Just Fishing's 09 Tahoe Build thread

[iamdub]

I took some old sockets yesterday morning, chocked them in a drill and started sharpening.

First attempt = fail.
I need the edges to be perfectly flat for press use.

I tried to stamp on leather, cardboard, and wood.

I got the best results going directly against steel.

So a few more attempts to make a stamper.

After a few more attempts, i finally figured something that works.

I grind the inside edge of a 12pt socket until ot meets with the beveled outside edge.

Depending if this is an inside or outside cut seems to matter for the quality of the stamping.

For the inside edge (the one i can't really use tin snip for).

I use an oversized socket, once i have a good edge against the outside bevel, i then take the outside and use the drill and run it against a belt sander.

So far the hardest part is getting the outside stamping perfectly aligned with the inside stamping.

I'll snap some pictures once i get the official shim stock.

For now i have been doing this with some aluminum .020 scrap.

I need this to be about .010ish.

So i have some copper and brass shim coming.
Then i also found some .004 stainless shim stock.

This is stuff that they say can be delivered by this weekend.

I'm hoping to use the stainless stuff, but I'll settle for the brass.

Where this stuff will sit, brass shoud be fine.

Why not just buy a couple packs of these?

McMaster-Carr

McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.

www.mcmaster.com

Other options:

McMaster-Carr

McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.

www.mcmaster.com

Washer, Shim .250 OD X .187 ID x .010 Thickness, 300 series SS, Part# M5000-24700

Buy Washer, Shim .250 OD X .187 ID x .010 Thickness (inch), 300 series SS, Part# M5000-24700 Medical Fastener on online at great prices from stock.

www.mackfasteners.com

 

[Tonyrodz]

Happy belated Birf-day.

 

[Just Fishing]

Ty ty

And yesterday I received my shim stock.

My little socket stamp idea failed against the harder brass sheet.

I think the cheap socket i used was just too soft.

I really didn't like how it deformed the sheet anyways...

To do this correctly, i would really need some way to support both sides, and then punch it out.

So the next idea, open the inner hole slowly as to not deform the sheet.

Then carefully trim the outside edge to get the desired shape.

Took me a good 3 trys before i got something i liked.

Then re checking the end play, i came up with the idea to use some 1/4in mild steel scrap.
I used one of the bell housing bolts to overlap and hold down the plate in order to get some place for the dial caliper to hold onto with its magnetic clamp.

The idea worked perfectly.

Turns out i had closer to .020 endplay.

So that .010 sheet + some of the .004 shim stock, and I'm looking much better.
About .006 endplay now.

I'll probably do one more shim to see if i can do a tiny bit better.
Then I'll run with the better of the two.

Next i get to finalize the transmission.
Includes new teflon turbine shaft seals.

Those can be interesting, and while i do have some special toola for the 4l60, i found a funnel to expand the seal, and then some electrical tape to compress works every bit as good.

So that's my plan here.

Once i have the transmission assembled, then i air check once more.

And then dig into the valve body.
The valve body doesn't need anything other than a cleaning, and inspection.

The valve body and pressure switches were rebuilt back in 2020/2021.

I'm probably going to carefully inspect the laminates and replace the switch seals for good measure...

 

[Just Fishing]

Why not just buy a couple packs of these?

McMaster-Carr

McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.

www.mcmaster.com

Other options:

McMaster-Carr

McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.

www.mcmaster.com

Washer, Shim .250 OD X .187 ID x .010 Thickness, 300 series SS, Part# M5000-24700

Buy Washer, Shim .250 OD X .187 ID x .010 Thickness (inch), 300 series SS, Part# M5000-24700 Medical Fastener on online at great prices from stock.

www.mackfasteners.com

Yup, this is what i needed a week ago.

Very nice find.

I didn't look at prices, but if i was to ever build a few of these.

Some different thickness shims would be quite valuable to have on hand.

 

[Just Fishing]

If this goes well, hopefully i can get the transmission installed this weekend.

Otherwise, it's probably going to be a next weekend task.

 

[Just Fishing]

I got the new Teflon seals installed onto the turbine/input shaft.

my 4l60 tool is wrong, these seals are much bigger.
so I resorted to a funnel.

