Howdy all, I was wondering, what year Cadillacs, Buick, Pontiac, and Oldsmobiles would have Chevy 305, or 350 motors, and TH3 50 transmissions or 700r4 that are not BOP? Or did BOP last until they stop using small blocks? Thanks Drew
Buick Olds Pontiac was used as long as they made rear wheel drive cars with Olds engines...late 80s? the 700 was never made with the BOP bolt pattern, but adapters are available to use a Chevy transmission on a BOP engine. If you want to know about Chevy bolt pattern transmissions, they are still using them, sort of. The TH350 lasted into the mid 80s, the 700R4 (non computer controlled) till around 1992.
Just FWIW, the dowel pins and lower bolt holes are in common. Please do NOT think it is OK to just use the two mounting holes to mate engine/trans. Yes, I've seen it done. Doesn't mean it won't end in tragedy.
Thanks all. the reason I ask is cause I am looking for a crashed or rust condemned v8 auto car or truck with a 327 or 350 to use for the motor and Trans and want to know if I can consider all gm after a certain year
My Grandparents bought a new '77 Old Delta 88 that came with a 350 Chevy. GM later had to pay those who did not get an Olds engine. I filed the paperwork for them, and if I remember correctly, GM sent them a check for $250.
Guess I was off on the amount, they must haven gotten $550. http://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/28/us/jury-orders-gm-to-pay-10000-in-switch-of-engines.html
Wow! That's an exception the the rule, or at some point did they switch to a standard 305/327/350 and th350/700r4 with Chevy bolt partern at some point
I mean, was that a fluke thing, or did a normal Chevy bolt pattern set up become the norm in olds, pontiac, Cadillacs, and buicks... Meaning, are there cutlases and lesabres and grand prixes out there I should be considering for donor cars for a 350/350 Or 700r4
Nobody does. I think that he thinks a GM 350 (chevy) used a BOP bell housing pattern, if it were installed in a Buick.
I had a 77 Buick Regal with a 350 olds motor, a buddy bought a 77 regal with a Chevy 350, they called them "corporate motors"
All Chevrolet based engines V8 have the one and only bellhousing bolt pattern, from the 262 through the big block 502's. Buick, Olds, Pontiac and Cadillac from around '64 up shared a common bolt pattern, different from Chevrolet. Each can be seen in Squirrel's post #3, above. Some transmission cases were made with one pattern or the other and there are some cases that have both patterns, commonly called 'dual pattern'. As Squirrel stated above, 700R4/4L60 were only made in the Chevrolet pattern. Most Turbohydramatic (TH)350 and 400 were made in either Chevy or BOP, although there are some later versions of TH350 with dual pattern cases. To my knowledge, all TH2004R cases are dual pattern. When Chevrolet based engines were used in other GM brands, the engines had the Chevy bolt pattern and either a Chevy pattern, or dual pattern transmission case. when BOP engines were used, that had BOP or dual pattern cases. As long as you're looking at rear drive vehicles (cars) '96 is about the end of the line and those will be Chevy engines in Buick, Olds and Cadillac vehicles. Hope this helps answer your questions. Ray
I want to say around 1981 for buick. After that they went to the gm corporate motor(350) chevy. Pontiac also. Olds held on to 1990. Olds also made the 5.7 diesel put in gm cars in that period. I'm not sure about cadillac. So a 5.7 diesel car would have the bop trans and til 1990 olds trans. The pontiac firebird in around 1977-78 had olds 403 engines in them instead of the pontiac 400(W72). Also almost all canadian sold pontiacs had chevy engines. So gm was really weird about putting differnt engine/trans combos when they had a supply issue. Im just going by memory. Also there was a universal th350 that would fit chevy (bop). It has two sets of bolt at the 10 and 2 posistion.
