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Big thanks to my buddy Shaun today. He came over after work and we wrestled with the beast that is the T56 transmission. Even though I swore that I would never buy anything from Harbor Freight again, the prospect of doing this without a transmission jack seemed daunting. So I picked up a mechanical transmission jack that worked pretty well and for how often I will be using it (rarely) it seemed like a reasonable investment.
Transmission came out, off came the flex plate. Since the engine was tipped down towards the rear, I put the two bottom bolts back in to keep oil from running out. The little flywheel locking tool is a must when doing a clutch job (seen bolted to the starter mounting pad.)
The trans got a new slave, along with the remote bleeder.
Then I installed a pilot bearing, flywheel, and finally the clutch.
I am using the trusty LS7 clutch. I have one in my GTO and I love how it drives. A lot of people complain about this clutch, but for what I am doing, it is more than adequate.
I also installed a little plug (looks like a tiny freeze plug) into the hole in the block where the dipstick used to be. This had to be done because the GTO pan has the dipstick in the oil pan.
Knocking down the little projects bit by bit. When I got the 5th gen Camaro starter, I also got the cool little heat shield which bolts right to it. Originally I thought that it might not fit with the Hooker manifolds, but I mocked it up again and it fits perfectly. Nice little heat protection since the Hooker manifolds hug pretty tightly to the block.
I don't have an air compressor, and one of my lingering projects was the swapping of the pinion yoke. Couple of days ago I bit the bullet and got a mondo Dewalt 20v 1/2" electric impact. This thing is a beast!
I put it on the old pinion nut and this thing just hammered it off like nothing. Once the nut was off, I realized that I needed a puller, so off to Advanced Auto I went. Got the puller...
Used the impact again and off came the yoke.
I had a new seal ready to go, but it wasn't leaking so I decided to just leave it. If it develops a leak, I can always replace it. If it isn't broken.....
I had some old receipts that led me to believe that this rear end was put together using a spacer instead of a crush sleeve, so I just slipped then new yoke in place, snugged it down with the old nut, then put a new nut on, and hammered it down with the impact.
Not exactly scientific, but given that I am working on my back, there was no way I was going to get any sort of torque wrench under there. It'll be fine.
This evening I finally wrapped up the rest of the under hood wiring. I made a harness that goes from the alternator output stud, down under the balancer along the oil pan, and back up to the solenoid hot side. In this harness I also routed the PWM signal wire and another wire that I added from the S terminal of the alternator plug. This wire is technically not needed as the alternator will put out 14.7v with just the L terminal wired (through a resistor), but after reading this:
I felt like adding a wire from the S terminal to the hot side of the starter relay seemed like a good idea.
I used a nylon split loom for this harness that I pulled off the Holley ECU power harness (I used something else for that). Working with the split loom was a lot easier than the pass through loom that I have been using.
In this harness I also added the power leads for the fan and then added the mating connector.
A while back I saw this little marine battery at Menards. I liked it because it has the extra studs in addition to the posts. It was inexpensive and so far it's been working great. The studs are handy for attaching power feeds.
The 4 wires on the + stud are ECU power, extra power for under dash, headlight relay, and fan power.
Knocking down the little projects bit by bit. When I got the 5th gen Camaro starter, I also got the cool little heat shield which bolts right to it. Originally I thought that it might not fit with the Hooker manifolds, but I mocked it up again and it fits perfectly. Nice little heat protection since the Hooker manifolds hug pretty tightly to the block.
Oooooh, I like that! Melting starter wiring and/or starter solenoids is a common issue on the 1st gen CTS-Vs, and that looks like a great solution. Next time I'm under the car I'll have to eyeball that area and see if it looks like that setup would fit on the Vs.
Originally Posted by Project GatTagO
A while back I saw this little marine battery at Menards. I liked it because it has the extra studs in addition to the posts. It was inexpensive and so far it's been working great. The studs are handy for attaching power feeds.
I noticed the extra terminals in a post the other day. I've never seen that before, but that's definitely nice to have.
Oooooh, I like that! Melting starter wiring and/or starter solenoids is a common issue on the 1st gen CTS-Vs, and that looks like a great solution. Next time I'm under the car I'll have to eyeball that area and see if it looks like that setup would fit on the Vs.
....
