1988 Cutlass 307 Fun

So whenever I don't feel like getting my hands dirty I hand my cars off to Troung (pronounced Tron, like the movie), one of my former techs from when I had the repair shop years back. He's a great guy, he's Vietnamese, about 4-foot tall, and can fix anything. When we had dash a/c installs Troung would climb INSIDE the dashboards...ha! He has his own shop now and does side work for me. I help him with business paperwork and legal stuff, and he messes with my nightmares. Nice to have friends like him.

So the Cutlass has never run right, especially when it's cold, plus it runs rich enough to make your eyes water, and the mileage has always sucked. It's gutless too, not that a 307 is a ball of fire anyway, but my Custom Cruiser's 307 was stronger, and it sure was a lot heavier car than this Cutty. I have a great fear of electronic Quadrajets and a severe loathing of old vaccumn hoses, so I handed the car over to Truong about two weeks ago to tinker with.

Just got off the phone with him, and turns out the intake manifold gaskets on the Olds are leaking badly. He said when he first looked at the carb he could tell it had been rebuilt before, as the plug caps GM put over the adjustment bolts had been drilled out. He tried to lean it out and the car would flat not idle. So the Quadrajet was rebuilt, and he did say it was pretty full of trash, but when he re-installed it, the car still was not running right. He did the old spray the intake while the car is running trick and it smoothed right out. Intake gaskets....woo-hoo. I read that's a really common issue because GM used aluminum intakes on these late 307's. So on to this now.

We'll see! He's doing the plugs, wires, cap and rotor too, so it'll be all tuned up once it comes home. I could have done that but am being lazy

Never a dull moment. He's going to jump back on it tomorrow so I should have it back by Friday.

-Mike

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Nice looking Cutlass! I had 5 of them of the years, 3 of them were 307's. They all met the demise of Northern rust If i found another nice one i would pull the 307, and throw in a early 70's Olds 350 rocket (or an LS motor). Most of the G-bodies are gone up here due to rust, and since the price of steel was so high a few years ago, most of the ones in junkyards were crushed, so it's hard to find parts too.

Thanks for the comment. I love that car. It's a fun toy, and yes an Olds 350-403-455 is somewhere in it's future. Want to keep the stock look but would love to have some go under the hood.

-Mike

How did I not see this? (Must of been lost in a CL whirlwind )

Glad she's runnin' good now! Do any donuts today?

Running a lot better, but still a little rich...electronic quadrajets....what are you going to do?

No donuts but got it sideways in the Dell parking lot. Nobody was there, pretty fun!

81X11 wrote:

Running a lot better, but still a little rich...electronic quadrajets....what are you going to do?

Swap in an LT1/T56 or LSx/T56?

Then it would not be a full Oldsmobile anymore. No, it's a 350-403-455. ; )

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