Im going in....(Timing Chain)

[QWK]

Well I miss driving my GN. It has over 144K on it, Stock Timing Chain, and stock Valve Springs. I have been searching the boards and reading the horror stories of what those wonderful plastic pieces of gear do to an oil pump. (Thats why I dont drive it) So Im going to attempt it!!

I figure since Im tearing into it, I figured I would change...
The Water Pump, Belt, install RJC Pullies, Valve Springs, Poston Headers, Cross-over, DP and TA-49. Then I guess Ill have to install 42lb injectors and a chip.

Should I change to a Caspers Cam sensor? Should I install a new Crank Sensor? What other "things" should I do while its tore this far down?
(I should just pull the damn thing and get it over with)

Thanks for the help.
Craig

Ill have some pictures up soon. ( I hope)

 

[QWK]

Well after a few hours, I actually got some $hit done.

Im wore the Fugg out.
But keep those suggestions coming

 

[DMan]

What is the goal of all this work?
How far do you want to take your car?
This is not clear in your message.

Good to have the answers to these questions clear in your mind before you start getting into this. Because if it fuggs up after the reassembly, you end up asking yourself why you even bothered spending all the time and money.

Was the car running poorly before this work?
If it runs poorly afterwards, how will you trace the problem? You've just changed a dozen components at the same time. Which one caused the problem?

My opinion? Do your water pump and timing chain, and button it up. Drive it. Then do your valve springs. Drive it. Then your chip and injectors. Drive it. Then the turbo and DP.

Do NOT change your cam sensor unless you are certain your factory unit is malfunctioning. Don't even move it.

Forget the crossover and headers - absolutely no need to change these pieces unless you are running 10's, or they are broken/damaged in some way.

Sorry - I know we all love to play 'lego' with our cars, but we also know how much of a pain these cars can be when they don't work. Go easy. Be patient. And you'll spend more time driving than fixing. You say yourself that you "miss driving the GN".

 

[1ARUNM]

Some things to consider:

Putting new valve springs in it will add additional pressure on the cam lobes.
This can cause the cam to fail. Good idea to check it while your so close. Even so, I changed valve springs on my 100K plus car and the next thing I knew it had eaten a cam lobe. It was fine before.

I sure wouldn't feel confident that the cam sensor was correct after removing the timing cover without checking it afterwards. It's not that hard.

I think it's a good idea to remove the oil pan and clean it before you start it up. It's hard to keep coolant out of the pan when you take the cover off. Coolant circulating around in you oil is a bad thing. It may sound like a pain to do it, but I take my time when I'm working on my car. You might be surprised what you find in there. I bet you find something that you don't want going through your oiling system. If you get coolant in there it's almost impossible to get it out without dropping the pan.

Put in the good cam button while your in there and be sure to pack the oil pump and prime it with a drill before startup.

Be sure to use a good timing chain. Believe it or not, I had a double roller jump a tooth after less than 10k miles.

My .02

 

[QWK]

Thanks guys.

The car ran fine before I pulled it apart. I was just worried about the Cam Sproket coming apart(144K+miles) That is why I decided to tear into it.

I read on GNTTYPE.org, that it would be a good idea to change the WP while its apart. That made sense, so I have that going on also.

The Cam sensor, it seems to be fine, but (maybe Im reading too much here) I read that they go out for no reason. The Caspers Cam Sensor has that "idiot light" on it, so I figured it would help me reduce mistakes(proper sensor alignment) when putting the GN back together.

The headers are cracked, and Poston had that deal that if you bought all three pieces (Headers, Cross over, Down Pipe) you save a few extra bucks. That is why I purchased those. Actually the Cross-over is STILL on BO, so I will take that advice and do the HOT PART's and turbo install later.

As far as the new valve springs, I have (here we go again with the reading) read that it is one of the first things to do with a 100K+ GN. So I shouldnt change those?? Last thing I need is a broke Valve spring and a dropped valve. I just thought, since I have this tore down this far, why not do it?

My ultimate goal...Mid to high 11's without running Alky or race gas, cold AC and having a great looking, bad ass, tire shredding GN. :biggrin:
Is that un reasonable?

Thank you again for your experieced responses. You guys have "been there done that" when it comes to GN's, and Iam appreciative of your opinions and advice.
Craig

 

[salvageV6]

I did about the same thing 6 years ago on my car.