I got them just big enough to fit into the grooves.

Start at the bottom and work your way up carefully.
Once on, work in with the fingers.
then loosely wrap with electrical tape, and then start adding tension.

once wrapped, work more with your fingers to get them to shrink.
I unwrapped, then did another round...
I'll let this sit overnight.

When I did this on my 4l60, I was very happy with the results.
Trick is to get them far enough in to not shave any Teflon off when assembling, but loose enough to get a real nice seal in the pump.


I noticed the original ones looked pretty dang good, and the sealed fine during air checks.
but they were a little loose fitting, like up and down...

Installing the new seals, the difference is obvious.
They were still sealing, but they were very worn.

 

[pwtr02ss]

I got the new Teflon seals installed onto the turbine/input shaft.

my 4l60 tool is wrong, these seals are much bigger.
so I resorted to a funnel.

I got them just big enough to fit into the grooves.

Start at the bottom and work your way up carefully.
Once on, work in with the fingers.
then loosely wrap with electrical tape, and then start adding tension.

once wrapped, work more with your fingers to get them to shrink.
I unwrapped, then did another round...
I'll let this sit overnight.

View attachment 368097

When I did this on my 4l60, I was very happy with the results.
Trick is to get them far enough in to not shave any Teflon off when assembling, but loose enough to get a real nice seal in the pump.


I noticed the original ones looked pretty dang good, and the sealed fine during air checks.
but they were a little loose fitting, like up and down...

Installing the new seals, the difference is obvious.
They were still sealing, but they were very worn.

That's exactly how I did the Teflon's on the very first 4l60 we built. Worked great but was a pita compared to the tool. I wrapped some thin cardboard around them the snugged that up with the tape. I also made my own lip seal tool out of a bic ink pen and welding wire after the tool we bought broke. Worked better than the purchased tool

 

[Just Fishing]

I got the transmission together, pictures coming soon...
Doing end play testing, I ended up putting some gouges i didn't like in the pump bushings.
brand new pump, so I still had a set from my kit.

So I got those replaced.
Then I had to disassemble my pump to clean and then re-assemble.

For the final install, I used transgel to lube the fk out of the splines to prevent that from happening again.

I got the 1-2-3-4 whatever drum installed the first go try pretty smoothly.

Then I had this one bushing I replaced with a sonnax one.
it felt so loose, but I decided it's fine..

Then it was nagging at me...

So I was like fk it, pulled everything apart to be 100% sure.

Yeah, it was fine.

then I spent the next hour fighting that drum back in.
I tried this trick where you use wire get space to work the drum, yeah that was a nightmare.
my wire was too thin, and I couldn't find the coat hanger I set aside just for this.


I finally got it by using the turbine shaft and the 1-2-3-4 drum on there like one of the build videos...
such a pita


to protect my seals, I packed the trans gel in there.
tons of it.

just got done doing an air check where it was giving me some weird results.

So i spent some time with the transmission fluid and a cap to carefully pour it into the little holes to lube things up.
Once the transmission fluid started loosing up the trans gel, things are working much better.



Anyways, migrane right now.
Probably from the brake clean.




Me take a break and then i want to start on the valve body after i air check again to be 110% sure I got it done right.

 

[Just Fishing]

Got the engine re-painted a few days ago.
This time w/o the clear coat (that looks terrible when it yellows against the silver base)

Had more "Bling" w/o the clear coat.

This time it was painted with the heads in place and the valley cover in place.
I taped off the aluminum parts to keep them bare aluminum.

I'll probably do one more coat with the old bell housing installed when I have it on the hoist.
Assuming of course that I actually remember.

Notice my collection of cardboard on the right.

Trying to save the larger pieces for when I reassemble everything.
So much better than laying on the bare concrete, even with an epoxy coating.

The concrete is always the wrong temperature.

 

[Just Fishing]

For the transmission,
This is my .010 shim

I made it by drilling a hole in the center, then filed it out to fit a cutting bit in there.
Then slowly ground away material.

I used the old thrust bearing that will sit on top to scribe the basic shape/size
Then following what I could make out of the official superior branded shims, I sized it to fit into the recess

It's not perfect, but it's perfectly flat, and it doesn't "float" when in place.

