Checked around, and the local parts stores claim to have the dipstick, but it's the same Dorman part I already have. Will have to order it I guess. Went to install the oil sender in the front position away from the exhaust, and it turns out one of my power steering lines interferes with it. I found a 90 degree NPT fitting in my stash and just used it.
Normally, I am gunshy about using thread sealant on this stuff, but the 90 degree fitting couldn't be tightened by as much as I'd like or the sender wouldn't fit. I made sure not to get any sealant on the first few threads of any of the fittings, to reduce the chances of it breaking loose and getting in the engine. I'll also keep an eye out here for any oil leaks. Just need to get it wired up now, I think the original gauge wire can be routed to here, but I may need to run a new ground.
Ground away some of the coil bracket, drilled a new hole for a zip tie to go through, and painted it up this morning. Between that and a little other garage work, the humidity and heat did me in, so stayed indoors for a while. Went out and assembled it just now.
The leftmost coil should be at an angle that lets me install the plug wires now. Need to assemble them from the kit. Also ordered the GM-branded dipstick, so I can add oil when it comes in this week.
The way we always did it for swaps/alternate pans was to fill the engine a quart low, notch the dipstick, add the last quart, and notch it again. Even the OE dipsticks can be wildly off. Chryslers in particular are bad for being at the add line when filled to proper capacity.
IIRC I used half of a van dipstick tube for the H1, definitely needed to make my own dipstick for that one.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I had considered that possibility, and will be paying attention when I fill up the pan on this one, just in case. I am assuming there's about half a quart in the filter, so if GM is to be trusted in their specs for the muscle car swap kit (same pan, dipstick tube, and dipstick as the H3), I should have to add 4.5 quarts to hit the full line. If it's off by too much, I'll mark the dipstick.
New dipstick is a bit shorter.
Also put in new sway bar end link bushings, but had to reuse the bolts and spacers from the old ones. The new aftermarket end links were too short to install the nut on. Both taillight lenses are installed, the driver's seat is fully bolted down, and the passenger coil packs are on. eastsideWife helped with bleeding the brakes, which is where things started to go wrong. Passenger rear took an inordinate amount of effort to loosen, and nothing came out of it. Driver rear, I snapped the bleeder screw. The fronts worked out better, but I suspect there may still be a bit of air in the circuit. Should be good enough to stop the car while testing in the driveway.
I reinstalled the wheels, and dropped the truck to the ground for the first time in ages. Even at stock ride height it seems so low compared to any other truck on the road. My wife also helped with moving the hood off the roof and into the bed, to keep it form sliding around once it is running. But, in getting it back on its wheels, I ran into the next problem. Either the parking pawl is toast, or I have the shifter cable installed improperly, because it wants to roll in both park and neutral. I'm afraid it is the former, but I'll jack it up and make sure. If the parking pawl is bad, I'll want to get the e-brake working before I test fire it, just in case.
For the brakes, I need to do a little digging in my storage locker, I may have a couple of calipers that will either work or can be rebuilt. It may also behoove me to assume everything is bad, and get new pads, rotors, parking brake shoes, and hardware, also.
Fluid is getting to the rear soft line, so I probably just need to replace calipers, but it may behoove me to go and do pretty much everything at each back corner, just in case. Also, the shifter cable was misadjusted, so it turns out eh parking pawl is functional. Getting everything readjusted may require pulling the shifter out of the cab, and I don't have the patience for that tonight, but at least I should be able to correct that problem.
Found the instructions for the shifter. When I "fixed" the linkage a ways back, I may have messed it up. Turns out the way it hooks up to the transmission is counterintuitive. I still think the cable needs to be adjusted to get it to work right. Will try to tackle that sometime this week. Rear brake parts are ordered.
Shifter cable work has not been going well. Likely going to need to pull the driver's seat, and maybe the passenger seat, in order to take apart the shifter assembly and the mounting bracket I made.
wae
PowerDork
8/6/22 4:38 p.m.