The Olds engine would retain the BOP and the Chevy would retain its Chevy engine to trans bolt pattern. Each division of GM designed and manufactured their own engines. By coincidence, the cubic inch displacement may have been 350. Buick started phasing out their 350 in 77. Then Pontiac dropped their version called a 350. Olds continued to build a gas engine that added up to 350 into the 1980's (I think). The GM 5.7 Diesel engine was based on the olds 350 gasoline engine. This is a very misunderstood subject for those not around in the '70's.
You can figure that as long as Buick, Olds and Pontiac made V8 engines they had the same old bolt pattern. These engines were phased out in the late 70s - early eighties. I don't know how long Chev used the same pattern, maybe they still do? Cadillac kept making V8s the longest but at some point they phased out the old pushrod jobs in favor of the new Northstar design, which has a different bellhousing. But some Cadillac, Buick, Olds and Pontiac models used Chev V8s. So you don' t know what you have until you open the hood. Just for extra added confusion in the seventies, they made Buick Apollo, Pontiac Ventura, and Olds Omega which were basically Chev Novas in BOP trim, with Chev sixes attached to BOP transmissions. They had an adapter plate between engine and trans, which can be used to swap a BOP trans on a Chev engine, and vice versa. You used to be able to buy them over the counter at BOP dealerships but we just got them from junk yards.
Rusty, This last part is a new one on me. I have never seen or heard of such an 'adapter'. If you are correct that such a thing exists, it must have been Canadian only. Any BOP Nova based cars that used the inline Chevy 6 in the US used a Chevy trans case. Ray
The use of "corporate" engines was inclusive of all the "brands". For instance, I bought a Buick Regal station wagon that had a Pontiac 301 engine in it. Usually, it was only the small CID engines such as the 267/305 Chevrolet, the 267/301 Pontiac, and the 260/307 Olds, but larger/smaller engines got in the mix also (the 267 Olds was different than the 267 Pontiac, and both different than the 267 Chev). Who knows why they did that, and most of John Q. Public did't know a thing about it either (the reason for the lawsuits-"I bought an Olds with a Chevrolet engine"???). Towing yard auctions and Craigslist will get you a donor car, just be sure it has a Chevrolet engine. You could use another brand engine, but there will be no commercially available swap kit. Something from the 80's Malibu line for instance. But, you'll have to removed the coil spring rear end brackets and weld on leaf spring perches. And before you ask, the frame of those cars is too wide, and too short, just to swap bodies. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.
I think this was GM's first attempt at downsizing to save money. By getting rid of each brands engine and going with a corporate design, I.E. the small Chevy, they probably saved millions of dollars by not having to cast 4-5 different blocks and matching heads as well as all the other parts that make an engine. It was simple to use just one engine/ trans combo, and the Chevy got picked, probably because it was the cheapest to produce. And since all the brands shared a common frame design, there were no new parts involved to put the Chevy into a BOP. You have to remember the late 70's through the mid 80's weren't exactly the best times to be in the auto business, Detroit's problems of poor fuel economy, increasing safety and emissions regulations, perceived poor quality, and union labor problems all contributed to GM looking for ways to save money for the shareholders. Streamlining the assembly line with common components kept them afloat. Later on they killed off Pontiac and Olds to save money again, but that's a different story... Ford did a similar cost cutting move when it got a new Chief. From what I remember reading, when he took over, Nasser I think was his name, he called a board meeting. When they all came in, he had 20 something different hood props laying on the table. Every model Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Jaguar had it's own hood prop rod. Just by doing a little redesign, they came up with one design that fit everything, saving Ford about a billion dollars. I remember 1979 Trans Am's having the Olds 403 when Pontiac quit making it's own 400. My Grandma had a 78 Olds Omega with a Chevy 350, and a 79 or 80 Buick LeSabre with the Chevy also. So I think anything from 78 to 80 could have a brand specific engine or a Chevy, everything after 81 was probably Chevy engine no matter the brand, with the possible exception of Cadillac.