I was tempted to try one more time to see if i could get it even better but decided I didn't want to spend another hour making it.

I did the same with the .004 shim, that one was a little harder to work with, but it turned out pretty good.
A little tight on the center shaft, but thin enough to flatten out with some light tapping...

Then I found another set of end play specs for the 6l80

From a builder, he says .015 - .010

So, I dumped the .004 shim
better to run too loose than too tight.

In the manual, it just says "no noticeable end play"
And that's what I have.
I can't feel any sort of "clunk".
Only measurable via a dial caliper.

The concern would be the plastic spacer on the pump.
If i get it too tight, I'll melt and damage that spacer.

 

[Just Fishing]

And for my 4-5-6 drum / turbine shaft seals,
The final product.

I had issues getting a close up using my cell, but here is a zoom in of the seal fitment.

The close up attempt with the seals mostly centered in the shaft to show fitment.

The tape trick really works.
Part of making it really work is to work the seals with your fingers after compressing them with tape.
Then keep going until you're happy.

Main thing is to not damage the seals during pump installation.

However, I noticed a design improvement in the pump, almost a taper.
If I had a spare set, I might have thought about testing to see if the pump would accept some loose-fitting seals...

These are also tighter than the original seals, I had a little concern about that...

 

[Just Fishing]

And here is the main transmission assembled!

For my assembly stand, I just used the motorcycle jack.

All I really needed was a hole for the output shaft to pass through.
It would be nice for air testing things, but I'm good with this.
main thing was to keep everything vertical as to not damage seals and bushings.


And the mods to the large snap ring tool made that tool fantastic.
it now grabs that snap ring very firmly, making it a breeze to install and remove the snap ring.
I used it a few times while getting everything setup.

Top View,

 

[Just Fishing]

And last night I got the valve body torn down and inspected.
Confirmed it's spotless!
Nothing in the lube passageway that had that metal in the cooler lines.
Screens didn't have a spec of anything.

Nothing had any signs of any sort of contamination or blockage.

I went back through the techm pressure switches.
Pretty much to inspect the laments and seals.
You want to test each of the pressure switches with something soft as to not damage the laments.

My seal kit came with new seals, and i had already got a set of transgo branded laments and seals to have on hand.

I had two switches that didn't give me a solid click, so I removed the laminate and cleaned it out.
There is this little plastic cap that sits under the laminate, you have to make sure it's sitting in the correct position, otherwise it will bind the switch up.
So, it's important to confirm you got it together right, otherwise it won't work.

I didn't get pictures, but everything looks good.
This time around, I'm much better at getting those new laminates reinstalled.
Main trick is to coat them in a little transmission fluid before trying to fit in the hole.

I saw another one that showed some light wear, so I figured wth!!

Then it brings me to this little tool

Pressure Switch Rebuild Installation Tool Kit - 124740-TL70

Install laminate discs & seals included in Sonnax Pressure Switch Rebuild Kit 124740-70K with Sonnax Pressure Switch Rebuild Installation Tool Kit 124740-TL70.

www.sonnax.com

(Instructions can be found on the page)

This thing is amazing.
It makes the new seal install so slick.

Lube the seal, load it in the little barrel with the plunger in place.
Use the other tool to help press the new seal into the tube and compress.

Then insert into the pressure switch hole, and let it rip!
Installs nearly perfectly each time.

Then use the little "L" shaped tool to ensure the little seal end is all the way under the lip..

It's worth every penny!



Today, I finish assembling the valve body.
one more air check of the transmission.
Then install the valve body, filter, and then pan.

Then I load the transfer case onto the transmission, and then start thinking about how the hell I'm going to build a cradle for the whole assembly that might actually help me reinstall the transmission w/transfer case attached.

 

[Just Fishing]

How many magnets are too many magnets?

I have them all facing the same direction/pole
And the OEM magnet, has some underneath to give it a little "boost".


I used some transmission assembly gel to mark where the little feet go, in order to prevent causing a bind.
This was not the final magnet orientation.


Nice part with the transmission being upside down, I can figure out exactly where I want the magnets.

And the transmission is fully assembled.

