EV Trans Am

I posted on Craigslist finally to try and sell the remaining engine parts. It generated a lot more interest than on the enthusiast website, surprisingly. I’m happy with the buyers and it seems the LT1 will get a good rebirth. The buyer of the block has plans for a 383 stroker for a Camaro. That was my alternative before decided to go electric – I know, a complete 180 – so it’s pretty awesome the block will go that route after all.

If you are budgeting to sell your ICE components, I wouldn’t plan on as much as you’d think. It took about 4 months and a firesale to move them.

Overall I think I netted about $120, so $100 to the wife to payoff the car parts in the living too, and that leaves me with a slew of tacos and quesadillas from Taco Bell.

One of the goals is to remove as much as possible from the Trans Am to reduce weight. Since we had parts off and I’ll want to clear the garage soon, I got my brother to help weigh everything. Here is a list of all the parts and the weights.

The engine is out!  Combination of jacking the transmission and removing the engine mounts from the frame and it came out relatively easy.  Jeff and Mike helped.  That sucker’s heavy.

This is where the lift needs to go, where I neatly piled all my parts

Actually we ended up putting the hoist around the front right tire (after moving all those parts).  We tried removing the tire but the jack was already supporting the engine so we couldn’t lift the car.  Neighbor Mike went to get his jack and while he was gone we worked on loosening the lug nuts.  Instead of loosening, the whole tire would twist, so we just turned the wheel to the left to give us the room we needed.

Take that El Guapo!

Excuse me, have you seen my engine?

At this point the transmission was only supported by the jack and the mounts near the driveshaft.  I’ll remove the center console and support it from within the car with a pipe and a ratchet strap like I did when I changed the clutch (400 miles ago).

Here it is! That clutch sure looks good.

James came over this morning and helped take some more stuff apart.  Before he got here I drained the oil and removed the filter.  There were many metal sparkles in the oil – lovely!

We removed the passenger side cylinder head first.  I saved the hard bolts for James because it’s fun watching him put all his weight behind it to get it to budge.  We got the cylinder head off without too much difficulty, but it is held on by 17 bolts and to get to 4 of them we had to loosen 4 rocker arm bolts.

We removed the water pump, optispark distributor and crank pulley.  I forgot the trick on the crank pulley to put the jaws of the puller towards the inside instead of the outside.  Also, we had a 19 mm socket on the 17 mm bolt so for a while we weren’t even turning the screw on the puller.  I applied 350 lb-ft on the center bolt and rotated the engine a few times to watch all the rocker arms go on the passenger side and the pistons go up and down on the drivers side.

We also removed the starter.  It was cracked between the solenoid that engages the gears into the flywheel.  I guess because it was bolted in there so tight it kept working.

We removed the bellhousing the engine bolts.  The transmission is now supported by the tunnel brace and the jack under the front.

We lowered the car, removing both the jackstands from the front and the ramps from the rear wheels.  Now the car looks normal except for the hood on the roof and the exhaust under it.

Last was clean up.  I put as much of the intake and heads back together as I could and boxed everything else up according to future use.  Everything but the exhaust is neatly stored under the card table out of the way.

Next step – remove that engine!  I’m amazed at how big the engine bay looks now.  Hopefully plenty of batteries will fit in there.

Neighbor Mike offered me his fuel disconnect tool.  Since the fuel lines were one of the few remaining attachments to the engine I took him up on it, as well as his offer of help.  We couldn’t get the tool to work with the tight spacing under the cowl, so we removed the fuel line and injectors from the intake.  Once we had room to work it just took brute force to push the tool into the release clips, freeing the fuel lines from the rail.

Mike was willing to stick around and keep helping so we tackled the passenger side exhaust manifold.  We removed it out the bottom after disconnecting the AIR fittings from the top and the EGR pipe near the y-pipe connection.  Those things are heavier than they look.  I’d like to bring the bathroom scale out and weigh everything that is coming off to get an idea of how much extra weight is being added once complete.

Because I’m removing the engine from the top, I’ve decided to remove as much as possible from the block to make maneuvering easier.  So we removed the intake and the driver’s side cylinder head.  We found out that when you remove the first cylinder head bolt coolant spews out.  We decided to let it since it comes out more controlled there than from the water pump, but I’m sure that more will come out the water pump when that comes off too.  I also found out that the coolant line that runs between the cylinder heads is a major pain to get a wrench on strong enough to break free.  After almost stripping it, I opted to bend it by rotating the cylinder head so I could get a socket on it.  Then it removed easily.  Hopefully if it is needed again the bending didn’t hurt it, it seems pretty flexible.

