I've been driving my 1964 olds 98 around the neighborhood to get a feel for it and see if I think it needs anything. Of course the most noticeable thing is that rough 1-2 shift, but I know that's normal for a slim-jim.
I know you're not supposed to make quick, harsh movements with the accelerator in a slim-jim, but if there are any experts, I'd like to ask if it's okay to shift into Super and gradually floor it. I've done this a few times because I simply love the acceleration you get, but is it particularly tough on the tranny?
I heard an odd clacking-type noise from the engine bay once I hit about 70 in super, I'm assuming it's the motor pinging, I've heard that can happen in a 394 running at heavy throttle on modern fuel. The only reason I don't know is that I'm new to this and I've never actually heard an engine ping, I don't know what it sounds like. I don't think it's the tranny, I'd expect that to be a different sound and to be coming from underneath. Anyway, once I put it back into drive and slow down, everything's back to normal and it drives nice and smooth like always.
If anybody has any advice or do's and don'ts about driving the 394/Slim-Jim combo, or adjustment/tuning tips I'd appreciate it. The car has 40,000 miles on it and has a very recently rebuilt tranny, and it all seems to work great. I'd like it to stay that way for a long time but still have a little fun because one of my favorite things about old cars is how they drive, I really don't understand the strailer queen philosophy.

 

Hi Mack,

Noticed you mention an Edelbrock carb instead of the original Rochester 4GC that came on the car in '64. Do you have the throttle linkage to the tranny hooked up? Is it adjusted?

I considered a carb change, and decided to rebuild my 4GC instead mainly because of this linkage. The adjustment is very important, and does control the shift points, and tranny response in a huge way.

I set up all my linkage adjustment exactly as per the factory manual and from that starting point, have been mildly tweaking the final adjustment in tiny increments based on driving the car. I am pretty satisfied with where I have gotten it to, and while it is no Turbo400, it's doing as well as the slim-jim ever does.

If you have a very hard bang shift from first to 2nd, yours is not adjusted right. Mine did that when I bought it, and the initial factory spec set-up corrected that. What you should have is a somewhat pleasant 1-2 shift with a big rpm drop. The 2-3 shift is almost undetectable, or at least pretty subtle. (You may also have a broken damper plate - but that's another subject)

The slim-jim was, and still is, not an off the line 1/4 mile race champ tranny. It was a GM compromise from the older 4-speed hydramatics to the later turbo-hydramatics in our Oldsmobiles. A stepping stone of somewhat dubious performance that was only used for four years, and then retired.

 

[quote=Dean O' Banion;124612] I'd like to ask if it's okay to shift into Super and gradually floor it. I've done this a few times because I simply love the acceleration you get, but is it particularly tough on the tranny?
I heard an odd clacking-type noise from the engine bay once I hit about 70 in super, I'm assuming it's the motor pinging, I've heard that can happen in a 394 running at heavy throttle on modern fuel. The only reason I don't know is that I'm new to this and I've never actually heard an engine ping, I don't know what it sounds like. I don't think it's the tranny, I'd expect that to be a different sound and to be coming from underneath. Anyway, once I put it back into drive and slow down, everything's back to normal and it drives nice and smooth like always.
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1) Using Super range and flooring it is no problem as long as you know that it is only designed for use just short of 70 mph - and that is if all is well inside the engine. 60 mph would be a lot safer if you have reservations. It will not hurt the tranny.

2) That said - the clacking you heard was probably valve clatter. At the rpm you were turning at 70 mph in S range, you were stressing the valve train pretty good. A hydraulic lifter(s) may have collapsed at high rpms, since the 394 did not have the best of upper end oiling systems.

So ... I would say it's just fine to do some heavy foot acceleration in S range as long as you are shifting up to D around 65 or soon enough to avoid valve train complications.