PULL THE OIL PAN OFF to do the front cover gasket or it will leak.

It will probably be easier to do the turbo swap and header swap with most of the stuff out of the way.

Read up on swapping the turbo out, new oil feed line perhaps and studs on the turbo to help with the drain line install, new thick GM gasket as well.

PORT the Postons headers to the stock sized openings and get all the weld slag out of them, should take a day just for that job with a dremel type tool. Not a fun job nor should it be a necessary job but if you don't want less flow than a stock header you should take a good look inside the ports.

Clean the pickup tube out and prestick the cork type gasket to the cleaned oil pan prior to assembly, if you use arubber pan gasket look up how to install those without leaks.

Do any burnt control arm bushings while all the exhaust, headers and turbo are out of the way, only delayed me an extra day but was relatively painless to do.

Took me a week and two weekends to do the job the first time.

I had to redo the front cover gasket since it leaked bad without pulling the pan. :frown:

I would leave the stock crank and cam sensors alone but buy the new ones for spares.

Reweld the stock headers and keep them for an easy swap when the Postons crack and start leaking in a few years.

Do any motor mounts if they are cracked and rotted.

Valve springs can wait and can be done easily from the top after the other part installs.

Just my .02.

 

[KevinB]

QWK, if you run into any problems, let me know. I have done this a few times plus cam swaps with the engine still in on Tom's car. My number is 513-616-7832.

Kevin

Edit: I have also done the v-springs on my car.

 

[QWK]

QWK, if you run into any problems, let me know. I have done this a few times plus cam swaps with the engine still in on Tom's car. My number is 513-616-7832.

Kevin

Edit: I have also done the v-springs on my car.

No ****?!

Thanks Kevin!!

 

[QWK]

Ok I have been cleaning and doing alot of stuff today. I finally got back on the GN. Stupid question......

Should the Balancer just, come off?? I removed the one bolt, 1 1/8", and then the 6, 3/8 thread bolts. I was trying to get the pulley off by tapping it with a mallet, and the pulley and balancer came off as one piece!!! Is this normal?

Thanks again...Im sure Ill have more questions :biggrin:

Craig

 

[DMan]

Not sure. I took my balancer off as one unit. I did not take the pulley bolts out. Maybe they are just stuck together

Ok I have been cleaning and doing alot of stuff today. I finally got back on the GN. Stupid question......

Should the Balancer just, come off?? I removed the one bolt, 1 1/8", and then the 6, 3/8 thread bolts. I was trying to get the pulley off by tapping it with a mallet, and the pulley and balancer came off as one piece!!! Is this normal?

Thanks again...Im sure Ill have more questions :biggrin:

Craig

 

[KevinB]

Ok I have been cleaning and doing alot of stuff today. I finally got back on the GN. Stupid question......

Should the Balancer just, come off?? I removed the one bolt, 1 1/8", and then the 6, 3/8 thread bolts. I was trying to get the pulley off by tapping it with a mallet, and the pulley and balancer came off as one piece!!! Is this normal?

Thanks again...Im sure Ill have more questions :biggrin:

Craig

Yes, thew pulley bolts to the balancer. They are not pressed on and should be easy to remove w/o the use of a puller. Make sure you get the bolt on tight when you reinstall it. I once had mine loosen up and it would walk out at high rpm. When this happened, the crank trigger would lose it's reference with the interupter ring and the car would cut out. It only took me a few months to figure what was going on.

 

[QWK]

Well I can take back the Balancer puller then!

Thanks

 

[Alaskabuick]

couple tips

Just a simple tip on the pan removal. If you have trouble removing the pan, turn the crank to make clearence, it will then slip out. I know this is simple stuff but easy to look over at times. gear wrenches come in handy on the front pan bolts as well. I was cussing mine until it hit me that I just had to turn the crank to make it a smiple task.

Also when you go to crank it up you need to prime the oil pump. I found the simplest way to do this is to remove the line from the oil filter housing that goes to the radiator. Fill this line with motor oil and then re-attach, this will prime the pump and get quick oil pressure.

Clean all your surfaces with a good cleaner or Laqiure thinner. I have a buddy that has built small engines for years and swears by using Laqiure thinner to prep the surfaces before installing gaskets.

Put a good bead of silicone in the corners where the pan and front cover meet. If this leaks you will be bummed out to do this pain job again. The best stuff to use is called the "The right Stuff" That is what all my buddies are swearing by.

