Another 6.2 for 5.3 swap going on.

[iamdub]

Disconnect the fuel injection harness(es) or ignition harness(es) and crank it over with the starter until you see oil pressuere. You could also remove the spark plugs too.

Holding the accelerator to the floor when cranking kills injector and spark firing.

I cranked on mine for 2-3 20-second sessions (PCM cuts the cranking after 10 seconds even if you continue to hold the key) after I primed the system just to ensure it was primed with the pump sucking oil up into the pickup tube. Then I cranked it a little with the coil pack harness unplugged and foot off the pedal to prime the injectors. THEN I plugged everything in and went for the kill.

 

[PatDTN]

Wow. That's kinda an odd thing for us old school people. When you flood your engine you used to hold the accelerator to the floor and crank it to start. The idea was to let lots of air in and not create enough vacuum to pull fuel in through the carb. Eventually it would stumble to life.

This new situation seems like it's going to push fuel out into the catalytic converters.

 

[PatDTN]

After posting my pictures from the first head I went back down and did the second one. Things went smoothly mostly. I got done with the first two cylinders and took things apart on the third. After cleaning things up I popped the valves back in place and looked for my "straws". Hm. I must have knocked them off when I grabbed a rag. Nope, not on the floor, not on the table, where could they be? Then I took a close look at the second cylinder I did and noticed a faint green stripe on the top of the valve stem. Oh NO!

Testament to how easy it is to use this valve spring compressor I was able to put the keepers on the valve stems ON TOP OF THE FREAKIN STRAWS! So I quickly moved the tool back to that cylinder and took things apart. The straws were unharmed and I put things back quickly then did the next cylinder. As I'm compressing the springs back to put the keepers on I see it! There are still straws on the valve stems. ARGH. I must be getting tired. Luckily I could pull them out and continue on.

My suggestion is to make sure those freaky little straws are sitting where you can see them before you button things up. I don't even want to imagine what would have happened if I started the engine with those still in there.

The heads are bolted down, the valve covers have new gaskets and seals and are bolted down. I need parts off the engine in my truck to finish up but first I need to run out and find a temp sensor. Working with the torque angle gauge was new to me and in fumbling around I broke the plastic bits off the sensor.

I need to figure out where to hang the engine from the hoist when I pull the 5.3 and again when I drop in the 6.2. I also will need to figure out who I can get not too far away to reprogram for all the changes I just made. Hopefully I'll be driving with my new engine in just a couple of days. Shooting to have it done by the weekend.

 

[PatDTN]

Getting ready to do the engine swap meant clearing up some project materials. I had to pick up and carry over 1000 lbs of tile, thinner, and grout. My miter saw for fixing a glider on our deck got packed back up. Pieces of my mower from two years ago got put away or trashed. Finally I moved my wife's '68 Camaro RS out of my way. I moved my mostly finished engine over, some rolling shelves, and my engine hoist so I have room to pull the engine and set it down somewhere so I can swap parts across and drop the new motor in.

I pulled my Tahoe in and dropped the plastic skid plate out only to see my transmission cooler lines are leaking. I was hoping to find more things to buy. :-(

 

[iamdub]

Wow. That's kinda an odd thing for us old school people. When you flood your engine you used to hold the accelerator to the floor and crank it to start. The idea was to let lots of air in and not create enough vacuum to pull fuel in through the carb. Eventually it would stumble to life.

This new situation seems like it's going to push fuel out into the catalytic converters.

With a newer, FI engine, it's the same. It's the "clear flood" feature. Only instead of reducing vacuum to not pull fuel through the carb, the injectors just aren't fired.

 

[PatDTN]

Yesterday's progress was terrible. I spent the entire day disentangling the engine from its wiring harness. There's no place to separate it out that I can find. I can't imagine putting all that back while it's in the car. What am I missing? Are there ways to leave it on the engine and get to things?

Oh and that starter. It's loose and the wires are off it but no matter how I turn it I can't get it out. How would someone replace that sucker?

 

[PatDTN]

A couple of days progress didn't amount to what I wanted. It's Sunday night and I really thought I'd be almost done. In fact I barely got the old engine OUT.

I learned I can separate the fuse box and pull out large wire plugs to get those wires loose. Also a couple of plugs got the computer loose. From there it was a nightmare chasing wires, disconnecting them, feeding them back to the main loom, releasing the nearly 50 different styles of wire guides and 20 different plugs. Some of the things I just broke hoping the new engine has some that I didn't pay attention to.

Getting ready to tear the fuse block up.

Look at all those wires!

I didn't want to disconnect the power steering pump so I unbolted the whole accessory module and pulled it back on top of the computer support. Of course I snapped off one of the fingers that clamp the computer.

I got that huge mass of wires peeled back and layed over the right fender. I'll clean that later. When I pulled the intake off I found a mouse house on top of my valley pan. Hm. I just realized I need that throttle body. I need to learn to pull the plug and drain antifreeze from the block. I keep undoing things and making a huge mess. Amazing how much coolant came out when I removed the water pump. There was even more when I got the engine out and it tilted forward on the floor.