John Delorean wrote about this in On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors. The top brass figured they could save money by using the same parts in all different cars. Starting with body shells and working into engine, transmission and chassis parts. In the early seventies they asked him "how come it only costs $40 less to build a Chev Impala than an Olds 88" and he replied " because you made us both us the same parts". At some point the edict came down that all V8s had to be standardized at 350, 400 and 455 cu in for all cars except Cadillac. This was accomplished by the late 60s. After that it was a simple matter to substitute one for the other without the suckers I mean customers knowing about it. At least not right away. By the time they got into front drive cars in the 80s it didn't matter anymore, there were no more Chev, Olds, Pontiac or Buick motors, anything could go into anything.
This is interesting. So what time, roughly, could one grab a Chevy Trans and put it in a Buick without an adapter?
Late 70's to 1981. But there no guarantees. Here's a pic of a TH350 dual blot pattern, this will fit BOP or chevy engines. The bolt pattern on the case will determine what engine it fits.
All great to know. On a side note I love an old proprietary motor in a rod, like a nailhead in a 49 Chevy or something. My buddy did just that but with an olds rocket to a 49 convertible in 53.
This from above. Crazy right? Commonplace now though. I have had a few old school Lexus (Lexi?) with Toyota motors. The lower output v6, 4cyl hybrid, and 4.7/5.7 v8s still are to this day
This might help answer the question you're asking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_small-block_engine
Then we built some Cadillac limos with olds V8 engines turbo 400 type trans and pickup rear ends. No emissions eqpt. Drove one on the weekend around the backlot. They were quick. Around 1990.
This was actually the cause of a lawsuit against Pontiac in the late '70s. I have owned and still do own '77 SE TA's (Bandits), while off topic for the purpose of our respected forum the topic is germane ("the Germans got nothing to do with it"- Buford T. Justice) to the OP's query so I trust you bear with me. Pontiac painted their motors Pontiac blue up until the point in 76 that they started using other brand motors in their cars. The story goes that they were building cars faster than motors after the popularity of a certain movie (actually a '76 TA in '77 trim if you have a good eye). Pontiac started using Oldsmobile 403's (6.6 Liter decal on the shaker) in lieu of Pontiac 400's (6.6 Liter on the base motor, TA/6.6 on the W72), painted them Pontiac blue and got sued once people found out there were no ponchos in their TA's. Thus in '77 the motors were painted GM Corporate Blue for then on. In '79 Chevy 350's (not ponchos) found their way into engine bays of TA's as well as bow tie 305 turbo motors. The transmissions have to be watched carefully in the late 70's as a result. BOP was no longer the rule as Chevy power plants became common place in poncho cars. I now return you to a more traditional forum.
Drew, you've gone and opened a BIG can-o-worms here! The "concept" of what GM came to call "corporate motors", and the transmissions bolted to them (sounds like a Jerry Springer topic). Who really knows why they did it, but emissions and fuel economy most likely figured in. I had a 78 Buick, Century, Regal, Station Wagon (G-body like a Malibu, Cutlass, Regal, etc) once, with a Pontiac 301 engine in it. There was also the 267 Pontiac engine, the Oldsmobile 260 and 403 engines, Chevrolet's 267, 305, and 350 engines (the 262 was strictly for the "Monza" style), and then they all had their own "350 and 455" engines; and then the different V-6's also add to the confusion. You could go to a new car lot, look at two similar make/model new cars, but have two different make engines in them (?). Course Cadillac was't exempt from the nonsense either. I have one of the TH-350 transmissions with the Vari-fit/Multi-fit bellhousings; TH-350's are known for weak bellhousings, but the extra casting material of the Multi-fit looks like it would help strengthen the bellhousing, and right where they tend to break. Now, Oldsmobile is gone, Pontiac is gone, and I have no idea why they kept the Buick line over the others; Buick??? Seems to me, over a year ago, I suggested going to a towing yard auction to get just what you're thinking about now. However, now you're almost there with your project. My head's starting to hurt. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.
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