Just bought a rare car. 1983 Chevrolet Celebrity Diesel

I just bought this pretty rare car. Its a 1983 Chevrolet Celebrity CL Diesel. It has a 4.3L Transverse diesel engine with a 3 speed automatic.
Its been sitting for some time so lets see if we can get it running.
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[@AnthonyEvelyn]

A very rare bird. But that diesel... phew. I wish you all the best lol.

[@mattmaverick703]

Please do more updates videos on this Celebrity. My Dad had a grey one played a huge part in my childhood in the early 90s. This car deserves to be remembered

[@CarysGarage]

I for sure will. The goal is to fix it up and to show it off as a piece of fairly rare history of GM

[@clasterfan]

I've noticed the early model A-bodies are much more rare than the late model ones. The Celebrity was America's best selling car in 1986, in a way it's somewhat surprising there isn't more interest in these cars. (For instance, if Hot Wheels or Greenlight or Revell started making diecast or model kits of "cars you remember when you were younger" or something like that, I'd imagine there'd be more interest than you'd think.)

[@melissacarterpresley5786]

My first car was a 1989 Celebrity with the gas v6 engine. A wonderful car, just the right size. It was 4 years old and had just under 60,000 miles on it when I got it. I drove it for the rest of high school and all the way through college before trading it for a 2001 Impala.

[@christiangibbs3944]

What an awesome lot of misfit rescues! I'm glad I found this channel.

[@CarysGarage]

Thank you for checking out the channel!

[@joniportwood1974]

My mom had a Buick Century 4.3 Diesel in the early 90's. I always thought it was cool.

[@CarysGarage]

How cool!!

[@BuddyCoopers]

Very cool find. I love the center console shifter. Definitely rare af.

[@frankdenardo8684]

Nice find here. All the desirable options IE electric rear window defroster, power window, door locks, seat, console, bucket seats, cruise control, tilt wheel, time delay wipers, wire wheel covers, etc.

[@CarysGarage]

Thanks. I was really surprised to how many options it has.

[@williamschoemann4209]

It looks like a fun new project. You have several tasks, but nothing to challenge your skills. Considering the miles, the body, the interior and options, for the price you couldn't not buy it. I look forward to seeing it humming down the highway.

[@Tomcat71]

Tip for accessing the rear glow plugs is remove the front dog bones engine mounts and use a ratchet to pull the engine forward.

[@CarysGarage]

Thank you for the insight on doing the back bank of glow plugs

[@RaymondHaley-tz4do]

Chevy diesel Oldsmobile style rare but cool 😅❤

[@kylescarfarm]

Great save! I've wanted one of these A-body Diesels since I was a teen but I found a Coupe Deville with a 5.7 Diesel that I currently own. Hope you can find parts to repair it!

[@2packs4sure]

I had a 1985 loaded maroon Chevrolet Celebrity diesel company car and I liked it,, but even in the two years I drove it it had too many problems the biggest one being a blown head gasket at 15000 miles. It was good on the open road and had great air conditioning. It also ate front brakes for some reason which I never understood because I babied it..

[@CarysGarage]

How interesting.

[@retro_88yota]

there were some reproduction olds v6 diesel headgaskets being made but I believe they are gone. However cometic will make one off MLS headgaskets for a reasonable price.

[@CarysGarage]

I think I found an old ser of fel pro head gaskets that are new. So fingers crossed ot cones through

[@tommywatterson5276]

Nice looking car. The diesel engine is a good one too. Great fuel economy. I'd pick the Chevy over all the sister divisions.

[@CarysGarage]

It really is, the V6 Diesel in my Cadillac is amazing and really does get great fuel mileage

[@TheTruthman89]

I used to own one of these and Your making me feel old....lol..... but I had mine 25 years ago (at least) and it had over 300k on it. The death nail was something went in the injection pump and I could not find the parts back then, I cant imagine finding the parts got easier, but that was before the interwebs. Good luck.

