so again no pics to speak of.
I had saved up a bunch of cash, then Sarah and I ran into a tight spot with her new horse. The solution was for me to dump that money into her horse and not my motor. So....... I ended up getting a junk yard 350 out of a 98. It had 350,000 kms on it (217,000 miles) but came with a 30 day and was cheaper than buying a distributor, which I needed anyway. I got it back to the shop and cleaned it up a bit when I noticed the intake gaskets were seeping a bit. So we (my brother in law and I) ripped the intake off. Turns out the intake gaskets are shot. Wanting to know how much damage was caused, we popped the valve covers off only to find coolant in the oil. Ok, this becomes a project now. Rip the oil pan off to inspect the bearings..... both main and rod bearings were glazing over from the coolant, but not showing any noticeable wear to the crank. We busted out the plasti gauge to check clearancing and find about 3 thou. A little more thinking and inspecting leads us to believe that stock sized bearings will be fine. Already in this far and the motor having a substantial amount of time on the clock, oil pump and pan gasket come in to play as well as a new rear main seal. I stole my brand new timing chain off my blown motor (less than 100 miles on it) as well as my new valve cover gaskets. For the most part the motor got rebuilt. It didnt need anything else and yes we inspected it all. I could have done pistons and seals, but that would have meant honing and I wasnt getting into that with the shape everything was in as is.
Started putting everything together and started getting really happy I made the choices I did. The stock sized bearings were all (rod and main) clearanced .0015 of an inch. Thats damn good for this many clicks on the odometer. Get them all in and give it a test spin and the balancer (what we were turning it from) rotates considerably easier than before. We clearanced the oil pump to the pan and then tacked it in place. I have numerous buddies in the engine business who say that those are prone to adjusting themselves or just flat out falling off. So a quick spark here and some time to cool there and voila! I dont have to worry about it at all now. We ended up having to manually lift the damn motor (which was upside down on the stand) to get it into position where we could access the rear main seal. Finally got the damn thing in a good place and the seal was done in seconds. Thats my kind of luck though. Cleaned the metal surfaces and installed the seal. About this time my brother was done with the last of the rod bearings. We slapped the new timing gears and chain on, then the new cover. Put the now cooled off and re cleaned oil pump back on as well as the windage tray thingy. We got the new pan gasket out and installed the new oil pan. We swapped out the rotor and cap on the distributor and changed the evap junk from my 97 motor on the new 98 motor so the pcm wouldnt freak out on me.
There is obviously more to the entire swap, but I wanted to point out to what extent we re-built the motor. Some other things to mention are deleting the oil cooler, finding an unplugged O2 sensor, and sealing the header to exhaust (three bolt flange) gasket. If you remember I sent the truck to have the exhaust bent and hung for me. Well captain madrel there didnt think that all three bolts need nuts. ROIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I made it all better now and there is no way those nuts are going to back off hee hee hee. The oil cooler lines and in the rad were obviously filled with metal from my grenaded motor so I wasnt going to route my new clean oil through there and back into my new freshened up motor. So I mounted the standard oil filter hook up instead of the cooler one and plugged the rad holes.
We got the damn thing all back together and installed and fired it up. We had primed the oil system prior, so it was ready to crank. It starts almost right away. That blew me away. I figured it would have to crank a bit while filling with fuel and such. Not the case. The new pump primed like normal and vrooooom. The first time it was pretty quiet but there was a slight chatter. As Bryan bleed the cooling system of any air, I tightened the header bolts since the headers were nice and hot now. By the time we got the air out of the lines the motor was purring quieter than any other motor in the family. That includes a buick, lincoln, honda, an eco tec and well two diesels that arent really known for running nice and smoothly. I was very pleasantly surprised. Bryan hopped into the drivers seat to test the feel of it and she ripped the tires free without batting an eyelash. MUCH BETTER!!!!!! This thing was the poster child for gutless piles of crap before and now, she is what I would expect out of a mid 90's gas truck, and then some.
I had a few loose ends to finish today such as bolting the transmission dipstick bracket to the back of the tranny bolt, and check the fluids again. Everything looked good today with fresh eyes and we actually took her out on the road. Ran great with plenty of response, power, and not a single noise that shouldnt be there.
On a side note, Sarah has a 95 1500 and I have a 97 1500 hd. When I picked up my new motor in her truck, the tires were tucked in the fenders a bit. Last night we put the old motor in the back of my truck with a BUNCH of other scrap metal. Keep in mind I have the ext cab so it weighs more, and I have a tool box full of random stuff. When we loaded the motor we were swinging it on the engine crane and then drop it in so it basically got thrown into the bed. The truck didnt drop any noticeable amount. Thats a much heavier half ton than Sarahs 95!!!!! I was pretty pleased to say the least when not only did the suspension rock, but the motor was purring like a kitten. Its going to take a month to let my hands heal from all the damn varsol they were in, but it was so worth it. After I get my e-test and a sticker for my plate, I will finally get to drive and enjoy my truck. The poor thing has no clue the work load in store for it right away.