E-mail your tech questions to us at carcraft@primedia.com (include the words "What's Your Problem?" in the subject line) or fax them to 323/782-2223. All correspondence must be signed with the sender's real name (not a nickname or a screen name) and include the sender's hometown and state or province. While mail cannot be answered personally, Car Craft will publish as many letters and replies as space permits. Photos are welcome, but no materials will be returned.
Designer BoostI have an '85 Buick T-Type with the WH-1 option. Several Buick Web sites say WH-1 is a rare "Designer's Series" package but couldn't provide any additional information. I was hoping you could help me find out more about this option.Brandon SniderBurton, MI
Our source material lists the WH-1 option for the '84 and '86 model years, but not the '85. This could be a simple oversight on the publisher's part; the package was apparently the same for both years, so it was likely the same for the '85 as well. The WH-1 is, in fact, the Regal T-Type Designer's Package, which included "special black and dark gray Designer's Accent paint, black front air dam, and black rear deck spoiler." Our production figures don't break out the WH-1, but since there were only 2,100 non-Grand National Turbo Regals that year, you can figure that the WH-1 is rather uncommon.
Deductive DiagnosticsI installed an Edelbrock intake on my 307-powered '69 Camaro after the testdrive. It started to miss on cylinders No. 2 and 8. I removed the intake and found that there was antifreeze inside. I returned the intake and pulled the head and took it to the machine shop to get it checked. It turns out that I had a bad head gasket. After I put it all back together it ran fine for about 200 miles, but now it's acting up again, and this time I don't have the antifreeze leakage. The machine shop says the cam or the lifters could be bad. I was told to back the lifters off and let them click for a while because they may be collapsed. What do you think?S. Lambersonvia e-mail
When you say the intake had antifreeze in it, we'll assume you mean inside the intake ports, since antifreeze does circulate through the intake manifold at the front crossover (where the thermostat housing bolts on). Small-block Chevy cylinder heads have coolant passages at each end, located outside of the intake port pairs; the front passages mate to the coolant crossover in the intake while the rears are normally blocked off by the intake. It sounds like your intake manifold gaskets were not sealed properly, allowing coolant to leak, where it was probably drawn into the adjacent intake ports, which on the passenger-side engine bank would be No. 2 and No. 8.
We're not sure why you thought the head gaskets were at fault, since there's no way we can think of to get coolant past a head gasket and into the intake manifold without having some serious problems. This is where deductive reasoning needs to be exercised. If the car ran fine before the intake was installed, but not afterwards, chances are good that the problem has to do with the intake installation. It's also a safe bet that the manifold was not at fault, since Edelbrock is known for high quality, and has been manufacturing small-block Chevy intake manifolds for decades with great success.
We're also not sure what prompted the removal of a cylinder head, but now that they're back on, try some more deductive reasoning to attempt to narrow down the cause of your latest misfire problem. You've had the heads checked by a machine shop, so we can probably assume that they're in decent shape. You said the car was running well at first, so you must have put everything back together in the proper place. You say there are no longer any coolant leaks, so your intake and head gaskets are probably alright, though you should verify the sealing. Check the crankcase, either by looking through the oil-fill hole in the valve cover or by pulling the cover. If the intake or head gaskets are leaking, oil and water are probably mixing, resulting in a white, creamy substance. If the oil looks normal, you should be OK. Spray carb cleaner or similar aerosol solvent around the intake sealing surfaces with the engine running to see if the idle is affected. If spraying the solvent results in a change in idle speed, you have a vacuum leak there, indicating a bad gasket seal. In the future, use quality intake gaskets along with a little RTV gasket sealer around the coolant passages.
