Mild 6.0L Build Suggestions?

[Matthew Jeschke]

Wow, makes since now. Damn bolt is impossible haha

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[Rocket Man]

Wow, makes since now. Damn bolt is impossible haha

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Whatever their reasoning was, they quit putting a drain plug in period around 04-05 iirc.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

My dad had a chevy malibu around the 2002ish vintage. They didnt even put a tube to check tranamission fluid. said it was a lofetime fluid. Eventually I advised they ignore the manual. They had it serviced but not even sure how they got into that case.

Wonder if same thinking was floating around in minds at GM if there was a fight ofver it and compramise was to remove that plug haha... I am an engineer now in sales. Used to share cube with former GM engineer. he said that is how things worked there [emoji1]

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[ks03]

My dad had a chevy malibu around the 2002ish vintage. They didnt even put a tube to check tranamission fluid. said it was a lofetime fluid. Eventually I advised they ignore the manual. They had it serviced but not even sure how they got into that case.

Wonder if same thinking was floating around in minds at GM if there was a fight ofver it and compramise was to remove that plug haha... I am an engineer now in sales. Used to share cube with former GM engineer. he said that is how things worked there [emoji1]

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The Malibu would have had a fill plug on the case. To check the fluid level you needed the car warmed up, running and level, then you could pull the plug. If none came out, add until it did. ...basically sucked unless you have a hoist, and an oil reel with atf.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Yeah looked like a stupid setup. Although the car ran like a champ till minnesota salt ate away the chassis. Seemed to be a good little drivetrain.

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[livingez_123]

WOW, that's crazy! I kind of like the simplicity of the 4L60E... Take that with a grain of salt, as I've not rebuilt any transmissions haha Although 4 gears, versus 6 or more in newer transmissions.

Well, latest curveball. This truck is good at throwing them. I got an easy out. It just rounded the head on the transmission pan drain bolt haha I hate to drop this and just have transmission fluid go EVERYWHERE. But maybe I just need to take the pan off and say the hell with it? Otherwise was thinking of trying to get a pump down the dipstick tube.

View attachment 277297

Weld a bolt to the trans plug, I've had to do that before on a customer vehicle.

 

[livingez_123]

The Malibu would have had a fill plug on the case. To check the fluid level you needed the car warmed up, running and level, then you could pull the plug. If none came out, add until it did. ...basically sucked unless you have a hoist, and an oil reel with atf.

Both of my Cadillacs had the same fill plug on the side of the trans case, major pain in the ass. The CTS was the worst, the exhaust pipe ran right by it. The SRX4 at least had some working room.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Weld a bolt to the trans plug, I've had to do that before on a customer vehicle.

I had thought of that and have a welder. Just a bit nervous about welding on truck with ECU, gas tank, etc. probably more so because I uave about 30 seconds of welding experience.

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[mattt]

The factory started installing those bolts with a thread locker that will not submit to any amount of force or heat known to mankind. There was some reason they don’t want them to come out, I forget why. You can get a Dorman pan with drain plug for cheap at most auto parts stores and although I stay away from their crap in this case it was a good thing. GM doesn’t sell a pan with a drain plug.

WOW, that's crazy! I kind of like the simplicity of the 4L60E... Take that with a grain of salt, as I've not rebuilt any transmissions haha Although 4 gears, versus 6 or more in newer transmissions.

Well, latest curveball. This truck is good at throwing them. I got an easy out. It just rounded the head on the transmission pan drain bolt haha I hate to drop this and just have transmission fluid go EVERYWHERE. But maybe I just need to take the pan off and say the hell with it? Otherwise was thinking of trying to get a pump down the dipstick tube.

View attachment 277297

I got mine out using this with a long breaker bar. CRAFTSMAN 5 Piece Bolt-Out Bolt/Nut Remover Set With Case 952160 Tool Kit NEW 24721521606 | eBay



I guess I found the right amount of force with ingenuity, & no heat, and a LOT of patience to get my 04 Tahoe factory original one out. It was a real ***** to get out and I almost gave up, but now that I've used it multiple times, glad I didn't throw in the towel. I didn't see any thread locker on the original when it came out. The way I heard it, it's the O-ring getting stuck to the bottom of the pan from heat cycles. I've since had it out 5-6 times to 'refresh' the trans fluid every so often. Pulling that plug drops about 3.5 quarts out of 8-10 total in the trans and converter. I have a handful of good cond, original drain plug bolts that I harvested from dead vehicles.

 

[Rocket Man]

I got mine out using this with a long breaker bar. CRAFTSMAN 5 Piece Bolt-Out Bolt/Nut Remover Set With Case 952160 Tool Kit NEW 24721521606 | eBay



I guess I found the right amount of force with ingenuity, & no heat, and a LOT of patience to get my factory original one out. I didn't see any thread locker on the original when it came out. The way I heard it, it's the O-ring getting stuck to the bottom of the pan from heat cycles. I've since had it out 5-6 times to 'refresh' the trans fluid every so often. Pulling that plug drops about 3.5 quarts out of 8-10 total in the trans and converter. I have a handful of good cond, original drain plug bolts that I harvested from dead vehicles.

