1966 OLDS 442

Update your progress on your various car projects.

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GMJohnny
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by GMJohnny »

We definitely enjoyed the train layout! I tried to figure out how much $ he had in locomotives.
The Union Pacific "Big Boy" was there --- twice! I'm pretty sure his layout was worth more than
a grand! Ha!

GM
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GMJohnny
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by GMJohnny »

Progress on the 442 has slowed tremendously due to extremely cold weather and a bogus bout
with the flu. I did manage to get the spare tire mounted and balanced so it will be ready to slap
in the truck shortly. I'm still not wanting to spend the nearly $200 for a jack for the car, and might
just use a small scissors jack that I have until I decide I want to cough up the coin to get a period
correct jack. I'm not even sure that if I got a flat I'd want to put a bumper jack on my bumpers as
they are pretty nice and I don't want to screw them up. I'll figure something out. I'm also struggling
with the speedometer gears. Long story short, to get the correct gears in the Muncie to drive my
speedo correctly, I have to rip the trans out of the car. It's way more labor intensive than I'm thinking
that I want. I can get ratio adapters that will do the job. The ratio adapter places all want you to
do a 10 mile drive and read the odometer to see how many miles the odometer is off by and then
they will make one for your needs that is perfect. It's really hard to drive the 442 in January. I'm
thinking I might just wait until I can get it on the road to order the adapter. My calculations show
that I will need to slow the speedo by .8615 ( 3.36 / 3.90 ) but the speedo place doesn't seem to
think it's that easy. I have to study it more. The forecast this week is for weather around 30*, so I
might be able to get in the garage and fool around for a bit.

GM
AKROVER
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by AKROVER »

OK, I had to run some numbers to convince myself that I didn’t have this backward. Tell them you drove ten miles and only recorded 8.6.

With a 30” tire diameter (arbitrary round number, probably not your actual tire diameter), the car would cover roughly 7.85 feet per rotation. To cover 10 miles would require 6726 rotations of the tire. With a 3.90 gear, the drive shaft must rotate 26232 rotations. With a 3.36 gear, the driveshaft would only have rotated 22599 rotations. That means your odometer, which only records on the basis of driveshaft rotations, would only have recorded 8.62 miles. The gear change causes the odometer to read low.

At 60mph, that same 30” tire must rotate 40357 rotations in an hour or 672 rpm. With the 3.90 gear, the driveshaft will rotate 2632 rpm at 60 mph. With the 3.36, the driveshaft only rotates at 2258 rpm at 60 mph. The speedometer will believe that to be a mere 51.3 mph because it is looking at driveshaft rpm. The gear change causes the speedometer to read low, as well.

Certainly no factory speedometer nor odometer is particularly precise and the older ones were probably much worse than what we have in modern vehicles. You could improve your accuracy by doing the test because the test would correct not just for the gear change, but also the inaccuracy of the original configuration. I suspect that might be why they recommend a test. You are trying to make a 14% correction when the original might have been 5-10% off to begin with. If you were happy with the original, then simply correcting for the gear change will make you equally happy. Of course not correcting at all would improve resale by recording fewer miles but risk speeding tickets with a low speedometer reading.
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Maverick
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by Maverick »

Wouldn't it be a more direct approach to compare your speedometer speed with a GPS speed then divide one by the other to see what correction is required?
Maverick
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GMJohnny
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by GMJohnny »

Maverick -- The GPS seems like a logical choice, but here's why they want you to do the drive test, copied from their site:

GPS will tell you how fast you are going compared to what your speedometer is indicating, but will not tell you if your odometer or cable delivery is correct.

I'm not so worried about 100% accuracy, but they take it pretty seriously.

AK --- Nice write up. I'll see if I can get a call in to them on Wednesday. What would your guess be as to the ratio that
they will use then? They will have to speed up the speedometer, so is it going to be like 1.14ish?

GM
AKROVER
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by AKROVER »

More like 1.16.

1/0.8615=1.16
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GMJohnny
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by GMJohnny »

I'm telling myself that slow progress is still progress. Since my last post, I've replaced the left rear
tail light socket. The power was back to the socket, but when the directional was flashing, the running
light went out. The socket was unable to create the proper ground and the new socket solved the
problem for less than $10. That was a 20 minute fix. I ordered a "period correct" gear ratio adapter
from a guy on ebay. AK recommended a 1.16 ratio adapter, I found the used one for $65 delivered to
my house. It's ratio is 1.1555 -- close enough, and saved me about $40. Today, I got in the barn and
started working on my reverse lights. They weren't connected and the switch isn't on the trans. Fred &
Mom hooked me up with the switch and bracket to mount it for a Christmas present. I wasn't going to
get the switch in today, but I made sure that I found the wiring under the dash, which still has the
factory clip on the end, so I just have to make the connection to the trans. I might not have all of the
wiring required to do the job in the kit I got, but I'll check on that this week. I did put power to the
wires for the back up lights and nothing worked. After checking all of the wire connections, I pulled
the bulbs out of the sockets. The sockets had some dust in them and were a bit gritty, so I cleaned
both of them with WD-40 and now they work! I also got a can of Oldsmobile bronze paint in the mail
today so I can paint the new harmonic balancer that I'm going to put on. Both pieces are in the house
now warming up and I'm waiting for the first day over 45* to paint that. I also got the spare tire balanced
and it holds air perfectly. Bit by bit it's coming together.

