A friend of my is going to be helping me with replacing my water pump and distributor tomorrow. Is there any helpful hints that would make the job easier?

JEREMY

 

Do a search for "optispark" and you'll get more info than you want to know, mostly bad, about the removal. It's not a small job, and requires the removal of most accesories on the front of the engine. Installation of the opti, also requires attention to detail, or premature failure can result.

 

If the car still starts, before you begin, back the harmonic balancer hub bolts out a few turns and start the car for a few seconds. This should help break the rust/gauling that holds it on and makes its removal such a joy.

 

I'd STRONGLY encourage you to NOT install another OEM Opti in your '92. The '92 used the deficient first-generation Opti, and a replacement unit will be as deficient as the one you're removing.

Consider the MSD as an aftermarket solution that should serve you much better than the OEM replacement. If DynaSpark is still in business (which seems to be in doubt these days), consider their product as well.

If you have a good set of general mechanic's tools, and decent mechanical skills, you can tackle the Opti swap yourself. No special tools are required. Here are a few tech tips I wrote up some time ago about doing an Opti swap:

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Get a Factory Service Manual, and follow the procedure it lays out.

A few tips (I'm going from memory here, so I'll probably forget a few things):

Drain the cooling system.

Disconnect the MAF sensor and IAT sensor and remove the air intake duct with the MAF and IAT as an assembly.

Disconnect the ECT sensor and remove it from the water pump.

Remove the serpentine belt and tensioner.

You may find that you’ll need to unbolt the coil/ICM bracket from the front of the right cylinder head. I can’t recall for sure whether or not I did.

Unbolt (but don't remove) the power steering pump. This will help you to sneak the new plug wires in/out behind the pump, but may also be somewhat helpful when working on the water pump/Opti.

If you want more room to work, you can remove the radiator, but it isn't strictly necessary, and it involves considerably more work to remove it (I left mine in place).

The FSM will tell you that you need a special Kent-Moore puller to remove the crank pulley/damper. You don't. Here's how to get it off:

1. Raise the front of the vehicle enough that you can get under the car (it's also helpful to have it at a more comfortable height while you're working from above).

2. Remove the three bolts that secure the pulley/damper to the hub.

3. Mark the damper and hub so that you can easily see how to realign them to each other later.

4. Slide under the car with a long pry bar or hardwood dowel (I use a jumbo Snap-On screwdriver that's around two feet long) and a mallet.

5. Place the tip of the pry bar against the rear face of the damper, as close to the hub as possible (Ideally rest the tip alongside of the hub).

6 Give the pry bar a few whacks with the mallet, and with any luck the damper will pop off without too much of a fight.

You may find it helpful to apply a few whacks, then rotate the crankshaft in 120* increments, whacking it a few times at each interval (I haven't needed to do this).

It's also helpful to, if possible, shoot a bit of penetrating oil where the damper meets the hub, a day or more in advance of doing the job.

After you get the damper off, clean the damper/hub mating surfaces to remove all corrosion, etc, and apply a very thin coating of anti-seize compound to these surfaces before you reassemble the damper to the hub. This should make it a lot easier to get the damper off next time.

Once the damper is removed, rotate the crankshaft so that one wing of the damper hub is at the six-o'clock position. This will position the other two wings at around the ten- and two-o'clock positions. In this orientation, the Opti will clear the hub as it is being removed/installed.

The Opti basically unbolts and pulls off as you'd expect, once you have the water pump and damper out of the way.

Once the Opti is out of the way, inspect the shaft seals for the Opti, water pump, and crankshaft. If they show any signs of leakage, replace them now.

When you install the new Opti, be sure to align it correctly with the cam gear, and don't force it into place against the timing cover (do NOT use the bolts to draw it into place). At most, give it a gentle bump with the heel of your hand to encourage it to pop into place.

Reassemble everything else.

Follow the cooling system refill procedure in the FSM carefully, and you'll have no problems with this. In particular, be sure to bleed the air out of the system as it's being refilled.

I'd also recommend that you consider replacing the coolant hoses, serpentine belt and spark plug and plug wires while you're that deep into things.

Changing the plug wires on an LT1/LT4 Corvette is not a lot of fun, but it can be done. Here are a few tips:

1. Raise the front end of the vehicle to a more comfortable working height.

2. Remove the inner fenderwell center panel on the driver's side. This will allow you to both see and do the job much more easily on the driver's side. You may also find it helpful to remove the wheel.

