S10 - Take Two

Saw a fabricated diff cover in the clearance section at Summit, and almost grabbed it.  Debating asking a teammate to snag it when they are up that way later this week.  Looks like it was made to put a triangulated 4 link in a 73-87 Chevy truck, but I could probably cut the brackets off, re-weld one in the center, and use it for a three link.  Probably not worth the effort, though.  Stopped up and got to hang out with Patrick for a little bit, and picked up some parts that will likely go on the challenge car when the build phase actually begins.

On a positive note, despite FBM being a hive of scum and villainy, I made $45 in sales off the Trailblazer.  They showed up for the bumper cover, and ended up also buying a few interior trim pieces.

Ha!  I saw that this weekend and almost snagged it, but didn't know if it would bolt up to the Trailblazer rear.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Ha!  I saw that this weekend and almost snagged it, but didn't know if it would bolt up to the Trailblazer rear.

I still need to do a little research on it myself.  Saw they also had a 8.6" gear install kit, but I'm pretty sure the 3.73 should be just fine for the challenge.

A bit more selling and a bit more disassembly on the donor today.  Console fought for a while until I went off directions and unbolted the driver's seat.  Tons easier to pull with it moved over a couple inches.  It also allowed me to discover a bit more change.  Up to $0.57!  Probably not much more to be had at this point.  Someone came along and bought the third brake light and rear wiper motor for $20.

It was also gas tank draining day.  Of course, GM doesn't include a drain plug, so I disconnected the filter output and ran some hose into a gas can.

To get the fuel pump to run constantly, you probably shouldn't crack open a spare relay, and jumper terminal 86 directly to the battery, but it works.  A fire extinguisher was close at hand.

Got about 18-19 gallons out of the tank before it started barely flowing.  I am guessing that can't be FMV'd in, since fuel is out of budget in general.  At least a couple of my cars have extra fuel, my neighbor's lawn tractor is topped off, and CooperTired has a full gas can to pick up at some point.

I am debating dropping the tank to pull the fuel pump.  It should be sufficient for the naturally aspirated part of the build, but not enough for nitrous if we can sneak that into the budget.

This is the last time (and first time) I ever plan to use a 4WD vehicle for an LS donor, unless I get a shop with a lift.  It took hours to get the front driveshaft loose, and it still won't come out until I pull some other parts, and maybe even the transfer case.  Most of the top of engine disassembly is done, and went well, but with all the rust underneath, it's going much more slowly now.

I think the gas you drained from the donor should go towards recoup

In reply to eastsideTim :

The pickups aren't as bad for a 4wd engine pull, but I have heard stories from the trans shop on the trials and tribulations involved with removing the front diff from a Trailblazer.

I assume that it stays attached to the engine when pulling the engine, which means disassembling the front suspension so you can get the axles out.  For a pull-n-scrap I'd just cut the axles and driveshaft.

The axles are definitely getting cut, since they'd need to be reinstalled to keep the wheel bearings from falling apart.  Realized today the PS/Alt bracket and the AC compressor probably need to come off, in order to facilitate access to the engine mounts.

The two beams at the bottom of the picture are getting cut off to make the engine easier to pull, and for potential use as donor metal in the S10.

Once the drivetrain is out, I should do a quick photo essay of the frame rust before this thing snaps into multiple pieces.

Rolling it onto the trailer, then pulling the rear axle and front tires is going to be an experience.

Edit:  Also, I think the transmission mount needs to be unbolted, and the transmission raised about half an inch, so the back of the oil pan can clear a crossmember.

Continued working on the donor.  Figured out I may need to pull the transmission forward with the engine in order to access some bellhousing bolts that I thought I could get to.  Turns out, I can get a wrench on one of them, but not turn it, not matter what style of wrench I use.

Also, I need to either lock the crank from turning, or have someone hold it with a breaker bar while I unbolt the torque converter. 

Got the sawzall out, with the intention of cutting the front axles.  Unbolted sway bar end links, loosened the bushing bolts, and hammered the sway bar up out of the way.  I have to give GM credit, whatever surface hardening they did to the axles, it is impressive.  The blade barely scratched it.  Got annoyed by that, so this happened:

Doesn't help with the axles, but it needed to be done eventually.  There does not appear to be room to get a cut off wheel in there, and I really don't want to have to remove them the "correct" way.  I am wondering if I can just cut the outer boots, pop the snap ring off, and disassemble the joint while they are in place.  I think the biggest risk is not having enough play to push the axle inwards to clear the outer joint, leaving the axles stuck in the differential.  And the risk of grease getting everywhere.