Why would someone put a bolt way back here?

It was neat to see the cylinder heads off the car and poke around at the valves and springs.  The engine bay is really opening up as some of the larger parts come out giving me hope of squeezing a couple of batteries up there.

140k Miles

There were some metal flakes in the back 2 cylinders, on the pushrods too.

Neighbor Mike takes parts off fast

One of the junkyards near us has changed to a scrap metal dealer so I’m hopeful I can take the exhaust and other miscellaneous metal there instead of just throwing it out.  If I can get $70 or more for it, the project thus far would actually be a gain as far as budget.  I’m sure that wouldn’t last too long though.

Finally got back out and removed some more parts.  The previous two weekends were spent on vacation and sick.  I wanted to finish getting the exhaust disassembled so I worked on the driver’s side more.  I removed the steering shaft for better access to the manifold bolts.  It was easiest to rotate the steering wheel until the bolts are easy to reach.  Once the top and bottom bolts are out, pull up on the bottom connection until it comes off the steering gear.  Once it is out, the top one pulls off pretty easy.

From there I decided to remove the y-pipe first since it bolts to the manifold.  I thought it would be easiest to work those bolts free while it was still connected to the engine.  One bolt of the three on each side sheared off, and one on the driver’s side rounded.  They are 15 mm, so I used a 11/16 in socket that I hammered on the rounded bolt.  Once all the bolts were free, I removed the brace and rubber mount from the back of the transmission and the whole, heavy thing came down.  It’s heavier than it looks.

The cut on my hand from the radiator is almost healed.

Cleaned up the top of the engine some more.  Removed all sensors and wiring harness from the driver’s side.  I bought some penetrating fluid from Ace and it really helped.  It also made the front door lock work a lot better.  Removed 4 bolts from the driver’s side exhaust manifold.

Before tidying things up a bit

All the wiring is now off to the side. Only 4 or 5 things still attached to the block..

Current look at the engine

Disconnected the power steering pump and A/C compressor from the accessory mounting bracket and removed it.  I couldn’t find a hidden bolt so it seemed like it was on there pretty good.  One of my goals was to not drain the steering fluid or empty the A/C charge.  I ended up draining some of the power steering fluid because I couldn’t get the pump off the bracket without disconnecting one line.  Rats.

My work table is getting a bit crowded.

My brother James wanted to take stuff apart so he came over the help.  I like his shirt.  It shows the relationship between pirate population (dwindling) to global temperature (rising) over the years.  If more people drove an electric car maybe the pirates could make a come back.

We took the hood off and stored it on the roof.

About as expert as it gets

We took the fuel tank out to see how batteries might fit back there.  If you ever have to remove a fuel tank from an f-body, make sure you raise the car high enough and lower the rear end low enough.  Otherwise your jack and stands are all being used and you find out you’re about an inch off.  In our case we just bent the fuel tank filler tube because we shouldn’t need it again…

The fuel tank was awfully dusty and I kept shaking it loose while holding it over my head.  James said he only did it once.

Don't let my wife see me inside this dirty. I don't know why I'm sideways?

It felt good to make progress last week, so I was anxious to try and get the radiator out.  I started by redraining the radiator by removing some hoses connecting it to the water pump.  The fans are pretty simple to get off, just lift up off the supports and pull them down under the car.  They’re heavy though.  Next up is the radiator, but I don’t want to remove the condenser.  I’m trying to avoid emptying the A/C system because I can’t get the charge out without emptying it to the atmosphere.  Also, I hope to reuse it when everything is put back together.

The trick to the radiator is the same as the fans – go out the bottom.  You have to lift the radiator up a little and wiggle it over the frame mount.  Before it will go anywhere you need to remove all the hoses and the coolant level sensor.  Mine was pretty gunked up and it’s clear that is why the low coolant light is on.  Being careful to separate the condenser from the radiator, especially at the passenger side bottom, the radiator comes out pretty smoothly.  The fins will gash your knuckles fast though.

Next up I hope to remove the exhaust manifold and catalytic converters.  I need to see what I need to remove the power steering pump and A/C compressor from the engine prior to pulling it.  I hope to leave all the lines for those systems connected to avoid draining and refilling.

In the event this doesn't work out, I'll put another engine in so I need to remember where all the wires went

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