 

Hi, and thanks for the reply!
As you say, my 1-2 shift is "somewhat pleasant"...there is definately an RPM drop and a little shudder, but I would not call it a bang. In fact, if I'm driving light throttle on a straightaway or downhill, I am surprised by how subtle this is.
Also, I got the car with the 4bbl Edelbrock on it, the prev owner had made the switch, and it is all set up. That said, I think it runs a little rich for one thing and I'm not 100% impressed with the performance; the linkage seems to be set up pretty good but not perfect. Worst case scenario maybe I can find an old rebuilt Rochester and hook that up.
In any case, I finally got the car registered, (I've decided to name her Ava, after the late actress of similar looks and drinking habits) put some premium gas and some octane booster and lead additive and I'm more than content for now. Even with the less-than-perfect tuning right now, the car hauls surprising levels of ***. I LOVE the way it cruises on the highway: like going 75 sitting on your living room couch but with the added benefit of a nice V-8 purring.
I'll drive it for a few weeks while the weather is still nice (it was a great day for cruising around town with the windows down today) and I think I'll bring it to my mechanic friend after that. He takes his time (why I haven't brought it to him just yet) but I'm sure he can tweak/fine tune the linkage and the carb and maybe even get rid of that valve clatter, I've heard that a good dose of engine flush can do wonders for a 394 in that department.

 

Dean,
Just skimming over some posts and saw this one. The pic of the interior, driver's side, looks very clean. The car is in pretty good shape, no?
Looked at your profile, as I do in many cases to get an idea of who writes these things, and see the pic of the marching band w/ the guy playing the Bass Viola(sp?) standing out in the middle of everyone. Is this guy you? If you're still in school, that's a heck of an old ride f/ a guy your age.
Just had to ask, not prying. I frequent a number of auto sites daily, ones that apply to what I turn wrenches on, and run into some real characters, and this pic, along w/ that school-age kid having an old ride like this Olds, IMO, would catagorize you as "quite a character."
I mean "character" as a complement, as the world has too many boring and negative people.

 

I took it as a compliment, Jim!
You're right, the world does have too many boring and negatvie people.
To answer your question, yes, I am a senior in high school, and this is my everyday ride. Yeah, the interior's nice, the paint's good, no rust, and it runs great. I have problems with lights/power windows once in a while, and the trunk leaks rain if you don't close it right, but hey, it's a high-school kid car, not a show car! I just love driving it, and I'm enjoying it as much as possible because I'm not allowed to bring it away to college next year...Some of my friends love it, some (remember I'm in liberal Northeast) are environmentalists and hate it, but that's life.
As you might deduce from someone who drives (and puts gas in) a car like this, I love history. I am good friends with most of my school's history department, some of whom are a bit historic themselves and have some great tales, including hot-rod Oldsmobiles from the "American Graffiti period" (it should be a recognized era in my opinion) and '58 fords with cinder blocks for shock towers that flip if you hop curbs while running from cops...I'm gonna miss those guys and their stories, that's for sure.
Sadly, that's not me playing cello in the band, it's a screenshot from the old Woody Allen movie "Take the Money and Run," filmed back in 1969 when he was being his funny doofus self and not trying to be artsy/deep. But still, enjoying this movie possibly makes me more of a character than if I really did play cello for a marching band!

 