I had tried and failed to get the manual shift arm/shaft seal replaced, but I was unable to get the roll pins removed.

Me staring at the shaft thinking it was asking to start leaking...
I gave it one more attempt with a nice set of ***** to extract the primary roll pin from the case.

This time, it worked!!

Then the other roll pin was a straight drive down and out.

New seal installed, and the shift shaft has been cleaned up nicely.

I was still unable to get the parking prowl roll pin out in order to change it's O-ring....

 

[Just Fishing]

I found a copy of the carfax i ran before i bought this thing.

Just reviewing the details now that i'm getting a better idea of it's possible issues.


I'm Owner #5
Not too bad right?

First owner, Bought it new from a dealership near me in January of 2009

Nothing odd really, just that the first reported oil change is at 25,310 miles in 2010.
Probably nothing since it was under warranty and all...

29 days later, a minor accident that they never fixed but it was reported.
Front bumper has minor damage, no big deal.

Then at 30,677 I see an oil change reported
then again at 35,645
then again at 40,169

Then in 04/20/2011 I see owner two reported with 41,056 miles.


Owner Two

10/09/2012
First oil change reported at 67,465 miles

10/27/2012
then again at 67,857 miles?!

this is at a dealership, same one it was sold new.



2/17/2014
Then at 89,853 miles, I see this at a different dealership down the street offered for sale.

Sold with 89,939 miles on 03/01/2014


Owner Three
Selling dealership reports an oil change at 95,573 miles

03/28/2015
Oil changed again at 100,241 miles

11/20/2015
Oil changed again at 109,884

03/23/2016
Oil changed again at 114,301 miles


05/14/2019
Oil changed at 170,677 miles...


05/29/2019 - new owner reported

Owner # 4
Nothing.

I bought it a year later.
Had about 179,000 miles.

 

[Just Fishing]

I remember working with the sellers too, they were motivated and trying to play it cool
I knew that since they let the registration lapse and that they only had it for a year, they were probably not telling me something.

but they had a decent sounding story, needed the XL for more space
Special needs kid and all.

My wife was there and was trying to tell me to just pay the asking price.

me: telling her to be quiet for a sec, we have to play the game first.

Oh well, in the end this thing will be awesome.

 

[Just Fishing]

The transmission has been installed, I ended up taking my motorcycle jack and installing some rivnuts into it.

Then i took some 2x4's to create a little platform.

I also decided the vent hoses that sit on top of the transmission had maybe 2-4 years left
And I had some left-over silicone vac line, so i figured wth!

I got a little crazy with the zip ties, but these things will not lay flat!!
+I expect to lose a few of them over the years.

Note the little blue drawing in the middle.
That's where the hose was supposed to have routed, whoops!

I ended up backing those zip ties with some felt tape.
For some reason I saw those hoses tapping up on the heat shield right above them, and then driving me nuts.
(they will not lay flat)

For installation, I used a tie down at the front to keep it from trying to kill me.
This worked quite well.

 

[Just Fishing]

While I had everything out and clean, I was able to confirm without any doubt what my transfer case is.
MP3023
Mostly I wanted to see how it tears down, and what "known" issues it has.

not too many, the one in my S10 is known to have the pump wear through the case.
I figured if there are some parts like "tabs" to prevent that from happening, now is the time.

But it looks good enough, so a new rear seal and back it goes.

 

[Just Fishing]

Welp, engine is back in.
I haven't yet gotten to tighten the top bolts, but it's in!

I left the engine mount to frame bolts loose for now, figuring it should give me some room to tilt the transmission down to get to those top bolts.

Spent much of the day fiddling with the new cooler lines.
pita, but it's for peace of mind...

 

[Just Fishing]

While I had the engine out, this is the first time since I pulled it that I have a chance to take a picture of it with the heads and valve covers installed.

Also, my currently very messy workspace.

Some of the time i spent yesterday was to do some cleanup of the engine mounts.
They rusted pretty badly, and the tahoe really didn't spend much time in any sort of moisture...

So I did some cleanup to prevent that from happening.
And some of that corrosion tried to work it's way into the blocks threaded holes.

I think long term, that could have been bad.
Weird!

and the only "engine" paint I had on hand was the silver, so it got some silver paint.