cleaning these parts by hand is tearing my hands up!

send them off to get cleaned or buy a steam cleaner?

 

From....

http://www.harborfreight.com/20-gall...pump-7340.html

Buy a bunch of different.....



As far as what liquid to use in it.......

"Make sure that ANY water based solvent you use is safe for aluminum. A lot of parts are made of aluminum and the water based cleaners (Simple Green, Purple Power, Super Clean, etc) are very hard on aluminum and will stain it if left in contact with polished aluminum for any length of time. The petroleum based (and similar) solvents (mineral spirits, Stoddard, paint thinner, acetone, kerosene, diesel, etc.) work well on aluminum but are flammable and give off flammable vapors.

With the small area that I had to use for my parts washer and the air compressor located beside it, I did not feel comfortable with solvent based, could not use the water based on aluminum parts and that left me with few options. I finally went with the non-flammable versions of paint thinners that are available from several suppliers. It still smells like mineral spirits (and is) but they have hydrogenated it and created a "milky white" thinner that is safer to use, non flammable and easy on aluminum parts.

It's not that expensive when bought in 5 gallon buckets (around $6.50 a gallon from my paint store) but the cost is higher than the water based solutions. This is one of those Ford/Chevy types of debates but I tried to go with the Ford body/Chevy motor bastard solution that, so far, seems to be working out OK. It's not as good as straight mineral spirits, not as cheap as Purple Power but it is a good compromise for my use.

The ones that I found were:
KS-Pro Paint Thinner by Klean-Strip
Crown NEXT Paint Thinner

I wound up using the Crown (found it in 5 gallon jugs). They both have several versions of them but are all basically the same. Some are listed as cleaners, paint thinner or parts cleaner but they all seem to work OK. "

 

Hmmmm... may have to do something like that. Maybe with some formula 88 degreaser? I've heard some good things about that stuff.

 

My one friend uses Simple Green. Just be careful leaving things in the solvent. I'm sure something as simple as Dawn dish soap would "work" too.

 

Starting the slow painful process of cleaning all the gasket mating surfaces and the outside of the block...



These graphite head gaskets are such a bitch. Got most of the outside surfaces of the block cleaned by the time I took this photo. They were HORRIBLE!



Plastic scrapers, lots of chemicals, rags, razor blades, time and patience. Slowly getting better.



New timing parts came in, decided to get the crank sprocket put on.



Fully seated.



Cleaning out the head bolt holes on the block with ARP thread chasers.



DAT LUBE!



Picked up a timing chain brace kit from trick flow and got it assembled.



DEM STUDS!



Got the head gasket area perfectly smooth to the touch but the discoloration from the graphite gasket is visually making me uncomfortable still so going to keep at it a little longer with chemicals and rags until I feel good about it.

 

Going to be going with the LS6 valley cover so the block has to be modified a bit as we all know.

Got it all prepped up, filled the cavity with oil and the area outside of it to control debris.



Cut down the sides then popped the piece off. Voila less than 5 minutes later.



There was some rubbing from the hack saw inside of the valley but I wasn't willing to deal with the fine dust that a dremel would create cutting this out on an assembled shortblock. Cleaned up well and ready to go!

 

Still gathering up parts. Slowly but surely. I estimate the build will take about 4 months to complete with the amount of work I have ahead of me. Will definitely keep a steady flow of updates rolling though! Melling 10295 and BRP Oil Pickup Girdle came in.



Getting ready for when I begin assembling the trunions later on by pressing out the old bearings.



Just used a 13mm short socket and out they came! 1 ton arbor press from HF.



All 16 went by with ease.



Empty rockers ready to have the new trunions pressed in! One thing that struck me a little bit off though was the one side was a lot dirtier than the other. Probably due to my PCV being disconnected on that side. (Popped out of the driver side without me knowing) Oh well! Won't have to worry about that crap with the LS6 valley cover.



I decided to pop my flexplate off and take a look at some pre-existing damage on the rear of the engine. I sheared the bolt heads off of the flexplate>torque converter bolts. 1-2 WOT Was pretty gnarly had to replace the oil pan. Here is a shot directly after I pulled the rear main cover off. Look at the bottom left.



Got it cleaned up while it was just staring at me with that sad face.



Rear main cover is F'd up. New one is on the way.



Closeup of the carnage.



Here is an old picture of how bad it was upon initial inspection before replacing the pan.



Here is an old picture showing damage to the flexplate!



The work goes on

 

Working with some of my other parts ive had laying around that I never took the time to install yet!

Strano front sway bar w/ umi billet sway brackets and blainfab reinforced & powdercoated sway bracket mounts and some aftermarket hex head hardware to tie it together. A shame it will be hidden under the car! (Rear was installed some time ago, adjustable strano sway, billet brackets, etc.)





Will be tied to the body with the same grade 10.9 black hex hardware to keep it matching.

 

Following for progress. Awesome work man!

R/
Frat

 

I'm tagging along great progress

 

i had the same lifter carnage !! what rod and main bearings are you going to end up using?

