1985 olds v6 diesel in pickup?

Have a chance to get an olds v6 diesel. I understand they were much more reliable than the olds v8 diesel. I also know of a 4x4 chevy pickup with a blown engine. Think the v6 diesel would be adequate for re-powering the pickup?

"Think the v6 diesel would be adequate for re-powering the pickup?"

In a word, NO!

Back in the day, I owned one of those little bastages in an Olds Cutlass Cierra FWD and it wasn't a powerhouse even in the little car.

Depends. what size is the pickup? For an S-10 it might be adequate, for a full size K1500, forget it, it would be way underpowered.

Also, keep in mind the bell housings would not match, so you'd wind up changing the transmission. Interesting combination, but it looks like a money pit to me.

BTW, the Olds 5.7 diesels weren't a bad diesel from '82 on after Olds beefed up the bottom end and used a roller cam. Unfortunately, by then they were stigmatized by the early ones, and gas burners were getting close to the same mileage. I had three of the later ones, two 88's and a 98 and had good luck with all three.

I heard of a fellow here in Nebraska that installed Olds 5.7 diesels into a number of Dodge B100 and B200 vans. I heard it was a good combo, and really not that hard to do.

Wish I could be optimistic about your project, but I'd shy away from it, myself.

What the other guys said; the little 6 will not pull the hat off yer head and the V8 is "just barely adequate".

I spent most of the decade of the eighties running all over the country hauling music equipment in this pickup with a topper. Some 400K miles, always loaded and tipped the scales right at 7,000 lbs.

Had dropped an Olds 350N in when I took the contract with the agency because I wanted the extra mileage.

Truck got 18 mpg at the worst but crawling back and forth over those passes across the Rockies just worked the snot out of 'er.

Can still remember that chuckhole I hit out in the middle of the desert in Nevada.

There is very little clearance between the front differential and the oil filter. That made for one very long night when I re-oiled the road. :>(

Allan

I worked in the plant that built that little v6. It was only built for 1 year, and if my memory is correct, only about 3K were ever sold to customers. That plant was retooled to make the Quad 4 engine in 1987.

I had one in a 83 Celebrity, really liked the car. I always wanted to put one in a small tractor. It had 85 HP at 1600 rpm, Greg

Not something I'd even remotely consider. The V6s had better reps then the V8s because they weren't worked quite so hard. They only came in cars. That being said, I saw many blow-to-pieces at 100K-150K. Note there were three 4.3 liter diesels. The early 4.3 V6, the later 4.3 V6 - and the "mystery" 4.3 V8 that never got released to the public. I think at the last minute, GM decided to use the Isuzu 2.2 diesels instead - that were put into S10 pickups and S10 Blazers.

What pickup would you intentionally install an engine with scarce-parts availability with 165 lbs. of max. torque and be happy with? Also, how would you make it mate to your trans? Adapters?

As I recall - all the diesel 4.3 and 5.7 V8s and 4.3 V6s came with the GM "BOP" bolt-pattern (Buick, Oldsmobile,Pontiac), NOT Chevy/GMC.

Our shop did many conversions - putting gas engines back into diesel trucks and we had to use Oldsmobile gas engines. Chevy engines would not fit.

For cheap - find yourself a 6.2. At least THAT was designed by Detroit Diesel and can hold up very well if not abused. Also has great cheap parts availability. It also has the Chevy GMC common bolt pattern and can easily swap. One of these days I'm going to stick a turbo-6.2 into my 65 Chevelle Malibu. 6.2s are not HD engines, but work great for light trucks or in cars.

After GM settled a huge law-suit for the many awful pre-1981 diesels, they re-engineered the V8 into the DX Goodwrench engine. That engine isn't near as bad as the former ones, but still not near as good as the 6.2 that came out in 1982. But the 6.2 is a Chevy bolt pattern and fit cars and trucks that had 5.7 Olds-patterned engines.

