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Put the new starter in today with little trouble. As 77toronado said earlier, I did need about six hands to hold it up, but I have spares when I need them. Actually, I used the floor jack, which was right there anyway, to hold it up near where it goes and then wrestled it in the rest of the way. Fortunately the two bolts that hold it on are about as easy to access and reinstall as any on the car. Car starts up just fine now.
I decided to return the core and get my $15 as my wife and I would really like a pizza. I thought about rebuilding the old one, but then I thought "why?" Having a spare starter around would be nice, but iI's like keeping a spare garage door on hand. How likely am I to ever need it? The new starter will probably outlive me. If it does fail, I'll buy another one at that time. In the meantime, she likes mushrooms on her side, and I like pepperoni on mine.
I just received the November issue of JWO, and as anyone else who gets the magazine also knows, it's mostly devoted to 1977 Oldsmobiles. That's not quite the year of my car, but it was the first year of the XS option, and the magazine has an image of the letter sent to dealers in October 1976 announcing it. I thought it was pretty cool, so I scanned it and enlarged it.
At the time the letter was written, Olds still had plans to introduce the XSR as well, and the XS was priced between the Brougham and the XSR as mentioned at the bottom of the page.
On the same page is the letter from March 1977 where Olds tells its dealers, basically, "never mind" about XSR. I read elsewhere that they couldn't get the roof mechanism to work reliably enough. The letter is partly obscured by the letter above of the way the letters are presented on the page, in sort of a montage format.
It says that they planned to bring out the XSR for '78, but that never happened.
Thought I'd briefly resurrect this thread. Saw a '78 XS for sale on ebay (it's still there as of this writing--link below) with this on its license plate. I had to have it, and luckily it was available in New Mexico. So I ordered it, and it arrived in the mail today. Pretty cool, I think, but then I amuse easily!
The plates look cool on your Tornado, I a fan of personalised plates, I have one on every vehicle we own. (waist of $$ most say haha)
TOTAL XS just sounds like its got a bit of an attitude. I like it!
Thanks. Actually, the cost of this kind of plate here is not bad. Only $17 per year above the normal about $50 per year registration fee. I had a couple of vanity plates over the years when I lived in Ohio, and there the premium over the normal registration fee was quite a bit more as I recall.
Interestingly, the state doesn't refer to them as "vanity plates." They call them "prestige plates." I like that. Get one for your car, and it automatically has prestige!
The one thing about TOTAL XS on the plate is that most people who see it going down the road won't know what it means. But that's ok. I know what it means.
I didn't have to talk to anyone to get the plate. The whole thing was ordered online through the DMV website. I'm sure I would have heard something if what I wanted was considered profane in some way, but nothing like that happened.
Nice job! Looks nice, what color is it? Autumn Firemist?
Thanks. I presume you're asking about the color of my car, the dark one. The color is officially Dark Carmine. It's a dark red. Color #79 on the bottom right in this chart. Kind of hard to see in the chart.
Just picked up a nice set of NOS wheelcovers on eBay. They're so pretty, I hate to put them on the car as they might get dust on them. But I'll put them on as soon as I finish a couple of projects going on with the car, and I can get it back out in the sunshine.
Here are the four that came with the car and that are on it now. I don't know what that yellow stuff is on the one on the lower left, but it won't come off easily.
I've see a few craigslist ads where the seller takes some photos in twilight with the headlights on, and I think they look pretty cool. I thought I would try that myself, and I finally got around to doing it early this morning.
Here's a photo from a craigslist ad that inspired me.
Here's a few I took early this morning just as the sun was coming up. There is enough light that the car is lit enough to see but not so much that the headlights and other lights don't stand out.
The wheelcovers are the NOS ones I bought about a month ago.
Looks good jaunty...just one thing ( kinda like the MAWS) I notice your inspiration ad has the high beams on, while yours doesn't. I'd say your in for another early morning photography session.
Like you I'm easily entertained as well. I saw a picture of a corvette taken from the rear of the car looking down the drivers side, in front of the car was open road, the angle of the pic and the open road just about put you in the drivers seat. I've tried to emulate that picture w my car several times, but have not yet gotten it right....maybe next time I'll go for the lights on shot!!!
