teardown has begun!
tomorrow, waiting for my buddy to get some free time inbetween jobs to pick it up. Now that the cam is in, finally started on the rebuild.
new timing set, GMPP heavy duty chain, 3 bolt sprocket with the 4x pickup for the cam position sensor, and new automatic tensioner.
LS7 lifters have been soaking for quite a while now (bout a week) and doing the 1st step on the head torque sequence after installing lifters and trays and head gaskets.
with the heads fully torqued (oh god my arms) using a torque angle meter, 22 ft lbs, + 90 degrees + 70 degrees, leaving the rocker arms sitting there for the night and tomorrow ill work on checking pushrod length. Once i have the right pushrods in, ill degree the cam.
new timing set, GMPP heavy duty chain, 3 bolt sprocket with the 4x pickup for the cam position sensor, and new automatic tensioner.
LS7 lifters have been soaking for quite a while now (bout a week) and doing the 1st step on the head torque sequence after installing lifters and trays and head gaskets.
with the heads fully torqued (oh god my arms) using a torque angle meter, 22 ft lbs, + 90 degrees + 70 degrees, leaving the rocker arms sitting there for the night and tomorrow ill work on checking pushrod length. Once i have the right pushrods in, ill degree the cam.
picked the trans up today...annnnnd found this after the ride home, dont ask me how the hell this happened. Possible the ride in my buddies truck, or the trans shop, but not gonna make accusations. Called a machine shop about TIG welding this together and they said the trans would have to be disassembled in order to do it, and i told them absolutely not, so I went to home depot and picked up some aluminum brazing tools. Managed to get a 1/4" of the crack brazed up on the front side, but the porosity + the paint, and grease under everything is making this difficult. My buddy is gonna take a crack at it from the back side tomorrow and see if we can see this up. It's between the starter so the starter should act as an adequate brace for this section.
Old dirty cast aluminum like that is a nightmare to weld, but that machine shop is nuts....you can definitely weld that without hurting any seals/ bushings or etc if you take your time and allow it to cool in-between rounds.
My suggestion to you would be to continue grinding both sides with some roloc discs. Try your best to get 1/2" on opposing sides of the crack clean, then scrub it down with some acetone. See if you can't find a general welder instead of a picky machinist to patch that up.
Too bad your not closer, I could hammer that out.
My suggestion to you would be to continue grinding both sides with some roloc discs. Try your best to get 1/2" on opposing sides of the crack clean, then scrub it down with some acetone. See if you can't find a general welder instead of a picky machinist to patch that up.
Too bad your not closer, I could hammer that out.
It's like when I had my valley cover welded. Machined aluminum with dark spots of oil in it for whatever reason even though it was dry and machined. When the cover got welded on. We had to redo the work cause of the material was so soaked with oil internally
picked the trans up today...annnnnd found this after the ride home, dont ask me how the hell this happened. Possible the ride in my buddies truck, or the trans shop, but not gonna make accusations. Called a machine shop about TIG welding this together and they said the trans would have to be disassembled in order to do it, and i told them absolutely not, so I went to home depot and picked up some aluminum brazing tools. Managed to get a 1/4" of the crack brazed up on the front side, but the porosity + the paint, and grease under everything is making this difficult. My buddy is gonna take a crack at it from the back side tomorrow and see if we can see this up. It's between the starter so the starter should act as an adequate brace for this section.
Old dirty cast aluminum like that is a nightmare to weld, but that machine shop is nuts....you can definitely weld that without hurting any seals/ bushings or etc if you take your time and allow it to cool in-between rounds.
My suggestion to you would be to continue grinding both sides with some roloc discs. Try your best to get 1/2" on opposing sides of the crack clean, then scrub it down with some acetone. See if you can't find a general welder instead of a picky machinist to patch that up.
Too bad your not closer, I could hammer that out.
My suggestion to you would be to continue grinding both sides with some roloc discs. Try your best to get 1/2" on opposing sides of the crack clean, then scrub it down with some acetone. See if you can't find a general welder instead of a picky machinist to patch that up.
Too bad your not closer, I could hammer that out.
cheap porous aluminum, the grease and grime sinks into it and you can never get a clean spot. my neighbor just cracked a valve cover and oil pan on his mazda 6 the other day trying to reassemble the engine, it was so brittle the torque of the bolts make it crack.
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Verdad Gallardo welp, was SOL with the tig welding, took it over to my buddies machine shop, had him give it a go. The casting was so porous and so contaminated, it wound up just blowing holes and the weld would just not bond at all. He said it was probably one of the worst cast aluminum pieces he has ever seen. So only thing we were able to do was just stress relieve it by drilling some well placed holes along the crack to prevent further cracking at that joint, and used an industrial strength epoxy to bind the holes together to limit flexing. He doesnt think it will be too bad at this point because the starter will be bracing it, and with the way the starter spins the torque should be applied in such a way that shouldnt promote further cracking.
That's disappointing. I would start my search for a core just in case. I couldn't put that in knowing its cracked, too much OCD . I really hope this works out good for you.You have some good hard work into this car and its coming along great. What could happen if this was to break while driving? did you try a couple of welding shops?
That's disappointing. I would start my search for a core just in case. I couldn't put that in knowing its cracked, too much OCD . I really hope this works out good for you.You have some good hard work into this car and its coming along great. What could happen if this was to break while driving? did you try a couple of welding shops?
Two of the shops that i called wouldn't touch it without it being disassembled. Honestly I watched the process while it was welding and I was stunned at what was happening. I've seen cast welding before and its rough because its porous but this was just horrific, frankly im surprised the case has any rigidity too it at all without cracking. I don't have the funds to replace the case, as thats another 800 dollars in labor to have the internals swapped into a new case. It's gonna go in as it is, worse case scenario I see it snapping at the top half the starter, but it would have to be under alot of stress for that to happen IMO. Only time will tell.