The recommendation that you loosen the rocker arms may be heading in the right direction. It's pretty common for the rocker arms on small-block Chevy engines to be over-tightened during assembly. Unfortunately, if the car ran OK for a while but is now misfiring, there's a good chance that one or more lobes on the camshaft may be damaged. The factory hydraulic flat-tappet camshafts in small-block Chevys were fairly notorious for premature failure by the late '70s, and even those that didn't actually fail (causing some sort of backfire or miss) were usually nearly round after 10 to 15 years of use. If you over-tightened the valves, you may have finished off an already tired cam. But before you go yanking the cam, back off the rockers until they tick, as your mechanic suggested, and then re-tighten them just enough to eliminate the tick. If you don't like doing it with the engine running, shut it off and then tighten the rockers just enough to eliminate the clearance at the valve tip, and then go another 11/44 to 11/42 turn on your wrench. This must be done when the lifter is on the base of the cam lobe. If, when the engine is running, some of the rockers appear to move only slightly, figure the cam is wiped out-the perfect excuse to upgrade.
The Big ChillI live in one of the coldest places on Earth in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It is not unknown for the temperatures to dip to about -30 degrees C-I don't know what that is by U.S. measurements, but it's still friggin' cold. Anyway, I have an '86 Cutlass Supreme with a four-bolt-main 350 Chevy motor, a 700-R4 tranny, and Hedman Hedders. I know that the cold can be very hard on vehicles. What can I do to minimize the damage that can potentially happen in this climate?Trevor PelletierRegina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Most of the damage that motor vehicles incur when exposed to extremely low temperatures is the result of compromised lubrication. The most critical element is obviously the engine oil. When your car sits overnight, the oil cools down to the low ambient temperature and thickens. When you fire it up the next morning, the engine is trying to pump a pan that may be full of syrup rather than a nice viscous fluid. Multi-grade oils such as 5W-30 were designed with colder climates in mind-in fact, the W stands for "winter" not "weight" as is widely believed. The purpose of multigrade oil is to provide a single lubricant that will maintain the characteristics of a relatively light oil when cold and display the properties of a heavier oil when hot. This is perhaps an over-simplified explanation, but the general idea is that you can use an oil that will stay thin when chilled to the low ambient temperatures you have to deal with, while still providing ample protection for your engine once it's warmed up.
Today, you also have the increased advantage of using synthetic oils, which are chemically formulated to provide the specific properties the manufacturers desire, some of which can't always be obtained with crude-based oils. This can be seen in the availability of multigrade synthetic oils that feature wide-spreads of viscosity, such as 5W-50, a multigrade not available in standard crude-based motor oils.
Even when comparing crude-based oils with synthetic oils of the same viscosity rating, synthetics show more favorable and consistent characteristics when cold. This is illustrated when comparing "pour points" of oils. The pour point is a temperature 5 degrees F above the temperature at which an oil ceases to flow. Again, this is a simplified explanation, but the point is that synthetic oils consistently show significantly lower pour-point temps than corresponding-grade crude-based oils.
Beyond using the right oil, you may want to consider installing a block heater in the Olds. Although you can improve your lubricants, as you probably know, radical changes in temperature can bring changes in the dimensions of metal objects-in this case, your engine block, pistons, crankshaft, and so on. When the engine is extremely cold (ie., much colder than the temperature it was when it was machined and assembled), the critical tolerances between components can change, which can result in increased friction. Block heaters, which have been optional on most American cars for decades, use household electrical current to maintain higher-than-ambient coolant temps in the engine while you sleep. Most block heaters replace one of the freeze-plugs in the block and simply plug in to an electrical outlet. This way, your engine won't get too cold overnight, or while you're at work, and as an added bonus, your heater will start working a lot sooner after starting engine. Of course, this assumes that you have somewhere to plug in when you park.