Drop the trans down and you can get to the bellhousing bolts with a lot of extensions.  

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Drop the trans down and you can get to the bellhousing bolts with a lot of extensions.  

That'll be a two person job, too, but may be the way to go.  Big thing with that is once the transmission crossmember comes out, the job pretty much has to be finished, because based on the frame condition, the crossmember will not be going back in.  Not a big deal to connect the engine to the hoist to hold it up, but will just require some coordination.

Anyone got a part number for the key for this lug nut?  The harbor freight kit doesn't have anything that works.  It's got a thin wall on the outside that looks like it would snap if you try the "hammer a socket on it" trick.  Needs 6 outward facing splines, and a hollow center due to the actual lug sticking through the lug nut.

For bellhousing bolts: beat dash and hvack out of way with crowbar, drill holes in firewall, use impact and extension to remove bolt. 

Its scrap metal. What are you gonna do, berkeley it up? 

Security lug nuts are off.  Going to try to heal up a bit tonight, and go after the axles, and maybe pull the engine tomorrow.

Have pulled 2 of these in the JY ( both4wd) they are a pain. I dropped the front diff after I had the motor loose and hanging off the hoist. The torque converter bolts were accessible after removing the starter. I used a longer extension to get the bolts. I removed the mounts off the block and the frame completely.. Not fun but doable, l was also by myself. The second one was fairly rusty and probably took me 4 hours.

In reply to madmrak351 :

I don't have a single extension long enough to reach the bolts from the front, and the crank wanted to turn when I tried to unbolt them manually.  EastsideWife ended up helping by running the impact wrench that I had attached half a dozen various extensions to, while I held the socket onto the bolt to keep it from falling off.

One of the advantages in the junkyard is the car isn't going anywhere.  Anything I do that keeps it from rolling/steering/stopping has to be undone.  I guess the advantage, though, is it is in my garage in reach of all my tools.  I was going to pull the frame mounts, but realized the shocks/springs would have to come off.  Stepped back, looked around a bit, and realized if I remove the front swaybar, that will give another 3-4" or so of room for the engine to come forward.  I think that will give me enough room to get the differential clear of the frame mounts.

Planning on doing a bit more work tonight, then will attempt to pull the engine tomorrow.  I still want to pull a few more things from inside, too.

You are correct on my advantage of it being a JY vehicle and not having to maintain rolling ability. You have the advantage of having the front grill and cooling package out of your way. Yes the coilover is in the way of the center frame mount bolt. There is almost always more than one good way to do something. Looking forward to see what you learn. By the way I came a cross one in the JY the engine had been removed but the oil pan was still there with front diff still attached!

In reply to madmrak351 :

At the junkyard, ditching the oil pan may be the way to go, especially since it is unlikely to fit in most swaps, and if you are replacing a bad engine in a Trailblazer, you already have an oil pan.

Saturday ended up being mostly a prep day for pulling the engine. Ended up going hiking for a bit, so didn't have as much time as planned, but I definitely didn't mind.  Pulling the axles was easier on this thing that on most FWD vehicles I've done the job on.  Probably helps that I didn't care what condition the upper ball joints would be in, as long as they would bolt back to the control arm.  There was conflicting info about whether the hubs needed the axle stubs to keep the bearings together, and I suspected it was okay, as the spec for the axle nut was only 103 ft-lbs, but it was not too hard to cut the boots, disassemble the CV joints, and reinstall the axle stubs.

After the job was done, I remembered seeing a picture of a stock Solstice front hub with a splined hole in it, so I bet it was unnecessary, but that's alright.

Got up this morning, and finished prepping to pull everything.

Around noon-ish, 84FSP and eastsideWife helped start the job.  Took way longer than hoped, and made a few mistakes, but the engine is out.

One of the big issues we had was getting the transmission separated.  Once it finally was, I tried to jam it up in the tunnel with the jack.  Unfortunately, while we were yanking on the engine, it came loose and fell.  I righted it, and took a quick assessment.  Looks like the shift lever is bent, but otherwise, externally, I did not see any damage.  No idea if the pan is dented, but it does not appear to be leaking fluid.  I am hoping the guts are hardy enough to be okay.  If there's anything I should be looking into that you know of, please let me know.  I ended up leaving it underneath for tonight, I'll recover it tomorrow when I try to get the harness detached from it.

For our one garage bay, I think pulling the sway bar was the correct choice, as it did give us enough room to maneuver the engine out.  If we had more room, though, yanking the suspension and removing the frame mounts would have made it go much faster.