[@mattmaverick703]

1982-86 are same basically far as interior goes I prefer those years over the 87-90s

[@13gravesdescent]

I love the 83 model never had a diesel model. I currently have an 86 cl mfi 2.8 that I'm trying to work on and get into road ready condition. Will say some parts are a tad scarce. since so many of them got destroyed

[@CarysGarage]

The 2.8 is a great engine, Thats whats in my S10

[@mattmartinolc]

I like the old GM diesel products. It's a common myth that they were converted gas engines. But as I understand it, it's easy to think they are conversions but in actuality it was a lot of common tooling. First ones had issues with the blocks that was fixed with better metallurgy etc. My dad had a 1989 gas version of this with the 6cyl. and it was a column shift. Otherwise other than the front end, looks like they didn't change much over the 80's

[@joe6096]

Yes you're right, in fact most of GM's diesels weren't as bad as they're made out to be. The original first gen 1977-79 Olds 350 diesel was really the only converted gas to diesel of all their diesels. That's really the one that killed GM's reputation on diesels but GM learned fast what a mistake that was. They worked fast to improve that engine and make sure the rest of their diesels were far more stout and engineered for proper diesel operation. By the time the Celebrity came out in '83 this 4.3 V6 was not just warmed over from the VORTEC line but it's own diesel from the ground up.

[@mattmartinolc]

@@joe6096 yup need stronger casting for compression ignition. I do recall reading something about the very first ones being conversions but I wasn't sure if it was true

[@The_R-n-I_Guy]

My mom had a Celebrity wagon that color brown. Close to the same interior except hers had a bench seat in the front and column shift. Definitely not a diesel though. Hers had a 2.8 V6. Loved that car.

[@dave11686]

Very cool

[@RaymondHaley-bi8lx]

The only thing I hated was the cheap 3 speed auto junk transmission.

[@jdenke5873]

Kind of too bad. Even though it was only 85 HP, the later 4.3-liter V6 engine, the 1982 model year, did not have the same problems as the V8. The V6 has a denser bolt pattern, but by the time the engines were somewhat trouble-free the damage had already been done.

[@aaronb6727]

Used to have an 02 trailblazer with a 4.3 gas. Woulda loved to swap 4.3 diesel into it just for the holy crap factor. I'm sure they wouldn't match up and be a huge pain in the wallet to do but world be interesting

[@frankpeletz1818]

Wait until you see the different head gasket combos there are for this engine.

[@CarysGarage]

Biggest issue is. None are available. Lucked out finding one set

[@frankpeletz1818]

@@CarysGarage Don't forget to use sealer on the head bolt plugs.

[@tonycavez]

stick a torch down the intake it will start in no time without glow plugs i just started a Mercedes sprinter for a friend he was like WTF!!!!

[@Coastmac2001]

If you got around 7.5-8l/100km fuel economy , that'd be pretty decent. You'd likely get around or a bit under 800km out of a tank

[@CarysGarage]

From what I understand it's not uncommon to get around 6.5-6.7 l/100km. With my Cadillac with the v6 diesel and the overdrive transmission i average 5.8-6 l/100km

[@Coastmac2001]

@CarysGarage that's excellent economy for a mechanically injected oiler .

[@mtut]

How low is the coolant? There are enough other reasons for it to be low - rotted frost plugs, hoses, radiator damage etc. - that it might not be an engine problem (yet). If the oil isn't obviously water-contaminated and milkshaky, see how it behaves when it's full of coolant. When it's low on coolant, the steam you are seeing with the cap off isn't unusual. It's difficult to know what happened before, even if it did overheat. It sounds pretty good. Hopefully you can fill the rad up and find an external leak that explains the coolant loss. The prior owner might have given up on it prematurely - the engines had gotten a bad reputation, there were gas-powered vehicles with similar fuel economy and performance without the hassle, and it all paints the picture of why they would not have had much patience to troubleshoot a car nobody (at the time) wanted.

[@CarysGarage]

I have a fairly decent feeling it's a head gasket only because what was coming out of the radiator wasn't steam, it was diesel exhaust.

[@shadowcreeper77]

Your the dude who posted this in classic gm fwd?

[@CarysGarage]

Yep that was me

[@Tomcat71]

Either wont hurt it . Trust me. Stop believing rumors. all diesels are high compression, thats how it works.

[@DaveSkiNH]

The high compression only plays a secondary role in the destruction....the volatility of the ether is significantly higher than that of diesel and actually auto ignites BEFORE top dead center. What's the weak link?....head gasket. Not a rumor.

[@boshrothman1882]

Never power clean the engine you’ll break the electric

[@rodrigohernandez8980]

Chevy celebrity con motor 2.5 ironduke simplemente inmortal tengo uno. No lo vendería nunca saludos cordiales desde punta arenas chile 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲💪💪💪🔧🔧🔧🔧⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️⛓️🔩🔩