Well, better that it's the cable than having a transmission with a broken parking pawl.
If I don't pop a damn blood vessel over this dude that won't sell things to me, I might be able to swing over Sunday afternoon if you think a second set of eyes and hands would help.
In reply to wae :
I'm probably okay on my own, and with a little help from eastsideWife, but if you want to take a break from working on your projects to work on mine, you are more than welcome. 
Did get the transmission linkage redone over the weekend. There's only about 5mm of thread holding it in at the shifter assembly. I loctited the locknut for it, and hope that will do the trick to keep it from coming loose. I took the time to add a few more washers to the driver's seat bolts, to help secure it better.
Back of the truck is in the air, too, so I should be able to work on the rear brakes without opening the garage door. We are still looking at very hot and humid weather here.
Got the rear brakes mostly sorted over the weekend. On one side, the parking brake shoes are completely worn, and the other, they are mostly worn. However, the hardware for them is rusted badly enough that I am afraid to touch it. If it breaks, the only way to fix/replace it involves pulling the axles. Also, for the first time in ages, I could not get the fittings on the hard lines to spin independently of the lines themselves. Rather than risk breaking them, I just left the old soft lines in place. Fortunately, the brakes bled just fine.
I think at this point, its a matter of making and installing plug wires, assembling intake piping, installing the computer, and filling the cooling system. With any luck, test firing will happen next weekend.
Got out the custom plug wire set, and started working on it. Screwed up the first one. Thankfully, cylinder 1 can use a stock style plug wire. I just had to not mess up again. The kit I have came with straight, 90 degree, and 120 degree boots. In most cases, it turned out that I could use a 120 degree boot, and cut the wires down to 7.25". The one that was problematic was cylinder 4. Ended up having to use a 90 degree boot, run it forward under the header, over, then back to the coil. Might have been able to do a short run with it if I had found some shallow-headed bolts for the headers.
In order to keep it from getting burned on the exhaust, I'm going to take a plug wire holder from the S10's throttle cable bracket, and another random bracket I found in the garage to hold it up and forward. Rain hit too soon today, so I'll have to get the grinder out some other time to get it together.
I don't know if this is common with all plug wire kits, or just this one, but it was an extreme amount of effort to get the boots onto the wires. The one I messed up, I crimped the connector before putting the boot on, and could not get the boot over the connector. For all the others, I slid the boot on first, then crimped on the connector, and slid the boot back into position. Despite using copious amounts of dielectric grease, each boot took forever. Maybe if it'd been straight boots, it would have been easier. It didn't help that I was effectively having to push on a rope. At least I know the boots are unlikely to slide loose. My hands are a bit of a mess and all the joints in my fingers are sore, though, so probably done with garage work for the day. Not sure if boot kits are available separately, but if they are, the next time I have to do this, I have a ton of wire. It's almost like they were expecting you to relocate all the coils to as far away in the engine compartment as possible.
Weather doesn't want to cooperate, so I just roadkill'd it.
That should keep it off the exhaust. I just need to assemble the intake piping/MAF/filter sometime this week now. Also thinking I can hook up the computer, and at least plug in my OBD2 reader and see if it is wired correctly enough to communicate.
Engine fired up on the first try tonight! Lots of other stuff to deal with, but that is a load off my mind.
Before running it, I threw together an intake for the truck, installed the ECM, topped off the PS fluid, and started filling the radiator with water.
The radiator only took about 3 quarts before overflowing. The full cooling system should take between 12-15 quarts. I had heard it was hard to get water into an LS cooling system, just didn't know it was this hard.
