pulling my 6.2L soon..any tips?

[Mikey von]

So, hopefully my buddy comes over tonight to help me get the K5 into the garage so I can yank the engine. Once, I get that done I will roll the Suburban in and do the same. I spent Sunday cleaning half the garage and semi-organizing my tools and new workbench.

I plan on selling the K5 minus the engine and get the Sub going again. I will hopefully use the block and all that goes with it from the suburban. I will use the flexplate, starter, fan clutch, and possibly the heads from the K5.

I have my doubts about being able to be done by April, so I will most likely take my time. I may do a complete rebuild, but I would rather not. We will see!


Any tips I should know? I have never done more than pull an intake off a 350. The one area that concerns me is getting the tranny unbolted. The K5 has a 700r4, the sub is a th400. I will try to get a lot of pictures.

 

[tRustyK5]

Support the tranny with a jackstand under the front of it.

Have the engine attached to the hoist.

Remove the bellhousing bolts, and the dust cover on the underside. You'll see 6 bolts going through the flexplate (what the starter meshes with) and into the torque convertor. Remove one, turn the engine over until the next bolt becomes easy to get to...lather, rinse, repeat until all 6 are out. Should be same/same for the 700R-4 and the TH400 if they're both diesel trucks.

Hardest part may be getting the top bellhousing bolts..

Oh yeah, if you remove the glow plugs the motor will turn over quite easy.

Rene

 

[imiceman44]

So, hopefully my buddy comes over tonight to help me get the K5 into the garage so I can yank the engine. Once, I get that done I will roll the Suburban in and do the same. I spent Sunday cleaning half the garage and semi-organizing my tools and new workbench.

I plan on selling the K5 minus the engine and get the Sub going again. I will hopefully use the block and all that goes with it from the suburban. I will use the flexplate, starter, fan clutch, and possibly the heads from the K5.

I have my doubts about being able to be done by April, so I will most likely take my time. I may do a complete rebuild, but I would rather not. We will see!


Any tips I should know? I have never done more than pull an intake off a 350. The one area that concerns me is getting the tranny unbolted. The K5 has a 700r4, the sub is a th400. I will try to get a lot of pictures.

Well I will never be the one to tell you not to doit if you have never done it before, I have done everything myself and there has always been a first time for everything.
Does you rbuddy know more than you?
If you end up needing help, I pass by you a few time a month, about 5 miles from you going from Mt Shasta, to Reno on 89 to 299.
I could stop by if I know ahead of time for a couple of hours, as long as you can pick me up at the intersection 299 and 89.

 

[Mikey von]

Hell ya I could pick you up at four corners. If I get stuck, I will definitely give you a call. I foresee the harder parts for me will be putting it back together.



My buddy knows some. I do have friends who know more that can help when I am in a jam. I am confident in my skills, really want to learn, and not afraid to ask questionsI just got done (well I will never be done) building my own house and I never built anything before. It went well.

Rene - great tips! You left the important part out of your plan. ...lather, rinse, DRINK A Beer, repeat!!!

 

[Mikey von]

will i need to pull the hood or can a removal and install be done with the hood on?

 

[colbystephens]

nope, you've got to remove the hood. if you've got the space, i'd recommend you remove the whole front clip. it gets kind of annoying to reach over the fenders constantly. you can remove the fenders and core support as one complete unit - probably with the hood installed too, but it'll be kind of heavy. i've done it that way, hood not installed, with the help of two big guys and it was heavy but doable.

one thing to consider is height. if your vehicle is lifted w/ large tires it makes it difficult if you don't have a very tall cherry picker or you have a short ceiling. one time when i did this, i had to take the wheels off the truck and put two rolling jacks under the front axle, lowered them down till the truck was almost on the rotors. This is another reason it's handy to be able to remove the whole front clip.

if you're going to get rid of the blazer, consider pulling the carpet and pulling the trans. tunnel off. most blazers had removable tunnels till the late 80's sometime... don't know when. my '83 had a removable tunnel. it makes access to the transmission bolts super easy. of course, if you have to remove carpet and such, it may not save you any time. dunno.

you know, you only live about 3 hours from me. maybe sometime i'll drop in and give you a hand on the engine build for a day. you might be the closest ck5er to me!

