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1967 Delta 88 production:

Town Sedan (4-door sedan), 22,270
Holiday Coupe (2-door hardtop), 14,471
Holiday Sedan (4-door hardtop), 21,909
Convertible, 2,447

 

What makes it a "holiday" is that it has no center (or "B") pillar, which means it's a "hardtop." In the 1950s and 60s, the term "holiday" generally meant hardtop. In that era, most 2-doors where also hardtops, but there were some models that could be had as a 2-door WITH a B-pillar, making them technically a "Celebrity Coupe" or a "Town Coupe," but, for the F-85/Cutlass lines, Olds used the terms "Club Coupe," "Sports Coupe," and "Cutlass Coupe" to refer to a 2-door with a B-pillar, although I'm not 100% sure these names were all used this way. Some of these F-85/Cutlass coupes might have been hardtops.

It's easy to see why confusion could develop!

 

I would think it wouldn't matter. Who sees the rims when the wheel covers are on?

 

Jaunty,

Where did you get production numbers from?

Thanks,

Dan

 

From the book "Setting the Pace, Oldsmobile's First 100 Years," by Helen Jones Earley and James Walkinshaw. It was written in time for the 100th Anniversary Celebration of Olds back in 1997, and it has an excellent appendix with production, price, and engine info going all the way back to the beginning.

 

Made in the USA - The book, "Setting The Pace" by Helen Earley and James Walkinshaw is available (noted in the "Literature for Sale" in Journey With Olds) for $40.00, postpaid, by contacting Al & Bill Sandy, 2403 County Route 1, Westtown, NY 10988, phone 845-726-0956, or billsandy1936@hotmail.com.

 

You can get a used copy on Amazon.com for about $6.50 plus $3.99 shipping. All together, just a bit over $10.

 

You aren't, by chance, related to the Sandy's, are you?

 

This is exactly the problem I had. You can take it apart. You have to pry off the sock filter at the bottom as it is a press fit over the end of the intake pipe. The service manual warns you to be careful, as it's not only easy to damage the fitting, it's easy to damage the 42-year-old and-getting-older-every-day sock filter.

I ended up damaging the filter as it pretty much fell apart to the touch. I figured I could get at least that as a replacement, even if I couldn't get the whole sending unit. I did end up taking the old filter to a local auto parts store and letting them find something from a later model anything that looked like a close-enough replacement, and I did. I can't remember now what kind of car it was for.

But once you have the filter off, the canister just loosens from the lid, and you can take it off and get at the float. My float wouldn't slide up and down easily, either, and I found that the metal rod it slides on, which is actually TWO metal rods soldered together at the end, had separated. Here's a photo I took of the problem area:



Those ends are supposed to be joined as they complete the electric circuit. Remember, these are inside the canister, so you won't see this unless you take it apart. I had a friend at work solder them back together. I also tried to clean up the float as much as possible before putting the whole thing back together, but when I put it all back in the car, it still didn't work right. It did move up when I added gas, but only to 1/4 even though I had filled the tank. Now, three months later and after having put gas in several times since, it's stuck at about 3/4.

Interestingly, the service manual makes no mention of repairing the sending unit. As I said, it tells you how to open the canister to inspect things, but if anything is found to be wrong, it just says to replace the unit. Were it 1967 and you could get one at the parts counter!

I looked high and low for a replacement unit, but they're just not out there. Parts are reproduced for Cutlasses, but the big-body cars are more or less left to their own devices when it comes to something like this. Two NOS units have come and gone on eBay since I started looking, but I didn't win the auctions for them. I've got to try harder next time.

I have wondered if something designed for a Cutlass but that looks like would fit in my car's tank would work as an acceptable substitute.

 

Not to hijack your thread but I was reading about the Olds book and found it on amazon. Looks like a good deal with a lot of good information in it.

