My endplay was insanely wrong when I did mine too. Way more than you could feasibly chalk up to wear and tear.

 

Assembly went a lot easier than I was expecting. The only hangup I had was not getting the 6th friction properly keyed into the gear and so when I smacked the end housing to get it down on the pins to check fit, it locked the friction onto the driving cone and so 6th wouldn't spin.

Seems the trick to getting the detent ball into the offset lever is to use some tacky trans "assemblee goo" and stick it to the detent ward block. I wish I'd have thought about that before I had the main case rtv applied and down onto the shift shaft because my "assemblee goo" was in the far corner of the basement.

Anyway, here's the homemade tools I used. I'll update the post later to include lengths on the sections of 1-3/4" exhaust pipe.

full res here

Note: the double nuts on top are only necessary to lock the tool's m12x1.75 end into the mainshaft. After that only the lower nut is needed to drive the cluster gear on. I put it in 4th and used my old friction disk with vise grips to hold the mainshaft from spinning.

full res here

Sorry, this picture sucks, I'll take a better one tomorrow.

Now all that's left is...

SacCity oil galley barbell
Rear main seal
LS7 flywheel
Install bellhousing
Friction disk and cover
Clearance torque tube for TMOD shift shaft
Rebuild front suspension
50 or 60 other things
Get fitting and braided line for remote bleeder

I'm probably being optimistic to think I'll have it back on the ground by Halloween, much less running. Oh well...

 

Forgot to get a better pic of the homemade endplay threaded rod, but wanted to share this - took a couple hours to figure it out. No need for a ratchet strap now!

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Got the tt clearanced for TMOD shaft and box. I'm really liking the feel of the C6 shifter.

 

I just had a week of hell where the overwhelming majority of my vehicles fought tooth and nail to have another thousand dollars spent on them (each). Four different cars, four different problems, four days in a row.

I also caught a lead on a 5.3 powered 4x4 Envoy (circa 2006) that will serve as my foul-weather commuter vehicle and had to ****** it up yesterday while the gettin' was good.

So this afternoon I finally get back to putting parts on the C5 and to my embarrassment / amazement find that not one but both of the lower bolt holes in the rear main cover plate have had their threads stripped by some previous ***-monkey "mechanic". One rear main seal kit worth of dollars just went up in flames, and a new rear cover has been ordered from the big "A".

Anyway, my question today pertains to oxygen sensors. My car came to me with longtube headers already installed. I also noticed when I removed them that for some reason I'm really not sure about there were O2 extensions installed on both of the forward / primary sensors. I believe that when I removed these connectors that the rear sensors were criss-crossed by design, and the fronts were not.

My question - is it possible to re-pin the pcm headers so the forward O2s are also criss-crossed? Sorry to be lazy but since most of you have already dealt with these type of challenges I'm just looking for a "sure" or "no, run away now" type answer.

I will crack open the FSM and assess the feasibility of it on my own, but I'm currently busy trying to deal with the challenges of life while my significant other is enjoying a week of Florida sunshine with my soon-to-be 30 year old daughter. I hope that Cash's Discount Liquors appreciates how much their revenue could've been supplemented had I gone along. But instead I'm stuck here in Misery (MO) keeping the daughter's neurotic-assed Border Collies entertained. Please, kill me now...

 

Wife's ride is an 07 Envoy Denali, so 5.3. At altitude here that 4.2 was not gonna cut it.

As for repinning the O2s, yeah you can pin them any which way. For a number of years I ran rear sensors pinned to the front holes at the PCM. And yes, rears criss cross but fronts don't.
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Yeah our other long wheelbase is a 4.2 and it's a pooch until about 2200 rpm. Unfortunately that's about 80 mph in overdrive, which is another of the contributing factors to why they eat transmissions like candy.

Thanks for the advice on the O2s - I'll probably cross the forward sensors if it helps get the wiring away from the headers. By the way, have I mentioned I hate these longtube headers? OMG. They're in the way with everything you need to do.

Anyway, I finally have the clutch in and bellhousing bolted down. I have no idea how I got the bellhousing bolts loose, but putting them back in and getting them to some realistic torque spec was a nightmare.

My current question - I have 3/32 or ~0.094" clearance for the slave cylinder. My gut tells me this should be fine, but wanted to throw it out there and see if I should be concerned.

Now that I finally managed to get the TOB off and clean it up I see how these slaves work. There's just a simple double lip seal in the bore that I suspect could be easily replaced. Pretty neat when you think about how convoluted the C4 puller style clutch fork setup is.

 

Getting ready to stab her in but made a short video of the whole shebang and how it balances on the trans jack. Can someone let me know if my video works or needs more transcoding magic pls?

No fair ridiculing my "work boots".

CLICK FOR VIDEO

 

Not going to open the video at work but did you bolt on the shifter and grab all 7 gears already? I can't recall if you said you'd done that.

 

Oh yeah, took about three or four tries to get the opening properly clearanced. Just had a little difficulty with 6th because there was slightly more weld left on the u-joint in that area. Not dissing TMOD's work tho - very meticulous, top notch stuff. Just ripping gears kneeling next to it with the C6 upper I can already tell it's going to be freakin' awesome.

Edit: Didn't quite make my tee time but it's in! Had to pull it out 3 times to adjust the bleeder and slave hose routing.

 

So the driveline is sitting on my garage floor again tonight. Hoping to be close to the end of this adventure...

I made a huge tactical mistake by not bleeding + leak testing the slave cylinder / DIY remote bleeder. Seems I got too mean with the bleeder's braided hose (it got bent too close to the aeroquip fitting several times while wrestling the behemoth into the tunnel). Wouldn't have been too bad but I had the headers, spark plugs and pretty much everything else under the hood buttoned up by the time I realized there was a leak.

