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Looking good. It's nice to see you save yourself $ by doing it yourself. Your rig looks rust free. That must make it nice to work on. Add a new heater hose and wash out the radiator fins to your TO DO list. Keep the pictures coming.
Yes to the heater hose, good preventive maintenance.
yes, inspected/cleaned radiator fins/shroud/sides/fittings. Confirmed no leaks of any kind.
H2 has been in Texas since new. Original owner bought and kept it in Houston. I live 1 hr north of Dallas.
Awesome progress, love all the pics! I do all my own work as well. I think the only thing I've taken mine in for was to have the OEM nav radio programmed to replace my 6-disk.
Can't wait to see more pics. Seeing that engine out made me think.......hmmmmmm, ported/polished heads and all the other fun stuff one could do to a new engine before reinstalling!
You going electric fans or staying with the mechanical? How are you going about replacing all the wiring loom that crumbled? I could go on and on, so exciting!!!! lol.
I considered getting a modded engine....but out of my depth there. Don’t have a reliable source I trust to get info/but from one. I don’t want to buy something new to break it b/c I don’t fully understand/can’t do the work. Plus....modded engines cost a lot more. Quality parts are NOT cheap.
i am staying with the mechanical fan. 1 less thing to buy/do. Given the ceramic headers I have, my engine bay temps have decreased dramatically.
The wiring loom....the crumbling is the black, plastic surround stuff that houses the actual wires. Thus far, wires themselves are okay. Just the protective stuff is shot.
On mine - when I did the headers a couple of the looms were crumbling. The wiring itself is fine. It was only a couple of them too - the big one coming out of the bottom of the underhood fuse box and one other. I just bought new split loom just like the factory uses to replace it. Pretty easy - just crumble away and remove the remains of the bad stuff cutting and untaping where needed, slide the new loom over the wiring, and re-tape it where needed.
Awesome work on the engine swap too. Yeah - I've thought already along the same lines as LoJac. If it comes to it on mine I'll get the new main block on a stand and do some upgrades like the heads, probably a very mild cam (I still want it good as a daily driver), as well as some other things like better rockers and springs, etc.
One I will be doing this summer is the electric fans conversion. I already have everything I need including the factory series/parallel relay block from a GM pickup that mounts directly to our underhood fuse block and the largest and most powerful factory electric fans available. There are several models of factory dual electric fans for the trucks that all fit the same but some move a lot more air than others (you want the 7 and 9 blade ones from the later 2007+ trucks, not the older 7 and 5 blade ones). At the same time I'll do the trans cooler mod since I'll need to move the trans cooler lines anyways for the electric fans shroud.
Now the term “loom” makes sense.....lol
i would love to move more air on the engine for cooling/a tad of performance and just better running. But, ehhh, I’m losing my mind already with what I’m doing. I would certainly enjoy reading about your install though. I appreciate the suggestions thus far.
You need to pull the trans out and measure the converter hub diameter (button looking part of the torq converter) and compare to the end of the crank. Any debris / burrs or misalignment here will cause your issues.
Tim
Thanks for the tip. Prior to install, I checked and doubled checked new trans with old trans looking for similarities/differences. Everything “matched”
The gap between the torque converter and the flex plate is not hugely uncommon but must be spaced correctly. The torque converter drives the front pump in the trans and if not seated far enough into the pump will cause damage to the pump or may pull out and cause catastrophic damage to the trans. Typically the manufactures recommend 1/16 to 3/16" from seated.
Drill bits can be used to measure the distance between the flex plate and the converter feet.
Does the converter slide freely up to the flex plate and back into the trans?
Neal
You read my mind sir...I used a drill to measure the distance between flex plate and converter feet.
Converter slides freely and spins freely, no issues there. Granted, it doesn’t slide a whole lot but I can move it back and forth using some force and working it back and forth.
Great work you put into this.
Couple things.
You said the oil pressure is constantly at 80. I don't think that's correct., usually that happens due a bad oil pressure sending unit
How was to remove the exhaust bolts from the oem engine
Keep pics and info coming. Nice work
Yes, oil pressure sending unit....that is in the potential to do list. Just want to be sure before spending more money.
Exhaust not bad at all. 6 of them came out just fine. 2 broke. The head sheared off of 1. The head was already completed “gone” off the other. Unfortunately, the sheared head took a bit of the bolt with it and left the remaining stud in the block. The head that was already broken left a stud behind. Used vice grips to remove.
Regarding the spacing between flex plate and torque converter mounting pegs....I bought some washers from Lowe’s. Washer packaging with barcode in case someone needs the exact size
I also used a drill bit to measure the distance between flex plate and mounting pegs. I also used a sharpie to label each of the 3 mountings pegs. I did this so I could know which peg I had already measured. I probably spent 1 to 2 hours measuring and remeasuring, trying to get the washers in place and stay there long enough to get the bolt screwed in, rotating the torque converter using the a breaker bar and the huge nut on the harmonic balancer.
Close-up pics to show washer detail.
When I was looking online....I couldn’t find anything that made me confortable/convinced of what I was buying. A washer is just a washer but when Inwas searching i came across a few “trans converter feet mount kits” that created doubt about what I was doing. This is what I used and has worked out just fine.
This is the trans cooler lines connected to the actual transmission A different view to show the way I routed the lines Another angled showing line routing
06-11-2018, 08:48 AM