Factory advertising for this car also featured the headlights on, including the hi-beams. But it was also raining, and I don't intend take pictures in the rain. I don't trust the sunroof not to leak.
I have heard the same phrase from my wife that I entertain easily.....many times... Have you tried to contact the XS seller from ebay and shared a photo of your car with the "TOTAL XS" plates? Regards, Trent in Los Angeles
No, I have not. He's trying to sell his car, so I assume he's not in a "hey cool, let's compare notes about our cars" kind of mode. If you click on the ebay link, you see that his sale/auction ended on January 8 with apparently no sale and no relisting. Maybe he sold it locally, or maybe it's still sitting in his driveway, and he cringes every time he looks out his front window. No need to poke the bear!
Jaunty, Sure do like your new wheelcovers. And your photos early morning with lights on looks great as well. You have done a fantastic job of fixing your car up.
I was greatly interested in you other post of fixing the a/c and the cruise. I learned a great deal from that thread and i thank you for sharing all that information.
Fixing the a/c and cruise on mine is on my list of to do things once it comes out of storage, hopefully the end of April if the dang weatherman will ever co-operate.
Your car looks fantastic. I can't believe that's the same car I saw on Craigslist.
It's funny that you posted that ad of the 78 Toronado in the rain. Did you know they made two of those ads? I stumbled across this looking at things for sale on Amazon.
Apparently Oldsmobile decided to use a little bit of airbrush engineering on the grille to turn a '77 ad into a '78 ad.
Very Interesting. Nice find 77Toronado. What is interesting to me is the wiper pattern cleaning the windshield on your "AutosInterest" photo. Clearly (he he) the windshield is not so clear on the "AutosInterest" photo as the brochure photo. There is quite a bit of space on the windshield not cleared on the last sweep and it does not look like the right arch produced by the driver side wiper. Maybe the "Autos" photo was the one changed and they went over the top to change the sweep pattern of the wiper. Seems hard to do for not much reason. The mistake is a clear windshield at the bottom of the arch which does not seem possible and the brochure looks correct. Anybody else with an idea? Regards, Trent in Los Angeles
I was greatly interested in you other post of fixing the a/c and the cruise. I learned a great deal from that thread and i thank you for sharing all that information.
Glad to help. It was just a matter of following the troubleshooting procedure in the service manual. I didn't get past step 2, which was basically to make sure that power is getting to the control regulator under the hood. Without the manual, you don't know which pins to check for voltage on. I was not getting any power to the regulator.
Anyway, the situation when I got the car was that the vacuum hose connecting the regulator to the intake manifold was disconnected and tucked carefully out of the way. There were no other obvious indications of a problem as the other vacuum and electrical connections were intact under the hood, the vacuum servo looked fine and appeared to hold vacuum, and the dash and turn signal switches seemed to be ok.
Obviously the first thing to do was to reconnect that vacuum hose as well as replace the others under the hood, which were old, although they didn't look bad. I didn't expect reconnecting the disconnected hose to fix the problem because it was too easy. Whoever was trying to fix it the first time you'd think would have done that, too, and would have left it connected if that had solved the problem.
Before doing the troubleshooting procedure, I did verify that the electrical and vacuum connections under the dash and at the brake pedal were intact, and I was surprised to discover that the vacuum hose to the vacuum break switch at the brake pedal was disconnected and just sitting next to its fitting. No obvious reason as to why. The hose looked to be in very good condition, and so did the vacuum fitting. I reattached that hose. Otherwise, the electrical release switch on the brake light switch (they're a combined switch) looked OK.
BUT, I tested that switch, and it was the problem. It works in reverse of the brake light switch. It's always closed until you push the brake pedal, but the one on the car was always open. Well, there's a smoking gun if I ever saw one. I jumpered the two wires that connect to that switch to close the circuit, and, lo and behold, I had 12 volts at the regulator where I had none before. So I took a quick trip to Autozone, spent $12 on a replacement brake light/cruise-control-cancel switch, installed it, and took the car for a ride with my fingers crossed. As I reported above, the cruise control now worked, and it works fine.
