1981 Pontiac Bonneville Safari diesel

Pics please!

https://bend.craigslist.org/cto/6012620455.html

1981 Pontiac Station Wagon 5.7 Diesel - $2000 (Kimberly,Oregon) hide this posting unhide




1981 Pontiac Bonneville Safari

VIN: 1G2AN35N3BX117257
condition: good
cylinders: 8 cylinders
drive: rwd
fuel: diesel
odometer: 150100
paint color: white
size: full-size
title status: clean
transmission: automatic
type: wagon



Estate Find ! Up for your consideration, A very nice Brady Wagon ! I purchased it from the estate of the original owner. Should become very collectible....there are very few in this nice of condition.
Has the despised 350 Olds diesel engine, but properly REPAIRED, will make this one even more collectible. They regularly will get between 22-25 mpg,conservatively.
The GOOD....
Starts and runs/drives.
Basically all complete and original.
Interior....7 out of 10
Tires ...... full tread Michelin's.
Racor water separator.
Windows and doors work well
Drives like a Dream.

The BAD.....
> bad head gasket/s<
> Leaking heater core and radiator. <
Interior needs detailing,but not bad for a 34 year old car.

 

Another unfortunate seller attempting to sell the dream, rather than the reality. Sort of explains why there's no pics..........

"Drives like a dream"........."Bad head gasket"

Yeah, OK.

 

Would it even be worth $2k if it was running properly and the heater core wasn't leaking?

 

no

 

Parts car.

 

Pictures are up. It's not a bad looking car, dirty but not rusty or rotten and looks to have been parked a long time judging by the old plates. Highly optioned car with delay wipers, gauges, power antenna, door lights, power windows\locks. If it has a good water separator (PICTURES) then that's a plus as well.

If you're willing to repair the diesel and run it, it's worth about $2000. As it sits now, it's worth about $500-750 or so, mostly because of the high options.

 

Pics now. Looks solid and very well optioned. In fact, looks like most all factory options for 1981, including cornering lamps and power antenna.

 

I heard it said that the head bolts are the problem on these, replace them and it's grand... Outside the low power the engine has.

 

Super detailing inside and out and drop in a new 350 or better gasoline engine, and you are set.

 

Or a 6.2 Diesel, they're an improvement. Not by much maybe but still.

 

Exactly the problem that killed my father's '79 Toronado after only 22,000 miles. Unfortunately, the head gasket blew when he was on a trip with the car about 1000 miles from home. Had to leave the car with an Olds dealer and take a rental to do the rest of the trip. Picked up the repaired car on the way home. Ultimately collected money from GM as part of a class action suit settlement.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a6599/top-automotive-engineering-failures-oldsmobile-diesels/

I do like his choice of words:

"the unrelenting awfulness of the Oldsmobile diesels"

 

The engine had too high of a compression ratio when it was new, something like 22:1. Add in standard head bolts and gas engine pattern and you have a recipe for problems. Boring the engine 0.030" over and slightly thicker head gaskets can bring it down to a more manageable 18.5:1 or so, then use ARP studs designs for diesel engines and the head gasket problem is sorted out. These cars all had no water separator on them from the factory as the brilliant idea was to just make the gas tank 2 gallons deeper and put the pickup tube at the standard gas tank height. Then have the customer come in for their oil changes to the dealer who would also follow a special procedure using a special petcock to drain the water out of the tank. Not a great idea in theory and it makes me wonder what in the world management was thinking approving it for prime time. In reality it was even more of a nightmare because fuel in the 70's and 80's was so terrible that customers weren't making it 3000 miles between oil changes before filling up the bottom 2 gallons of the tank with water, which would then get sucked into the engine and damage the injection pump on a good day or hydrolock the engine on a bad day (and snap the crankshaft in half). GM lost their lunch on that one. Of course today it's really not much of an issue, you still hear stories about people getting bad gas from some random truck stop but gone are the days of getting a gallon of water with your 15 gallon fill-up.

Exactly. If I was going to the trouble to keep it a diesel, I'd convert it to a 6.2. Standard Chevy motor mounts and exhaust manifolds from the truck, fabricate exhaust up, put good Racor water separator and done! 180HP and 300ft-lbs of torque, it would move like a 400\403 powered car from the same era, which wasn't bad at all.

 

Now down to $1000.

https://bend.craigslist.org/cto/d/pontiac-station-wagon-diesel/6244555920.html

 

Doubt it will sell at 1000$..
One line in advert says " Has the despised 350 Olds diesel engine, but properly REPAIRED, ".
Then in the 'bad' it says " bad head gasket/s "..

So it obviously has NOT been properly "repaired"....

IMO lister would be lucky to get 500$ for it.. But thats just my opinion.....

 

no wood no deal