GM
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TheRookie
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by TheRookie »

You’ve inspired me. Another A-body will be joining the TS forum on Sunday ;)
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GMJohnny
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by GMJohnny »

TheRookie wrote:You’ve inspired me. Another A-body will be joining the TS forum on Sunday ;)
I'm glad I could help!!

GM
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GMJohnny
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by GMJohnny »

Largely due to weather around Northeast Ohio, I've been pretty slow on moving ahead with 442
projects. Spring is coming, hopefully soon. I have a pile of parts sitting on the bench waiting to
be put on the car, but I'm waiting for warmth as rolling under a cold car doesn't sound that enticing
to me right now. I did get a 1966 Ohio plate put on the car and went to the BMV to get that legalized
last week. In my idle time, I've been looking through Ebay and various Olds forums and am starting to
feel a twinge to change my wheel and tire combo. I'm not certain that this will even happen this
year, but I'm appreciating the looks of some of the Olds' that are not all stock. I've done some tire
size investigation as well, hoping that, if I make a move, things will all come together for a bit of
a different look. Here's a pic of a guy on Ebay right now and I like the tire / rim size on his car:
possiblewheels-442.jpg
I emailed him and he is running 255/45/17's on his 67. I'm not sure I'm 100% sold on the torque-thrust
wheels, but like them and they'd be in the running of a possible wheel choice for my car, but I think
I like a two tone of the same style with darker spokes. I also really like the SSi wheel that is offered
that looks like a factory rim, but I'd definitely size up from a 14" rim if I bought a new set of tires and
wheels. If I stumble across a set of nice used 14" factory chromes, I might jump also... So much stuff
to contemplate, so little time!!

GM
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GMJohnny
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by GMJohnny »

Still not much to do with crummy winter weather outside. I went out in the barn for a short time. The last
warm weather spell, I heated up the barn and painted my new harmonic balancer. Today I ran a tap in the
bolt holes to clean out the paint that was in them. Big project! I also ordered a set of black gauges that look
like this:
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/atm- ... gLTCfD_BwE

I got a sweet deal on them All over the net, these gauges are about $55 - $65. I got mine, from Advance Auto
parts for $40 and some change, delivered. I searched out Advance discount codes and found one that
gave me 25% off. I had found a few that were 30% off, but they didn't work. Anyhow, the gauges will
be here this week. Perhaps I will have them installed before April. C'mon spring, the parts are piling up!

GM
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GMJohnny
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by GMJohnny »

This weekend we have guests in town, but I had a few hours to kill yesterday so I went out to the barn
and pulled back the cover on the 442. I started rolling around underneath it, trying to figure out where I
was when I left off. I discovered ( and I had an idea this was going on last year ) that my water pump is
starting to weep out of the hole in the bottom. It left no fluid on the ground, but it's leaving a bit of
fluid on the front case, so I'm going to replace it. I have a bunch of projects that require draining the
radiator fluid out, so now's my chance. I ordered the water pump last night and, hopefully it will make
it to me before I go to Carlisle so I can paint if and let it dry for a few days. We'll see if it happens that
way. Anyway, while the coolant is drained, I have to do the following:
1) Change the harmonic balancer
2) install water pump
3) trim the lower radiator mount on driver's side ( petcock is tough to open ) about 3/4" to remove
4) change gauges in dash
5) put brass plugs in radiator where coolant lines should go ( stupid plastic ones in there now )
6) remove spacer between fan and water pump ( it's about 3" long and not required )

All of this needs done on top of the speedo adapter install and reverse light switch that needs put in and
wired... Looks like it might be a few weeks before I hit the streets.....

GM
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GMJohnny
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by GMJohnny »

Success! I finally installed the reverse light switch. The kit we got had no instructions on how to
assemble or install the switch. Fortunately, there's this thing called the internet and guys are proud
of their work and photo it, post it, and label it "Muncie Reverse Light Switch". Very helpful! It took
about two hours to mount the switch to the trans and wire it up. The kit we ordered was for an
Oldsmobile, but came as a Chevy kit. The plug in under the dash had to be modified, but it's done
neatly and won't ever fail, so I'm satisfied. Here's a pic of the car in reverse on jackstands, for the
first time with reverse lights on!
reverselights.jpg
GM
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TheRookie
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by TheRookie »

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GMJohnny
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Re: 1966 OLDS 442

Post by GMJohnny »

That was interesting. They kept talking about gas mileage and I kept thinking to myself
"Who worried about gas mileage in those days", but I'm sure people did.

GM
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