V8Rumble

iTrader: (9)

Thanks, that's what I'm counting on.

Does anyone have an answer to the oil pickup clearance question?

(EDIT: OK, Google was able to find me the answer, even when it didn't show up in this site's search. Based on this post, it looks like I'll be OK, since once I tighten the bolts for the pan the pickup-to-pan clearance should be at just under .5" - and given the baffles in the pan, I'm thinking that I'd have to be doing some seriously stupid "Dukes of Hazzard"-type crap to uncover the pickup...)

V8Rumble

iTrader: (9)

Arrrrrggggghhhh. Here's today's challenge for the build...

We do this for FUN, right?

V8Rumble

iTrader: (9)

Wow, I would've thought that more people would've been able to add some feedback to that oil pan thread. Anyway...

Got the seats, center console, steering column & original pedals out. Looking at this mess is (for me) perhaps the most nerve-wracking part of the build. Intellectually I know that as long as I'm methodical & patient putting everything back together, I should be OK, but somehow, I have more trepidation about this than I do about getting the wiring harness put together correctly...



One of my F-buds came over & we popped the driveshaft back into the rear end so that we could lift my "new" T-56 into just about the right place for us to mark & cut the hole for the shifter.

If it looks too small, then you've got a pretty good eye - the tranny's placement just "didn't look right" to me (granted, I was under the car, so I didn't have the best perspective), so I decided to cut the hole a bit small. It's always easier to cut MORE, right?



The used F-body oil pan I bought had so much grunge on it that it could've moved to Seattle & performed in a Nirvana reunion tour - but a few hours sitting in some warm soapy water got some of it off, then I hit it with a couple of soapy steel-wool pads which helped a LITTLE bit as well. But once it got 20 minutes in a dealership's hot-tank...



Cool... Aside from a little bit of residual crap on the back of the pan, it looks as new as the brand-new block it's sitting on!!

Got a fair bit more to report, but I'll get that put up a little bit later...

slammer454

subscribing! i think with the VVT in there you'll have mucho bragging rights once it's done.

nycblazer

subscribes as i drull

same thing i did but on a 4 door blazer what a sleeper lol

V8Rumble

iTrader: (9)

Hey, thanks guys, I genuinely appreciate your interest.

Haven't been able to do a whole lot over the last couple of weeks, "real life" has been whipping me back & forth a bit - my baby sister got married this last week, & one of my best friends went into hospice care... (The wedding was one of the happiest days I've ever had, the other... well, not so much.)

Anyway, I do have a couple of pictures to add (probably tomorrow night), nothing too exciting, but progress is progress, right? FedEx's tracking site shows that I should be getting the clutch master & slave cylinders tomorrow, so I should be able to start buttoning the interior back up this week. That shipment will also include the Corvette fuel filter/reg. assy, so I'll work on getting that in as well.

Also, I just got off the phone w/ the friendly Summit guy, so I should have a few more of the missing pieces by the end of the week - a flywheel & mini starter are the two "big pieces", but there are a few other things in the shipment as well.

Again, thanks for the interest guys, I'll try to have pics up tomorrow night.

V8Rumble

iTrader: (9)

OK, I apologize, but I'm a little tired tonight, so I'm going to keep the comments pretty brief.

I found some rust in the transmission tunnel, thankfully this appears to be the extent of it on the car...


I attacked the rust with a rough abrasive pad on my drill...




Since I was already in the area, I also scuffed the K-frame up pretty well...



I used "Chassis Saver" paint (basically identical to POR-15, just a bit less expensive acc. to the auto paint store) to stop the rust in it's tracks... (No, it apparently doesn't photograph well...)

I also covered/painted the K-frame, & scuffed/cleaned/painted the welds that were used to attach my subframe connectors. AFAICT, this takes care of all the rust on the car. {crossing my fingers}

As you can probably tell, I wasn't particularly concerned with "making it all purty" under there, as long as I got the rust taken care of. The orange thing that you see is a BMR Trak-Pak torque arm that I got a good deal on, I was test-fitting it, trying to decide if I'm going to use it or not...

Got the clutch hyd. parts today, but too worn-out to do much tonight. I should have a couple of days off next week so that I can (hopefully!!) make some real progress on the swap...

More soon (I hope)...

subtlez28

iTrader: (15)

Rust.... you call that rust!?!

Come out to WI, I'll show you rust!

In all honesty if you can scuff off the rust w a pad (no holes) you have an exceptionally solid 3rd gen there by my standards!

My 02 Z28 is from TX, I have never driven it in the snow, rarely in the rain, and has under 30k miles... and it has more rust!!

It's rust is due to a leaky battery though.... Car is otherwise very nice.

V8Rumble

iTrader: (9)

Well, OK, yeah, but saying that you have rust in your battery tray is kind of like saying you have dirt on your undercarriage - it just kinda goes without saying! I know that it doesn't seem bad to you, but from just "eyeballing it", it was getting kind of aggressive - it appeared to be 1 to 1.5 mm deep in a number of places, & that's plenty bad from my perspective...

FWIW, I DO have some rust in the battery tray area as well (although thankfully I haven't had a leaky battery), hopefully the CS paint that's still left in the can hasn't fully cured yet, so that I can scuff & clean the battery tray & fix that as well...

I had a little bit more energy last night than I expected to, so I went out & hung the brake/clutch pedals so that I could see how the clutch master cylinder would fit. The short answer is, it looks like I AM going to have to relocate the "stud" on the clutch arm. Dang it, I did NOT want to have to deal with that...



