Duane: I misread that 3-11-70 as 8-11-70. Lots of difficulties reading some of these copies of copies. Was guessing at the catch up thing on ROP. I was in manufacturing at the time and we did a lot of that since we couldn't take anything in or out of the plant, weren't allowed to play cards or read anything other than company literature. (Concession by GM management to the UAW). Can only clean your desk so many times. I would say you're correct in your assessment on the dates. The fact that the wheels for Rallye 350 and Y74 were released as part of those packages and not as N67, doesn't totally prove whether they were available or not in 1970 as the paint codes on Rallye cars was usually --. Not sure about the white on the pace cars. A dated chassis build sheet may clear that up on an original car. Hard to prove a negative.
Phew! I'm sure glad you guys got more time on your hands than I do. :bglasses: Sorry I haven't been able to contribute yet. As you've noted, there is no evidence in the Assembly Manual that option N67, which the factory did refer to as Super Stock III, existed for the 1970 model year. Of note is that in section 0, page 36, painting instructions are shown for the P05 (SS-I) and N66 (SS-II) wheels. A note for the W-45 (zowey-yellow, body-colored Rallye 350) wheels associates them with N66 (S-II) and does not give them a separate option code. Similarly, the 1970 Oldsmobile Wholseale Car Order for for the Rallye 350 does not give check boxes for P05 or N66 wheels; nor is N67 listed. Rather, the box for option W-45 (the Rallye 350 package) is describes it as including "custom painted Super Stock II wheels." So while the engineers were experimenting with body-colored wheels in '70, they weren't handing out option numbers yet. Just to be anal, I went though a bunch of other factory 1970 literature and found no references to "N67" or "Super Stock III." Now if someone wants to show me a piece of factory literature dated later in the 1970 model year showing the introduction of N67, I'm all ears. The wheel chart in the Year One catalog states that the N67 SS-III (14x7) body-colored wheel was introduced in 1971. I don't have 1971 literature to verify this. The same chart states that the N72 SS-III (15x7) was introduced in 1975. I see no evidence anywhere that the SS-II and SS-III nomenclature has anything to do with the various types of center caps. It purely refers to argent vs. body-color. For what it's worth, Dave, I have pictures I snatched off of eBay auctions showing original paint (supposedly) Super Stock II wheels from both '68 and '70. It could just be the lighting, but I'm pretty sure it's not: the '68 wheel is a noticably darker gray than the '70.
Thanks. I have to say that the seats sit better than the Buicks ( Maybe they are rump sprung) and it is quieter on the inside. It is our first 70 Olds and it is nice. The 66 442 we have is much less sophisticated with endless feel power steering and a 400E-- more of a high rpm engine etc. The 70 455 has that effortless acceleration that maybe only a 455 Olds or Buick of that era would have. On the way back from the Charlotte show this weekend I showed a challenging enhanced pick up truck those nacelles have a lot of 455 backing them up. The guy's truck was making a lot of noise like it had a blower but so did the Olds as it simply flew by him grabbing rubber during shifts ---just like old times.
Re: Valve Covers Hello all, I know this is an old thread, but I read something on here that I was interested in. Someone stated that the W heads were much better and had better ports. Information on the differences would be great! I have a set of W31 heads that are going on an engine soon and I only thought they had bigger valves. So, educate me.
Most likely in 70 the only difference was the valves as you mentioned. DaveH, in the ongoing Oldsucation seminars he conducts here, and on ROP, stated that at least in 68 the heads, blocks, etc were hand picked from the regular inventory...apparently some sort of mandate that the "best" parts be pulled (for example blocks with least amount of core shift, etc) and then they (or at least the heads) were sent out to a special shop for the valve jobs, etc. Production ramped up higher in 69 and 70 so I don't recall if DaveH ever stated if the same handpick/outside machine work on some parts still took place then. I don't want to say too much as this might be the subject matter of one of Dave's future net-lectures and you guys would get a head start on studying for the pop quiz. I also think he specifically mentioned in the W31 thread how the engineers and marketing people held a high level meeting and decided that NO W31 should be allowed to have a W27 under it.uzzled:
Well, I don't know if they had w27's from the factory, but I have seen a couple in 31's. The car we just encountered was a special order car, so maybe it was a rare one. I don't see this man changing anything about it when he was young because he apparantely loved it back then. The car had all the right parts that were in excellent condition. All numbers I have checked so far are matching. He even gave us a NOS exhaust system he bought way back in the 70's or early 80's.
You really are dangerous. I would think the W27 rear would be much better off in a W31 than a W30. Big block torque destroyed those things. The first 500 68 Ramrod head castings were "selected" from inventory, but at the casting source, not the inventory at the plant with the others. They were sent directly to the outside shop for machining and assembly as stated earlier. "Strange" things happened to castings back then between the foundry and the machine shops on the ooutside. Not saying that's what happened, but we've seen enough to know there were a lot of very special parts floating around back then with all the same numbers on them. All other heads were machined and assembled at the plant in the normal process. That included 69 and 70 W31's and all W30's. The exception to that may have been the 54 1966 factory W30 cars. It was before my time there, but my guess would be they were handled the same as the special Ramrod build. I know the cars were handled that same way in final assembly. That's not to say the 69 and 70 W31's weren't as good as the 68's, just that you didn't need to do anything to the 68's, it was already done. If you had a 69 or 70 and were racing it and it wasn't quite up to par, you were just a phone call to Lansing away from the solution at that time.
That guy should be bitch slapped for destroying that car. My 68 W30 is a similar story where the car was totally disassembled and sat for many years in a warehouse. All the parts were sold on ebay by another guy (that's how i found out about it), but in this case, I bought the body & frame w/title, and a few miscellaneous parts he had laying around like the manual steering box, springs, and red inner front fenders. Then stripped 3 68 and 69 Cutlasses and 442's for all the common parts in the chassis and interior. Bumper from here, fender from there, 3 or 4 hoods (lost count) until I got a good one.
Ok---so I made up the part about the high level meeting Dave....just kidding with John and his rare parts (unfortunately ...vs.the whole car) find.
