The journey of the 88!

[Zeik75]

UPDATE 10/23/2015!

I figured I'd add on to this thread instead of make a new one that way anyone that may want to see everything about this car can. The deal is my 2000 SSEi is totaled and I will be putting the L67 from it into the 88......with and intercooler.......and maybe cam.......we'll see about the cam though.






So many of you know that the 88 has been torn apart for about a year now, but no longer. Be warned this will be a long post with much stupid on my part most likely. With out further ado!

The beginning of it all:

To begin the initial problem with my 88 was a dying trans. I eventually determined that the cause was partially age and partially the trans filter neck not sealing right, honestly not sure if the filter/seal was messed up or it i installed it wrong. However when I removed the pan after the first signs of hard shifting, delayed shifts, and slipping clutches to check for something in the pan the filter just fell out with the pan. I didn't have to pull it out or anything, just sitting on the pan not doing it's job. After that I put a new filter and fluid in hoping that would help as I wasn't sure what else to do. I then made a thread here stating the problems it was having and it was determined the trans wasn't savable and no idea how long it would last. At the advice of Mattstrike I got a Junkyard trans to rebuild on the side and swap in when done.

The first JY trans:

I went to the JY with two friends to pull a trans, all in all it took us about 6 hours as none of us had ever pulled an engine and trans before. All went well so far, I started the tear down and took some pictures of things as they came out. This went pretty well as I had the shop manual to follow and plenty of time to disassemble over winter. The problem with this was that the JY punches holes in the pan to drain the fluid and they hit a transfer tube in the bottom which I couldn't find anywhere to buy a replacement, also that the governor module had a cross threaded bolt from the factory and snapped the threaded tab off when I removed it. This stopped me for the next 2-3 months as I was low on money and time to go to the JY. I was going to college and working at BK nights and weekends then.

The second JY trans:

Eventually my dad asked why I had stopped and once I explained it he bought another JY trans for me that we went and pulled in 2 hours this time. So I started the second tear down which went much quicker. I found nothing telling me this trans was bad and honestly I probably could have swapped it in and had it run fine for awhile. I ordered new clutches, all the seals, and a trans go shift kit for it. I started this maybe a month before summer set in and had it all torn apart, then it took a couple months to clean everything thoroughly. After everything was clean I started rebuilding the sub assemblies (valve body, pump, etc...). Once I had everything I could do before the actual rebuild I started the full reassembly which went fairly well, I ran into a couple snags along the way but the forum was able to help out with those and I got it together in the end. (also all those muffler bearing installers and other "special" and "necessary" tools aren't needed. I literally used a piece of a plastic binder cover to roll my clutch seals in and to install the diff and a couple other pieces all at once I just put them on the output shaft and lifted them up into the trans while it was vertical.) Anywhoooo the trans was finally done and at this point I had the 2000 and had gotten the necessary work on that done to have it be problem free while I took apart the 88.

The trans "swap" (went a bit overboard):

So what was initially supposed to be a simple swap of the trans turned into something pretty crazy and plain silly for an 88 Bonneville. It was I think August when I parked the car and started the tear down. (parked it at exactly 180000 miles by the way! It drove like 13k on the dying trans and never let me down, was just moody.) So I started by pulling the engine and trans together then decided I would redo all of the suspension and mounts in the front end with polyurethane parts. I pulled the subframe and all the front suspension then rolled it into the garage. Started by tearing the frame apart completely and de-rusting everything, nothing was rotted or anything just surface rust for the most part. (Stupid part #1 I tried removing rust with like a 2 inch wire wheel on my drill at first......then bought i wire wheel for my grinder, best decision of my life.) Eventually I got all the parts de-rusted and did the hockey put subframe mounts like Mattstrike did on his SSEi, basically the same process as his except I didn't put the rings on the bottom caps. Then I proceeded to paint all the things to prevent future rust and make it look nice. After that I got new ball joints and fought the old control arms to get the old ones out but eventually prevailed. Then I spec'd out new energy suspension bushings for the control arms and caps for the ball joints and tie-rod ends. all of this was reassembled so I went on to the rack and pinion. My original one was leaking and would periodically spew all of its fluid onto the ground so I decided to try rebuilding it. this appeared to go well so the subframe was put back into the car with the rack and pinion with everything I could being bolted back together and torqued. then came the engine shenanigans.....

The Engine!:

So not so stock anymore... The intake gaskets have seeped for years so I decided to regasket all of that while the engine was out, that was then taken overboard when I started porting the Intake to gasket match. I then decided that I should pull the heads to also gasket match an make sure everything was in good shape. I then discovered the exhaust valves were all pitted up and defiantly not sealing properly so I took the heads and valves to my local race engine shop to get reworked. They ended up cleaning, taking a thousandth off one head and grinding/seating the valves for me. This is the place I will take all engine parts to the future now, the guy is flat out amazing. Back on track the heads were done so I ported them to gasket match then reassembled with new valve stem seals and put the springs back on. (Interesting to find out that this engine has 2 springs on each valve that add up to 125# valve springs.) I then painted all the parts to be fancy and started the reassembly. I decided to clean the holes in the block for the thread first as I had seen many websites advise doing that. (stupid mistake #2 I used a 12mm tap on the holes in the block......they are 7/16 standard thread......enough said....) So I only did 4 holes like that before I realized my mistake....those holes are now helicoiled and holding up fine. Got the heads on and properly torqued with new TTY bolts and sealant. In addition to porting the runners on the intake I also gasket matched the throttle body adapter and the intake manifold where that bolts to. They were actually kinda bad from casting. I didn't do much to the throttle body itself except a good cleaning and matching it to the adaptor. All of this got installed with their respective new gaskets and torqued, no troubles there. At this point the block and rotating assembly is the only thing stock, everything else on the engine has been changed within the last 3-4 years(water pump, timing chain, almost every sensor, etc...). The block was now ready to go back in so the trans was bolted back on wiring harness was cleaned, got new wire look, and a couple new connectors spliced in and was re-installed onto everything. I then installed everything back into the car, made some custom hokeypuck motor mounts for 3 of the old mounts, and hooked up all the random wires and hoses, also installed a trans cooler.

