Stampie's 1988 K30 3+3 Off Roader

TIL that when I grow up I don't want to become an RV mechanic. 

First on the list was removing the headers. My rose glasses projection was 30 minutes since I'd already undone the bolts at the engine. Just need to cut the exhaust pipe and bam they'll float their way out all by themselves. First cut goes great 95% way through the exhaust pipe. Then I learn that my blade is dulled. Trip to Lowe's and now I have 5 blades. Cut the exhaust on the passenger side then move to the drivers side. As I finish cutting it the rear portion falls down cutting off my way out. Berk me. Lift up the heavy ass RV exhaust and slide my fat ass out. 

The headers still didn't come loose for some reason. That's when I discovered I'd missed the same bolt on both headers. Drop the drivers side down and grab it from outside and it slides right out. I do a victory dance. It was sexy cause I say so. 

Go over to the passenger side. The oil dipstick tube goes between the pipes of the header. On a normal vehicle that's nbd.  Just slide the header up and over the tube. RV has a tube like 3 feet long. I tried pulling the tube it off the block but it ain't coming out. Back to Lowe's to buy a tubing cutter because I don't want to sawzall it and risk metal shavings getting in the pan. 

Cut the tube and spend the next 30 minutes trying to get it out from the passenger side. About to say berk it and go to lunch. Decide to try from the drivers side. Takes like 45 seconds. 

3 hours from the start I have this.

In reply to Stampie :

At least those look like awesome headers! 

In reply to GoLucky :

This RV had the Banks Power pack. I already set aside the Banks air cleaner. I figure grab the headers and anything else would be on the engine itself. I still need to grab the badges before I forget. 

In reply to Stampie :

Yeah, those don't look like typical RV headers. Nice score 

I like the looks of those tubes.....

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

I get that often ... not from guys but still I'll take the compliment. 

Stopped at Summit racing south of downtown Atlanta. Spent 2 hours and all we got was a dipstick.  At least we didn't have to pay shipping on it.  We got it in black cause it is a BBC.

No pictures from today as it was all work. Started off by cutting the two remaining exhaust hangers and dragging the rest of the exhaust out from under the RV. Damn heavy SoB. Pacemaker conveniently added a piece of sheet metal hanging down from the driver's frame rail. If I'm at my 210lb mark I can barely squeeze under it. Today I must have been 215lbs as I could only get one nipple under it. First I removed the trans inspection cover as Lil Stampie figured out he could use the expanding magnet pole to lower things to me and take things from me while he was up top. Saw that the best access to the torque converter bolts would be right where the oil filter was. Got it out and handed to Lil Stampie without causing an EPA Superfund site. 

Things is where I got my ass kicked for the day. I had stopped to pick up one of those flywheel tools to hand rotate the engine. I'm to cheap to pay $45 for one. So I ended up with a claw hammer rotating the engine. It wasn't fun and I thought these only had three bolts but this one had six. After spending way to long removing those bolts we removed the last two holding the bell housing to the engine.  Those could have been removed from the top but they're hidden. Actually hidden from the bottom but I got the impact on them by feel and had Lil Stampie hit the trigger. 

We went to lunch with plans of pulling the oil cooler lines, fuel pump, and motor mount bolts afterwards. That turned into me cracking open the fittings for the oil cooler then admitting that my ass was beat so I said berk it. 

I'm a dumbass for trying to pull a 454 out of a RV in the middle of Flordia summer. Now that's out of the way we're closer. We pulled the fuel pump, both motor mount bolts (driver's side won't come all the way out. I think it's hitting a coolant temp sensor), AC compressor bracket, oil cooler lines, and when I really got into a berk it mood cut the power steering lines with a sawzall. We picked up some 4x4s from Home Depot on the way home to build a crane tower in the morning. At this point I think it's just a couple of radiator hoses that I'm waiting on the last minute to pull. 

TLDR all we came home with was these badges

Um looking forward to seeing what the k30 actually looks luke again. Its been so many pages i forgot....

BADGES!  We don't need no stinking Badges!

Patrick said:

Pete Gossett said:

In reply to Stampie :

They sure took a detour to avoid ~90 miles of Alabama on their loop around the country. 

I would too

 

good luck getting rid of that thing after you pull the guts out.

I might be tempted to use a strip-mining approach and employ an excavator to rip off the “over burden”.  One with a thumb would be the ticket.  Might have to shake it some but you should be able to take it down to the chassis without harming the engine or trans. if you’re careful

Building the Tower of Stampie

Ok in an attempt to rest it against the day it's leaning to far forward but should be able to adjust that. 

And then we called it a day because 

That 51% humidity reading made me laugh.  More like 151%...

I see toes.....

Oh. And an engine!

Seems like as hard as it's been to get this engine out, it would have been less labor to build a new house for the friend's brother, and then just sawzall the motor out of there 

It needs a 8-71 blower before the k30....

In reply to slowbird :

At this point it's a grudge match. I'm going to berking win. It's higher and I've handed off to a chain because I've run out of lift capabilities on my come a long. Going to redo the attachment for it to gain about a foot in lift height. 

I just considered the fact that you're trying to pull an engine from an RV that you want to leave intact. We just cut until we had room for the hoist last time we harvested a motorhome big block. I'm now curious to see how this plan works.

The Tower of Power

After lunch we got it up out of the hole and rotated 90 degrees. You always forget something when pulling an engine and I forgot the starter wires. Lucky for us they were long enough to disconnect once mostly out of the hole. The fuel pump didn't fall away like I hoped it would. This is where I made my first bad decision. I was able to cut the return line with side cutters but couldn't get the feed line that way so I grabbed the sawzall. As I was 90% through the feed line I noticed gas running out. Thought oh yeah electric motors spark sure am glad there's a fire extinguisher behind me.  By then I was all the way through and didn't cause a fire. 

We then pulled the power steering pump since we could actually get to the bolts. My plan was to build a ramp to pull it outside the RV. My tired dehydrated mind kept trying to come up with short cuts. Found out my hoist couldn't go far inside because of how big the tire is. I found myself thinking about making bad decisions and that wasn't good when dealing with a 600lb engine. Buttoned her up and called it a day. 

Chain it to truck, truck in 4lo, drag that B sideways 

In reply to Patrick :

I wish. The RV is backed into the yard. I have about 6 feet of room out that driver door.