AmpegVT22

Okay, so here is the deal. I bought these cars for this summer and I want them on the road ASAP and I have a plan to get them done in the next 3 weeks and I am going to basically do a play by play of what I am doing here with pictures in order to hopefully help other people with the same problems.

The first one that I am working on is my White RS (which is actually my Gf's car but I promised to get it on the road for her this summer and she is getting pissed at me). This weekend my goal is to put a new oil pan on (old one was hit and is leaking), and new starter motor and solenoid, new sway bar links (rusted out), and to begin taking out the carpet and interior since I need to put brand new floor on both side of this car.

The floor is for new weekend !

So I have all my parts and my tools ready, I got my lift and I want to raise the engine up slightly so I can actually get to the oil pan and change it (Cross member is in the way and pan is hard to reach). I have never hooked an engine up to a lift before so I need to know where exactly to hook the hoist to...and what with ?? I also need to know what if there is anything in particular I should look out for when doing this, and also if there is anything that needs to be removed (I will take distributor cap off to make more room near the firewall). If anyone has done this before a few tips would be appreciated. The engine is a 305 TBI.

Thats for tomorrow,and I will take some pictures of the work.

Rolling Thunder

Well becides the distributor cap its theres nothing to take off really. To hook the motor to the engin hoist use some heavy chains and use the chain links that actually close up not like thoes "s" shaped deals they will bend and break. For where to hook it to the motor there are points to hook to on the drivers side front of the block and the passenger side rear behing the valve cover if im not mistaken.

Viprklr

iTrader: (5)

You could do that or just remove the mount through bolts and jack up the engine at the oil pan then put 2x4's between the mounts.
You'll have to drop your exhaust from the manifolds as well.
I just finished up another oil pan gasket changeout yesterday and found that I couldn't remove the old gasket unless I removed the dipstick tube.
Remove starter and oil filter.
Don't forget to rotate your timing mark to 6 o'clock.

AmpegVT22

Okay cool, thanks. Yeah I hear that you have to rotate the timing mark to 6 o'clock. Did you have to take the spark plugs out for that, or did you just rotate the engine with all the compression ? I have found the engine lifting loops at the front drivers side and rear passenger side of the engine so that will be good for lifting. I have a pretty nice engine lift so I don't think I will need the 2x4's. Starter motor is off yesterday and found that the wire that goes from the solenoid to the starter had been damaged and was not connected anymore. Which is probably why it would not start ha ha ! I am doing the pan, gasket and starter motor today. Hopefully I will get everything done ! I have the exhaust off too but I didn't know that I need to take the oil filter off so thanks Those things are so hard to get a grip on sometimes. I may just stab it with a screw driver to turn it.

Okay so back to work.

I got some pictures that I will post up later. Its super dirty under there !

AmpegVT22

Okay thanks, I didn't know the engine had those hooks on it ha ha ! But I found them so that makes things a lot easier. I thought their was some sort of special mid evil way of doing that but that make things a lot more simple !

I am actually just about to do that right now so I will post later and tell everyone how it went

AmpegVT22

So I am just about to start work on the white RS right now, get some breakfast and then at the end of day 2 I will post pictures to update the progress. Oh and btw, my gf ordered new carpet and some new interios parts yesterday so that by the time we have the floor all cut out and replaced with a new one, our carpet will be here.

So far so good !

Viprklr

iTrader: (5)

Just makes it easier to get to the 2 bolts that are between it and the pan. Besides, you should be doing an oil change anyway.

IrocTheZ28

Why set the timing mark at six o' clock?

Rolling Thunder

If you dont rotate it the counterweight on the crank could get in the way of removal.

AmpegVT22

Okay so this weekend went well. As with any project like this, you always run into things that set you back. In my case it was rusted fasteners. If you think about it, jobs like these would go really fast if everything came off and went on in a smooth manner; in an ideal world though, especially in Canada where we have a lot of rust problems because of the weather.

Anyways so the only thing that I did not get done is the sway bar links. I got the sway bar off and links cut off ha ha cause they were so rusted, now I just need to sand blast the bar and brackets, paint it, and re-install it with some new links Should be pretty easy !

So, I got my car up onto some ramps. Note, I discovered how usefull a creeper is this weekend, its hell try to sqeeze yourself underneath the car and back out when you need a different tool, so I bought one for next weekend.

First thing I did was get the flywheel cover off and clean it. Then I removed the starter motor, carefull when taking off the wires (also don't forget to take off the negative battery terminal !!) I then drained the oil out of the damaged oil pan and I took the oil filter off. In order to take the oil pan off you need to remove the muffler too which was hard. I needed 13" of extension with a flex elbow on the end to get in there and reach it. That took a while to get off too because the bolts are always so rusty. I eventually got it off though.