Just trying to save you some of the pain I had learning as I went..

Good Luck

Dennis

 

[QWK]

I just ordered a new Cam Button, so its on hold till that gets here.

But THANK YOU for all the advice!!!

 

[Dabigguy]

Hey, I am not sure if you decided to pull the pan, but while you are down there, we all know how wonderful those real main seals are. Replace 'em. It only adds a few minutes to the whole process.

 

[QWK]

Well I have to admit. Ive been slacking on the GN. Its sadly sitting in the garage on jackstands awaiting further work. I got the cam button, so there is no excuses now. Hopefully Ill have it road worthy soon. (I drive a DMAX and Disel prices are more than premium )
So Im gonna do some more searchs and look for tips on taking the oil pan off and replacing the rear seal....IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO TO THESE WITHOUT DOING A HUNDRED OTHER THINGS!?!?? Its like a snowball rollng down the mountain, it just gets bigger and bigger.

Side note. I did get a "Editors Choice" this past week-end at Super Chevy Columbus, for my Chevy II. :biggrin:

 

[2QUIK6]

When you change your valve springs, do not use the LT1 springs that a lot of vendors sell, they have 100+ lbs of seat pressure which is too much for the stock cam..I suspect those that wiped cam lobes used these...don't know why so many vendors swear by these.
Use Comp 980's, they have about 80# of seat pressure, a few pounds more if you use the stock cups...or you can trash the cups and keep the internal dampeners on them.
Your orginal stockers will have less than 65# of seat pressure after only 50k miles and 18 years of sitting...thats the reason you want to change them, they will not break usually.

As for the oil pan, it is easily removed on the GN if you have a universal socket joint to get to all of the bolts..the crossover pipe will have to come off so thats probably why you want to go ahead and do the headers too at the same time.
Turn the crank as mentioned so that the front counter weight is up and out of the way and the pan should slide right out, but you will have to use a little force to get it off of the pickup tube, or you can remove the pickup tube after the pan falls down some if you can get a wrench in there....I got mine off without removing the pickup tube.

Make sure all surfaces are oil free when installing...a trick I learned was to tie the gasket to the pan with some fine string in about 8 places, then slide the pan back up, get a few bolts in..then cut and remove the string..makes it much easier....just be certain that no oil drips down and gets on the gasket or mating surfaces or it will leak....put some RTV in the corners where the front cover and the rear main cap surfaces are..a very thin coat smeared on with your finger.
If your ream main seal is the original rope seal, then it won't hurt to replace it....if its a rubber urethane seal, and it ain;t leaking, then leave it alone would be my opinion.....but if you don't know, there is no way to tell unless you remove the rear cap...then you midas well go ahead and replace it cause it may not seal back up properly...
There's several ways to install the rear seal...do a search and read and then decide for yourself which way is best...when I did my 2 cars, I did not use the "nails" I filled the caps with Ultra-Black and let it sit for a few days to dry before starting it up and neither have leaked...been about a year since I did both my cars.

If using the rubber pan gasket, it won't hurt to go back and retorque after a few miles and heat cycles to prevent a leak in the future.

 

[QWK]

Thank you again for the input!!

I finally broke the seal and opened up the timing cover. Guess what, the chain was fine Im sure if I wouldve been driving it, it probably wouldve broke and left me stranded on the side of the road. Ehh, I keep telling myself it was needed.

Anyway, I am going to drop the pan. There was just a bit too much antifreeze seeping down into the pan. The Factory Oil pan gasket is rubber, so I know it would be a PITA to get the cover on over it.

While I have the cover off...Should I re-build the oil pump? and what is involved with that? Also the lines to the cooler got a bit Fugged up, so Ill be replacing those also. Would it be better to block off the radiator Oil cooler holes and run a seperate cooler or just leave well enough alone?

Thanks again for all the help.
Craig

 

[Alaskabuick]

Pickup screen

If you car i like mine you will find all kinds of weird crap on your pickup screen in the pan. I pulled in off, two bolts if I remember right, and cleaned it real well, blew it out with air, etc.

Do not forget to yank off the tensioner if using a double roller timming chain.

Dennis

 

[QWK]

What a FN night. NOTHING went right.....*edit*



Anyone have any C4 and DET cord laying around?