Presentation and questions

[Mikedohc]

Good morning, I'm Miguel Angel and I write from Madrid, Spain. First of all I would like to introduce myself and thank everyone for this forum, you are good people. I have a chevy k5 1500 silverado tbi and I am restoring the car. I have many doubts and I would like to know if you can help me.

1.- I have completely dismantled the engine, the block in the upper part of the cylinders has tiping so I have to plan it, I would like to know how much I can plan the block in the upper part of the cylinders.

2- the bearings of the camshaft, have a single hole, to where it must be directed upwards or downwards.

3.- The cylinders I bought are moresa, they seem shorter than the original ones, is there any problem in putting them?

4.- The cylinder head gasket has the part of the metal cylinder, as its position, has no top marks.

5.- Someone knows how to disassemble the oil pump, the one I bought does not have the pipe and I have to put the old one.

6- Are th400 gearboxes reliable? Should I do a restoration? or is it enough simply to change oil?

thanks to all.

 

[Abusfullofnuns]

Welcome! You will get some really good answers here and lots of help. My advice is to be as descriptive as you can, and it really helps to add pictures. There is a slight language barrier and it may help for clarity.

To add pictures you'll either have to link the pics from another host, or become a paid member. I recommend joining as it'll give you access to a lot of other members pictures.

I can't really help on most of your questions, as I did not ever own a tbi motor.

#6 - Turbo 400 is a good transmission as long as it was cared for and didn't live too hard of a life. It all depends on mileage and what it was used for previously. GM used them in a variety of cars and trucks for a long time.

 

[crashandburn]

Welcome! This is the best website I have ever been on, full of people willing to help.

When you said you bought cylinders, I assume you mean pistons. Being shorter does not matter much. What matters is the distance from the center of the wrist pin to the top of the piston. Anything below the wrist pin, don't worry about it.
However, they are probably lighter weight. You will need your crankshaft/connecting rods/pistons/rings balanced by a machine shop. Otherwise the engine will vibrate and will eat itself up.

The cylinder head gasket doesn't really have a top or bottom, that's why it does not have marks. Just make sure all the holes are lined up and you'll be fine.

The tube for the oil pump is pressed in. They make a special tool for it.

TH400 is a GREAT transmission, one of the strongest around. A ran one for years in a 640 horsepower car. Only problem is it doesn't have overdrive.

 

[Fordum]

I see you say you need to "plan" the block. Took me a second, but I realized you mean "plane". Which is another word for the process of removing metal from the surface of the block to make it flat again and remove defects.
The main machine used to do that, is called a milling machine. Over here we call the process milling, or to use it as you did, we would say that we need to "mill" the block.
However don't worry about any language problems, we'll figure out how to communicate. After all, we all have fixing up cars and trucks in common. And I assure you, your English is Many times better than my Spanish.
One problem you may have, is that an older stable language like yours is pretty much the same in most of your country. Over here, its not. I'm from the southern part of the country, and we use words and phrases that they never heard of north, and that they probably don't teach in English language courses.........

Back to the block. You ask how much metal can be removed. The only correct answer is: "It depends". As you remove metal, many things happen. First, it will raise the compression ratio unless you do something to compensate for it. Sometimes you can use a thicker head gasket, or different pistons, piston rods, other tricks. However, some difference in compression may or may not be important.
I don't know what type of fuel you have over there. Over here, we rate our fuel by octane. The higher the octane number, the harder it is to ignite. As compression goes up, the more likely it is for the fuel to ignite when its not supposed to, which is called Detonation, or Pinging. This can damage or destroy an engine if it is too excessive.
Many times people will rebuild an engine that ran on low octane fuel just fine. But will increase the compression to get more power and switch to the higher octane fuel to keep it from pinging.
Of course, the higher octane fuel costs more, but they accept that.
You bought new pistons. As crashandburn mentioned, the distance from the wrist pin to the top is critical. Any difference in that distance affects the compression ratio again. So, if the piston top is shorter, then you could mill more metal off and wind up with the same compression.
Over here, we have machine shops that specialize in engine work. Some of the members here also do that work themselves. But most of us will simply take the block, heads, and intake to a machine shop and tell them what we want the final specs to be.
They will know what to do to it and have recommendations as to pistons and things from their experience. Actually its a little more than that. A good shop will ask what you are looking for, and give you options on how to get it.
If you will need to do more than about a light sanding on the block, you need to figure out what effect its going to have. More than a couple of thousands of an inch will involve calculations.

As for the cam bearings, it takes a tool to install them. Since most people don't that on a regular basis, you usually have the machine shop do the work rather than buying a tool to do a one time job.