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I finally got the new subframe and initial mounts tacked into place.

series 3 trans mount


Modified the Series 3 bracket to fit the much smaller trans mount instead of the normal engine mount. Size is a huge issue with this car, and the normal W-body engine mount hung way too low.


1 of 4 total dogbone mounts mocked up:




Subframe tied into the lower radiator mount:




Next step is to pull the subframe and get some more cutting and welding done. The added portion of the subframe is made from 11gauge 1.5" x 2" rectangle tube, it's roughed in but it will be cleaned up so it's not so blocky looking. Once that's done, I'll do a final test fit, then pull the entire drivetrain out with it to setup the rest of the motor mounts, and do some clearance work on the body at the forward supercharger belt pulley.

This motor is going to get all new gaskets, timing set, water pump, all the usual 3800 preventative stuff that is going to be annoying to service later. Trans is going to get some updated parts as well, but mostly just a refresh with new seals and clutches and the usual hard parts. Most likely going to do the same rebuild on it that I did to the Montana. Performance parts will be limited to headers, trans shift improvements, and a tune. Depending on the budget, we might look into a 3.4 pulley setup and supporting mods

I'm still amazed how you do all that you do and make it sound routine like you are just changing spark plugs. Like Mr. T from Rocky said, "I pity the fool that pulls up next to this econobox in their fast car and gets a surprise from your car's performance" (well he would have said this:)

Here it is, all tacked up and ready to do some cleanup and welding:


The first thing to address was the joint to the subframe. Had to cut back some of the metal to get to the structural metal:








Doesn't look like much yet, wasn't able to get pictures of the welding progress I made today yet. I had to do a lot of planning to make sure the forward control arm bolts are accessible. I need to finish cutting and welding around the trans side mount before I verify the fitment.

I have those same Harbor Freight dollies. Used 'em during the assembly of my 4-post lift. They're like the universal tool.

The subframe reminds me of what Fiero guys do on swaps some of the time probably for the same reason.

Found one of those little repairs that make you wonder why:


But the subframe is almost done!


And it holds a 3800 all by itself now!


Working on the rest of the engine mounts now.

As usual, progress continues despite the lack of photography. Had to take another mid-project cleanup (after acquiring a new storage cabinet and a bunch of random stuff from my dad's old garage). But finally finished tacking in the rear mounts:





More work to do there, have to grab some bar stock while I'm out this weekend. In the meantime, the real fun begins:


I love me some 3800 sludge:


Ended up pulling the heads to check for cracks (none!) and find out how bad this rust had progressed on the front side of the motor:




That was getting close to head gasket leak territory. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Took a bit of elbow grease to clean it up:




Rather than risk some kind of filler or epoxy separating due to heat cycles I filled the voids with copper RTV. Rust was mechanically removed and the areas soaked in evaporust then cleaned with ZEP de-greaser (prevents the metal from flash rusting). I got to drive the donor car, so I know the motor was running good, so the main goal is to stop and prevent this rust spot from expanding.

Also, more random fixes?


Heads cleaned up and back on. Still waiting on a timing set and intake gaskets to get this buttoned back up.

Looks like we're going to be doing a cam on this motor, went with the XP cam and going to upgrade to the blue LS springs and LS7 lifters. Grabbed a few other goodies that I'll need to rebuild the supercharger (going to be powder coating it). So progress on the motor is stalled while we wait for parts:


That's okay though, I have a ton of work to do yet! So I tore into the trans.




Got to stay organized!


Findings from the trans: Lot's of brown and burnt fluid and none of the bands or clutch packs were burnt (there was normal wear on the steels). Also, all the rubber seals are very stiff and the wave plate in the input clutch was shattered. I suspect it's from the TCC, which might back the theory that the donor vehicle had a lot of freeway miles on it (lots of carbon and sludge in the motor). Also, did you know that a FULL rebuild kit for a 4t65 no longer includes the bonded pistons? Also, you know how you pay extra for the clutch plates? Yeah, the steels aren't included either...

Planning to do the same trans build that I did for the Montana, with a more aggressive shift kit.

