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***? Buick cars with Olds engines and vice versa

3K views 17 replies 13 participants last post by  Mustangsaly 
#1 · (Edited)
Okay, it's been a while since i've been on here, cars actually been running fine haha, but tonight one of my friends told me some stuff and I just had to raise my bull**** flag. He tried to tell me that Buick cars come with oldsmobile engines and Oldsmobile cars come with Buick engines. Don't laugh, I argued with him for 30 minutes that either his car has been altered or they let an LD (retard, sorry if it offends anyone) put it together in the factory. Alright so whats the scoup, anyone know any about this? Most of the cars he's talking about are 73-77 Buick Electras and whatever Oldsmobile counterparts. I just don't buy it, he claims that he knows some older factory workers that back him up but its just sounds wrong. I know from my Mustang and my GMC van my dad had a while back that different parts will have different casting numbers sometimes dependant on if it was initially in a Merc or Ford and respectively in a GMC or Bowtie, olds/buick etc. Drop what you think, my opinion is he's been misinformed somewhere..
 
#2 ·
You're friend is 100% correct unless of course they had a Chevy or Pontiac motor. Beginning about '77 GM did all sorts of crossbreeding, there was a little prior to that but in '77 it began in earnest. My stepson had a '78 Buick LeSabre with a factory 307 Olds, countless Trans Ams came with Olds 403's, you name it with Chevy 305s and Pontiac 301's and still other's with Buick 350's and 3.8 V-6's. People actually tried to sue GM when they found out their Buick or Olds had a Chevy motor, they felt they were being "cheated", yeah right. Pick up a copy of a 1980 or so Chilton's manual and scroll through the engine specs on various GM's, you'll be amazed at what came in what. Even as different as some of GM's engines were they were still pretty much bolt-ins, a real testament to the ease of interchange on GM's.
 
#4 ·
That just sounds ****ing retarded to me. I mean I believe you, but I just can't understand why GM would do that and have differing part numbers and brands on a single car when they could just use a central part code system or atleast recode the parts concurrent with what car they're putting it in. Infact I don't know why, other than for rarity reasons like a shelby or yenko or whatever, that a manufacturer would put two different casting numbers on identical parts just because they happen to go on a different brand car which is identical to another. To me, changing the coding of a part dependant on what brand it goes to even when they're virtually the same car, just makes for more confusion for someone working/assembling a car. I could see where say on a Falcon it would get a different brandline coding for say a set of spindles or something that might be model specific, but like a motor, where a 302w in a cougar is the exact same as a 302w in a mustang, or a 350 in a camaro being the same as a 350 in a firebird, why the wouldnt just put the same numbers on it for simplicity. I could see where trying to combat swap issues on say a boss 429 or a yenko camaro or something like that, but then to go and put a olds numbered part on a buick and vice versa is just retarded in my eyes. Just personal opinion, take it with a grain of salt, I just couldnt believe him when he was telling me this without any proof other than "thats what a guy at autozone told me" or whatever it was.
 
#7 ·
I never heard about the strike/fire, but that makes some sense for short term problems. Of course GM in Canada has always used a lot of "cross breeding" -- had to do with 50s-70s Canadian laws about percentage of vehicle built in Canada (and some other countries, like South Africa).

The primary reason for the corporate engines starting in the late 70s is pure economics. Why have several companies under the same flag building competing engines? Basically engines were spread out amongst the brands (except for Chevy) -- Pontiac got the four cylinder, Buick V-6, Olds kept building the big block 403 (and eventually the ill fated diesel conversion). Caddy kept their own engines as well, but used some Chevy models for a while. Makes better financial sense to do it this way, though I think I'd have spun the engine/trans building off into a separate branch all by itself, then "service" the different body branches from there. That would save even more in the long run, and need not make everything to generic. Different sizes and types could still be made by changing SOME but not ALL parts -- say special OHC or Hemi heads for Caddy's exclusive use, but the same block assembly, maybe even at a reserved displacement (different piston/bore, same crank and rods as others). Lots of things could be done that would be cheaper than 5-6 separate engineering divisions!

As far as interchangeability, you're wrong that "they were still pretty much bolt-ins" Hippie! The factory had to do what every hot rodder does when fitting a different engine in a different body/chassis -- test fit and fab brackets! Only they got to cast or have made really neat looking ones for theirs!!
 
#8 ·
farna said:
As far as interchangeability, you're wrong that "they were still pretty much bolt-ins" Hippie! The factory had to do what every hot rodder does when fitting a different engine in a different body/chassis -- test fit and fab brackets! Only they got to cast or have made really neat looking ones for theirs!!
For one thing the chassis AREN'T different, GM A-Bodies all use the same basic chassis, GM B-Bodies all used the same basic chassis, F-Bodies and so on right down the line. If you can get every piece you need from the dealer's shelves or local salvage yard to put a Pontiac motor in a Chevy, a Buick in an Olds or whatever you want to swap around then I consider that "pretty much" a bolt-in......... Been there and done it more than once.
 
#9 ·
Yeah, I see your point! Just need to know/research what factory pieces to mix and match now. I was really referring to what the engineers had to do to get it that way, not how easy it is to do now. Sorry for not making that clear!
 