Funny thing now -the DX 350 diesels are sought after - to convert them back into gas engines for racing purposes. That get turned into 450 cubic inch gas-race engines.

It's also funny how history gets rewritten. I was working in a diesel shop when the Oldsmobile diesels came out new. Three guys in my shop owned many - including my boss. In the cold northeast- nothing but headaches and no real fixes for bad engineering. The local Chevy dealer sent many trucks to our shop. And all the diesels were in nothing bigger then 1/2 ton trucks with auto trans and 2WD only - and no trailer towing allowed. Even when babied, they fell apart.

Back to the V6s, a friend of mine got 140K from his car which was pretty good. Except he spent a small fortune keeping it going, especially the fuel injection system.

Hey JD, My dad had a 79 GMC with the 5.7 diesel. We had relatively good luck with it compared to some others. It had the 3.40 rear axle ratio, which seemed help it out some although it did cut the milage down some. (best of 24 mpg with 19 or 20 normal for everyday driving) Dad also added a large fuel filter to it, a glass box one like many JD tractors used. Did blow the head gaskets once at 70,000+ miles.
Despite it not being rated for towing, we sure hauled alot of farm machinery around with it. I also did a fair amount of hotshotting around with it when I was young. (could squeal the tires pretty good) Finaly gave up the ghost around 100,000 miles, when an olds gasser was swapped in it was about a 10 mpg truck.

My boss had two 1978s and a new 1979. The 79 lasted the longest. He babied it. Best fuel mileage ever was 19 MPG on a flat highway. At 60K miles, it started blowing head gaskets - and had already had the injection pump fail once. We then installed the newest GM "computer designed head gaskets" and new bolts. Remember, around 1980 - "computer designed" sounded very high-tech. It then lasted 8K more miles and blew the gaskets again. We put in yet another new super-duper GM upgrade and they lasted 2000 miles. We then insalled a low-mile 350 from a wrecked 1980. A month later, the crankshaft snapped in two. At that point, my boss gave up on the diesels and we installed an Olds 350 gas engine. After getting 8-9 MPG with it, he got rid of the truck. In 82, he bought a new 1/2 ton truck with the 6.2 and loved it (except for the lack of power). I had trouble convincing him that a 379 diesel had less power then a 350 gas engine - not more.

I'm sure you know that the first sign of a bad head gasket in a 350 diesel is . . . the heater stops working at low speed. That's something you notice fact here in the northeast.

We had a virtual mountian of running 350 diesel engines that we'd yanked out. Some guy came up from Florida and bought the whole mess. He said they installed those engines on farm equipment in warm areas and got pretty good use out of them. So, who knows? Around here, once the heater stopped working- they didn't get used any more.

I had a 1979 Scottsdale that was owned by a farmer that had the 350 diesel. It spent more time in the shop than on the road and he decided to have the engine replaced with an Olds 350 gas engine. He had a shop to swap the engines. After the engine was changed he decided he didn't want the truck. I never knew why. The shop had it advertised in the Baltimore paper and I went down to look at it and drive it. This was in 1983 or 1984 and it only had 40k miles on it. I bought it for $2900.00 had no problems with the gas engine. It had dual gas tanks and wasn't that great on gas, but was very dependable. I sold it in 1997 to a Chief Warrant Officer that was in the Army and he drove it to Colorado. GM probably should've used the IH diesel that Ford used in their pickups. Hal

I had a 1982(?) Buick Regal with the 4.3 diesel in it. It ran well enough but was definately under powered compared to other Buicks with the 3.8 V6 engine. I would never consider putting that engine in any pickup except an S10. Given all the issues these engines had I doubt almost 30 years has made them run any better or made their parts any cheaper or easier to find.

Think about a 4 cyl Cummins from a old bread truck, I think they will wear out at least 3 trucks.

Why not if you want power just go to a bigger engine.

We had several in the family,never had much trouble.The injection pump had a plastic ring that would break around 100000 miles.Once it was replaced with a metal one they were fine.I had 350000 miles on my 1980 pickup with no trouble other than the tranny.