This project has officially been de-railed by something I've never seen before in a 3800:


Best I can tell is that this was a mis-build from the factory. The #2 cam bearing was only half-way installed. The engine was making good oil pressure, no metal in the oil, not down on power, no indications that anything was wrong until I removed the camshaft to put a new cam in.


So it was time to make a tool!


In order to get to the #2 bearing, the #1 bearing has to be removed.




Now, time to make another tool!


As far as I can tell, these bearings are pressed in from both ends, 2 at a time. The #2 bearing slides past the #1 bearing hole (same for the #3 and #4). I didn't figure that out until after I started making the tool. The goal of this tool is to be able to remove and re-install cam bearings without touching the crank or rods. Also, I was limited by stuff I had on hand tonight. The dumb washer on the end is supposed to center the tool, I cut a cam journal off an old cam to hold the bearing, a spare 36mm socket is nearly a perfect fit to the OD of the #2 bearing, then the aluminum piece on the end is fit to the #1 bearing. It centers the end of the tool so it presses in the #2 bearing straight. I tested it out, and unfortunately the centering I cut into the socket wasn't aggressive enough to keep it aligned to the journal it pushes on, it slipped while pressing so the bearing didn't go in straight. This is partially because I didn't have the right bolt on hand either... Another thing I tried that plagued me in the past was getting the bearing to crush to the right size without a way to shave it after the fact. I tried using a single layer of aluminum tape over the bearing journal to prevent the bearing from crushing too far - looks like that part worked at least.

The plan is to revise this tool, but I need some real aluminum round stock and appropriate length bolts first. The force it takes to press the bearings in and out might be low enough to use a threaded aluminum tool, not sure if I'll design it that way at this point though.

Well, well, well, that's interesting! I had a cam bearing fall out of my 93 SSE years ago at about 73k miles. It was #2 or #3 bearing, can't remember which. The only way I knew there was a problem was the oil pressure dropped to about 10 psi (gauge). The magical thing was it managed to work itself off the cam and slip past the crank; I found it in the oil pan pretty much in one piece. Mangled, yes, but in one piece more or less. Yours is only the second cam bearing working loose (or incorrectly installed) I've heard of. Makes me wonder how many might be running around with compromised cam bearings.

I have two engines on the shelf that had low oil pressure, but there was babbit around the front cam bearing on each one so some indication that there was a problem. So this tool I'm making is going to pay for itself I think.

But to your point - I'm betting cam bearing failure is common enough that I'm probably going to plan on checking on every motor I pull, even if it's running and makes good oil pressure.

Day two of the cam bearing saga:


Only downside of a 80 year old lathe is it needs some work, and I need better lathe tools. A major problem I have is once I chuck a piece in, I can't take it out as it will never true back to the same center. So when making all of this it took a few tries to get the 2" piece to get as centered as possible, then all of my cuts have to be able to be made without relying on putting the part back in later. Also, fun stuff, since I don't have all the right tools for all the right kinds of operations - so I have to make do. Today it just wasn't cooperating so I don't have a very nice finish on the OD of the parts. Everything is made to fit axially, so that's where I had to focus on getting a clean surface.

Bearing #2 install tool is almost done. What you see from left to right: Pilot, the new bearing fit to a cam journal, the all-important press plate, the spacer, and the #1 alignment dowel to ensure it stays axially aligned. Tonight was focused on making chips and test fitting, I'll get into some more detail tomorrow after I finish the tool for bearing #1. Very hard to see, the press plate has a V-groove that fits the bearing to keep it from slipping off the tool:


Bearing fit into the groove on the press plate:


Test fitting the tool; first picture is the pilot lined up into the #2 bore, and the #1 dowel lined up into the #1 bore.




I was trying to find an appropriately sized O-ring for the pilot, as it sits the pilot has to be removed after the bearing is pressed in. Not sure if I'll be able to get that piece out without removing pistons (the goal for future use). I was hoping to find a rather thick O-ring that could be stretched over a part that is small enough to slide through the bearing, pulling it back out would roll the O-ring down the chamfer where it would shrink down to normal size and fit through the new bearing. I haven't found an O-ring locally, so in order to stay on track that idea is on the back burner.

