DOES ANYONE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE MID 80'S DIESLE BUICK RIVIERA? I SAW ONE AT A LOCAL JUNK YARD AND ALMOST S#!T MY PANTS! I NEVER KNEW THAT BUICK MADE A DIESLE SO IF ANY ONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT THESE MACHINES PLEASE SHAR THE INFO THANKS IN ADVANCE CURTIS :3gears:
My boss used to have an '82 Olds Toronado diesel.........I drove it once.........it smelled like crap and it was a dog. Once we rented a diesel Chevette and it wouldn't even make it up a hill!
That Diesel is an Olds engine. They made a 260, and a 350 diesel. The 260, I could outrun it on foot, LOL. GM's ill concieved plan to make a diesel from a gas engine block, what a bonehead maneuver! If the Riv is in good shape, rescue it and stuff a SBB, or a BBB in it!
Post that question on the guestbook at the ROA, you will have more people with generally more knowledge about that specific car. LINK
Mid 80's Buick Diesel The engine you're talking about was based on an Oldsmobile block. The problem with the whole setup was that GM tried to convert an existing gasoline engine to diesel instead of starting "clean sheet" and coming up with a REAL diesel motor. This program set diesel back in this country about 20 years. Some things I remember - I owned one of these in a 83 deuce-n-a-quarter. These were big fullsize cars with relatively poor performance and a black cloud blowing out the back. The car always stank of diesel fuel. Winter starting was hell. They used 2 high cranking amp batteries in parallel to get enough torque to start. If the engine didn't start, the standard GM starter solenoid would weld up and the starter motor would keep cranking even with the key was turned off. I carried a pair of cutting pliers in the car for just such an occasion. I had to cut the battery positive cable more than once! It was not unknown for the engine compartment to catch on fire and burn the car to the ground when this happened. The fuel injection system used a mechanical pump that sat on top of the intake manifold. This pump was so delicate that it could be destroyed by spraying one end of it with cold water while the engine was running. I heard a talk from one of the development engineers from Oldsmobile once. He said that it took hundreds of hours of design/prototyping/testing just to find the right injector angle to get these pigs to run. The crankshaft in these motors had such severe torsional vibrations that the torque converter in the automatic transmission usually developed cracks and leaked. They did get really good mileage (30 mpg in my big 225 four door) and the block is used by lots of Olds racers.
That may be the only 'plus'. Those DX blocks were/are the basis of some of the fastest Olds powered cars in the country. :TU:
Don't forget that olds had a V6 diesel too. Talk about a powerhouse. :laugh: http://home.att.net/~oldsranch/strange.htm
I bought a new 1981 Buick Park Avenue (a true four door land yacht) with a 350 diesel. It did not have much power, but you could go about 600 miles on a tank of fuel and at 60 to 70 mph it rode like a cloud. One year I was on vacation and had gone to a Denny's for breakfast. I parked in a parking space on a down hill incline and when we got ready to leave the car did not have enough power to back up the incline. I had to wait for it to warm up and made everyone get out of the car and take out some of the luggage just so I could back it up the incline. It was really bad going through the mountains. Sometimes it would slow down to 35 mph going up steep grades. Otherwise I had no problems with it.
I knew one guy with the 80s GM Olds diesel and he had to keep a can of starting fluid handy at all time to get it fired. He would just give it a shot every time as it just started easier.
