When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Hi all, I had my stock ‘82 Custom Cruiser out for a drive a couple weeks ago, and after it died at a stoplight, I haven’t been able to get it to crank. It sounds like it’s struggling at certain parts of the rotation and will also spit gas out of the airhorn. So far I’ve taken apart the carb for cleaning, checking the float, needle, etc., and then checked all the plug wires and tested the ignition coil and control module. All good from what I can tell. Took a video of my latest attempt to start it last night, and on the last crank you can just barely see the gas trying spew out around the choke plate:
My next list item to check is going to be the spark plugs, but at this point should I be pulling the valve covers to check for anything seized or bent?
Some additional background that might be helpful:
the car sat in storage for 10 years until last summer, and the engine has about 160k miles
before I got it running again last year, I ran a compression test and got these results 8: 145 6: 158 4: 126 2: 100
7: 84 5: 111 3: 139 1: 162
Spark plugs all new as of last year
Brand new fuel tank, and have only run non-oxy gas since replacement
Replaced the intake tray gasket this spring, and while it fixed my coolant leak, I found a small amount of oil in the intake when I took the carburetor off last week
Replaced the harmonic balancer last month to fix crank pulley wobble.
In all honesty, I know the whole engine probably needs a rebuild, but since I’m planning to join the 455 swap club, I want to invest as little as possible in this engine and just wanted to drive it through the end of the season. If I would need to go as far as pulling the heads/the whole engine to fix this, I’ve accepted that it will have to remain parked until the engine swap can be completed. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
When the timing chain skipped on my 307, it sounded different and would not catch. If any potential ignition issues are resolved and the carb seems fine as you have gone through it, expect a timing chain as said. It may be time to do the swap to more power.
Sounds like the timing chain. Same thing happened to the 307 in my Wife's 84 Riviera about 3 years ago now but it was right at the end of our street. She had 240K or so on the original chain set.
Pull the distributor cap off and watch the rotor while you are cranking the starter. I bet it isnt turning or if it is just barely.
Here is what hers looked like. All of the plastic parts were on the oil pump pickup.
Finally carved out some time to finish diagnosing this, so I thought I would close the loop on this thread. I watched the distributor as I was cranking the engine, and sure enough the rotor only spun about half the time, so now I have confirmation it was indeed the timing chain that let go. Thanks again everyone for your input.
My advice on this- pull the oil pan off and the oil pump to clean it out better. As BillK points out, probably most of your cam gear nylon is jammed up in the oil pump intake screen. Common occurrence on very high mileage original Olds engines. Plus any of the rest of the "junk" that ends up in the pan could use a good cleaning out. As that timing chain runs across the cam gear aluminum, it's shaving off metal particles there too. Hopefully the oil filter gets them, but recall there's an oil filter bypass valve, so there's always the potential for shavings to get by.
I hope you to it figured out, my vote also goes to Timing Chain. I've pulled apart a few of these old Olds engines now and all the nylon timing gears had cracks and very slack timing chains it's highly likely that yours is cracked and moved far enough to cause it to be so far out of time it won't run. In the 307 below the engine ran but you can see how slack that chain is.