The tool to install the #1 bearing will be similar to this tool, a cam journal will fit into the newly installed #2 bearing to keep it aligned, a spacer and similar (same?) press plate will push the bearing in. The plan is to make a spreader bar that bolts onto the face of the block that will accept the threaded rod and flange from a gear puller. The gear puller will be used to press the tool and bearing into place.

Hopefully I can get the tools polished up tomorrow and over the weekend finish the motor.

This is how you install a cam, you just set it right in the block, right?


Two days of playing with the lathe later I finally have a tool set for these bearings:


Cam bearing #2 going in:




#1 going in:




Finally, the cam is in!


Here's the new tool. Going to put this one on the top shelf.


The long story behind cam bearings - back when I L67 swapped my LeSabre I had to replace the cam bearings. So, I didn't have $400 for the tool, but I had a friend at work who was a machine operator that turned an old drive shaft yoke down into a tool simliar to the aluminum piece I made to remove the bearings above. I thought I had documented that, I remember it very well, probably lost all those photos to photobucket.. Anyhow, when I used that tool to install the new bearings, of course they crushed down, and ended up too tight to the cam to the point that you couldn't turn it by hand with the sprocket on. I followed some advice on another forum where old-school people would cut opposing slots into an old camshaft to essentially shave them to fit - that's what I did and it seemed to work. The way I did it, since it was nearly impossible to get the cam in, was slotted the 4th journal and one at a time shaved the bearings until I had all 4 done. Now, I'm fairly more certain that I documented it better with the 93 SSEi, eventually that motor lost oil pressure at idle and a lifter collapsed - root cause was the clearance that ended up cut into the #1 bearing was too high because there was nothing to hold the cam centered when I did the old school trick, with each bearing being progressively better as you would expect the cam to stay better centered with each additional journal to hold it. Since the internet had convinced me I needed some special tool that I couldn't find to shave the bearings down to fit, I decided to never touch a press-fit cam bearing again. When I rebuilt the motor for the SSEi, I had the machine shop do the cam bearings.

Since I'm a certified Master in Engineering now, I couldn't let past failures and growing up poor on a farm stop me from installing cam bearings. Since touring an engine assembly plant is not an option, I had to come up with a way to make sure the bearings didn't crush down too small. You know, because an assembly operation would have a mandrel sized specifically to press them in to end up at the right size to fit the cam. So that's what I needed to make. What I ended up doing was cutting up the camshaft from this motor, since the #2 journal was FUBAR to begin with no reason not to. I cut the #1 and #4 journals off, since they are the widest, and I needed the extra metal to cut alignment features into each piece of the tool (the bolt in the middle doesn't hold the tool in alignment). I have a bunch of aluminum tape that I used to hold exhaust tubing together while I mock up and tack them, so I checked the thickness of it - measured between 0.001 and 0.0015 with the calipers, so it was too thick to do a single layer on the journal since it would end up with 0.003 clearance if the tape and adhesive doesn't crush at all. 0.003 is too much, but a half-wrap should be close enough if it's clocked properly, so that's what I did. This seems to have worked perfectly - once the bearing is pressed in it's a tight fit to the journal and tape and needed a slide hammer to tap the tool back out. The new camshaft fits tightly with just a slight amount of drag but you can still turn it with just your fingers. It's consistent with the feel of the bearings a machine shop installed. With the drive gear for the balance shaft on it spins freely. No shaving the bearings, just press and go. I used the sealed power 1889M bearings.

This is huge for me because I have 2 lower mileage L67 blocks with bad cam bearings that I can revive now! The solid aluminum 2" blank cost $30, and the thick wall aluminum tubing was $18. Playing with the lathe makes up for the time spent, but I think I'm going to invest in a proper (self) restoration of the lathe and some better tooling in the future. I cut two adapter pieces today and they came out flawless, but when it came time to cut the third aluminum adapter I couldn't get it to not chatter (same cuts), then the next piece was the steel cam journal and after getting it to mount in the chuck without a wobble it once again cut perfectly...

