Getting a little fancy... 1987 V10

[frotosride]

Yesterday was clean up and inspection time. I though my rear main was at least a little leaky. I was wrong! it may seap a very small amount but I know this is all original so being as clean as it is is awesome.




So where is all the oil coming from that's coating the top of the transmission, and driverside of the block... A little from the valve cover and oil fill cap. The oil pressure switch piping beside the Distributor has been leaking for years. Funny this same location for leaks has kicked my but on meny GM engines (any LS).

[frotosride]

Time for tool of the day.... My 1/2" drive IR cordless ratchet is always number 1... but Jegs engine dolly is good. It allows you to put the whole engine on the stand, keep it low to the ground and store it in many places. best of all it's only 2 bolts to take it down to 3 small assemblies. The front rail has nuts tacked to it so you can maintain all needed hardware (which is included) when not in use. It even clears the starter!!

[frotosride]

Originally, i thought that I was going to keep some of the OEM harness. If you think about it, there's everything you need for fuel injection. On the other hand, there will be a lot of cutting and splicing into 33+ year old wires and hacking up a perfectly good harness for a system that I intend to use on another vehicle.
I'm not keeping anything except the Key on power to the coil. I had though about using the OE fuel pump relay until i truly thought about it and realized that the relay doesn't see power at all times while the fuel pump is running. I do still like the thought of the oil pressure switch safety circuit. Not sure if I will make a way for something like that to function. So a newer style fuel pump relay will take it's place. Either way I'm going to post a few pics of the harness and the link i posted earlier will have more in-depth pics. Also, I realized that what seemed like burned plastic inside the bulkhead connector was not a resistance issue and wires getting to hot. It is just the 33 year old sealer...!! that's good!



Here is the harness unplugged from the ECM and still connected to the Bulkhead connector for the fusebox. To the far left are the ECM connections and VSS connector then the firewall grommet and the rest of the harness.



Here's what the Bulkhead connector looks like with all the TBI connections removed.

[frotosride]

Last night I managed to get the engine mount plates and the ORD Cross-member cleaned and painted. They look brand new..well the cross-member is..

[VileZambonie]

Are you posting pics? If so I do not see them.

[frotosride]

Are you posting pics? If so I do not see them.

Dang.. I don't understand why I cannot get the links to work! When I do the preview it works fine and I see them as well.  I'll figure it out somehow thanks Mr. Zambonie.. Oh and I'm liking your conservative choice of cams and LSA! 

[frotosride]

Ok, I may have figured it out. Going to try another pic. If this works then I will continue to do it this way. I may just use links because I have everything on google drive now and the pics don't show up in the preview but the hyper-link does. let me know if you have any problems with the links.
What I accomplished yesterday... Since i seem to go fast and never take the time to clean up and then put things up so well I cannot find them again, I fullty assembled the TBI 350 I took out.



Had to figure out how to drain the trans and start inspecting it. To be honest, I have neglected this thing from day one. It has about 50k miles on this ATF and filter. But with that said.. all looks good. No huge chunks of clutch material or metal on the magnet. So what's the plan? Well build it and upgrade as strong as I am willing to afford. Transmissions are my favorite tings to rebuild, especially automatics!

[frotosride]

Hopefully this works if so someone tell me if they can see this.

[Mr Diesel]

I see your most recent pic and your crossmember pic above.

[frotosride]

I see your most recent pic and your crossmember pic above.

Awesome...I changed the crossmember to see if it would work as well. thanks for letting me know.
I'm going to try to change every Pic i posted in this thread and maybe a few more. either way I intend to keep the Google photos link active and up to date just incase I run out of Flickr space and do not want to pay for more.

[frotosride]

I am a little torn between building the transmission or buying one. On one hand I really like building auto trans. Down side is it's time consuming. Also The abount of money invested to upgrade the 700r4 is not far from a new TCI rated over 650hp & tq and it comes with a warranty. I think what I will do is make a post of parts cost versus buying one... seeing in front of me may help the decision making process.

But I am not letting that slow progress. Started cleaning the NP208 in preps for cracking it open and rebuilding it. I have no real issues with the transfer case except that it was leaking from the seem, on the other hand it could have been the puke tube/vent. Either way here's some clean up pics. The second one is a little fuzzy.

[Mike81K10]

Your making good progress and wish I could build transmissions. Your pics are visible!

[frotosride]

Your making good progress and wish I could build transmissions. Your pics are visible!

Funny thing.... I couldn't until I did... Food for thought!

[VileZambonie]

Your pics are working now. So what trans are you going to run? If you're going to reseal the transfer case, keep in mind the 27/32 input spline differences. As far as rebuilding automatics, they can be a time and space suck, like me right now, I have to play the waiting game because of parts availability. I'm building a 4L80E and converting it to 4x4. There are many design changes so I had to drill the output shaft for the oiling holes, am stuck waiting for sprags and torrington bearings. Shipping is taking forever right now, and it's eating up real estate while I wait for parts. If you have the time and space, it's a good feeling to build your own but I agree on the cost/time factor with the hard parts upgrades.

[frotosride]

Your pics are working now. So what trans are you going to run? If you're going to reseal the transfer case, keep in mind the 27/32 input spline differences. As far as rebuilding automatics, they can be a time and space suck, like me right now, I have to play the waiting game because of parts availability. I'm building a 4L80E and converting it to 4x4. There are many design changes so I had to drill the output shaft for the oiling holes, am stuck waiting for sprags and torrington bearings. Shipping is taking forever right now, and it's eating up real estate while I wait for parts. If you have the time and space, it's a good feeling to build your own but I agree on the cost/time factor with the hard parts upgrades.

Pics...pain in my but apparently...i just had to host them somewhere different than i usually did.
My ultimate trans for this is a built 6l80E without any of that dang apply piston PWM (easy to mechanically program out). I have two NP205's that would ge a twin stock and a 203 for a doubler as well (these are my free collected parts over the last 2 years). Either way the issue is as always $$. I can feasibly afford to do the trans. The two problems are the other adapters and drive shafts. The last swap I did was an '88 yj. Went from sbc400/350/205 to 5.3l/sm465/205(twin stick). The cost of driveshafts even with the cardan joints we gave them was almost $1500. Between Novak, ORD and advanced adapters any combination you could want is possible these days.

Aside from that i'm not planning on doing anything real serious with this truck because of it's sentimental value to my wife I cannot destroy it. With that being said I cannot justify all that money for a 4 0r 6l80 swap (right now). So I will be sticking with the 700r4. I know this trans had huge potential if built right so that isn't a concern for me. the best part is most of the upgrades are GM supported (4l60/4l60e/4l65e) like 5 pinion planets, 13 vane pump rotor, hardened shafts, etc... Then with Sonnax..Dang son, you can build to the moon.  At this point my parts cost is $1236.22, this price is what I conside minor upgrades. I'm not doing any upgraded input/output housings, hardened shafts or gear ration changes.