It took a few seconds of cranking to get it to start, but it did start first try, and settled into a smooth idle after just a few seconds. I let it run a few minutes, keeping an eye on the OBD2 scanner to make sure it did not get too hot. I mostly forgot to look at my oil pressure gauge, but I do remember it was looking reasonable. During the first run, I added water as the radiator emptied into the engine, but it was still slow going, so I didn't want to run it too long at any one time. No need to tear into it to replace head gaskets. When I started it, the transmission fluid was about an inch over full, but when I checked while running, the dipstick was bone dry. I shut it off after that, and added about 2 quarts of fluid. Hoping it wasn't so low that I caused any damage. Ran it a few more times, added transmission fluid and water each time. Also, put it in drive and reverse to see if it would move. First time, it wasn't too happy, but after another round of fluid it seemed better.
Before I can pull it out of the garage, and leave it in the driveway, here's the list:
- Check transmission fluid. Last couple of times I added, it was right at the bottom of the acceptable range. Maybe it still needs a bit more. Which takes me to my next issue:
- A bit of a delay when moving. I could tell it had shifted before I let off the brakes and pressed the gas, but it didn't start moving immediately. Didn't feel like transmission slipping, but maybe it was and needs a bit more fluid. Another possibility is the front brakes are a little stiff after sitting for so long. And finally (and I hope not), the hydroboost system may be delaying the release of the brakes by a bit. If so, adding the cooler inline may be the solution for that according to some sources online. Not sure the logic makes sense on that solution, though.
- Install the hood, and preferably the bumper and grill.
- Bleed the power steering. Pump whined when I revved the engine.
- Figure out a better way to get water into the cooling system. Added some more this morning, but I am sure there is still a lot more to go.
Lots more little stuff to go before driving it more than just up and down the street, too. Hoping to knock off some of those things this weekend, but the main priority over the weekend is going to be to get the Mazda5's front struts replaced, and I need the S10 out of the garage for that.
Checked transmission fluid level this morning. It was at the bottom of the dipstick. Weird, as I never did anything to drain the convertor when I pulled the engine. Didn't know there were other guts of the transmission that could hold a bunch of fluid, I thought it would all drain back into the pan. I'll add some more until it is a bit over the full mark before I start it again. Hopefully this clears up the delay in moving issue. Also, just in case, checked under the truck. No leaks.
I usually pull the top hose off the radiator and backfill the engine through it, and on a couple cars have had to do this a couple times to burp the whole system.
Patrick said:
I usually pull the top hose off the radiator and backfill the engine through it, and on a couple cars have had to do this a couple times to burp the whole system.
I think I'll try that next. I did a little reading, and saw that that is a popular way to start with an LS motor. Seems to help keep air bubbles from forming at the thermostat. I was just depending on the fill the radiator, and squeeze the upper hose method of burping the system.
Tried to add through the top hose at lunch time, and it turned out it was already full there, so I may have gotten the cooling system mostly full. Added some transmission fluid, too, but I think it will need a bit more. Would be nice to resolve several things tonight so I can move it. The struts for the Mazda showed up today.
wae
PowerDork
8/25/22 3:13 p.m.
In reply to eastsideTim :
If you wanna bring it over to the shop and do it on the lift, you're welcome to. Not that I'm trying to dissuade you from getting the S10 mobile
wae said:
In reply to eastsideTim :
If you wanna bring it over to the shop and do it on the lift, you're welcome to. Not that I'm trying to dissuade you from getting the S10 mobile
Thank you for the offer. If I was 100% certain the struts were the only issue, I'd take you up on that offer. There's a chance it'll be laid up for multiple days waiting for parts, if I find anything else.
Last night, I cleaned up a little bit of rust off the cowl, and hit it with some touch up paint. Installed it this morning, and did a fluid check and fill. Then, time to start it up again. Needed me to stop and add transmission fluid a couple times. Tested it by shifting into reverse and forward, and letting it creep on its own. Works great, don't think the PS cooler will be needed, either.
Just over 15 months since it pulled into the garage under its own power, it drove back out.
After the picture was taken, eastsideWife and I installed the hood. Alignment is not perfect, but it works. Today's main goal is to clean the garage so there's plenty of room to work on the 5, and get it pulled in to be worked on tomorrow. Might still mess with the S10 a bit if I am feeling ambitious and have time, though.
