Hello Gentlemen,

A friend of mine & I have been having fun with a 1966 Olds 98 convertible he bought last year. We repaired many things on it in to get it back roadworthy and enjoyed it through this past summer, but alas, a valve started sticking, rounding off a lobe, and so it's time to have the 425 rebuilt. It's all apart now with the engine at the machine shop, and we're waiting on parts. While we wait, we're tackling other things on the car.

My questions:

We tore the engine down ourselves, and I didn't know where the main journal cap markings were, I just removed them and handed my buddy, the owner, the caps. After cleaning the caps we came across the markings, and they are ~Main, 3, 4, 2, 1> . Now we were having a couple of brews during disassembly, but he swears up and down that was the order as they came off the block. The machine shop will probably hash this out, but is he cray cray?

There is a main vacuum port coming off the intake manifold that then is split to share the vacuum between two spherical reservoirs attached the firewall under the blower motor on the pass side. One of these reservoirs feeds the climate control cluster, the other is solely for a vacuum operated trunk release. When separated, neither side holds a a good vacuum and bleeds off just as much on one side as it does on the other, making me wonder whether it's supposed to do this by design, but joined together, it's difficult to get the vacuum gun needle off the zero. We'll be capping off the trunk release as the vacuum solenoid in the trunk has long since disappeared, but should the climate control cluster hold a steady vacuum? Also, I'm not sure what Series number this car is supposed to be. I have a Chassis manual but the A/C doesn't seem to match anything in the manual. Some of these systems show a check valve between the intake manifold feed and the spherical firewall reservoir, but some don't. Any idea what series number this '66 98 is?

We'll be replacing the suspension rubber all over the car. The rear end rubber kits seem to be missing some rubber, and when I looked it up in the chassis manual, it shows the (iirc) front end rubber on the rear stabilizer arms to be non replaceable, requiring that you replace the complete arm. Can you confirm or deny this?

TiA!

 

98s are 38000 series.
It is not uncommon for the vacuum diaphrams to leak, due to age.
The mains should be in numerical order. You did mark the rods?
Your machine shop should have Olds experience, when it comes to grinding the valves it is different then Chevys. Valve stem height is critical.
Can't answer to your rear arm bushings, ain't there yet.

 

The diaphrams inside the firewall (2) held good vacuum, but the outside air/recirculation diaphram underneath the blower box is toast, as is it's return spring due to this part being more exposed to the exterior. But my question had to do with those spherical vacuum reservoirs. Are these guys supposed to bleed off a bit of vacuum when capped off?

Thanks again.

 

The reservoirs themselves should hold.