97 tahoe 5 speed swap

[87carl]

This was supposed to be second picture according to the pinout picture the reverse wires use the other green wire between the neutral safety wires. I will post which one is rite when i wire mine up.

 

[Dneel81]

I put an nv4500 in mine 3-4 months ago. Not terrible as far as details. Learned a ton.
Xfer case wires should be the same. One issue I had was going from different 2 prong pigtails to 3 prong pigtails, etc. Sunlitcomet is a lifesaver. He has a picture for every conceivable thing on these trucks, including wiring pictures (meant that as a compliment - not to thrown J under the buss). alldata is a good thing to subscribe to also. worth the effort to have PDF files at your fingertips.
search nv4500. Chaingun, 99tahoe, and I have writeups that cover different details of the swap.

Good luck.

PS my brother has nearly 300,000 on a stock nv3500 2 door Tahoe. It'll do fine for anything without a big lift, huge motor, etc.

 

[87carl]

Good news the transfer case and front differential have a standalone harness making wiring it alot easier this is the harness for the transfer case I just pulled our of the z71.

The next two pictures are the vss signal plug connector on the tailshaft

Next is the 4wd indicator plug it's rite above the 4wd shifter

The next connector plugs into the transmission harness I think it connects the circuit to the 4wd fuse and the 4wd indicator lights inside it's the big gray one in the next picture

Then coming out of the harness next to it is a plug for the vss signal to connect to the transmission wiring harness.

From there it goes over the Trans thru a tube that is bolted onto the studs that hold tranny to motor then it is held held to the passenger side frame with
The starter wires then it goes down and plugs into the front differential. This is the plug for the differential.

Hopefully the Tahoe has similar plugs on its transmission harness for the big gray shift indicator plug and the speed signal plug I am betting it will but still haven't crawled under the Tahoe to look. And I finally got the clutch pedal and master cylinder off the z71

The hole for the clutch master is 2 inches in diameter but my holesaw wouldn't cut it so I got to go get another 2 inch hole saw and probably a mini torch to heat the z71s drive shafts so I can put new u joints in them before I put them in the Tahoe. I got the retaining clips off the rear drive shafts u joints but even the bfh ain't getting them out. The front ones have the stupid injected plastic to hold them on so it's got to be heated to melt the plastic enough to let the u joints out.

Dneel81 do you have a link to your thread?

 

[Dneel81]

Stuck on a phone for now.

Search nv4500 and they'll all pop up.

 

[87carl]

I just crawled under the Tahoe the big gray plug will plug into a matching grey plug on the Tahoe tranny wiring harness and all the wire colors match. The vss plugs are different but have sames purple and green wires. So cut the connector off the old harness and splice in the correct connect that's pretty simple

 

[Dneel81]

Yup. Sounds good. Just ask if you run into snags (you will). We're all glad to help.

 

[87carl]

The clutch pedal switch has 4 wires 2 solid purple and 2 purple with white stripe. Does anyone know how they are supposed to be wired in? Everything I have read said the yellow and purple wires from the 4l60e neutral safety switch need to be wired to the clutch pedal switch so that they will be connected when the pedal is depressed. But those wires are alot heavier gauge than the wires on the clutch pedal switch. Also for cruise control kill everything I have read says to wire in line with the brake pedal kill switch so they will be connected when pedal is up but not connected when pedal is depressed. Those wires are about the same size as the Tahoe brake switch wires.

 

[Dneel81]

match them up. gauge not withstanding. Those are correct otherwise you can't turn the engine over. The clutch being depressed completes the circuit to the starter relay I think. SLC has a diagram of it. It's in his postings regarding the NV4500.

 

[87carl]

Match them up to what? Should I pull the clutch pedal wires out of the z71s harness to see were they go on it and just wire them to the same spots on the Tahoe?

 

[Dneel81]

I'll have to look when I get home. I can't remember off the top of my head. Since you have the Z71 harness, that's not a bad idea. Maybe you could avoid extra splicing/solder/tape if you have the complete harness. I'm jealous. Just realized you wont have the PRND321 on the bottom of your dash bezel like I do. Those are really hard to find.