Does this mean I have a Chevy Mouse motor officially? Those intake runners are NASTY. This new engine is going to be so much cleaner.

After a number of adventures I got the engine out. There's a stud sticking up off the back of the right side coil pack. It doesn't hold anything, it's just there. When I lifted the engine that hooked on the AC hard lines on the fire wall. I freed that and started moving forward when something hung up again. That same stud had found part of the wiring harness and locked onto that. You know I'm putting just a bolt back in that.

My leaking transmission cooler lines also managed to play a huge part in getting in the way. I didn't realize that they were in a bracket bolted to the block until I started pulling. I couldn't get to it with a wrench at that point so I popped the lines out of the bracket. I guess I need new lines to fix that leak anyway. Those lines are also keeping the starter from coming out with the engine in.

Getting to this point wore me out for the day.

 

[PatDTN]

I got the new engine sitting in place and started assembling.

The engine is a little farther along now. I had a tough time getting all the bolts to hold the transmission to the block but not too bad. I ended up cutting down a deepwell socket to about 2/3 length to get onto some of them.

I rotated the engine so there was a bolt hole in the flex plate lined up with the torque converter. Slid under the car and pushed a bolt right in. Dang. It should have hit a bolt hole in the torque converter. I had to rotate things about 3 degrees to line it up. I popped a wrench on the crank bolt and rotated it what I figured for 33 1/3 turns, slid back under the car and found I had rotated it just about 2 degrees farther than what I could get the bolt in place. Rotated it back just a smidge and put the second bolt in. Another shot and lined up the last one. Better to be lucky than good.

I made my intake manifold ready to go in then remembered that little blocking plate that goes behind the fuel rail and bolted that to the head. Then I slid the new gaskets onto the manifold and put it in place. I torqued it down by hand since I don't have an inch pound torque wrench and they want to be around 4 or 5 lb-ft.

At this point I wanted to be sure what goes next; the wiring harness or the fuel rail so I came back up to look at the pictures I made. Just in time for dinner. Hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving.

 

[PatDTN]

Oh yeah. That stinking AC belt. No tensioners so you put it on fully tight. I figured out to slip the belt off the back of the crank pulley and onto the AC Pulley. Then I pulled the belt up to the top of the harmonic balancer and pulled as much of it around as I could. Put a wrench on the bolt and slowly started rolling the engine over. I did find I had to pull the belt forward between the pulleys to keep it rolling onto the AC. It went right on.

 

[Fless]

A couple of days progress didn't amount to what I wanted. It's Sunday night and I really thought I'd be almost done. In fact I barely got the old engine OUT.

I learned I can separate the fuse box and pull out large wire plugs to get those wires loose. Also a couple of plugs got the computer loose. From there it was a nightmare chasing wires, disconnecting them, feeding them back to the main loom, releasing the nearly 50 different styles of wire guides and 20 different plugs. Some of the things I just broke hoping the new engine has some that I didn't pay attention to.

Getting ready to tear the fuse block up.

Look at all those wires!

I didn't want to disconnect the power steering pump so I unbolted the whole accessory module and pulled it back on top of the computer support. Of course I snapped off one of the fingers that clamp the computer.

I got that huge mass of wires peeled back and layed over the right fender. I'll clean that later. When I pulled the intake off I found a mouse house on top of my valley pan. Hm. I just realized I need that throttle body. I need to learn to pull the plug and drain antifreeze from the block. I keep undoing things and making a huge mess. Amazing how much coolant came out when I removed the water pump. There was even more when I got the engine out and it tilted forward on the floor.

Does this mean I have a Chevy Mouse motor officially? Those intake runners are NASTY. This new engine is going to be so much cleaner.

After a number of adventures I got the engine out. There's a stud sticking up off the back of the right side coil pack. It doesn't hold anything, it's just there. When I lifted the engine that hooked on the AC hard lines on the fire wall. I freed that and started moving forward when something hung up again. That same stud had found part of the wiring harness and locked onto that. You know I'm putting just a bolt back in that.

My leaking transmission cooler lines also managed to play a huge part in getting in the way. I didn't realize that they were in a bracket bolted to the block until I started pulling. I couldn't get to it with a wrench at that point so I popped the lines out of the bracket. I guess I need new lines to fix that leak anyway. Those lines are also keeping the starter from coming out with the engine in.

Getting to this point wore me out for the day.

That a '67 Galaxie in the way?

 

[PatDTN]

That a '67 Galaxie in the way?

Sharp eye there. Yup. '67 Galaxie 500 XL convertible with factory a.c.. I bought it a long time ago on EBay from a guy in San Francisco who goes to junkyards and assembles cars for movie shoots. In this case he built this for himself. It had a 390 from a '72 truck and a C6 trans but he put a C4 kickdown rod on it and it caused the tranny to overheat.