3. Unbolt the ASR bracketry from the frame, so that you can slide the ASR unit around to get it out of your way.

4. Unbolt the power steering pump so that you can move it forward around a half inch. This will make it much easier to sneak the plug wires in/out behind the pump.

5. Remove the serpentine belt and tensioner.

6. Use dielectric grease in the boots at both ends of the wires. Be sure to "burp" the air out of the boots after you get each of them pushed firmly into place, so that the trapped air doesn't try to push the wires off later.

Some guys report that they've had decent success accessing the Opti-end of the plug wires from underneath of the car, and that this saved them the trouble of removing the belt and tensioner. I haven't tried this, so I can't comment.

Take your time, work with care, and pay attention to what you're doing. The OEM replacement plug wires from your Chevy dealer are high quality parts, and will route (and fit into the wire looms) correctly. Run the new wires properly, and make sure they stay away from anything that moves, is sharp, or gets hot.

The passenger's side is not such a bad job. The driver's side is a Queen Royal Bitch (mostly because all of the belt-driven accessories are hanging on the driver’s side of the front of LT1/LT4 engines, and they leave little room for you to work or see what you’re doing). With plenty of patience, beer and Band-Aids, you'll get it done.

The spark plugs on the driver's side aren't so bad, when you've got things apart to do the wires. The passenger's side, however, is not so easy. The number 8 plug in particular can be a real headache, but with good tools and enough patience, you can get it done. Because there isn’t room for a ratchet on top of the spark plug socket, I use a plug socket that has a hex head on it so that it can be turned with an open end or box end wrench. It's useful to have more than one plug socket to choose from, as some will work better than others due to differences in length, wall thickness, etc.

Be sure to apply a small amount of anti-sieze compound to the threads of the new plugs before you install them so that they won’t seize in the cylinder heads in the future (this is especially important with aluminum heads). Just make sure none of the compound gets onto the electrodes or insulators of the plugs. I apply a very thin stripe of compound across the threads in one spot, and it spreads itself around the threads as I screw the plug into the hole. Also be careful that you don’t pick up any of the grunge that may have accumulated over the years around the spark plug hole in the cylinder head on the new plugs’ electrodes/insulators/threads while you’re installing them – try your best to get the tip of the plug straight into the hole on the first shot.

Hope this helps. Best of luck with it.

Live well,

SJW

 

There is quite a bit of information on changing out the optispark on your car available many places on the internet, and even here.

I've replaced 3 of these and it's not that difficult. It is scarey though but not difficult. My first opti job took me 2 days as I was nervous about doing it right. The 2nd opti job took me 2 hours, start to finish. Definitely the hardest part will be removing the hub. Most of them rust onto the balancer and won't come off easily. But I found that a dowel rod about 3/4" in diameter and a hammer works well. I would move the thing about 1/4th turn and hit it a few times, then move it again and hit it some more. About 10 turns and it falls off. All three worked this way for me.

My advice is to study the information available, then just jump in and do it. I replaced my waterpump with an electric one and really like it. I read the pros and cons of these installs and decided the pros outweighed the cons. My car cools better now and there is no longer any possibility of leaks on my new MSD optispark.

I would definitely spend the extra money and get a high quality optispark. My opinion here but I believe the best one available today is the MSD. It is very well engineered and clearly a better device than original equipment. Plus you MUST upgrade to a vented optispark. I think that's a "no-brainer" as you take a big risk to just replace the optispark with another one with a known defect.

Be patient and allocate a full day to doing this task. Don't rush it and you'll be happy in the end.

Billy

 

Thanks for the help guys, This site is priceless.

 

Well I just got the optispark replaced... Thanks for all the help guys. I used another stock unit. I wish I would have giving it more thought and went with the MSD unit before I bought the stock unit. All went well with the change other than the antifreeze over flowing. Wonder how long that smell will stick around.

JEREMY

 

Since you've already installed an OEM opti don't worry about it. Some have been known to last for more than 100K miles (and some have crapped out at 10K but those instances are rare). Did you replace the water pump as well? Since it has to be removed to get at the opti most owners change it for extra peace of mind.