I'm also originally from the NE, grew up in Ossining, New York and was an OHS grad in '75. Things were somewhat different then, ie; we laughed at John Phillips who went to "computer school" in '73, after HS, I mean, no one used computers back then to any extent, and he's very well off today since he got in when it all started. Autos started using anti-emissions devices and performance dropped off all of a sudden in '72, like a rock. My father, a WWII Navy vet, didn't let anything in the house that wasn't made in the USA, and any of the guys who hadn't been to Viet Nam weren't terribly welcome to our house to date my sisters, who started college in the mid '60s. The college guys who had long hair, like the Beatles-LOL, were made to feel very uneasy by my father, who usually disagreed w/ people by giving them a "good smack." My brother was drafted in '70. Times were changing, but the older generation had a very tough time going along w/ it all. My mother, stayed at home and took care of the affairs of the house, and backed my father, only sometimes w/ some disagreement. ...and the American auto MFGs. and their product were a big part of "The Country" f/ a long time; the Caddys and the big powerful V8, that's what we were about. I hated history until I went back to and finished college at the age of 36, and realized how important it is to understand where we came from and therefore how we got to where we are today. Anyway...
You should take good care of that car, as it's really a piece to keep f/ a number of reasons, and it's in great shape, don't beat it. I do know, from staying intouch w/ my family who is still in New York, just north of the Bronx on the Hudson, that those states are seemingly trying to take the old rides off the road. Auto inspections are basically unforgiving when it comes to the old non-emissions vehicles, and when I go home f/ visits, I see fewer and fewer older cars on the road. Where are you in the NE? How right you are when you mentioned that the people in that neck of the woods are liberals. Here in Texas, politics are very different. There are refrig. magnets that are shaped like the state of Texas w/ a big gun on them that read; "We don't call 911." That sums it all up. We're very unlike a majority of the people in the NE. And our inspection costs $14.50 w/ no emissions test. Emissions are checked in urban areas, Houston, Dallas, etc. I go to a guy who says; start it, wipers, lights, horn, OK. He then puts the sticker on. Last time I went out there, I walked through his salvage yard and looked at the old stuff he has, alot of 40s and 50s rides, and in quite good shape. Strolling through the salvage yards out here is something I seriously enjoy.
The pic you posted, of Woody Allen, looks like a snap shot, my reason f/ thinking that it was a pic someone took. Woody Allen was popular when I was young. I remember him being on TV, doing stand-up comedy, in a suit and tie. It could have been on the Ed Sullivan show. I remember The Beatles being on there also. Ed Sullivan was the first to have all the new stuff on his show. I also remember Flip Wilson on there, who later had his own show. ...When the whole family would watch TV together, Elliot Ness and The Untouchables, Lawrence Welk, etc. Woody Allen was big w/ the "New Generation" at the time, the age of "Aquarious(sp?). Remember the Broadway play "HAIR?" I took my girlfriend to a Woody Allen movie when it first hit the screen, somewhere in the first half of the '70s, the movie's name was a girl's first name, can't remember what the name was. I nodded-off during (f/ most of) the movie f/ acouple of different reasons. One of the reasons was that I was more into movies like "The French Connection' and "Bullitt(sp?)" and more "streety" type flicks w/ an intense chase of some kind, mind and/or body. I suppose that had to do w/ my surroundings and the happenings while growing up.
Take good care of the car, it tells alot about you, and it'll be worth something in the future f/ sure, both personal and money-wise. Get that electrical (lights, etc.) ironed out, along w/ the trunk's molding to prevent any future rust from the leak. Good Luck in the future. Schooling is the most important thing f/ you at this time and the near future, and inturn, you can become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. You don't seem like a "fence straddler."

 