The misfire problem:

After I got everything in and hooked up I went to start the car anddd nothing. I had power to everything it just wouldn't crank, turns out I had forgotten to connect the starter signal wire. Hooked that up and it cranked like a champ and started however it ran like *shoot*...... I checked all the obvious things, make sure spark plug wires are on all the way, correct firing order, fuel pressure, etc. Everything on the fuel side was functioning properly, good pressure, all the injectors fired and what not. So i moved on to the ignition side, I started by testing every coil and they tested fine but i'm not sure if i tested them properly.... anywho everything seemed ok and i couldn't trace down the problem so it sat for about a month. eventually I got back at it and figured out that i'm a huge idiot. I only figured out I was an idiot after the ICM completely died though, i got a new one of those and then realized the 6-2 coil was completely dead. So I swapped on some spare series 2 blue tab coils and it ran great.

The trans problem...:

So now the engine ran great but not the trans. It wasn't developing enough pressure to properly engage everything and shift properly. It would get all gears and reverse but with any power at all it would start slipping. I don't have enough experience and didn't have time to fix it myself as I only had like 6-7 weeks before I went off to college to get my bachelors. So I limped it across town to a transmission shop and had them drive it. The owner has been in business for almost 50 years i believe and is the transmission god! He knew what was happening and was able to narrow it down to a couple possible things. The cheapest route was for me to pull it myself and drop it off, so thats what I did. 300 dollars later and I learned that a valve in the valve body got installed on the wrong side of a roll pin, there was a seal missing for the torque converter, a valve that goes behind the vacuum modulator wasn't there at all, and the 2nd and 3rd clutches were burnt up. The shop fixed all that but said that otherwise everything else seemed correct. Back in the trans went and off for the first drive I went. I had to top it off 3 times I think but once I did it ran fine. I had a little bit of an issue with the adjustable modulator so I just went and got one of the originally Holley modulators to put on. After that it has ran great and I have put about 350 miles on the car. I need to go through and re-torque everything suspension wise and I should probably have cotter pins in the tierod ends and ball joints.

I will make another post later to list all my mods so this will do for now guys.

[SuperHbody]

Cool dude! Makes me jealous as my plans for the war wagon are in limbo. Keep it going!

[gweg_b]

Nice to hear, Austin! Hopefully I get to see this car in person someday!

This makes me really want to dig back into my LeSabre and get it all fixed up, but I just don't have the time, money, or space to work on it.

[Zeik75]

SuperHbody: Oh i plan to do much more with this car over the next couple years.

Greg: mechanically i would take it anywhere right now so it may show up at a michigan meet sometime, cosmetically though it looks just awful, maybe once i get it looking a bit better, and hopefully repainted it will make an appearance in person.

[MattStrike]

Not fun on the trans. But when you consider just how many things can only go in one way and you only missed three; not bad at all. They get easier after the first one.

[Zeik75]

Overall I'm happy with how i did on the trans and the fact that it actually works. I only have about 1100-1200 into the trans so not far off from getting a rebuilt one and i got a lot on knowledge and experience from it too so that alone makes it worth it. I'm just happy to finally be able to drive it again and can't wait to do a roadtrip sometime.

[Zeik75]

So I'm reviving this thread for the current project for the 88. the immediate plan is that the car will get the L67 and trans out of the 2000 which is sitting in my parents backyard. along with this the heads will be gasket matched, I have an IC core and ported/machined LIM on the way. Still need to get the rest of the things for an IC build, If anyone has an IC pump they don't want let me know lol. Other than that I would like to redo the rear suspension sometime this fall with poly control arm bushings and swaybar mounts and such. I think thats all for now, I'll update as parts come in and progress happens.

[gweg_b]

Awesome! Can't wait to see the progress!

[bs009]

Love seeing engine swaps like these. This will be awesome!

[MattStrike]

I can't wait to see this!

[Zeik75]

So are we really gonna do the swap at the meet like we were talking about? I'd get any engine and trans work i can done before the meet that way it would be a simple as possible with just wiring and misc stuff left?

[MattStrike]

I'm up for it. I'll think about what would need to be done beforehand, and what we'd need to have on hand to pull it off.

[Zeik75]

Sweet!!! I've been working on making a list and slowly aquiring parts and such. I should be going home this weekend and I'm gonna pull down to the heads probably and get everything ported and such. Otherwise I think I already have all the motor mounts I need, i think we will need the custom bracket for the AC compressor and that engine mount. I did some research on the 2000+ axels and the earlier ones and they are different so I'm gonna try and find some OEM ones from a jy. Otherwise i just need the rest of the stuff for an intercooler, some odds and ends, and wiring which I need to read up on a bit more.

[1oldman]

No one should be allowed to have that much fun. - BC

[1oldman]

No one should be allowed to have that much fun. - BC

[Zeik75]

I made an engine build thread!

http://www.pontiacbonnevilleclub.com/fo ... 47266.html

[BonnieBoy08]

I just read up on all this madness and am excited to see the final result!

[Twobonnie]

I wish to know more about the motor swap if it would or would was a difficult swap? And id love to see and hear more about your build as i own two bonnevilles 89 & 90 both LE's but im planing on having fun with my 90 but sweet idea i just wanna know whats the progress on it