disks for drums. I liken this to the 1966 W-30 race cars, many of which were not delivered as W-30s from the factory. We have several folks here who were there when this was taking place, and I hope the chime in to clarify or correct anything I've said.

 

Joe, I think thats pretty close to what happened, and partly why. The other thing was the "Manufacturers Cup"......that was awarded to the car manufacturer whose current model cars scored the most points (divisional and national points) during the season. Winning your class at a division or national points meet contributed points toward the "Manufacturers Cup". Oldsmobile was very aggressive and pro racing.
Oldsmobile had "chosen" top contenders placed around the country.....Berejik, Chesrown, etc. (Woodland & Andreasen, Ron Garey, Jim Waibel, Rich Powers, and a couple more I can't remember). There were also "locals" around the country that contributed to the Oldsmobile effort.
Tweed might be able to fill in some points I missed.