I hear you on that, and wish I'd been around! My dad graduated from my high school in 1971 and his brother (my uncle) in 1977. He says the same kind of thing. I live in a little cow town called Ledyard, Connecticut, it's in the southeast corner by the Long Island Sound. Kind of a weird place, it's got some entrenched farmers and people like me who are varying degrees of rednecks/republicans/conservatives and then we've also got a bunch of "save the world" liberals, not to mention some members of a local Indian Reservation...they pretty much live by their own rules but they go to our school and cause plenty of trouble. Oh well, at least their sovereignty lets them have a nice casino that puts on free car shows every Wednesday all summer! So...quite a diverse population around here. Anyway in my dad's youth (his pa was a bomber pilot who flew a B-24 named Little Rollo over Germany in The Big One) his family drove the big old American cars, too. A '64 Plymouth Belvedere Wagon, I seem to recall, with a push-button trans, a '53 Merc coupe, at one point a 1972 Chrysler Newport (quite a boat itself). My dad and his best freind in high school broke the trend and drove little foriegn sports cars like a '64 Triumph TR4 IRS (still got the knockoff wheels from it) a '63 Austin Heely Sprite and at one point their favorites: matching red '69 Fiat 124 Spiders. You see, the roads around here are tight and windy, so the sports cars worked well for them I guess, but I really like my American iron. There's a famous road out in my neck of the woods called Sandy Hollow, a nice long, straight stretch going right down the middle of the reservoir...haven't had my Olds out there yet (I'm gonna get a feel for it before I do anything I'll regret) but it's been the "automotive proving grounds" shall we say, for Ledyard kids since the 1960's when they built it. In my dad's day there were actually nice 1/4 mile lines that my dad and his hooligan friends painted on for obvious purposes. Anyway not just the cars, back then kids getting in a fight would get a detention, not an expulsion and criminal charges like has happened several times recently for little scuffles. Also, he said you used to be able to bring pocket knives to school, no problemo. Now, it's a Federal Crime or something...My dad has said of many such things, "See, you used to be able to get away with that S**t, now you can't get away with that S**t." And that's just the 1960's, my grandpa and his 1930's/1940's stuff is even better to hear about. I hate to sound like one who takes stuff for granted, but Oh for a time machine...
Another thing, you say car performance dropped like a rock in 1972, something I've always held regrettably true. But from what I hear it wasn't bad being a kid in the 1970's because there were still plenty of the good 1960's cars to be had real cheap, they were just slightly used regular cars back then. Some neighbors of mine from the 1970's drove Plymouth Roadrunners, Lincoln Continentals, Ford Falcons, and old Camaros from the 1960's in high school. My uncle (class of '77) actually bought a REAL (but damaged) Plymouth Superbird real cheap, fixed it up, went for a ride and sold it again once he found the frame was bent Kicking himself now, to be sure!
Anyway, I assure you that "Ava" (my olds) will be around a good long time. It's not rusty yet so for now, I just mop out the spot (it's just one little spot) in the trunk where the water collects and hose it down with WD40 when it leaks. I've been talking to some friends and I'm hoping to get the electrics all "ironed out" pretty soon, you know both blinkers are a nice thing to have! The winters around here are not nice for driving cars like this, both the salt and the traction issue, so I may be taking the bus for the winter, (it would be a shame to let my nice clean car get rusty and/or crash it) but at least I'll have plenty of time for "ironing out" electrical stuff so when spring rolls around I'll be in ship-shape. I also take comfort in knowing that there is a really nice bolt-in adapted THM 400 for a very reasonable price if I EVER have tranny problems in the future. I'd like to keep her all original, but when it comes to brass tacks my dad had a good point...if it's going to be a daily driver for a number of years and a car that I'll have (hopefully) all my life, it may be a good compromise...all original except the tranny. Plus, if my grandkids are going to drive Ava they might have an easier time servicing/finding parts for a THM400 than the Slim-Jim. My Slim-Jim is perfectly fine now (knock on wood), but I'd hate to see the situation in 60+ years. Anyway, I saved my whole childhood for my Olds (I hate to brag but it was a steal at $3k, once in a long while I get lucky) and now I have something else to start saving money for! I've noticed this is a disturbing trend among car enthusiasts...
In closing, you're right about something else...I'm certainly no "fence straddler"...we have debates in history and government classes pretty often, and we'll just say I do alright, often to the dismay of my "Captain Planet" type teacher (I'm not bashing all liberals; I have another teacher who's about as liberal as they come and he's great at listening to alternative views)....Who knows, maybe I'll move to Texas someday and hook an oil refinery up to my gas tank, might be easier that way!
Anyway Jim it's nice to hear from you and it looks like we see eye to eye on plenty of stuff!

 

You can get a new trunk seal for around $80 from either Kanter, Fusicks, or Steele Rubber. You also might have the rear window removed to check the channel for rust. I redid the rear window channel in my 71 98 and it only cost me around $100.