Just ranting. I started a cam swap Tuesday and I am still on it. It's so frustrating that they put everything in front of everything else, lol. I fought the balancer and hub for the better part of a day, then had to loosen a motor mount and roll the engine to get the damn cam out. To get to the motor mount bolt I had to remove the power steering reservoir. Now I am working on the oil pan, it had a nasty leak and I decided I should take care of it now. Well, the starter has to come off for the pan to clear, and...

I'm just so tired of taking off stuff, to get to stuff, to take that stuff off, so I can get to some more stuff to take off, just so I can get to what I am working on. Arrrgh.

 

One day I'd like to do cam & heads and can just imagine the fun to come from looking at the front of the engine... :lol:

Persevere, and have fun with the mod. :cheers:

 

Ok, I'm done for the night. I'm all by myself and both motor mounts need to come loose to raise the engine enough to get the pan all the way out. It wouldn't be bad, but you can't get to both sides of the mount bolts from under the car. You need one person up top to hold the bolt, and another under the car to loosen the nut. Last time, I was able to position a ratchet on the bolt side and wedge it so I could loosen the nut from underneath. That only took about 2 hours to accomplish, lol. In liue of fighting that again (twice this time though) I decided to call it quits for this evening, and wait till I got a buddy tomorrow.

Ahhh, good times.

What really sucks, is I helped a friend put an LT1 in an 88 Monte Carlo a couple months ago. At the same time we did a T56 conversion as well. That took literally 200 man hours start to finish, and now he won't help me tackle a lousy cam swap. He's too busy I guess. Frustrating.

 

I've heard that that is not a fun project. I bet I know what you'll be up to this weekend :yesnod:

 

what if you remove the driveline and C-beam so as to angle the front of the engine upwards while it's still bolted to the mounts? I can do that on the L98 but don't know an LT.

 

...............or cut a notch out of the crossmember , and weld it back up. Then there is no need to move the motor at all.

 

It all gets easier like the 5th time ya do it. :D

 

:iagree: :lolg: :lolg: :lolg:

 

LD85 would know if anyone would. He pulls his engine three times a summer just to practice. He can pull the engine faster than I can change my oil.. :lolg:

 

Maybe a little late now, but you can simply remove the two nuts from underneath that hold the motor mounts to the frame and lift the engine in a couple minutes as opposed to removing the mounts from the motor. ;) Little things you learn after you swap a few cams out.

 

Just one little question, do you really have to pull out the oil pan to change the Oil pan. :confused:

 

:confused:

 

Oh yeah, I will pull it again, this winter when I put the new cam in, heads and swap to the Super Ram.

Obviously, I am a glutton for punishment!

What I did was trim the motor mount bolt and put it back in with the hex head facing the front of the car and the threaded end facing the rear,,, this because you can not push the bolt out towards the back of the car to lift the engine because the bolt will hit the headers,

Now I can push the bolt out to the front of the car but still be able to tighten the nut close to the header tube.




[Modified by ld85, 10:56 AM 10/17/2003]

 

:yesnod: The way I plan on doing it when i swap cams in my car.

 

lol ... I'm :confused: too..... :crazy:

 

I know you just remove the one long bolt in the mounts. That's what I meant. You really do need to 2 people thoguh, because the bolt orientation, and location of the crossmember prevent you from accessing both ends of it from either under, or above the car. You need to be in both places.

I thought about notching the frame rail enough to get the cam out, and then welding it back up, but decided against that. I also thought of whacking that bitch outta there, and welding some brakcets to to it so it could be bolted back in, but decided against that as well.

Removing the driveline, and transmission mounts would angle the engine up, but that's not going to give me enough clearnace to get the oil pan out.

I think the incoherent reply above was asking if I needed to entirely remove the oil pan to change the gasket. It could probabaly be done without removing the pan, but I don't think you could do it and have it seal 100%. There would always be a small leak. I sick enough of oil leaks, that I am willing to fight getting the pan out so I can glue the gasket to it with RTV. I also noticed that the bolts holding the pan were insanely tight. Like, 60-70 ft/lbs. I'm pretty sure that's where my leak was coming from. Damn technicians and their air ratchets.

Oh well, hopefully tonight it'll get done.


[Modified by neat, 11:15 AM 10/17/2003]

 

come on guys, this is serious.... do ya or what?

lollol :lol: jesus louise I should of read myself over before posting, I must really sound stupid... or funny.
I just wanted to know if you have to remove the oil pan to change the CAM and why?

 

neat, this is the nut you can remove instead of removing the stud that you are talking about. Removing this on both sides (or just one) will allow you to lift the motor up enough to get the cam out. You can also pull the motor completely with the engine mounts still attached to the block by simply removing these two nuts (and the tranny).



TheStef, you have to remove the front of the pan to get the timing cover back on properly when changing the cam.

Chris


[Modified by Vette92, 1:24 PM 10/17/2003]

 

 

Chris what nut is that? I use impact guns to remove the nuts from the motor mounts, usually it takes one quick zap and the nuts are in my hands and the only thing left is to remove the long bolts. Once done all you have to do to get the cam out is to raise the engine until it hits the firewall. I am sure you don't have to go quite that high but its easier to just raise it to the stops rather than raising it a little and trying only to go back and raise it more.

If you spent half a day messing around with getting that damn hub off from your LT1 getting it back on is equally as challenging. Some people get it started then get a grade 8 bolt thats long enough to thread into the crank and then using the bolt to "pull" it in. I use a tool that threads into the crank and it presses it on. It is still a royal PITA because it is so damn tight in there with the crossmember and the steering gear right there.

It took me one long weekend to do that cam swap in my 95 LT4. Alone, with a rack and air tools at my disposal it took me both days of a very long weekend.

Having a blower complicated things somewhat and also installing a billet hub with a key way also made things a bit more miserable. The oil pan in my case pretty much fell off once I raised the engine, keeping the gasket in place and trying to get the pan back up there was sort of a PTIA as well.

The new GM once piece gaskets are made of steel backed silcone rubber and trying to glue it in place like the old days just didn't work. The damn old faithfull yellow snot I used to glue most any gasket didn't stick to the silicone rubber. The "book" actually calls for removing the engine to replace the cam in these cars. It is a nasty job but it can be done. Our shop charges 20 hours to do a cam in a C4. More if you have add-ons that complicates the job.


[Modified by tjwong, 8:51 PM 10/17/2003]