 

I cannot find a fuel sending unit for my 1972 Ninety Eight...I was thinking of trying to get it rebuilt - found this site:

http://www.tristarrradiator.com/Clas...ge%20Page.html

 

My gas gauge is stuck on full...I wish it was always full! So the one you ordered is not for an 88?

 

Too bad a day the other day..............

 

Hey, I put up a damn smiley face!!! Don't you know what a smiley face means? It was a JOKE!!! You didn't JUST say something like, "hey, Al Sandy sells these. Look up his ad in JWO" or something like that. You posted enough information there that it sounded like you WERE Al Sandy. All you left out were his GPS coordinates! THAT'S what I thought was funny!!!

 

I''m a changing my ways...........

 

Jaunty 75:
I had a bad day at Black Rock yesterday! Apologies for my inane comments, and hope you accept. Let's get back to enjoying CO and all the good folks on here.
Aron

 

Moving thread to General forum.

 

And the same to you! I'm sorry if you took my comments the wrong way.

 

Cool that it works!

Now here's a question. If THIS company's fuel sending unit for a '73 Buick fits, then would ANY company's '73 Buick LeSabre sending unit also fit?

I have no idea if anyone makes sending units for '73 Buicks, but I'm thinking that NOS parts might be a little easier to find, or at least there are now two lines of inquiry instead of one.

But $70 is not a bad price. The NOS units I've seen on ebay have gone for prices in the $40-$50 range.

Thanks for checking all this out for us!

 

Thanks for posting that part number of the sending unit. That same part number works in many large, early 70's GM cars. Rockauto.com has this sending unit for $70 and it might fit my '72 98.

I looked in the service manual and A bodies have a 20 gallon tank - while all B, C and E bodies share the same 25 gallon tank. The A and B body station wagons have a 23 gallon vertical tank. All A bodies and station wagons have a swing arm pick up tube while all B, C and E bodies have a fuel guage can. My concern with going from a can type to a swing arm is that the 25 gallon fuel tank has a slosh baffle (station wagons do not have slosh baffle) and center vent tube in it and the swing arm may not fit or work properly. I guess there is only one way to find out...

 

Hey made in the usa, thanks again for the advice!

A couple of months ago, when it was the dead of winter, I bought a sending unit for a '73 Buick Le Sabre from Rock Auto as you suggested. Just yesterday I had the chance to drop the tank on my '67 Delta 88 and put the new unit in, and it works perfectly! It's the best $70 I've ever spent. You don't know (actually, maybe you do!) how nice it is to actually have a functioning gas gauge! It read zero when I put the tank back on the car, it read about 1/4 when I dumped back in the few gallons that I had removed, and when I filled it to the brim at the local gas station, it went right to the full mark.

And yes, there is an extra vent line that isn't there on the '67 sending unit, and that has to be capped or fuel will spill out of it when the tank is full and you park on slight downhill incline. (Please don't ask how I know this! )

 

I know you did. I just thought that the extra pipe would just act as another vent. I didn't think fuel could leak out of it as it comes out of the top of the tank. But if the tank is completely full (I had just filled the tank to the brim), and if the car is parked pointed downhill, fuel can get up into that line. Should be a simple matter to get back under there to attach a cap. It's just that, to do so would be easier if I could jack up the back end of the car. However, doing that will cause gas to leak out, so I figure I'll wait until I've run the tank down to about 3/4 or 1/2 (which I can now measure!), and in the meantime just remember not to park facing downhill. As parked in my level garage, fuel does not leak out.

 

I figure to bump this instead of a whole new thread but I am getting the sender unit for my 72 Toro in a couple days. I bought a fuel filter. It was a dollar, what the hell. Where does it go on my car. Diagrams are narrow on fuel systems in the 72 Shop manual.

 

There's a housing for it right at the carburetor. Find where the fuel line from the fuel pump enters the carb. Unscrew that fitting, and the filter should be inside. Be careful not to lose the little spring inside there that holds the filter tight.

 

I didn't wait for the fuel to go down. I got under there with a little cap and put it over the line and secured it with a hose clamp. No more leak.