I heard it depends on the year. The impossible ones are supposedly in the 1-2 years before they decided to do away with them. Now, I don’t know this for sure but I read it on the internet so it must be true but the higher-ups were concerned that owners were just draining the fluid not dropping the pan and replacing the filter so they decided to make it so you had to pull the pan to drain it, thinking it would be more likely they would replace the filter. But they still had a shit ton of pans with drain plugs so the super thread locker stuff was used. IDK but there’s lots of differing stories about this, who knows what’s right.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

I will just drop the pan. Would be nice to not have to worry about all that fluid sloshing around in there though :/

On a completely different note about GM engineers. My daily driver is a 2006 Buick Lucerne. I nearly blew it up today. I HATE THESE NEW DIC DASHES. My engine was overheating, apparently for weeks it's been doing this but I NEVER NOTICED. Because there's no warning light. It just says it's overheating in the DIC which I never read. I does have a heat gauge, but no numbers on it, and the top of the gauge looks same as bottom of the gauge. They didn't even put a red mark or anything on the warning area. Thank god my friend was riding with me and read the DIC. I had been driving around without any coolant *sigh*. Amature mistake but dang, that's the worst dash I've ever seen.

 

[livingez_123]

My 01 Denali was a tough one. 6 point socket, breaker bar and a 2ft piece of pipe for extra leverage.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Yeah, I gave up on the oil pan drain bolt. I used a pump that got a bit of the fluid out. I went to drop pan and still had probably 2 quarts in it *sigh*.

I also noticed a LOT of people doing really STUPID stuff on Youtube when dropping their transmission pan haha Everybody was bending the shifter bracket to drop the pan. *ahem* I briefly tried it but was like this is ridiculous this cannot be the way...

1. I loosened all the exhaust bolts but didn't take them off the exhaust manifolds.
2. Loosened two 40T bit shifter bracket bolts, removed the rear one. Rotated shifter bracket out of way.
3. Took heat shield off other side of transmission, two 10mm bolts
4. Took pan bolts off and pan came right down no problem.

Now I need to get power to the wide band O2 and a mounting solution to place it somewhere. I'm thinking the A pillar but don't want a pillar full of empty gauge pods. Just one pod for now.

 

[Rocket Man]

Yeah, I gave up on the oil pan drain bolt. I used a pump that got a bit of the fluid out. I went to drop pan and still had probably 2 quarts in it *sigh*.

I also noticed a LOT of people doing really STUPID stuff on Youtube when dropping their transmission pan haha Everybody was bending the shifter bracket to drop the pan. *ahem* I briefly tried it but was like this is ridiculous this cannot be the way...

1. I loosened all the exhaust bolts but didn't take them off the exhaust manifolds.
2. Loosened two 40T bit shifter bracket bolts, removed the rear one. Rotated shifter bracket out of way.
3. Took heat shield off other side of transmission, two 10mm bolts
4. Took pan bolts off and pan came right down no problem.

Now I need to get power to the wide band O2 and a mounting solution to place it somewhere. I'm thinking the A pillar but don't want a pillar full of empty gauge pods. Just one pod for now.

I can’t even get to those 2 big torx bolts with my hands and a ratchet without getting in a ridiculous contortionist position so I pry the bracket a bit as the pan comes down. It doesn’t need to be actually bent.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Mine wouldnt come down at all. I do mechanic yoga all the time bahaha

My arms arent too big. I was able to fit them up along the diff and to the bolts, with my feet towards the front bumper. Not sure if I could have got in there though without the exhaust loosened but wasn't too hard to get on otherwise. I tried to pull it back with some force but mine wouldn't budge. Don't like forcing things though.

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[mattt]

My 01 Denali was a tough one. 6 point socket, breaker bar and a 2ft piece of pipe for extra leverage.

All great ideas. As soon as I felt the 12point socket slip for the first time, I knew I made a mistake. You got it right the first time.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Setting up to tune the motor. I'm going through goat rope garage tutorials again. It seems he has a new computer than what I have though in his tutorial:

UPDATED: Found solution to disabling O2 Sensors / closed loop with P01 computer HERE Goat Rope did a video just for those pre 2003 computers.

*sigh* just purchased my credits to license the vehicle with HP tuners so I can tune it. The bleeeeeeeping website & software doesn't work to license my tune

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Got HP tuners working. Am building up my histograms, etc. for logging. I think somebody tuned my motor from before. A few of the tables look like they left the systems disabled. I think it was closed loop enable versus ECT, the computer as I pulled it down before any changes had 285F for all the cells.

I setup a bin file to load for MAF tuning. I presume you start first by tuning Mass Air Flow only.... then switching over to MAP?

Just quadropoly checking before I head out. Been watching Goat Rope stuff for 2nd / 3rd time on some videos.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Slowly getting the tuning going. I got my file built and programmed to the ECU to turn off fuel trims, etc and run off MAF. However, I noticed something REALLY weird in my log file when I started up the truck. The scanner says the computer is commanding a AFR of 12 / 0.7 lamda????

This isn't covered in any of the goat rope turning tutorials. Not sure if anybody here knows why the computer would command a low AFR like that or where that command is stored / set? Does the truck startup lien? Lien doesn't make since to me. I'd think rich before anything else.

UPDATE: They told me over on HP Tuners what this was... On startup the engine commands rich, especially if it thinks it's cold outside (my ambient air temp sensor is broken). I started the engine and let it run longer, it went to stoic, 14ish:1 ARF

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

sigh my wideband sensor is having issues now / broken... it slowly climbs up and off the scale

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