We actually drove ours from Los Angeles all the way to Cabo San Lucas, a journey of over 1000 miles. We worried all the way down whether the next station would even have diesel. Actually a fantastic adventure in retrospect.

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My best friends dad bought a 78 or 79 Olds Toronado diesel. Strangely never really had any problems with it. Always started in the Michigan winter. We used to enjoy laying down smokescreens on I-94. Environmentalism hadn’t been invented back then.

Another friends dad was GM of the Cadillac dealership on Jefferson Ave. in Detroit. They had a business adding auxiliary fuel tanks in the trunks of the big sedans, along with rear air shocks to support the extra weight. Gave the car roughly 1,000 mile highway range, enough to make the Michigan to Florida run down I-75 without needing fuel. Cause you know, everybody needs to evacuate to Florida for the winter. They also built a good business converting the cars to gasoline power. I remember a big pile of broken engine blocks, cranks, heads, etc. piled in the corner of the dealership.

I borrowed a car to go to a job interview in the mid 1990s. I was framing on his house and having a little trouble out of my work van. Wifie was handling the kids so finding another ride was the simple solution.

I tried to pay my buddy but he wouldn't hear it so I filled his 80ish olds with fuel. It said diesel on the dash and at the tank and I waited until just before I returned it to him to stop and fill it up.

He lived on a bit of a hill and the engine gave a few sputters just before I got it to his yard. He met me at the door and I asked him if it have been converted to gas. When he said 'yes,' I jumped in the car and limped it to my mechanic's garage where they drained the tank and gave me five gals of gas.

I filled it up, returned it and explained it all to my bud. I had to assure him nothing would be harmed but spark plugs and if he would let me I'd change the plugs but we should wait a day or two to allow the diesel to work its way out of the system.

Evidently I'd caught it before it fouled the plugs so nothing was really harmed in the incident. Anyway, I didn't know Olds put a diesel in their family cars until then.

I never saw one on the road that wasn't converted back to gas.

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84 300SD
85 380SE
83 528e
95 318ic

The first “family” truckster that I remember my parents having was a light yellow ‘79 Olds diesel wagon. I don’t recall it ever catastrophically breaking down. They had that until the ‘86 Chevy Suburban. They didn’t get back into diesel again until 2008 when they bought a new Mercedes ML320 CDI 4MATIC.

My friend and I broke a crankshaft in his dads 79 or 80 olds diesel. We might have been going 70 mph. It was a dog. My friends brother worked in the dealer shop and came and got us and the car and said this was the nth that he'd seen with a broken crank. (I can't remember the number but it was high). I was raised in farm country in Iowa and a lot of farmers were happy to buy a diesel since they all had practically free and tax free fuel right on the farm.

Same friend had a 71 or 72 olds delta 88 with a big v8, a 455 if I recall. That thing would pick em up and lay em down. Probably drank fuel like a sailor but it was a fast beast and handled those gravel farm roads at 80 mph like a champ. My 77 olds cutlass with a 403 v8 was a superior ride as well. Fast as can be for the time. Good times!!

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DS
2010 CL550 - Heaven help me but it's beautiful
87 300D a labor of love
11 GLK 350 So far, so good
08 E350 4matic, Love it.
99 E320 too rusted, sold
87 260E Donated to Newgate School
www.Newgateschool.org - check it out.
12 Ford Escape, sold, forgotten
87 300D, sold, what a mistake
06 Passat 2.0T, PITA, sold

Las Vegas NV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGoV_dWHpsk

I missed another one. The Shutoff Solenoids inside of the top cover of the Fuel Injection Pump used to fail.

There was also a 2 different tries at a retrofit kit for the Governor Linkage inside of the fuel injection pumps.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

Love to know how that turned out.

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My dad had a 1979 Olds 98 diesel....he ordered it direct from the factory with the options set up just the way he wanted. It was his first new car ever. Work was good and he was flush, and the new Olds diesel was a bit of a holy grail for him.

Then luck changed, and he couldn't afford the car any more. Ended up selling it to one of his coworkers, who drove it for years and for many happy miles - was super reliable for both of them.

Throughout my childhood, my dad always talked wistfully about that car. A bit sad to learn now that the cars were such dogs.

Why car manufactures install Cummins or someother experienced diesel builders block and fuel system to power up a platform vehicle.Mercedes has mastered the Diesel engine years ago.

In the late 80s my employers wife drove one , it was in the shop about every 4 months ,I was the one who would follow her to the mechanics shop at the time and drive her back to the business .While following behind her it would barely slug along ,The thread about the filters might be onto something .

I had a friend who made a good living for a while buying them for almost nothing and replacing them with junkyard gasoline engines and transmissions. I don't recall if he changed the differential gearing though.

The automotive related company I worked for at the time made some of the line equipment for that GM Diesel.

As a result, much of the senior management got a batch of the early Olds/Buick Diesels. Needless to say, most were broken or dead within the year.

The CEO had to differentiate himself so he got the other GM disaster of the era - a V8-6-4 Cadillac.

I briefly worked for Natzel Olds during this fiasco, once GM lost the lawsuit claiming they couldn't pass smog if they didn't run and so were giving away free crate engines, installed, all manner of weirdos began showing up with dead Olds diesels they'd found cheaply of for free ~ when a local junkyard began to deliver them, one had the roof partially crushed because it wasn't worth putting on the top of the pile, we all went out to look and laugh at that one, they stopped doing the free engines right after that .

It was a strange time to be sure .

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better