marcello7x

Bump! Getting closer to heading to Europe for the summer. Rather move this before I leave!

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My front output seal is leaking now tho. I had to beat the shit out of the old one to get it out. Not sure if i was supposed to use a special tool to put the new one in or not.

Sorry about the Delay!!! Anyways, i got it out with some long nose irwin pliers from Lowes. It was a huge pain! As for getting it back in, i cut a piece of wood to the size of the hole. Use the handle of a harbor freight dead blow hammer to spread the ring as it was the perfect size. Slid it over as i pushed the ring onto the wood. Then slid everything together and pulled the wood out. If i had to do it again, i would make some sort of tool out of steal to slide in with groves to hold the ring better. I did replace the case. I bought it on ebay from "drivetrainlasvegas" Seems like great quality piece for a great price. Would buy it again. Half case was 150 Bearing Seal kit was 80 Chain was about 80

The rebuild was very straight forward and easy!!! Mostly do to having rebuild a 5sp VW transaxle i've rebuilt multiple times. But regardless its simple. The hardest part was getting the big c-clip/snap ring on and off through the case. I did not replace the Big bearing on the input/rear output shaft. I didn't have the bearing tool and did not want to wait for one to come in the mail/ it was late and no where locally had one.

So I've noticed a fair amount of leaking on the Output of my trasfercase. When i was replacing the seal i found that i had quite a bit of play, then it continued leaking after the new seal as well. So i know Im in for a rebuild. Im at 215k, and have no idea if its ever been rebuilt[assuming probably once]. I plan on a new rear half, rear bearing and new chain. Although i may just order a full new rebuild kit with all the bearings. Suggestions on where to purchase the whole kit?

I mean with mufflers and turned down before axle. And previously when i said i had a friend inside, i meant inside the house and heard me starting the truck in the driveway. He thought it was a thunderstorm at first.

Im planning on a stall at some point in the 2800ish range. The cam is a bit too big for stock stall, hell i think its even too big for something in the 2800 stall range. BUT I got it dirt cheap, and im coming from all manuals. I didn't take into consideration stall speeds when i bought it. Im going to see how the truck responds to that size stall. If it still doesn't feel right i'll swap the cam for something a bit smaller. The cam specs are: 226/229 573/582 112lsa

I'm on 4 months and do the same every day as well! Other mods have taken up my time, this is slated for when i return from Dubai in a few weeks. EDIT: OR today if i drink to much caffeine and skip chorus around the house.

Costs actually weren't bad considering what i expected to spend. First 2 are from Jegs. Going to return them since i didn't end up replacing the gears. Gear and marking compound: 1 1 683-G885411IFS GM 10BL 8.25 REV. R/P 4.1 173.99 173.99 1 1 555-612200 GEAR MARKING COMP-1/2 OZ 3.99 3.99 I didn't end up using either one of these, so they're getting returned. Dial Indicator Set with On/Off Magnetic Base - $19.99 - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001QXR2LA/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 GearWrench 2955D Beam Torque Wrench - $47.99 - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004SQ3B/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 USA Standard Gear (ZBKGM8.25IFS-B) Bearing Kit for GM 8.25" IFS Front Differential - $86.14 - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D61FG68/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1BackLash locks + C clips from dealer: ~$10 or so. I got extra locks just in case, they didn't have any extra C clips in stock. Add in some MISC like 3-4 cans of brake clean, silicon sealant, harbor freight dead blow hammer and it came out to around $200.[Only because my gears were in good shape, otherwise ~$380] Also i didn't replace the pinion bearing so i could avoid the trouble of figuring out pinion depth. It was in great shape, as were most of the bearings. But since i was in there and had the issue of the spun races i decided to replace the rest of the bearings that came with my kit. One other thing to note[Feel free to bash here] I did no use the new crush spacer. I reused the old one. I could not get enough torque on the new one to actually crush it. Being my first rebuild on a diff i was worried about breaking something.

Video fixed.... So is that much play normal? As for lowering I think I'm going to go the 3" control arm route. But I think rather put money aside for a torque converter first.

Thanks for the advice, but I fixed it today. I looked up prices for new bars and realized they are different side to side and came to the co conclusion I swapped them when I cut off the old keys. Tested my theory today and I was right. Everything is back to normal. Stock keys cranked all the way down. Not bouncy or anything. Won't install lowering keys. Will go another route if I want to go lower.

I had a pretty bad one as well....With my luck the bolt seized in the bushing of the spring. But you do not need to swap out the brackets if you're just replacing with stock or even a light drop set of shackles. Just remove the bolts from the hangers to the brackets. then jack up the axle till the upper bolt is accessible over the frame rails. If yours are that badly rusted i would start with PB blaster now, and soak them once a day for a week. Hopefully you won't have one seize up like i did.

So i have torsion bars that can rotate quite a bit in the control arm. I went to install lowering keys before i knew i could just crank the stock ones down a bit. turns out everything was rusted and seized together on the key side. I cut them off and put on the new keys. The keys didn't even make contact with the lock and adjuster when back down on the ground. I was 100% only on the bumpstop. I had to clock it over a full turn to make use of them since the others were destroyed. This lifted my front end 1-2 inches So i ordered another set of purple[stock ss] keys and tried those. Thats when i found those went too low as well. After that i figured i would order stock 1500 keys which would theoretically lift my front end, useless as well. With those keys flipped upside down i was able to bring the front end back down to stock-ish height in front. Either my torsion bars have sagged, or the worn control arm is letting them rotate too much. The truck has 215k, any suggestions on which it is? https://youtu.be/W4_k3tkgB_8 Thanks!