I drove it home from San Francisco to my house in Virginia near DC with the top down. I pulled a cliplead off the firewall that turned out to be bypassing a relay for the power windows. With the windows all the way down...

 

[ls1frc]

Nice job!

When I do mine, I will just be installing the block and bolting the heads on after. Same with pulling.

 

[PatDTN]

I should mention that I put the truck up on jackstands and left it there this whole job. To support the trans I put a piece of 2x4 and a piece of 1x4 on top of the roll bar under the front of the trans. It was a perfect height and angle.

 

[iamdub]

Why did you disconnect the wire harness from the fuse block? You should be able to use your 5.3 harness on the 6.2.

 

[PatDTN]

Why did you disconnect the wire harness from the fuse block? You should be able to use your 5.3 harness on the 6.2.

I am using the 5.3 harness. That was easier than disconnecting it from the right front corner as far as I could tell. I did ask for any tips then watched a bunch of YouTube videos and separating the fuse box and unplugging large gang plugs was pretty easy.

Probably I should have fully removed the coolant reservoir and battery to see what it takes to release the harness up there.

I would have loved to pull the engine with the harness fully in place so I could move it across to the new engine but that's made more difficult by the fact that removing the intake manifold allows access to the transmission bolts at the back of the block. The harness goes over the manifold and indeed even over the fuel rail.

 

[iamdub]

I am using the 5.3 harness. That was easier than disconnecting it from the right front corner as far as I could tell. I did ask for any tips then watched a bunch of YouTube videos and separating the fuse box and unplugging large gang plugs was pretty easy.

Probably I should have fully removed the coolant reservoir and battery to see what it takes to release the harness up there.

I would have loved to pull the engine with the harness fully in place so I could move it across to the new engine but that's made more difficult by the fact that removing the intake manifold allows access to the transmission bolts at the back of the block. The harness goes over the manifold and indeed even over the fuel rail.

Now that I scrolled back, I see where you asked for tips. Damn. I'm on vacay and not around much lately. I would've walked you through a much easier way. IMO, I'd avoid disturbing the connections under the fuse box since they're known to become intermittently faulty over time even left alone. It's not uncommon for people to beat on the fuse/relay center or unplug and replug it to fix some electrical issues.

I just unplug all the injectors and sensors from the top end and flip the harness over to the driver's side. Disconnect the A/C, MAF, etc. plugs, unbolt the harness retainers from the front and passenger sides of the block down by the crank pulley and RH engine mount and let it lay on the cross member and/or front axle. You'll have to periodically move the wires outta way as you gradually work the engine up. I rotate the block just before it's at the top of the core support and spin it sideways and it comes right out, even with the mounts still bolted to it.

 

[PatDTN]

Too late. My harness continues from the top of the engine over behind the battery with a bundle of wires. Had I realized the fuse box plugs were a common problem I would have covered the connections with dielectric grease to keep corrosion down. Just getting ready to crawl around and finish making connections.

I have a new set of tranny cooler hoses to install so I think I'll tackle that with no wires on the right side first.

 

[PatDTN]

I was making pretty good progress putting the wiring harness back in. Then I decided to install my cooler lines. I tried for a while and realized I have no idea how that gets done. The hard lines can't be bent and don't have any breaks (yet.)

Tomorrow I get to pick up my computer which has some of my tune installed. Hopefully it runs and I can drive to the tuner for the rest to be done.

So far all this was going easily. I'm amazed myself.

 

[PatDTN]

Working on details now. I learned there are two different transmission oil cooler hose setups. Somehow the one I bought and cut up to get in ended up with the connection to the radiator pointing away from the radiator. Had to go buy another 3/8 compression union so I could cut the line again and rotate it. That and some gentle bending got it connected. That'll be something to keep an eye on for a while because it's a quick connection and under some pressure from imperfect bends.

To prime my oil pump I watched this:

I'll find out if it worked when I start cranking the engine soon. Gotta connect the exhaust and put on a couple of guides for wires and hoses and replace the crossmember I dropped out for clearance. The front wheels are off for access to the low parts of the engine so I need to slap those back on. Is that a light at the end of the tunnel or a train coming to smack me.

If I'd had a lift I probably would have worn it out going up and down to reach things. Would have been nice not to have jackstands in the way though. Wondering where a handful of nuts went...

 

[iamdub]

That primes the pump by replacing the air in the pump with oil. But, it doesn't prime the oil system with oil. The galleys in the block, cam bearings, lifters, push rods, etc. are solely relying on the assembly lube for the first seconds or minute or longer after the first start. I've heard lifters rattle at startup then tick for about a minute or so until they're filled/purged/pumped-up. Filling the pump alone may (and probably is) adequate. But, having oil pushed through the system as it would be by the spinning pump gets the oil to all the places it would go so there is absolutely no dry areas at that first start. I'll be the first to admit that it's probably overkill. But, pressurized pre-lubing makes gives me peace of mind.


Maybe compromise and do what he did in the video, but crank the engine with the pedal floored until you see oil in the rockers?