It seems an odd thing to fail. There's really no stress on that brake cancel switch, yet it failed. I mean, how often does the brake light switch actually just fail unannounced? Practically never. I tried to take it apart to see if it could be fixed, but I could not see a way to do that without breaking the plastic housing.
As far as the A/C, I got the ventilation system to work at least as far as the air coming out of the correct vents with good velocity (nothing like cleaning out decades of mouse nests to clear up the passageways!), and the heater side works fine. The temperature responds to the position of the TEMP lever, and the air will come out the floor vent, the dash vents, or the defroster vents as required. But no A/C, although the compressor does engage when I put the lever on any of the A/C positions.
That's as far as I can go, so I've got an appointment next week with the same shop that converted the A/C from R-12 to R134a on the Custom Cruiser I owned until a few years ago. I do not have the equipment to drain out any residual R-12, I don't have the equipment to add any new refrigerant, and I don't have the equipment to check for leaks. So it's a job for the pros.
In fact, they took the 1976 artwork and re-used it for '77 and '78.
I had no idea that did that with a '76 also. Good grief, were they ever cheap!!
I love this website! Where else would you ever find people with this kind of knowledge? No where, my friend ..... because everywhere else would drive us away with torches and pitchforks.
I think the drivers are different but they wanted to target older customers it would seem. The driver on the right side has a white shirt with a black cuff which seems strange. The swept pattern of the wipers sure looks funny and hard to create the missed area in the center of the windshield as shown in the middle ad and AutosInterest photo. Cheaper to reuse photos and maybe they figure most people don't look at every brochure for years before they buy and would not remember changes like we can do studying history. Regards, Trent in Los Angeles
I'm sure the target market for the Toronado at this time was the 45-60 year old bank executive, doctor, lawyer, something like that who wanted something a little more "personal" than a Delta 88 or 98.
This ad started in 75. There was a magazine ad of what is possibly the same guy driving a new 75 in the rain, you can see the 75 first year Brougham pillow interior but without the new for 76 Geometric print pattern interior. The 75 interior was plain next to the 76 or the 77 pinstripes. There is also a video which I posted a few photos with Lloyd Bridges raving about Toronado's full control in wet weather. I found the film clip on YouTube but did not find the 75 ad yet. It does look like the same guy, however, he went from around age 45 in the 75 ad to around age 60 in the 78 ad. I guess driving a Toronado makes you feel like an old fart pretty fast? I know the ad does exist just as the 76,77 and 78s. I remember it.
It seems that most 1975 Toronado advertising featured the cowboy theme.
However, I did come across this in-the-rain ad for 1975. Not exactly the same (it's not raining as hard, if it's raining at all since it appears the driver's window is open, but the ground is wet), but certainly a similar theme.
Interesting. The street lights are on and time lapse shows other cars headlight tracks but no lights on the Toronado. Pretty staged isn't it? And honestly, who drives around in the rain with the side window down?
Want to go for a ride in my Toro? I stuck the camera on the dash and took off. Total length of the video is about 25 minutes, but you can of course start and stop as you want. I had the local oldies station on, so there's nice background music and chatter.
Early on (about the 1:50 mark), I point the camera slightly to the right so you can see the new power antenna going up and down. Exciting, I know.
At about the 8:20 mark, I move the camera from the dash to sitting on the top of the passenger seat back, so that's why the video is a little more jiggly.
At about the 11:30 mark, I move it back to the dash.
At about 13:00, I come to a signal, and there is a McDonald's on the right with a Mustang waiting to turn right out of the parking lot. A few seconds later, you hear the roar of an engine accelerating away. That's the annoying Mustang coming up beside me on the right and then turning right (not caught on the video).
At about 14:30, I momentarily move the camera down to show the speedometer area.
At about 21:15, I move the camera down slightly to show the three gauges (temp, volts, RPM). I need the temp gauge because the idiot light is disconnected for complicated reasons. The others are just for fun.
