My 3rd Car, a FREE 1990 Olds Cutlass Supreme

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

24 hours before I have to be at the airport to leave the country, I finally got the old thing purring, which it hasn’t done since I was in the first grade back in 2003-04. Ended up replacing one injector, and all of them were the original RP Division injectors so we’ll see how they do. When one goes out, I’ll just replace the rest of them. I didn’t want to leave it taken apart so I pit crewed this thing to the finish line.

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[CorvairGeek]

Awesome! Sounds good too.

 

[White85]

Nice work!

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

I’ve got a nasty squeal that comes and goes in the accessory drive. I’m thinking it’s the idler pulley, but I’ll pull the belt and verify. The tensioner also bounces/vibrates a good bit. This doesn’t seem normal, and I don’t recall seeing it in other vehicles, but I don’t deal very much with serpentine so I don’t have many examples to go off of. All the accessory pulleys spin true, though. Thoughts? @bucket @CorvairGeek

 

[bucket]

Usually it's caused by a weak tensioner, but can be amplified by other minor issues like a worn belt or a rough bearing elsewhere in the accessory drive system.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

Usually it's caused by a weak tensioner, but can be amplified by other minor issues like a worn belt or a rough bearing elsewhere in the accessory drive system.

I’m also worried about the fans. I performed the bleed on the cooling system and ran it for a good, long time. I don’t think the thermostat is sticking open because it’s heating up properly, but the fans never came on. No overheat light came on either. The underhood relay/fuse diagram is smeared, but all the fuses there checked good. Is there a bypass test on these fans where I can jump them off and make sure they work?

 

[bucket]

If you jump the A/B terminals to do a diagnostic test (count flashes) it should activate the cooling fans. If not, there's a problem with them.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

Oh, cool trick. Thanks.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

If you jump the A/B terminals to do a diagnostic test (count flashes) it should activate the cooling fans. If not, there's a problem with them.

Okay, so one came on full speed, but it had a squeak and wobble to it, like a dry bearing sound. One tried to come on, but it moved very slowly. That one has a lot of resistance when you turn it with your hand where the one that came on fast spins very freely. Is there a way to service the bearings on them to see if that helps? I’m obviously a bit new to this electric fan game.

 

[CorvairGeek]

Besides what Bucket said, the tensioner leaned away from the engine when ours was failing on the '96 3100. The CS130 alternator will always be in some stage of bearing failure / squeak too.
The electric fan motors are throw away, junk. I've learned when they have any sort of click or noise, when spun either direction, they are on borrowed time.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

I replaced the tensioner and got rid of 75% of the movement. It doesn’t twang so badly when you rev it up now either. The noise completely went away after running it some.

I did a cooling system flush using the Prestone flush and clean stuff and got more gunk out. The cooling system looks okay. I’m sure the heater core is probably scary, but it puts out nice, toasty heat. The scariest thing I’ve found so far happened today. I wanted to see if the thermostat was rusted open so I could replace it only to find there was no thermostat. That makes me worry that this thing has a pretty good overheat problem, and that might be the reason it was parked. Not to mention that after running it for a really long time, the cooling fans would kick on and off a little bit. It was running right there around 195* at the cylinder head. Speaking of the fans, one moved a lot of air, and one didn’t move. I hit the dead one with a screwdriver, and it’s not as good as the other one, but it’s okay. At least the electrical/temp sensing portion is working.

I also replaced the tires.

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[Hatchet54]

Any free car is awesome, even if it doesn't have a thermostat.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

So I’d like to update the thread. I popped in a new thermostat. Nothing spectacular happened except it actually got to operating temp. It did one other time, at least enough to kick a fan on, but it took about forty-five minutes. One cooling fan came on full blast, but I was wondering if they’re both supposed to come on full blast, or one comes on later. The one that’s not doing so hot’s gonna get a new motor either way.

I wanted to start addressing my three electrical issues: lack of horns, lack of turn signals, and lack of instrumentation.

I replaced my presumed dead horns with two I snagged from a ‘93 at PAP in Jackson. Only the high tone one worked so I still need a low one. There’s a ‘97 at the PAP here in New Orleans, and I’m tempted to try this again. Not to mention I’m sure every GM car like this one and other types use the same thing. Or I can order a replacement horn from fleaBay for $30. I think they’re $5 at the junkyard. I don’t want to operate on the harness, however minuscule any cutting and pasting would be, so I’m steering clear of the universal horn.

I replaced my flasher relay. It’s exactly where I was told it was: very accessible, right under the driver side of the dash held in by a little clip. I’ve got turn signals now.

Finally, I pulled the cluster with a lot less grief than I imagined. It’d be cool to have the Denso full cluster or even a later cluster with the actual gauges, but I need my mileage off this one, and then it just makes sense to fix it. It looks like the only person in the world who can fix the dead cluster and reprogram the odometer with a million mile chip is Mr. Whizard. Their website says closed until February 2019, but they’re still closed so I’m growing impatient here. From what I’ve been able to deduce, the odometer in the factory configuration reads “ERROR” when you hit 200K miles.

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[1987 GMC Jimmy]

Low tone horn replaced with an AC Delco replacement and NOT a universal. I didn’t want to cut the harness just for that. I also didn’t fool with any of the bracketry they sent with the new horn; I just drilled the rivets out of the old horn bracket and fastened it on the new one. It works well now. It’s an Indian made Klaxon horn, but at least it doesn’t sound dumb now.

I put a new radiator cap on because the old, probably original, plastic one did not instill confidence in me.

I replaced my dead fan motor with a new one. This piece was made in Canada so I felt much better about it. It was an easy job after I figured out to undo the engine strut to pull the whole spider looking fan housing out of there. Works like a charm.

I also bought new spark plugs that I’m going to try to get done tonight/earlier tomorrow. My instrument cluster is supposed to come in so once I get that all buttoned up, it’ll be time to take it for it’s first drive down the highway in 15+ years. I found out that the car has 186,000-ish thousand miles from when they powered up the cluster on the bench. I knew it was nearing 200K, but it’s nice to exactly.

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[1987 GMC Jimmy]

Replaced five of the six plugs. The sixth one’s porcelain broke going in. I was impatient and was using my brotheres truck and a rope to tilt the motor forward so I got the only plug that wasn’t varnish covered (dying injector from before), cleaned it, regapped it, and reused it. It ran better.

I also got the cluster back, the piece of **** wasn’t fixed right, and so I have to send it back. They said it worked on the bench and gave me the mileage on it, but it just does a bunch of gibberish that’s different each time when the key’s turned on. I wish I knew what was involved in repinning for the ‘92-‘93 cluster that’s not digital. Of course, I’d be needing a gaggle of new senders, too. Hopefully I can figure this one out. It’s under warranty, parts and labor, for a year so we’ll see.

While I wanted to wait for the cluster to be in for the maiden voyage, I threw caution to the wind and said screw it. I drove it about seven or eight miles down the highway and some stop and go stuff. Surprisingly not bad. It idles too low and stalled at stop signs once it got warmed up, and the brakes are shot (felt like warped rotors, sounded crappy, and I saw that they were badly pitted when I had the wheels off) so I’ll be doing new pads, rotors, and fluid. For the stalling, I’ll check the IACV out, possibly the EGR pintle, and maybe some vacuum stuff. It’d have to be a big one to make it die like that so maybe the brake booster check valve. There’s one vacuum connection that’s broken going into the firewall, and I have no idea what it’s for, but there’s nothing sucking on it. I replaced the PCV valve. I think those are all the major ones.