The old starter motor was caked in mud and rust, as well as the old oil pan. It is obviosu that the previous owner hit a rock or something which was hard enough to dent the crossmember and hit the oil pan right were the drain plug is. This made a hole in the oil pan, car will hnot hold oil, leaks all over my driveway and is a pain in the ***. Previous owner tried to fix it by smoothering the oil pan in Bondo which did not work, but made getting the oil drain plug out a nice challenge ! The car also did not turn over very well and we could not move the car easily, so we suspected the starter motor was weak. Upon getting the old motor out we realised that the solinoid was done and also that the wire connecting the solinoid to the motor had been broken off and was hanging on by only a couple of strands (which would explain why the motor was not cranking very well !

After that I removed the transmission crossmember bolt and 2 motor mounts. Then I chained up the engine using the the two engine hoisting loops (which I did not know were there until someone told me ha ha!). Moved the hoist into position, hooked up the chains. BEFORE this though I took off my distributor cap ! You need to do this or else it will hit the firewall when you are angleing the engine up and will break the cap. Then I started cranking the lift and got the engine up high enough so that I could get at the oil pan.

This is where I ran into some set backs. Most of the pan bolts came off nicely, however 2 of them were so rusted the tops of them just stripped right off. 2 hours of awkward and difficult grinding of bolts...and teeth followed; with a grand finally of loud cursing and shouting and the stupid oil pan. There is nothing that frustrates me more than bolts that strip out.

So in the picture you can see me there trying to ge tthose bolts off, they finally came off though !

Set my timing mark to 6 oclock, since the crank needs to be there for you to wiggle the oil pan off. Then off comes the old gasket. Insert new gasket and oil pan, button that all down. Re-install NEW starter motor and re hook the wires after giving them a nice little cleaning. Install new oil filter and start putting some new oil in. Re-install muffler, note...very difficult with only one person and took me way too long fumbling around with a shortage of space and patients! Re-install snorkel assembly and changed my air filter while I was at it.

Put the key in the ignition and pray.................

She started right up real strong !!

Sweet ! Progress. INstead of hours of trying to figure out why it is not cranking she just fires right now which is a relief. Also, it is so nice to have a car that does not leak oil ha ha!

AmpegVT22

In these pictures you see the damaged oil pan with bondo. Me grinding the stripped bolt head on the oil pan. And how dirty you get if you don't have a creeper ! It is also way to hard getting underneath the sar with almost no room at all.

AmpegVT22

Here you see the clearance you need to get the oil pan off, I should have had even more than this but i scared to crank the engine up any further and put stress on hoses etc. My two little helpers, one more of a nuisance than a helper though, but both pretty cute

AmpegVT22

New starter motor all mounted up with clean wires as well as new oild pan all buttoned down with new oil !. Motor away from mounts. Timing mark at 6 o'clock.

AmpegVT22

Okay so DONE and everything runs great. This wendesday will be the sway bar link repairs. This weekend I am going to be taking a break from the white RS and moving on to my green RS.

This weekend I will be attempting to remove all of the electronics/gauges/dash/engine etc etc (donor 86 Z-28 with good engine but rotted body) and put into my green RS.

ANY tips would be a great help !!!

Rolling Thunder

The best thing i can say is when tearing this stuff apart make sure you bag and tag the bolts so you know where they came from or screw them back in. Also you might want to tape on little notes on the connectors as well so you know what they went to maby even draw a little diagram. For theos rusty stuck bolts some penetrating oil works wonders especially the pb blaster truely amazing stuff. I always use that stuff and ive never broken or stripped a bolt no matter how nasty they were. Also on a side not to ease future problems you can always repace your old rusty steel bolts with stainless steel ones. Every bolt on the motor i built and exhaust is stainless and whenever i take something apart i always replace with stainless bolts if possable. It makes life so much easier. The never rust obviously so they just unbolt just like when it was new even if theyve been subjected to years of road salts and crap. Not really terrably expencive eather.

IrocTheZ28

AmpegVT22... that's hardcore work there, glad its paying off for you!

I understand now the 6 o'clock timing mark position. Pic helped.

About stainless steel bolts, where would a novice get them? Home Cheapo or Lowes? One must think about thread pitch and bolt head sizing I guess in metric vs standard.

AmpegVT22

I never thought of using stainless fasteners although it would seem like an obvious choice to avoid rust [problems; from now on everything that I put on the engine will be stainless. I think I might try and replace the oil pan bolts with stainless ones too. I have an engine building DVD that I watch in which it stresses the importance of labeling EVERYTHING, taking pictures, and taking notes. So far I have been doing this and it has been working very well. But I have to say that when I am working its funny how you think you will never forget how something goes, and then 2 hours later when you are trying to put it back on your thinking...how the does this thing go again ? What is this part ? Who's car is this ? What planet am I on ? My mind is definately less than perfect so great advice to anyone like me who is strictly a novice at best trying to attempt repairs that I should probably never be doing, but even when I get pissed I will admit that it is great fun tinkering around heh heh.

I will have some mad labeling to do changing all that stuff over from my crapy z28 to my RS !!