 

This is awesome. read it twice so far. Just got enough hair to take my valve covers off and remove rockers. cant even imagine doing what you have done. My only question was when did you know you would need to go this far and how bad was the noise when the damage occured. I only ask so I can compare my noises. lol. mine still very driveable ,I think.
Thanks and will watch with much interest.
nubie

 

Those UMI billet pieces are nice. I'll have to order those when I get around to doing my sway bars

 

Started off as a soft tap and gradually got loud enough to the point where it was time to rip it apart. Actually the bearings look good I think a bullet was dodged big time.

Started up work on it again last night. Been busy lately unfortunately. Mostly company related but I did get to take time to make a trip to Texas and watch my nephew play football in the new cowboys stadium!



Closest i'll ever be to the 50 yard line at a football game I tell you. Awesome but not worth $500 a seat LOL.



I am NOT a fan of the bolts that BRP sends with their Oil Pickup Girdle!!!



Definitely almost lost my melling pump on this one. Will get some higher grade bolts while I am out and about today and I will have a nice update for you guys tonight.

 

 

Yeeaaahhhhh buddy! #datbumpstick

Cleaned up inside and out. Redline assembly lube is what it will be installed with.



Almost installed! Slid in like glass.



Got a brand new cam retainer. Cheap insurance and as you are about to see shortly i'm all for overkill. New chain, new sprocket/gear and a trickflow chain tensioner.



Got it timed up dot to dot. Tight fit with the chain tensioner not much room to play with at all.



Got the oil pump (melling high pressure) properly clearanced and torqued up. Alignit tool made it a cakewalk. No fiddling with feeler gauges.



Installed the pickup tube with new oring and the oil pickup girdle with longer grade 10 bolts. (The shorter grade 8 bolts they ship with it is a disaster waiting to happen as I found out)



Mail man came and brought me some more goodies. Can you guess what it was?



No? How about now? If it was a snake you'd be dying right now! Cam locking plate. Told you I was paranoid. Loctite + new grade 10 bolts + mechanical bolt retention. If it comes loose it deserves it!



Time to button everything up! Installed a brand new rear cover (old one was severely damaged) and reused my front one. New seals for both. Used another Alignit tool to aid in the cover installation. Perfection!



Installed the Improved Racing Oil Pan Baffle to help keep the oil pickup covered in sustained cornering. A little disappointed in it for $200 they could have atleast smoothed out the cut edges. Hopefully it performs as intended.



Ready to button it back up for the final assembly! RTV in the corners. Don't want to have any leaks!



A couple taps with the hammer guided by the Alignit tool and the front seal was installed perfectly. As was the rear.



Figured I may as well install the crank pulley and call it a night. Sweet Jesus that took some muscle to put on. Yes I used an install tool not trying to F up my crank after all this! I forgot all about heating it up though. 2 foot breaker bar and some man muscles made it happen.



Contemplating staying home tomorrow to work on it some more since other parts arrive tomorrow. Hmmm we'll see...

Until then!

 

Cool deal man.

 

Took the engine off the engine stand to get the sfi flexplate mounted back up. Nice new
cover next to the abused block. Goes to show how important it is to maintain your
flexplate to torque converter bolts!



Flexplate installed with the arp bolts & lube torqued to 85ft-lbs.



Another part shipment came in today. Some GM MLS head gaskets, comp trunion kit, valve
springs, valve seals, knock sensors, knock harness, water pump gaskets, ls6 (04+) valley
cover, low profile bolts and a checker pushrod from comp.



Time to start disassembling the heads. First up is to get rid of these old valve springs!
Love this valve spring removal tool. Pimpshit.



Installing new valve seals. A little bit of oil goes a long way!



Valve seals installed and valves back to their original locations.



Easy as pie with this spring compressor. Retainers and locks went back to their respective
valves not sure if it mattered or not so just to play it safe.



Both heads knocked out in roughly 30 mins. Not bad for the first time. Sitting on the engine just for the time being.



Pressing in the first side of the bearing from the comp trunion kit.



Flip it over, drop in the center piece and get ready to press in the other bearing.



Don't know why people pay to have these kits installed they are so easy.



Install the clips and its good to go. Then just do it 15 more times.



All 16 rotate smooth as glass. I read a couple threads about them having some issues so
I checked as I went along. So far so good.



Next on the to do list is to order my linkbar lifters and some probably should get some
check springs. Any good threads on measuring pushrod length without disassembling my
brand new linkbar lifters to make them solid?

 

With all the tiny metal shavings that have been run through your engine, why did you not do a complete tear down, vat the block and replace bearings? I've seen folks with Gen 1's that had a lobe go flat on the cam do the same thing you're doing, didn't last any time after the rebuild. Your bearings are full of embedded metal, not good.

 

Also, I'd pull those flexplate bolts back out, clean all the lube off them and out of the crank bolt holes, and install 'em with red locktite.

OP, looks like you're doing some good stuff, but the inside of that motor is a horror show. You might want to do a full teardown while it's out and easy, and before you wreck any new parts.