 

Ive seen that one, it's a little tiny filter. The filter I got is a "one sided" one though and doesn't fit in there anyway.

 

The only other fuel filter I'm aware of is the one that goes inside the gas tank itself, right on the end of the fuel pickup pipe. If by "one sided" you mean that there is only one place to attach it to anything, then it does sound like the fuel tank "sock" filter. The fuel is drawn through the mesh and into the pipe. It may cost only $1, but it'll cost you a lot more than that in someone else's labor or your time in replacing it!

Replacing it requires dropping the tank, and it's not worth doing, in my opinion, unless you know the one in the tank has failed and crud accumulated in the bottom of the fuel tank is being sucked into the fuel system or unless you have some other reason to drop the tank, such as to replace the fuel gauge sending unit or to repair or replace the tank itself.

 

I already have the tank dropped to replace the sender. I imagined it goes in there somewhere but the old fuel sender has no place for it (new one is coming a couple days).

 

This is twice now that I have suggested something that, had you told us up front the whole story, we would have known is not the right answer. You already knew it wasn't the carburetor filter and you already knew it wasn't the gas tank filter. Tell US that.

Even better, why don't you post a photo of this mysterious, one-sided filter, or, if that's not possible, a link to a website that sells these things so that we can see what one looks like. If not that, at least the brand and part number and we might be able to look it up ourselves. Might help in identifying where it goes.

Searching on rockauto.com shows only one fuel filter, the one that goes on the carburetor. They also show a fuel-tank sending unit, and it has a filter on the end of the pickup line. No other fuel filters are mentioned. Are you sure this even IS a fuel filter?

 

Thought i did clarify my tank was down. My bad.

Here is the filter: http://contentinfo.autozone.com/znet...F1104/image/4/

Looks like the new senders do have something that looks like a filter on the end. I'm not sure where the new filter would've went on the old sender, which was a vertical one, unless something broke off over the (this month) 38 years.

Guess I'll figure it out in a day or two. Figure I asked first. I believe the 1972 book said something about "change filter" in the tank on the A-bodies but is very vague on the Toro's.

 

You did say this, but it wasn't clear that you had actually seen the tank or the sending unit. I thought it might have been done by a shop and the tank was over there or something like that. A "one-sided" filter is one way to describe the sock filter that goes on the end of the fuel tank intake pipe.

This is most definitely the filter that goes at the carburetor end of the fuel line coming from the fuel pump. The $1 cost you mentioned sounded about right for this right from the beginning as these cost at most $2 or $3 at the local auto parts store. It's "one-sided" in the sense that the fuel enters the filter from the open end and exits through the sides, which are what act as the filter.

I just now searched on autozone's site for a fuel filter for a '72 Toronado, and the part you show is what turns up. If the one you have doesn't fit your car, either they've given you the wrong part at the store, or something has been done to the fuel line on your car so that it doesn't accept this size filter. But that would be weird unless someone maybe put a different carburetor on that takes a different-size filter? That doesn't sound right to me. I'm guessing this fuel filter was used for a number of different years in that era. For example, it's the exact same filter that goes on my '73 Custom Cruiser. I think you should go back in the garage and look at the old filter and everything again and really make sure that this filter doesn't fit. It should. If it doesn't, something has been modified on your car.

 

Now I see where I got confused. I compared what I had (or what was installed when I bought the Toro) with items at the autoparts stores on the net.

The white fuel filter on my car right now is legit, I think. It is for the Quadrajet but it's a marine filter lol. The fuel inlet nut/housing is different too. That's why I was never able to fit the 1 7/8" fuel filter, I bought, in there.

Here's the one that is currently installed:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/MARIN...ssoriesQ5fGear

Not sure if it's crappy and I should can it? All I need for the fuel filter I bought is the correct housing/nut which I have found.

I noticed this thread is full of Ohioans. Sweet.

madeintheusa - my childs mother was born in Greenville, down the street from Ansonia.