Hand-Me-DownAfter my son talked me into helping with (OK, financing) a big-block '70 Cutlass restoration, I wound up with his old Camaro. This is an '80-something model with ground effects and a decent interior, but it has an anemic, wheezing, simpering little 2.8L V-6. This car needs help in the power department in the form of a V-8, so I am on a power-upgrade quest. The car has a five-speed (its only major good point) so I searched until the proper V-8-to-T5 bellhousing was found. In my quest to mate power and torque with a T5 transmission (reputed to be somewhat limited in its ability to handle either), I was told by several "experts" that I needed to use a smaller-diameter flywheel with a 10.5-inch clutch, a large-tooth flywheel from an Astro van with an 11-inch clutch, a special starter, a smaller pilot bushing, a pilot-shaft adapter, and so on. Now I have a 305 block and heads from a failed Trans Am project (enough motor to satisfy, but not large enough to grenade the T5), an Edelbrock dual-plane manifold, correct V-8-to-T5 bellhousing, and a T5-equipped Camaro, but I have no real idea how to mate them all together. Can you help an old man with some correct information on the 2.8 to 5.0 manual trans swap?Marsden WallisNashville, TN
We can appreciate your desire to upgrade the power output of that Camaro, but the bad news is that you're probably looking at a complete driveline swap. The main problem with your plan is that the T5 used with V-6 engines in Camaros is not the same as the one found in factory-equipped V-8 cars. The big difference is in the input shaft-the V-8 trans uses the same style of 26-spline shaft as older Chevy 'boxes, while the V-6 version uses a 14-spline "metric" design. You might be able to find a clutch disc that would allow you to mate the two, but don't bother. The limited power-handling capacity you alluded to is somewhat true even with the V-8 "World-Class" gearbox, and quite a bit worse with the V-6 version. Your best bet is to locate a V-8 T5, and to use the corresponding flywheel, clutch, and so on. Make sure your flywheel corresponds to the engine you're using-'87-and-later engines use the one-piece rear-main-seal-type crank flange, which requires a different flywheel than earlier two-piece rear-main engines. By the way, a healthy 305 is plenty capable of grenading a T5, so don't get too crazy with the power shifts.
Knockin' on GTO's FloorI recently purchased a '66 GTO from a musclecar dealer. I haven't worked on musclecars since my high school days in the mid-'70s. Back then I also owned a couple of '66 GTOs. The problem I'm now having is with the driveshaft apparently not having enough clearance from the floorboard. When I testdrove the car, there were no people riding in the back, so I didn't notice a problem. The front U-joint, where the shaft couples with the tranny, hits the floor during heavy deceleration or on any bumps in the road, but only with passengers in the back.
I seem to remember this even back in the '70s, but at that time I mostly used the GTO for straight speed with no passengers in the back seat. I have installed air shocks, which seemed to help a little, but only when they are nearly filled to capacity, and there is only one person in the back. Should I change all four springs? Someone even suggested that the body could be shimmed up, though I have never heard of this.Egils BurgisIndianapolis, IN
If the driveshaft is actually contacting the floor at the tail of the transmission, the most likely culprit is a bad transmission mount. The relationship between the body and the transmission really doesn't change, with the possible exception of some slight compression of the body mounts, regardless of suspension travel. So, even though the angle of the driveshaft does change with ride height, the front yoke shouldn't be getting closer to the floor when the suspension is compressed. If there was a situation where the body was actually too close to the transmission, assuming there was no frame or floorpan damage (as the result of a previous collision or rust), the problem would probably lie with deteriorating rubber body mounts.
Your situation sounds more like a transmission-mount failure, which can be tricky to spot, because at rest, even a completely broken mount will often appear normal. But, by loading the driveline in a certain way, as you do during deceleration, the transmission is probably lifting off the crossmember and contacting the floor. Raising the rear suspension with air shocks is masking the actual problem.
Place a floor jack under the transmission (make sure to cushion the jack pad so as not to damage the trans pan) and gently raise the jack. You'll probably see the transmission lift off its mount, or the mount will separate from the crossmember. You can replace the mount quickly and easily with a standard part from the auto parts store, or you can upgrade to the polyurethane unit offered by Energy Suspension, which is not only tougher, but also has an interlocking design to prevent the sort of situation you're experiencing, even if the flexible portion of the mount fails.
