***Update***After getting everything road worthy and driving to both Big Bear Lake and Lake Havasu with about 700 miles on the new engine I had to remove everything and fix a few things.
TransmissionThe 700R4 overdrive transmission wasn't locking up so I took the tranny to Bowtie which is in Hesperia a few miles from my house and after testing the transmission they found a valve was stuck in the transmission and the torque converter was bad. So $300.00 later she's ready to go back into the truck.
Oil PanWhile removing the tranny and transfercase I noticed that the motor had settled downward into the engine compartment and now the oil pan was resting on the crossmember. Since I already had the tranny and transfercase out I figured I might as well pull the motor and find a solution for the oil pan. Since this is a Magnum Marine engine it came with an 8 quart oil pan, I mistakenly assumed if I purchased a stock oil pan it would have less depth overall and fix the problem. I was wrong. The front portion of the stock oil pan is the same depth as the 8 quart oil pan so now I have a GM Performance 5 quart oil pan "Paperweight". I did get a good oil dipstick out of the transaction though.
Since changing the oil pan isn't an option and there's not enough room to cut the oil pan and notch it, instead I've made 4 spacers using 1/4" plate aluminum. If I place two of these spacer plates on each motor mount that will give me a 1/2" of engine lift which should be more than enough to enable the oil pan to clear the crossmember. I also discovered that I was using small block motor mounts instead of big block motor mounts so I'm purchased two new BBC motor mounts. The size is about the same but the big block motor mounts look beefier and shouldn't squish down as much as the small block motor mounts did.
Metal ParticlesAfter taking the oil pan out I discovered more metal particles in the oil pan than expected from breaking in the new engine. I had the head machinist, Rick, at our local NAPA store look at it and he said it looked like more metal particles than normal. He suggested I pull a rod cap and a main cap and inspect the bearing surfaces. I removed one of each and showed them to Rick and his experienced and trained eye said it looked like dirt had impacted onto the bearing and there was some marring of the bearing surface.
He suggested I install new bearings and clean everything really well. With the help of my friend and very talented mechanic Cary, we replaced all the main and rod bearings yesterday, then re-installed the oil pan. This also included taking off the timing chain cover so we put all new gaskets in too.
As I type this it's Saturday, July 25th, a little after 1:00pm
On June 19th I resigned from the best job I've ever had and that was running the
www.MeguiarsOnline.com discussion forum and as the instructor for their detailing classes. My new job is going to be running the Autogeek.net forum and teaching detailing classes on the east coast for Autogeek. That's one of the reasons I started this project and that was because I want to take my Jimmy to Florida. Anyway, I was supposed to leave for Florida with my Jimmy and my boat last Monday so I'm a week behind.
Icing on the cakeYesterday while using a Peanut Grinder to grind some metal in the engine compartment some abrasive particles off the grinding wheel or some metal particles flew into my right eye. Yes, I was wearing safety glasses with side shields. In the future I'll wear either goggles or a face shield. I thought I rinsed out all the particles but last night the pain became so great I went to the emergency room and the D. had to remove some metal particles embedded into my eye. It' hurts to blink, I'm wearing an eye patch and the pain killers they gave me are making me dizzy. My motor, tranny and transfercase are all out of the truck and I'm a week behind.
That's the update. LOL
Hopefully nothing too horribly bad will go wrong tomorrow as I'm going to try to install everything back into the truck starting at about 6:00am
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