Nice job on the tool and getting the bearings in with the crank/rods still installed.

We found an upgraded sway bar for the front, I think it's a 22mm bar, original is only 18mm.


Got most of the engine/trans re-assembled, doing some last minute clearance checks. There are two spots to clearance. The first is on the drivers side, subframe is about a paper's thickness from rubbing the 4t65 side cover. I'll get a better picture of that later. The other one is something that I find annoying. Here's the drivers side tripot for the axle:


And the passenger side:


The support bracket is not quite symmetrical side to side. The drivers side is further back than the passenger side one, by about 1/4", so I'll have to clearance the passenger side to make sure the axle boot doesn't rub.

After dealing with random stuff that isn't project related, I finally managed to get back to progress here.

When you have powder coating setup, of course you have to use it. This is my favorite part to strip prior to sandblasting:


I got this wrinkle finish blue for another project, but it was too nice to not use here:




Other swap specific details: Power steering plumbing! I modified the '99 H-body pressure side, had to cut out a short section of bends to get it to fit, the return line on the Cavi was dumb - it had a flexible steel core that meant I couldn't just cut it to fit the filter. Basically I ended up cutting the entire rubber section off, put a bead on the steel tube, and used some appropriate 3/8 hose and clamps.

The engine and trans are basically ready to go:


The last big parts for this swap are the exhaust and wiring. There's a lot of little things left as well, vacuum lines and sensors/mounting, one of them is a brake upgrade using the Cadillac JL9 brakes. Once I verify fitment in the local u-pull we'll get some parts ordered and probably some more powder coat.

I'm hoping to get a start on the headers this week. I'll have to pull a block and heads off the shelf - plan is to mock them up on the car and swap them to the spare motor to weld. I'll be using 1.75" primary tubing into a 2.25 collector, merging into a 2.5" downpipe. 2.5" looks like the upper end of reasonable for the Cavi. Going to use the Magnaflow spun metal cat and an F-body single in, dual out muffler.

Got the motor back in the car this weekend:


There are some minor clearance issues to work on, I plan on detailing them soon, but for now it's time to start the headers:


Going back and forth between the spare head and the car:


Something that's starting to resemble a collector:


I need to cut up this spare (cracked) head I'm using as a jig to hold everything so I get better access to the bottom of the header flange with the TIG. I'll end up having to replace the cooling fan with a push type out front due to space constraints, but I'll worry about that after I get the exhaust done.

Front header, done.






Took a bit more planning to work out the rear header. Last time I did this, the headers weren't exactly installer friendly. This time the constraint is space, and I guess I forgot how big a 4t65 is. Also, the offset between the banks, planning a downpipe, etc.


One of many test fits:


And... the gas lense for my TIG cracked internally... I don't know when it happened, just found out tonight when I pulled it apart. After making some decent welds on the Van project, I've been struggling with the tubing for these headers - it was acting like there was no gas flow if I tried to weld for more than a few seconds on an open surface (tacking welds were fine), so I've been basically making a series of tack welds that sacrifice appearance for weld integrity, since every tack just looks like a new blob of weld instead of an even pattern. If I tried to make a pass I could see the impurities forming up at the trailing end of the weld puddle.


The modified head that I can use to weld on:


Making WeLdS:




Since I need to get some parts for the TIG torch, progress on the crossover is going to stall for a few days. I'm on the fence with the TIG right now anyway - It's long past due for an upgrade, an air cooled torch is simply not enough to keep up with the projects I want to do, and I'd like to have a little more control than just current setting. We'll see, It's not like this machine is not capable, I just think I've outgrown it beyond a few upgrades.

Mocking up the crossover and downpipes using a spare off-the-shelf engine/trans:




Thinking about using a flex coupler on the crossover, depends on how the test fitting on-car progresses. The V-bands I got have a counter-bore fit between the bands, which means they both have to install in the same direction (which conflicts with accessibility of the bands with other things installed).