I'm using the image above as another one of my "motivational/feel-good" photos for when I get aggravated... Getting the pedals in is going to feel like getting past the first major milestone - once that's done, I should be able to drop the engine in shortly thereafter, & it SHOULD just get better from there...

Just for the record, yes, that IS the Corvette DBW accelerator pedal that you see there, and yes, I was able to get the pedal's full range of motion without having to pound/clearance the tranny tunnel - I even made it so that it's position is somewhat adjustable, in case I don't like it's initial placement. I'll show/describe what I did in a couple of days when I have a bit more time...

onefastrx7turbo

iTrader: (5)

nice! which vette pedal is it and are you using the stock L92 PCM?

frojoe

iTrader: (10)

Also, how much travel does it have? A regular/normal feeling amount I assume? I got a truck pedal and have to stick my foot through the floor to WOT it.

V8Rumble

iTrader: (9)

Doggone it, I thought I'd mentioned that, but when I looked I discovered that I'd entered that into another thread... Yeah, I'm trying to use the Corvette accelerator pedal with the Escalade programming. I'll post up here how it works out... {need a "crossing my fingers" smiley!}

frojoe, the pedal does indeed have "regular/normal feeling amount" of travel (1.5"-2"??). The GM designers did a pretty decent job of making it feel like a regular cable-type pedal.

And, since it seems to be "de rigeur" in some threads to show when a box of goodies arrives, here's my contribution...



Flywheel, weld-on bungs for the O2 sensors, flywheel bolts, fuel line, mini-starter, etc. Crap adds up quick...!!

Should have more up here soon...

onefastrx7turbo

iTrader: (5)

right on. I will most likely do the same thing, corvette pedal with the L92 pcm...

van454

iTrader: (1)

Awesome, I will be watching with interest. I too have a GTA, mines an 88, and here in Australia it is a very rare car so info is not too easy to come by. I am in the planning stages of an LSx swap, so this is a good thread for me.

Stampede4ever

How much did you give for the engine, and wiring? And does the engine have DOD also?

Thanks.

Benjamin Russick

iTrader: (1)

Any updates? Love the 3rdGens...

V8Rumble

iTrader: (9)

Holy mackerel, someone woke my thread up! (First off, I've gotta say "thanks for the interest in it"!)

van454 - you've already posted a bit about your car, haven't you?? (It seems like I remember something about it, but if you wanted to post another pic or two, I wouldn't complain...) If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask away!

Stampede - I don't have all of the receipts right in front of me, but the engine was $3500 (if that seems high, keep in mind that it has zero miles), and I BELIEVE that the engine harness was right around $300 or $350 from the "stealership". One of the things that's been seriously denting the ol' budget is the fact that there is NOTHING available for these engines used - it's 'buy factory new' or 'figure out some way to fab/work around the issue'... And no, I'm pretty confident that it doesn't have DOD (based on looking at the valley cover beneath the intake manifold).

Ben - Yeah, I do have some pretty minor updates, but nothing really too significant or worthwhile. (I'm nearly finished w/ a sub-project that's related to the swap, but not strictly a part of it.) When it became apparent that I wasn't going to get much if any summer driving out of it, I decided to stop trying to rush things, stop pressuring myself into throwing it together, do it as 'correctly' as I'm able to, & start enjoying the process again. That's made a decent difference in how I'm feeling about working on it, although it did suck that I didn't get to drive the car at all this year...

I also had to do some stuff to get ready for winter around here (blow out the sprinkler system, etc.), fix some household stuff that I'd put on the back burner, & spent some time w/ a friend before cancer took him away. (NOT looking for any sympathy when I say that, just explaining that the plate's been kinda full recently.)

Wife ALSO told me that I'd better have her side of the garage cleaned out for her vehicle by the time the first snow falls, or she'd call someone to haul away everything on that side of the garage - and since my new engine & tranny are part of what she's talking about...!

Having said all of that, I still have a few things on the "pre-winter checklist" to get done, but I'm hoping to get back at the swap project within the next week or so - and I'll try to post some pics of the minor stuff I've been doing before then.

Thanks again for the interest guys.

nimrod.sixty9

iTrader: (5)

Hows it coming? Car looks amazing, keep at it and do it right. Enjoy and dont rush. But who am I to say, every post you make makes my L03 look worse and worse. But I do admire people like you who keep 3rd Gens alive! Good luck and thanks for sharing!

V8Rumble

iTrader: (9)

Hey, thanks for the interest, & the kind words. I didn't get to work on the car like I'd thought last week, but I did make a pretty good dent in the 'pre-winter to-do' list.

I'm expecting to get a few hours of work in on the car tomorrow, it's supposed to be about 76* here tomorrow (that's about 24* C to you metric types) which is REALLY nice for November around here, so I won't be able to use the weather as an excuse...

I'll see what I can do to at least get some updated pics up here tomorrow night...

Thanks again!

(And don't "down" your LO3 - it may not be quick, but it's solid. And besides, it's pretty darn similar to the engine in my camper truck!)

NemeSS

iTrader: (127)

a bit off topic, but GTA related.
about a yr. ago i cam across a v6 89 firebird, it was hardtop, marroon and had the 3.2 iirc engine which was seized, the car was fs for 300$. du to the lack of space at the time at my home, i had to pass. but i regretted and still regret not buying it to this day. the body was in excellent condition.
9 out of 10.
im 100% sure the car had the same front end as V8Rumble's swap car.
but it was hardtop and v6.
another guy on here is trying to make me beleive im wrong about what i saw. i know wat i saw.

op sorry for the highjack
im currently seeking a firebird with the same front end as yours. but i want the hardtop version. lsx swap of course with 4th gen ws6 ram air hood