well.
today, i had some issues w the new motor. oil pressure at idle, usually is 60 psi @ minimum. i have been seeing 15-20 psi today. checked the oil, quite a bit of fine shavings. somethings wrong.
pulled the front end off to check the pump/timing set. everything is aftermarket, and alotta guys have problems with chains hitting the pump, i knew tht wasnt the case. i got the billet single row rather than the PITA double row. but pump checked out fine, so i decided to dig deeper.
pulled timing set off. wanted to pull the cam and check for a swiped lobe(alotta ls7 lifters were recalled bc of bearing issues, and mine felt terrible to begin w). no swipped lobe on the cam. good news, and bad news. still havent found the problem, cam isnt junk tho.
take a peak into the cam bore, i see the first bearing is in good shape, second bearing...... not so much.
the second cam bearing from the front had walked its way towards the back of the motor, and was barely in the cam bore. obviously the oil holes were no longer lined up the oil passage in the block was just sqirting out in the middle of nowhere. obviously that wasnt gonna hold pressure. i was stoked to find the problem, but how do u go about pulling a pressed bearing out of the center of your motor while its in teh car???? we had work to do.
after a few minutes of pondering, i went to work on my "cam bearing extractor tool". i made the tools to press them in, so shouldnt be too hard. what i did was took a peice of 16" long 1/2" round bar. drilled and tapped both ends to 1/4-20. one end i put a fender washer(large in size but small center hole) that was about 2-1/2" in diameter, and bolted it to the end of my stock. and on the other end, i machined a peice of 1/4 inch aluminum plate to the exact outter diameter of the #2 cam bearing(there are 3 different sizes in a ls1). now i took that aluminum "disk". and i drilled a half inch hole in the center so it would be very sloppy when i bolt it to the 1/2" stock. then i took the "disk" and i cut off two sides and made it more of an oval, and bolted it to the stock.
the idea of the tool is that you can "tilt" the disk and use the sides i cut off to slide it thru the bearing in the motor, then once your past the bearing you get the "disk square with it and use a slide hammer to tap it out. the tool worked flawlessly to my surprise.
installed two new front bearings just to be safe, threw it back together, and a sight i love seein, 70+psi at idle. all in a days work.
the thing i realized, its getting so easy for us to diagnose/fix/redo these motors, its incredible. today i started w a problem that would have ruined a weeks worth of moaning and wondering what was goin on, for most people, and the car is back on the road in less than 8 hours. i suppose what im sayin is, if u think about it enough, do ur homework and use common sense, anything is possible.
bob
