Just finished the 12 hour cam swap from HeLL
03-22-2009, 09:25 AM
#1
Just finished the 12 hour cam swap from HeLL
So at 10AM yesterday morning I decide to crack into the truck. I had everything laid out and ready to rock 'n' roll. Got everything torn down relatively fast, had to lower the oil pan to get at the pickup tube bolt (what a icky shitty mess on the driveway), while my back is soaking up antifreeze I'm lowering the oil pan just enough to get my 90deg gear wrench over the bolt. I knew well enough getting the bolt out to use fishing line, I did and hung onto the bolt with no problems. Next I inserted my home made 5/16 steel dowl rods to hold the lifters out, yanked out the old cam -Threw in Ed's FTI Rebel TQ cam and installed all the pushrods to verify no lifters found their way to the oil pan (they didn't). Then I take out my progear ls1 timing set, verified the crank gear would insert into the oil pump. WRONG! Had to polish and strip off all the black anodizing off from it, not only that but had to file down the oil pump drive splines to get them to work with the new oil pump (yes it's a GM one). After filing and measuring on that for over an hour, I installed the crank gear, installed the timing chain and it was no different than my LS2 timing set. It actually was just as sloppy as the factory one. I said **** on it, I paid for it, it's staying on there now and no one would take it back after filing and polishing it down to get it to fit. Then went to install my new GM high volume oil pump and the bastard didn't want to go onto the crank gear after all the hard work and filing. I took apart my brand new pump so I could put the housing on first, then the gerotor and the ring around it, then lastly I installed the cover. Installed the pickup tube (quite easy actually), Swam in a pool of antifreeze and oil for 30 minutes putting the oil pan back to where it should be (praying to god I don't have any oil leaks after this whole ordeal) and got the engine buttoned up. It got dark around 8ish and I have severe night blindness so working was starting to get hard for me. With my sturnum in pain and my knees wobbly I proceeded to work on everything to get it back together for the evening. I wanted a running truck! Dropping bolts a countless amount of times, tools covered in oil and other crap I got it running. Took me 3 hours just to install the pulley, water pump, hoses, radiator, ignition coils, plugs, wires and hoses. I'm tired as hell, my body is trembling horribly right now and I hate working in the dark because I can't see ****. Leaving the truck out overnight was not an option as the neighborhood low lives would steal or vandalize something. At any rate I'm done working on this thing for awhile. Blah!
03-22-2009, 09:34 AM
#3
Oh yeah it runs, couldn't listen to it much as I didn't finish until about 11-12 PM last night. I don't think the neighbors wanted to listen to it while they were sleeping. I didn't even realize it was that late and for the last few hours I had been running air tools non stop. LoL I only knew the time when I went to start it.
03-22-2009, 09:52 AM
#5
I'm lowering the oil pan just enough to get my 90deg gear wrench over the bolt. I knew well enough getting the bolt out to use fishing line, I did and hung onto the bolt with no problems. Next I inserted my home made 5/16 steel dowl rods to hold the lifters out,...
Swam in a pool of antifreeze and oil for 30 minutes putting the oil pan back to where it should be (praying to god I don't have any oil leaks after this whole ordeal) and got the engine buttoned up.
Leaving the truck out overnight was not an option as the neighborhood low lives would steal or vandalize something.
Swam in a pool of antifreeze and oil for 30 minutes putting the oil pan back to where it should be (praying to god I don't have any oil leaks after this whole ordeal) and got the engine buttoned up.
Leaving the truck out overnight was not an option as the neighborhood low lives would steal or vandalize something.
Couldn't u use pinch off pliers to clamp onto rad hoses to stop coolant mess? Or was it beyond that?
Shame when people have to mess w/ other's ****!!!
:nunchuk1:Cool u got it in. Let us see some vid/ sound clips.
I have yet to really dig into these Gen3 motors, but hear they're nice to work on/ mod compared to old. Guess what, a cam swap is on my list. Unfortunately, I seem to have a leak I still need to check out. The tranny tailshaft bushing has a minor leak, I know, but worse...something is leakin near where rear main/ tranny mate. At first I thought , oh no rear main!! But, it appears red. I hope I don't need to tear into 5.3. Over winter, i had to add 2 qts of Dexcool to top off. In 4 yrs I never had to mess w/ antifreeze. Since both antifrz. & tranny fluidare both red I'm worried. And BROKE!!!
