I managed to slip down to the shop for lunch today, just for the hour. Work and life is keeping me busy. Last night I ended up taking 4 hours to go through class work for some continuing education. It is a very interesting class in Big Data Analysis. We have already covered the uses of Tableau in making useful presentations. We are now going through the language R for data analysis. I will probably take advantage of this quite often at work so it is a useful class. Unfortunately it does not help me get my truck back on the road.
After plugging in my laptop and logging on to Skype in case I am needed during lunch. I continued the process of disassembling the engine in the truck. I am calling this endeavor project Vortec, at least that is what I am writing on the parts bags that I am putting all the bolts and small parts in. This will help me distinguish them from project TBI which is for the spare 350.
The first thing I noticed is that the evidence all over the power steering pump looks to me like it has a significant leak coming from the shaft seal that has been spread all over the pump the front of the block and the hoses. Not from the hoses like I had assumed. So I guess I will need a new pump….Yay.
After loosening the bolt on the bottom bracket of the pump and removing the plug on the power steering reservoir sensor. I just left the pump attached to the hoses and moved it out of the way. The front of the engine is pretty much finished. Now to work on the top. I removed the heater hose from the “quick release” connector, which is plastic and brittle and needs to be replaced. It did at least release the hose from the connector. I loosened the 13mm nut that holds the wire harness ground to the water neck. I removed any wiring harness plug that was attached to anything on the top of the engine and moved the harness as far back as it will go without breaking any wires. I can’t completely remove the harness since in their great wisdom GM did not make a plug between the main harness and the bundle of wires that attaches to all of the transmission and transfer case.
I was able to remove the spark plug wires and the wire holders that attach the valve cover on the passenger side. At the same time I noticed that the oil dipstick tube seemed loose, so I removed that too. I attempted to remove the large wiring harness plug from the firewall on the passenger side with no luck I will have to look that one up. To get to it I had to remove the cold air box. That thing must weigh 10lbs, It needs to be replaced by something aluminum. I also took out the radiator overflow bottle. Now this firewall looks very bare, and noticeably dirty. Once the engine is out this whole under-hood area needs a good cleaning and some touch up.
I called it quits after the plug and headed back up to finish out my work day. I am thinking I need to soak the exhaust bolts with pb blaster next time I go down there. I think I will try to remove the bolts that connect the manifolds to the pipe on each side since I need to get down there and remove the starter and wiring harness on it. I also had an idea of replacing the under hood light with some sort of led strip on the front underside of the hood where the latch is so it can shine all over the engine bay. Another project….
Ok, so after doing a little googling, I have found out that I was wise not to try to force this plug apart. Apparently GM figure out it was not a good connection so, instead of “Fixing the issue” they glued the damn thing together and you now have to remove both sides of the plug together and then unplug the two plugs that it feeds inside the truck and remove all of it as a single piece. I am tempted to replace the whole thing with a real military style bulkhead connector as part of the new dash/console AC and Heater core replacement project. At the same time i really need to have a working truck ASAP. So I guess I will just follow the online instructions and remove it all as one piece and move on with getting the engine pulled out.
List of parts for Betty so far.
- Timing Belt
- water pump hoses
- water pump gaskets / All engine gaskets
- possibly a radiator, if so maybe aluminum shroud and two electric fans.
- Power Steering Pump – or possible rebuild kit
- Heater Hose Quick Release Connector
Possible Extra Projects.
- Electric radiator fans
- Cold Air Intake Aluminum Replacement Box
- Electrical Bulkhead connector for AC/Heating circuit
- LED under hood strip lights
