Bob Hansen
12-12-2003, 11:26 PM
Long saga.............
My son's first vehicle a 91 S10 4cyl 5spd pickup, well the first was an 87 with a bad motor. Anyway this was my 1st experience with S10's. After getting into these trucks I thought "hey, these things ain't bad!" "Easy to work on, etc..." So after the local economy took a dive & I had to part with the 2001 Monte SS. I picked up an 86 S10 Blazer 4x4 with a V-6 a little over a year ago, 'cause well that big ole GMC 4x4 truck drinks a lot of premium fuel!
Well anyway the motor was tired when I got it, so I planned on replacing it. I picked up an 84 pickup with a V6 & bad trans, it was carburated the 86 is fuel injected, no biggie I thought "just change things over when that motor goes in the Blazer". Some time back I pulled that motor out of
the truck, wasn't hard to do.......
Well a week ago I pulled the Blazer into the garage (put the '44 jeep outside under a tarp) this shouldn't take long..............
Now I did a frame off resto on the 70 Monte & have done motor swaps plenty of times over the years, been wrenching on old cars for over 25 years.
Holy Crap! what a major pain.. (Now that is an under statement!)
I'll just list a couple of the fun things here,
The flywheel inspection cover, need to remove front drive shaft to get to bolt, can't get cover all the way off, "Y" pipe in the way, "Y" pipe welded to catalitic convertor replacement pipe, that pipe is welded to bracket on t-case support, no straight section of pipe to cut & splice......
Exhaust flange on manifold... must remove this frame cross member, but first must remove brake line on cross member....... Ok inspection cover still in the way of the torque convertor bolts, I'll just take the starter off, can't get to starter wires as exhaust manifold is in the way, bolts on exhaust manifold have heads rusted away.. can't grip them...... Bell housing bolts .......... firewall is 1/4 inch from head of bolt...... must lift body 3 inches off frame......... This is a 1986 Blazer from Michigan (read - rust bucket) yet I was able to perswade the body mount bolts.
This was just a small part of the challenges.
Oh one more fun fact..... Since I'm putting the TBI on the new motor, that involves swapping intakes, no biggie.... hah! The push rods goes through holes in the intake gasket so all the rockers have to be backed off to get the push rods off just to replace the gaskets. and while they were engineering that one some engineer decided to mix metric & SAE bolts under the hood Just to
keep it interesting.
And I was complaining about that top starter bolt on the 318 in my truck....
Well I feel a little better now....I didn't work on it today
My son's first vehicle a 91 S10 4cyl 5spd pickup, well the first was an 87 with a bad motor. Anyway this was my 1st experience with S10's. After getting into these trucks I thought "hey, these things ain't bad!" "Easy to work on, etc..." So after the local economy took a dive & I had to part with the 2001 Monte SS. I picked up an 86 S10 Blazer 4x4 with a V-6 a little over a year ago, 'cause well that big ole GMC 4x4 truck drinks a lot of premium fuel!
Well anyway the motor was tired when I got it, so I planned on replacing it. I picked up an 84 pickup with a V6 & bad trans, it was carburated the 86 is fuel injected, no biggie I thought "just change things over when that motor goes in the Blazer". Some time back I pulled that motor out of
the truck, wasn't hard to do.......
Well a week ago I pulled the Blazer into the garage (put the '44 jeep outside under a tarp) this shouldn't take long..............
Now I did a frame off resto on the 70 Monte & have done motor swaps plenty of times over the years, been wrenching on old cars for over 25 years.
Holy Crap! what a major pain.. (Now that is an under statement!)
I'll just list a couple of the fun things here,
The flywheel inspection cover, need to remove front drive shaft to get to bolt, can't get cover all the way off, "Y" pipe in the way, "Y" pipe welded to catalitic convertor replacement pipe, that pipe is welded to bracket on t-case support, no straight section of pipe to cut & splice......
Exhaust flange on manifold... must remove this frame cross member, but first must remove brake line on cross member....... Ok inspection cover still in the way of the torque convertor bolts, I'll just take the starter off, can't get to starter wires as exhaust manifold is in the way, bolts on exhaust manifold have heads rusted away.. can't grip them...... Bell housing bolts .......... firewall is 1/4 inch from head of bolt...... must lift body 3 inches off frame......... This is a 1986 Blazer from Michigan (read - rust bucket) yet I was able to perswade the body mount bolts.
This was just a small part of the challenges.
Oh one more fun fact..... Since I'm putting the TBI on the new motor, that involves swapping intakes, no biggie.... hah! The push rods goes through holes in the intake gasket so all the rockers have to be backed off to get the push rods off just to replace the gaskets. and while they were engineering that one some engineer decided to mix metric & SAE bolts under the hood Just to
keep it interesting.
And I was complaining about that top starter bolt on the 318 in my truck....
Well I feel a little better now....I didn't work on it today