 

[87carl]

I already have the gauge cluster changed so it no longer says prnd321 and I have the column changed so I don't have any peices of the auto shifter I just left to get a hole saw and torch when I get back I will pull the clutch pedal wires out of the z71s harness see were they go I will also test the pedal switch see if the wires are connected with the pedal down or up. And then go from there

 

[87carl]

It was dark by the time we got home so I wasn't able to trace the wires on the z71 yet.

Dneel81
I found and read your thread. On page 1 sunlitcomit said to connect the purple wires on the clutch pedal switch to the purple wires from the 4l60e transmissions range selector? Were those wires in the 4 pin connector or in the 7 pin connector that has the reverse wires and the yellow and purple start wires? If those are the wires you hooked to the clutch pedal for start safety wires did you have to hook the yellow and purple wires from the 7 pin connector together? Did you hook anything to the purple with white stripe wires? And did you wire anything to the clutch pedal for cruise control?

 

[87carl]

Ok I figured it out the pinout I posted the other day was right on wire functions but not the colors and that is what was confusing me along with the fact alot of threads say the start wires are heavy gauge wires. They aren't. I just spent the last hour reading wore diagrams testing the wires on the range switch and testing the wires on the clutch switch. Wiring goes exactly how I thought it did the two wires in pins g and e on the 7 pin connector which on this truck are both purple get hooked to the lower two wires on the clutch position switch and the upper wires get hooked to the purple wire on the brake pedal switch. The green wire from pin e on 4l60e range switch and the pink wire from pin c on the range switch go to the reverse light plug. That plus swapping transfer case harnesses and switching connectors for the speed sensor is all the wiring I have to do for this swap. Not bad now I just got to get it done.

 

[87carl]

Normally u joints are an easy job but not this time we spent several hours with a torch and a mini 10lb sledge hammer trying to get the old u joints out of the z71s driveshafts so I could put new u joints in and get them ready for the hoe but even after finally getting them all out it wasn't done being a pain in the ass. one of the new u joints needle bearings would not stay in place and kept falling over in the cap plus the seals wouldn't stay in the cap. It looks like that one was a return that they gave me. because the rest of the u joints were neatly wrapped in paper inside the box the problem one wasn't. I was getting very frustrated by that point and ended up bending a couple needle bearings and ripping a one of the seals on that u joint. so I got to buy another one atleast I got 3 u joints changed lol not a productive day

 

[Dneel81]

Sorry for not getting back to you about the wires. Haven't slept much in the last 2 days. Obviously you figured it out.
Glad to eye you're making good progress.

 

[87carl]

Slowly making progress. It's been raining today so I didn't get to work on it. But I forgot to post what I did yesterday I got all the holes cut and drilled for the pedal master cylinder and both shifters. And 4wd shifter is installed. And I discovered why the blend door actuator don't work. It's not there in its place is a pair of vice grips lol so I got to get that off the z71 do this thing won't be always on high heat. Anyone got any tips on how to shove the clutch pedal up into place? Do I have to remove the gray electric box were the wire harness goes through the firewall? Or can I get it past it without removing it? I got it out of the z71 with all that in place but going into the Tahoe hasn't been successful yet. I forgot to get a pic of the master cylinder hole I will take one if I work on it tomorrow. Ignore the bite marks were some idiot tried using pliers to unscrew the 4wd shifter before realizing that they are glued on

 

[Dneel81]

I put my clutch pedal in without taking anything out. It will fit but it's painful. Getting the socket up in there and then getting the actual wrench on said socket is an exercise in patience. I did take the seat out so I could lay down looking up into what was underneath the dash.

Oh yeah, I had the brake pedal (automatic pedal) out when I put the clutch pedal in. Figured on more room. Not sure it made any difference.

 

[87carl]

I still haven't even attempted to pull brake pedal off either truck is the brake pedal hard to get out? What has to be removed to get it out? It looked like it would be a pain so I haven't bothered to try yet.

 

[Dneel81]

If I remember correctly it's just a bolt and a clip to the brake actuator. It wasn't a big deal if I could do it.

 

[87carl]

Have not had a chance to work on this truck in a couple weeks weather has been bad and have had to work on some of my other projects but I did sell the motor out of the parts truck for 400 bucks which completely covers what I paid for it also sold its gas tank for 75 bucks. Hopefully I can work on this project soon.