 

[tRustyK5]

X2 on just removing the whole front clip...it's a bit of work, but will save time and headache later. These trucks are tall enough that getting the engine high enough to clear the core support is kinda scary.

I removed the front clip of my crew cab minus the hood with myself and my oldest daughter. It's not that heavy.

Rene

 

[Mikey von]

What is involved in removing the front clip? More importantly, what is involved in putting it back together? I have been thinking about removing the front clip on my burb. I heard there is some alignment issues involved in putting the front clip back on. My burb has a 4" lift and 35's.

I am going to try to leave the front clip on for the blazer. I will be selling it right after yanking the 6.2L. It has stock suspension and tires. The fan is pulled, I assume I need to pull the shroud, and I will be keeping the radiator so I will pull that too. Accessories can stay on correct?

When my wife returns from the store, I will start working on the bellhousing bolts and the torque converter/flexplate bolts.

Do I need to jack up the tranny or just place a jack stand under it? Where do you place the jack stand, under the front?

700r4 kickdown cable - Do you just use force to get the fitting off where it connects to the engine?

Powersteering/oil cooler lines. They have some sort of hydrolic fitting (I should get a picture). Do I unscrew the line where it enters the block (oil cooler) and powersteering pump or do i mess with fittings/cut the line?

Colby - that would be real cool if you came and helped. You are welcome to stay of course (even if you did not help). We are close to some cool spots (lassen park, burney falls, and tons of forest trails off my back porch). You and iceman can come and the same day and we can have a little ck5 meet-up.

 

[kennyw]

To remove the front clip you remove two bolts under the core support (remove radiator and grill first to make those easy). You have two bolts under the truck going through the cab into the back of the fenders. Two bolts holding the inner fenders to the cab. Two bolts are accessable between the door and fenders (open doors first). Two or four more bolts at the back of the hood/top of fenders going down into cab.

To make sure it goes back in the same spot pay close attention to any shims under the bolts as you remove them. It may help to bag and tag the shims and mark which location they came out of.

 

[tRustyK5]

Front clip...remove batts, disconnect hood release cable, remove hood (scribe hood to hinge area for alignment later) Disconnect the headlight wirign harness from the big square junction block on the firewall. Remove the rad and hoses. Remove any ground wires from the engine or frame to the core support.

Two body mount bolts under the core support need to at least have the nuts removed from the underside. Easiest to remove the grill first, then you'll see the access for the top of those two bolts. Bumper needs to come off.

Inner fender there are bolts with big washers on em...those bolts need to come out. down lower at the bottom of the front fender there is one bolt holding the bottom of the fender. Remove that, now open the door and you'll see another one at the top. There are two more up top at the cowl area. If you see a horseshoe shaped shim washer that's the clue that you need to remove that bolt. Keep track of how many shims went under each bolt and it'll all go back together the same later.

Now you need one friend to help lift the assembly off the truck. 80% of the weight of it is at the core support.

It sounds like a lot of work, but we're talking maybe 90 minutes. Hit every one of those bolts with some pb blaster first. I did that for 3 days everytime I wlked by my crew cab. by the time the weekend came around all the bolts came out nicely excpet for one.

The tranny is sitting on some pressed in dowels, so even with all the bolts out you're still OK. When you're getting to pulling the engine and separating the engine and tranny you should get the floor jack with a good sized flat piece of wood under the tranny pan. A jack stand is OK after the engine is out...

Power steering (hydro-boost), one line at the power steering pump is the pressure side, this will require a flare wrench to ensure you don't strip the nut. The other two lines should just be hose clamps. Have a small container nearby to catch what spills. Oil cooler lines have swivel fittings at the block...unscrew and tuck them out of the way. When you're removing the rad is when you'd want to take those oil cooler lines off. Unscrew them at the block, undo the clamps that hold them in place, unscrew from the rad and put them somewhere safe from harm. They can be a bit fragile (thin wall aluminum tubing)

Rene

 

[colbystephens]

Colby - that would be real cool if you came and helped. You are welcome to stay of course (even if you did not help). We are close to some cool spots (lassen park, burney falls, and tons of forest trails off my back porch). You and iceman can come and the same day and we can have a little ck5 meet-up.

that sounds like fun. whats your general time frame for this project?