I got that resolved quickly yesterday and had it all back in place and the clutch bled (without leaks this time) in under 3 hours. As I was re-connecting the transmission solenoids and switches I noticed the right rear brake line (which is fairly rusty) looked a bit wet. So I guess I get to find out how re-routing the rear brake lines works tomorrow.

 

So what I'm hearing is that rubber is in increasingly imminent danger of being hatefully shredded.

 

Not likely, I'm not big into burning up $600 worth of nearly new tires for kicks. I've been venting my frustration the same way I always do, by throwing tools and ingesting copious amounts of bourbon.

This was a very productive morning. Had the brake lines done and bled by 11:00 am after only 2 hours. 2 more hours and the clutch is bled and leak tested. Cradle goes in next.

full res here

I hope I don't find out the hard way why GM didn't route these lines similarly. Getting them the hell out of the way makes removing and installing the driveline so much easier. No interference from the trans brace, and fingers crossed the exhaust will have plenty of room...

 

Is that copper line or nicopp?

 

NiCu - only thing the local parts house stocks. It feels very soft and bends very easily, but I've used it numerous times without issue.

I'm fishing the exhaust in now and looks to have plenty of room. Kicking myself for not having done this weeks ago while waiting for parts.

Of course, I'm still waiting for parts b/c the front sway bar bushings were evidently in the same truck as the USPS package that spilled mercury in the STL sorting center.

 

Update: Have the exhaust fully aligned from the x-pipe to the tips and no issues with brake line clearance.

Having not yet driven it I can't say for certain, but I feel like GM's design engineers were a bunch of boneheads on this one.

Reduces total length of brake line by 15%: check
Reduces amount of brake line in the lower rear "salty" region by 60%: check
Removes the consideration of the rear brake lines completely from a driveline removal: check
Does not further complicate the body to chassis marriage and vice-versa: check

I just don't get it. But maybe their brake line vendor didn't appreciate the reduction in order quantity. :-\

Tomorrow I get to finish up the suspension / steering rebuild with the exception of the missing sway bar bushings.

Though after getting the exhaust all ready to go I find I'm needing a few bits there since one of the previous owners botched a cat-back install pretty badly. I'm a hot-rodder at heart and know exactly what tube headers bring to the table, but I find myself wishing this vehicle was never thusly upgraded. What a PITA!

 

Hi Scott. Video worked great (I was on a work trip and couldn't comment), Nice job on that mount with the trans jack. I've enjoyed watching the project.
I like Mr Green!

 

Thanks for the feedback!

I wouldn't want to tackle this job without the trans jack. Also found it works perfect for poking the cradle back in without much difficulty. Through the entire process I've only needed a helper for bleeding hydraulics.

Were it not for those wretched longtube headers I would imagine a simple clutch change could get done in 10-12 hours barring any broken bolts, etc.

 

Good, pure copper is a bad choice for a brake line. The stuff with nickel in it is supposed to be THE go to material.

 

Yeah this isn't my first time working on hard lines so I kinda knew that... The NiCopp stuff seems to be the bees knees for these kind of repairs.

Anyway, I'm still sitting here with a scowl on my face. It seems like the car either loves the attention, or is simply tired of being driven.

Last week the parts fiasco was waiting for new weld bungs so I could replace the very crudely "rigged" sections of pipe between the (fake) cats and the x-pipe where the post-cat O2 sensors live. Assholeazon promised them to be delivered on the 10th, but initially shipped them via USPS, who were observing Veteran's day on the 10th. They did eventually show up and I was able to get new post-cat pipes fabbed up. No fair poking fun at my TIG welds, I'm self-taught and my machine hasn't quite been fine-tuned yet.

full res here

This week I'm anxiously awaiting news of the outcome of my order of the fasteners that will secure my newly acquired Z-06 OE airbox and bridge to the vehicle so it isn't flopping around haphazardly. Fingers crossed they haven't been discontinued, but I'm not encouraged by the banner on the gm parts website I ordered from stating:

Greaaat!

Today the hilarity continued. As I'm going through the suspension and steering completely, I noticed when removing the front lower control arms that the suspension height adjusters had long ago shed their rubber cushions, which was probably a major contributor to how often the front air splitter scraped the pavement. So I ordered new (aftermarket) replacements. On attempting to remove the old ones I found they were hopelessly rusted into the thread inserts that are glued into the monospring. So a couple hours of hand-drilling later I'm finding I need a m14x2 tap to chase the threads. Yet another case of wait for Amazon...

full res here

Also discovered I probably need to pull the rack in order to remove / replace the boots and inner tie rod ends. Hoping to get that steaming pile of fun tackled tomorrow!?!

 

Well it's been 2+ weeks and I finally have the rack clamped in my vise ready for attention.

I'm beside myself with how this job has panned out. I was initially shooting for a completion date of Halloween. That target was easily missed due to parts delays, but the latest "fun" of a ransomware attack at my place of employment cost me another 2-1/2 weeks so now x-mas is the new target date.

I have the exhaust expertly patched up after removing some pretty sketchy pieces between the headers and Borla x-pipe. Found that swapping the forward O2 sensor connectors made for cleaner routing of the wiring, so swapped the pins on the blue connector. It fired up and ran for the first time in 72 days yesterday!

Today's "struggles" were pulling the rack, along with realizing the front cradle must be dropped in order for it to be removed. I was not amused.

If the frustration doesn't kill me this will be one sweet ride when I'm done with it. But in hindsight I'm seriously questioning my decision to work on something like this. You seriously need to be into self-punishment to enjoy working on this machine.

If it's not sitting on it's tires by Friday I may seriously light it ablaze and watch the flames take my home to the ground.