While I know I could do it faster in the future, I think this is the only Trailblazer engine donor I ever have.  Although, maybe the remove the oilpan method would make it a ton simpler.

Glad to see you got it out! I will keep the sway bar removal in mind in the future. These vehicles are the only things around here that a aluminum 5.3 is likely to be found by me as I don't go to the JY every other day to check. The inventory here is updated after the vehicle is in the yard so I miss the easy ones. Looking forward to seeing it go in the S-truck!

3.5 weeks after it arrived, it is gone. 

wae stopped by this afternoon, and we very "carefully" loaded it onto the trailer.  He had the smart idea for us to detach the rear axle on the trailer, leave it there, and haul it home after the Trailblazer was lifted off of it.  Definitely way better than my convoluted plan.  Although looking at it in my garage now, I am not certain I made the right choice.  It is about 65" wide, and will be another 4" wider once the wheel adapters are added.  Might be really good at  catching cones on the autocross course.  If we don't keep it, at least it should net some more recoup.

Now I just need to clean up this mess and pull the S10 back into the garage.

We got $215.50 for what was left of it.  Oh yeah, final count of change in the car - $1.78

And now for a quick tour of the rust on the Trailblazer, or "why it wasn't worth trying to fix"

Up front, the driver's frame rail has a decent amount of rust below the battery tray area.  Not too surprising, except the painted body area directly under the battery location is way better.

Rust forming in the bottom of the rocker panel.  Sorry for the low quality picture.

Here's where it starts getting really ugly.  Passenger side transmission crossmember mount. 

The rear crossmember:

And finally, an inside picture of the detached lower trailing arm mount:

Not pictured - several points on the frame that were literally crumbling away, and could be poked through with a screwdriver.  I'm glad I was able to work on this thing with cribbing blocks and ramps.  I'm not entirely sure there was any safe place to use jackstands.

S10 is back in the garage.  There's not really any working space right now, so I'll need to sell a few things, and make a storage run or two before doing much with it.  Would like to rapidly pull the 4.3, and sell it dirt cheap just to get rid of it.

Sold the wheels from the Trailblazer, so that's another $200 recoup.  I think that puts it at almost $500.

Current wheelbase is 123"  I am planning on cutting the frame to shorten the wheelbase considerably.  From some rough estimations, if I use a spare S10 short cab driveshaft I have laying around, or get some conversion u joints for the aluminum driveshaft from the Trailblazer, I'll need to shorten it to 110-112".  If I pick up a driveshaft from a two door Blazer, I should be able to drop another 8" from that number. 

To keep the front suspension geometry in a good spot, I am thinking of killing two birds with one stone, and z-ing the chassis when I shorten it.  Took some ride height measurements.  8" ground clearance at the front of the cab, 8.5" at the back of the driver's door, and 8.75" at the back of the cab.  If it is like a 1st gen, the frame height at the front of the cab is 4.5", and at the back is 5.5".   Front springs are 590 lbs/inch, so barring an insane amount of weight reduction, I'm guessing any weight change up front will net a fraction of an inch in ride height change.  This means, if I do a traditional Z, and stack the frame on top of itself, I'll have ~3.5" ground clearance at the front of the cab.  With the still long wheelbase, I am concerned that may be too low for a car that will occasionally be driven on the street.  I'd hate to high center on a speed bump somewhere.  The back could theoretically be worse, but I am thinking with the leaf springs probably having a much lower spring rate, any weight lost back there will actually have a significant effect on the ride height. 

I'll do some research on hacking up the frame only partially to reduce the amount it is lowered, but am afraid it will be much harder to keep things square, with my relatively rudimentary tools and skills.

Anyone got any input on the potential ride height issues?  Another reason I am considering this route is the conversion oil pan sits a little below the front crossmember on my 1st gen S10, and this would be a way to keep from moving the pan closer to the ground while still lowering the center of gravity, and getting it in the SCCA height/width rules without running wheel spacers wider the necessary to keep the wheels from interfering with the suspension/steering.

Edit:  I am wondering if that 590 lb/inch rate is the combined effect of both springs, or just a single.  If combined, then there may be some wiggle room for weight reduction affecting ride height.

I just skimmed the tread, but I have an assortment of s10/blazer parts that could be had extremely cheaply up near Findlay Ohio if you needed anything. 
 

I have a whole zR2 frame with the better version of the 10 bolt rear end with disc brakes.
 

Also a steering box that was supposed to be better than the stock one, that came with a blazer I had bought. I think the steering box is new or rebuilt. 
 

If you want some pictures or a better list of what I have let me know or send me a pm.