Just an FYI: the 5th gen Camaro starter doesn't quite fit the f-body bellhousing, but all that is required is a little grinding with a Dremel with a flapper wheel. Not sure how that relates to a CTSV bell, but I thought you should know.
Couple more wiring pictures. Here is the alternator wiring...
Black wire is the L terminal and the blue wire is the S terminal. The black wire goes into the loom on the right and becomes the yellow wire. The blue wire shoots straight down and goes with the battery power lead and the PWM signal wire into this harness:
It only looks like it is touching the sway bar. The GTO oilpan has two conveniently located threaded bosses that I attaches some cushioned clamps to. I used big clamps so that as the engine moves it doesn't move the loom around.
I have the transmission installed for good now so it was time to get the shifter installed and get a boot in place. The shifter came up in just about the same spot as the original one did, but the shifter pad on the T56 is pretty big, so I had to do a little trimming in order to allow the Pro 5.0 shifter to slide in place.
It was a lot of fun using the cut off wheel in that space. The sparks kept flying into the insulation under the carpet and setting it on fire...LOL
I installed some studs into the original shifter boot hold downs and drilled new holes in the aluminum surround. The rubber boot is a cheap Hurst boot kit and it was big enough to cover the whole shifter hole. It's not a perfect fit, but its on there tight and will seal the cabin from heat and road noise.
The trim ring is part of a RaceQuip snap on shifter boot. It snaps in place around the outside of the boot and covers everything. The little console that was in the car before even fits over the top of it. I may leave that off...not sure yet.
I also need to pick up an angled shifter handle, as the straight handle is just a little too far forward.
A while back a buddy of mine gave me a Littlefuse master fuse kit. This is one of 3 bins...
The last bit of wiring that needed to be done was the fuel pump. I would normally run leads directly from the battery for power through a relay close to the pump. However, with this car it's kind of a pain to run anything under the car because there is no frame where I can tuck wires.
Also, there was already a 12 gauge wire that ran from under the dash, under the carpet, and into the trunk area, where it was connected to the Holley Red pump that I removed a while back. So I decided that this was going to be my power wire to feed the fuel pump. I am only running a Walbo 255L/hr pump, which draws a little over 10 amps, so I figured this was good enough.
Now for the cool part. This is a Littlefuse 4 cavity connector that I ran across in the Waytek catalog. It uses Metri-pac series 280 terminals.
It just so happens that the 280 series terminals can also double as mini fuse holders. These little guys...
Waytek also sells these little 4 pin relays, which also have the same pin spacing as the mini fuses. This is a 20 amp relay.
So this connector can essentially become a self contained, fused and relayed power point. There are also nifty clear covers and mounting brackets available.
This is the back of the connector with all the wires going in and out. Unused cavities get cavity plugs to keep moisture out, and there is also a retaining clip.
Here is the top of the connector. If I needed to run another fused power run to something else, I can just use the two unused cavities.
With the cover snapped in place and mounted under the dash.
Once I was done, I fired up the car and got 13.5v at the pump with the engine running, which is pretty good. That hopefully wraps up all the wiring in this car.
When I first started doing LS swaps back in 2003 I had read somewhere that the 5/8" line from the water pump, which gets routed to the inlet of the heater core, should have a reducer spliced in. I must have trusted the source of this information because I have been doing it since.
Jags That Run sells this nice little aluminum reducer that gets spliced into that line:
To have two hose clamps there would be unsightly, so I like to use these heat shrink hose clamps from Gates. They work very well and make a much neater, maintenance free connection:
The fitting on the water pump that comes back from the heater core is 3/4". In the past I have used a 5/8" to 3/4" reducer, which of course required more heat shrink clamps. However, just recently I learned about the Napa PN 10084. Hat tip to Vega$69:
It is 6" long 5/8" hose but has one end that is bellowed out to 3/4". This mates perfectly with the water pump fitting. Here I use the heat shrink clamps again.
(Note for future reference or anyone doing a similar swap: on the Cougars and Mustangs of this vintage the bottom fitting on the heater core is the inlet and the top is the outlet.)
That wraps up the heater core routing. Also note in this picture that I moved the engine ground from the head to the side of the block, where it is hardly visible.
Now I need to finalize the mounting tabs on the radiator for the C6 fan and that will wrap up the cooling system.
06-02-2015, 10:40 PM