#10 ·
farna said:
Makes better financial sense to do it this way, though I think I'd have spun the engine/trans building off into a separate branch all by itself, then "service" the different body branches from there. That would save even more in the long run, and need not make everything to generic. Different sizes and types could still be made by changing SOME but not ALL parts -- say special OHC or Hemi heads for Caddy's exclusive use, but the same block assembly, maybe even at a reserved displacement (different piston/bore, same crank and rods as others). Lots of things could be done that would be cheaper than 5-6 separate engineering divisions!
Farna has a good idea. Yes, that is why the Powertrain division was formed in the early '80's. The divisions of GM at one time had their own engineering departments (even into the 80's), their own assembly plants and even parts distribution systems. Each division had their own sales and service organization until 1999. Remember GM was formed by a number of car companies over time and they kept their own identities.
 
#11 ·
Ah I see. I never knew that they had different manufacturing sites and distribution for the different brandlines before then. It would make sense to have a central drivetrain division and utilize the factories with each one producing one type of engine, kinda like ford did with theirs. I guess I assumed they had some kind of central division for all that stuff and thats why it threw me off so much. Thanks guys.
 
#12 ·
I think in the not so distant future you will see GM become much more centralized if they are to survive. Some of the old familiar names will be going the way of Oldsmobile. My guess is Buick will be the next to fade into history possibly followed by Pontiac........ " The times they are a changin' " :(
 
#13 ·
Brand survival

Economics and outside competition sure have changed the car business.

It costs about 500 million bucks to engineer and tool up a new engine line that will produce between 250,000 and 500,000 engines a year. That is why even giant GM started sharing engines across divisions in the late 70s. Ford started about 1960. The "divisions" at Ford have been only sales entities since then. The same engineers do everything, the only line is between car and truck, and that only exists at the vehicle system level.

A friend who is a sales executive tells me that its just not economical to maintain a dealership network and advertising presence with less than 3% marketshare, unless you have huge price premiums (think Mercedes, Porsche). That means that every Asian brand except for Honda, Toyota, Nissan (the other big three) is in trouble. He should know, he works for one of the ones in trouble.

Part of the Ford "Premier Auto Group" strategy is to share some of the backroom administrative costs between Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo. (Keep different cars and dealers but let the same clerks process paperwork).

Between Pontiac and Buick either one will die, or they will start specializing and further combine dealer bases (e.g. Pontiac will only do small, mid-size, and performance -- Buick will do the higher end) But GM has more money than anyone but Toyota, so it make take some time to force them to that.

The only thing that keeps Ford from killing Mercury is the Lincoln-Mercury dealer body, that would lose product; many cannot dual with Ford because of another Ford dealer down the street. (Ford execs deny that, but have you ever heard a convincing reason?).

Its a painful time in the auto business. If I wasn't close to retirement my resume would be up to date.
 
#15 ·
GM-H ahoy!

Pretty soon you lucky fellers will be finding the Holden V6 under Pontiac and other GM bonnets,and you thought that the Monaro we make over here that becomes a Pontiac GTO over there was bad enough!
The alloy engine is made here in Oz and produced for the world market in three variants with output up to 197 KW. We have been using the Buick V6 in our basic Commodores from 1989 and added the Pontiac Park Lane standard and blown V6es in 1993 with redesigned heads it was called the "ecotec". All commodores are rear wheel drive BTW so a different front housing and sump were made here from alloy to suit. Since 1967 we have used the Chev engine in our Holdens, first the 283 in CKD Impalas and Pontiac Parisiennnes then 307 and 327 in monaros and Broughams then the Gen 1 350 in the Statesman and now the new six bolt mains 350 in high performance Commodores and Monaros.
But if that weren't enough Holden had a deal with Nissan in 1985 - 88 and they stuck NISSAN R31 six cylinder engines into our cars and put "Holden" alloy rocker covers on them if that aint sacrelidge nothin' is !! (Trouble was they were an excellent engine and blew away the old Holden six) D'oh.

:D cheers from Oz

Rob
 
#16 ·
I'm pretty sure that in the early-60's as the first "Econo-boxes" (X-body, which I think are great-cars) were coming into production, Buick and Olds shared the same "All aluminum" 215 V8. You could still order a 331 Old's small-block too, but there was apparently no Six-Banger for this car for 2 or 3 years, so this was the "Base" engine. Pretty much the same as the Rover-V8 too. I have a 62' 4-door F-85, and its got the 215, and the distributor is at the front of the motor, like a Buick. These engines were also used in Buicks too, the only difference is the heads on the engines, but they interchange, so they use the same block and rotating assembly, a very popular swap into MG's here and in England (With the 215's cousin, the Rover V8, which was the same Engine, just cast-off when the 215 crapped out in 64' or 65', when the X-Body was up-dated, and the F-85 became a full-size car again, and this motor was replaced with Six-Bangers. It was probably needed over there, where the Bigger cars needed more muscle, but at a lower price and more economey than some high-end sports car engines...)

But they did cross-breed in the late-70's too, like everyone said. They also did the same thing with Six-Bangers in the 60's, where the Pontiac and Chevy Sixes were the same-block, with different heads. Also in the early-70's I think some B.O.P.'s got Chevy Sixes instead of their own ones, probably just from production problems or something like that.


-GF
 
#17 ·
every car i have owned has had a chevy engine in it from factory and i have had a 82 grandprix(267), 80 monte carlo (305), 79 paressianne(350), 86 Cutlass(305), and 88 firebird(2.8L).

i know G-bodys as in pontiac grand prix, chevy monte carlo, olds cutlass, buick regal etc are all baiscly the same car, only thing differnt seems to be the cars outer body and the 2 rear side windows from what i have found scavanging the junk yards for parts.
 
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