AmpegVT22

Thats a good question. In Ottawa we have a store called Ottawa Fasteners, they deal only with nuts and bolts and have pretty much any kind of fastener you could find under the sun. I am always nervous about buying fasteners from home depot for cars, just because I am not sure about strength ratings and such. I think a lot of those bolts are low grade bolts, and a car strikes me as something that would need some pretty high quality bolts; higher quality than I would put into my deck in my backyard. I have been getting all of my bolts from Ottawa Fasteners and also from Part Source, just because I don't think Part Source would sell me bolts for a specific part on the engine that are not up to spec.

So I would say that if you can find a specialty store that deals with nuts and bolts that has many different types and grades of stainless festeners with all the sizes and thread types, standard, metric, and whatever else you might run into in your city than you should buy from them. Other than that, try and get them from a car part store mybee.

AmpegVT22

Going to get started on with my engine/dash/electronics swap today. Hopefully I will run into a lot of problems so I can get you guys to talk some sense into me. Perhaps even talk me out of it ha ha ! That wont happen though.

Rolling Thunder

Well its actually not bad to find the stainless fasteners as these bolts for the most part arnt anything special or unique to cars. Stainless bolts depending on what your looking for can be found at a bunch of different places. For starters if you wanted a set of stainless bolts for say an oil pan for example you can buy a set from places like summit racing or any racing catalog for that matter. That way thell come as a complete set with stainless washers and you dont have to fuss around trying to find what your looking for. Its usually cheaper that way anyways. For everything else that might be alittle more of an odd ball thing that you cant just but a set for you can go to places like home depot or lows and thell have them but as mentioned earlier that means you kinda have to know the diameter and thread pitch ect. Now this isnt too bad you could always search through there nuts and bolts to test and see what youve got or you could go to your local autoparts store as not only do they have a vast assortment of regulat steel and stainless steel bolts washers and nuts they also have the handy thread guages set up (really just a set of nuts and threaded rod insta;;ed on a fixture of some sort) so you can just test your nut or bolt and know exactly what your looking for.

Rolling Thunder

Also i forgot to mention although for alot of this stuff you dont really need a bolt thats hyper tough if you ever were concerned however and wanted something tough bolts have a grading system when it comes to their streingth. For example SAE bolts can be things like grade 2, grade 5, grade 8 ect and what it means is that bolt is guarented to meet thoes standards for streinth weather they come from walmart or Napa autoparts. The grade is also stamped into the head of the bolt. You might have notced these markings on some of the bolts youve removed already. Because of the depth of info thats available for the grading systems and the fact that theres 2 grading systems for metric and SAE bolts I wont take the time to go through it all here but if you want to find out more about this grading system you can always do a search online as theres tons of info on it.

AmpegVT22

Okay so yesterday was Canada Day so I had a day off work.

I am took out the wiring harness from my z28 and out of my RS and I am going to switch the harnesses so I can run my z28 ECM in my RS. I also changing all the gauges and front interior to a Z28 style this weekend !

Lots of work but fun as hell and its going pretty good too, so far it looks as if everything will go well.

KITT1983

iTrader: (3)

any updates?

AmpegVT22

Okay so here are some updates on the current cars. A few things have changed. Upon COMPLETELY stripping my Z28 down to the basic chasis, I have learned a lot about these cars. I don't think there is any component of this car that I don't know about know. Everything from electrical, steering, interior, engine, doors, transmission, drivetrain, rear end, to trim. I have taken apart everything and the process has taken me a few extra weekends but it was worth it.

I have been selling the good parts off the car as I am going, and in this process I have made a few new friends who are also working on their Camaros in the city. I have this guy that come down from Kingston Ontario to help me every 2nd weekend now and he has become a good partner for this kind of work. I have been giving him the parts that he needs to complete his 83 Z28, and in return he has been givingme what i need, plus helping out a whole bunch. I gave him a bunch of parts plus a TH350 transmission which he wanted.

In return he is hooking me up with a rebuilt 350, complete dynomax exhaust, and Z28 rims with brand new tires intalled and balanced, which is awesome because I need brand new rubber badly. So this last weekend I pulled my engine and transmission from my car, the old 305 truck engine. There were a few new suprises. The exhaust was a hastily put together piece of crap, so I ripped all that out. As well, the transmission crossmember was welded to the frame . Gawd! Getting the hastily installed engine out of this car was an ordeal upon itself. Faced with cramped working environment, i had to cut the muffler off, AND the crossmember ! Sucks.

Anyways, here are few pics of me getting the engine out. Just a note to others who are doing this...make sure not to be an idiot like me and drain your tranny fluid before you take the driveshaft out of the back of your tranny. My landlord is going to be thrilled about his driveway ha ha!

So for this weekend...install the complete dash and gagues from my 86 into my 92, lots of body work, electrical and wiring harness install to get prepared for my new engine being delivered in two weeks.