It was my understanding the v6 that came in rear drive cars had the BOP pattern and the front drive cars got the Chevy Pattern. Not sure of this.

I think your dad had the right idea. I read the fuel filter on the cars were insufficient,they didn't separate the water out. I think the cars used a pump similar to the pumps in fords 6.9 an detroits 6.2. They used better filters/separators.

That would require two completely different 4.3 V6 diesel engines - which I don't think ever existed. I can see where an adapter might of been used, but can't say for sure. But, GM certainly had front-wheel drive setups to fit the Olds bolt-pattern. Chevy had the 2.8 and 3.1 V6s, and I'm sure there are others with the Olds pattern.

Ford used adapters when they put the International Harvester 6.9 and 7.3 V8s in Ford trucks. Since IH built those engines from exisiting IH gas-truck engines, they did NOT have the Ford bolt-pattern, Thus the need for adapters.

The 4.3 Olds diesel was based on the Olds V8 with two cylinders missing. And, the 4.3 Olds V8 was based on the 5.7 engine with the cylinders sleeved down to take smaller pistons.

Why.......... If you want an engine for a truck conversion, go get a 4BT Cummins. They're good for about 120 horse and ~300 torque. Should be plenty to propell a 1/2 ton if you get the axle ratios right.

Rod

Wellllll, NO!

I have a 6.2 diesel in a "heavy half" GMC pickup. Adequate, but no powerhouse. 19mpg on a good day.
Had a 5.7 diesel in a Caprice Classic station wagon. Again adequate for the car, but certainly not over powered. 30mpg, or better on that old Chevy. 5.7 did me well, I only got rid of it because of upcoming transmission problems, and changes in transportation needs. 225K miles.
So I've had fairly good luck with diesels. But a 4.3 would definitely be weak in a PU truck.

The Cummins 4BT is a great engine. 3.9 liters and makes the same power as a 6.2. Only problem is price. I've yet to find a good one, with the GM adapters, for less then $2500.

Was your 350 a DX engine? Just curious. They had many improvements over the original 350. Came out in 1981, and was also the "Goodwrench" replacement engine for all of them.

I wouldn't disagree on the price. Might even be more in most situations...
The way I look at it, you're going to spend a bunch of money on just about any conversion if you want something that works well. Might just as well start with a known good engine rather than trying to polish a cheap turd.
I've often though of dropping a 3 cylinder Ford into a Ranger... just because I want to... but I also know that I'll have way more than 2500 into it by the time I turbocharge a 201 and build it up to take the power level required... so 2500 may not be such a bad deal.

Rod

If I could buy a good 3.9 Cummins turbo with GM adapters for $2500, I'd grab it. Just never happened arond here in NY. They're always out west or down south, and they're heavy. Lowest was near $3500 shipped to my place. I find 5.9s cheaper, and local.

A guy I know paid almost $5000 for a 3.9T that came from California. He stuck it in s Chevy Suburban 4WD. Gets a best of 26 MPG on a flat highway which is pretty amazing.

Isuzu also has a 3.9T turbo which seems to be just as rugged as the Cummins. But, the Cummins can be found with adatpers to bolt right into a Chevy or Ford drivetrain.

I keep waiting for a bread-van to show up for sale, locally. But so far, all the ones that have, were gas powered or had blown GM 6.2s.

Yeah, 5.9's are easy to get. There's a pile of buses around here that used them and they're about at the age now where the school boards are dumping them. They won't title them so they are sold as is for parts... usually for 500 bucks or so, running with nothing wrong... so the 5.9's are cheap.
3.9's... not so much. Only ones I've ever seen tossed were worn out so a guy would have to rebuild one right off the line. The rest of them are still plugging their little hearts out doing whatever they were intended to do...
The only things that are readily available around here are 53 Detroits... but then you'd have to listen to that SOB scream it's guts out all day long.

Rod