So figured i'd let you guys know how it sounded dumped. Its MEAN!!! Had a friend inside when i started my truck and they thought it was thunder. Cruising at 70mph and 2.2k-ish it was silent on the highway. No drone at all with the dynomax superturbos. Over all too loud at idle for me, ok well for the town i work in [getting harassed by the cops constantly] So im adding pipes over the rear axle and out the stock location. Hopefully have it finished up tonight.

Yes this truck is super budget, except for my time. I already had the cutout, 3.5" piping, flanges, gaskets and so on. only costs on the exhaust were the 2 mufflers, the strait pipes and some of the bends as i had some laying around as well. Im into the truck under 8k out of pocket, including ported heads, cam, the exhaust, rebuilding my front dif, HID projectors, grill, LED lightbar, and front diffuser. Mostly since I've had a ton of spare stuff laying around. The truck has over 215k on it. To me its just a "winter beater/parts hauler/tow rig for my enclosed race car trailer" Granted i'm pushing the limit with towing, but i'm going to throw on some airbags come spring. Like everything else, i have a set of bags, pump, valves laying around as well. Anyways back to the flow issue. Yes a single 3.5" cutout will flow less than dual 3" cutouts. Yet its still better than a full exhaust system, and its mostly for baiting the local mustangs into a little light to light fun. Personally i'll run an X pipe on every system i build regardless of my crazy cutout design on this one. With the cutout closed it will have very little turbulence difference compared to a non-butchered x pipe. I would be a bit more concerned if i was building something in the 1000+hp range. But for a DD truck that will see occasional spray its adequate. Between removing the cats, switching to true 3" piping and better flowing mufflers i'm definitely going to see improvement over the shitty slowmaster's and stock piping narrowed down to 2.5" before the mufflers. Not to mention the obnoxious drone is gone! Which alone is well worth all the work.

The previous owner, or the shop he brought it too. BUT from the little background story i got from him he seemed like the DIY kind of person. There was even a weld that he couldn't get to hold that had a band clamp over it. Im definitely no pro, i learned from watching youtube, but just taking your time makes a huge difference.

Here are some pics of last weekends work. Im going to get rid of the turn downs as they were temporary and its too loud considering i'll have a cutout for when i want to be annoying.

I started a thread on HPtuners when i first started tuning the truck a few days ago and had issues starting it up in subfreezing weather. Turns out it was super rich and i was flooding it. After letting it cool a 3+ hours last night it was below freezing out but ECT was still around 40*. Anyways she started right up, as well as this morning. Tomorrow will be back down to below freezing in the morning and i will log another warm up. In the meanwhile here is my current tune and a Log from this mornings warm up as well as the drive to work[edit drive to work log is too big to attach]. I made a few WOT since i saw my LTFT were dialed into +/-3%. I did get some KR, so i need to go back and dial back timing in those areas for now. The two logs have a LC2 wideband reading that makes no sense. The sensor seemed to crap out so Im going to run new ground and power wire tonight. My Idle is still to rough and needs work, but at-least shes derivable for now. Silverado SS 3315 cold weather crank Best starting smoothed ve.hpt warm up 3415.hpl

I just finished welding up a new exhaust. I don't have the time to make the tailpipes and the way I set my mufflers up the stock one would have to be modified and I didn't want to do that eaither. So for now I have turn downs a foot or so before the rear axle. Curious to see how it sounds.

Ok i'm a blatant idiot! So i couldn't figure out why i was hitting the half shafts with a 4lb dead blow hammer and couldn't get them into the carrier. For some reason i thought i was supposed to install the C clip on the shaft then put it in, not install the new c clip into the carrier!!! I didn't really put any thought into it until last night when i went to reassemble the diff finally. then it just came to me and made so much sense. I must have just overlooked it due to being in a rush to get it back together quickly and focusing most of my time on back lash and pre-load. I have still yet to drive the truck though, fabricating the new exhaust first. Then i can pull it out of the garage for some light driving and tuning.

New mufflers come in today. Going to try and have it all in by mid-day/End of tomorrow. I don't want to just clamp on the new mufflers. The welds on the rest of the exhaust are disturbing. Im 100% self taught/youtube taught on welding, but i'll post some before and after shots of the welds. Then all of Sunday will be installing a wide-band, some gauges, new oil pressure stepper, and tuning. I need it to get to work on Monday, since a major pothole destroy my wheel bearing on my VW. That coupled with the cold weather screwing with my air bag solenoids, and my ride height being 2.5" off the ground max, make its a pita to drive in the winter and with snow! As for the track, I've never actual been down a drag strip. BUT the truck will probably be the first thing i track once i have the nitrous set up. The only time I've been to New England Dragway was to race in a RallyX event in their dirt parking lot!

I used the other port on the FPR for a gauge. Pics are from my hotrod build, but you get the idea. Also i believe you can find the fittings to use the actual GM push connect lines.

Going to buy a set of long tubes come spring. I have it all back together and its way louder than i expected without the cats! I bought everything to replace the mufflers and add the X pipe with the shorties and y pipe exhaust tip. Once i get the headers i'll cut off the stock y and tip. For now this is what she sounds like with just cutting the cats and adding the cam and higher compression heads.