Texas82GP's GMT900

[Turbo Zach]

You make me feel like molasses being pushed up a sandy hill in February. Your car runs and drives.

It might run and drive, but it will not look half as nice as yours. If it makes you feel any better? I have not drove or worked on it or even looked at it in months. Been busy working on the house and the shop. I am all about function over form. As long as you enjoy your hobby that is all that matters!

 

[olds307 and 403]

I have a rebuilt, by the PO, 4L60 in my 06. I'm debating whether to do a shift kit of just a 1-2 Vette servo. I don't race but do haul sometimes. The trans was rebuilt about 20K miles before I bought the truck and I changed to synthetic GM trans fluid.View attachment 127678

Hopefully it has all the upgrades including as many 3-4 clutches and steels as possible. I miss my 94 Z71 and I would like to Olds 350 power one again but honestly the lousy 4L60E brings me back to reality. Towing is where these trans fail. I killed the 3-4 Clutches just over 200,000 Km on the 03 GMC 1/2 at work towing a light trailer.

 

[clean8485]

Having the hit& run sucks Jared. I know that you're particular about your vehicles. I hope the repair goes well. Looking forward to seeing you back on the GP.

 

[Texas82GP]

It's been a busy few weeks since I posted. Here's what's been going on:

11/4 - I put the starter on Sean's truck after work as planned

11/6 - After work, I started assembling the new bumper. It was more work than I anticipated. There must be 20 of those plastic push fasteners holding on the lower plastic piece. That night I got the new brackets on the left side, transferred the old (unhurt) brackets from the old bumper to the right side, and got the lower plastic piece installed.

11/7 - After work, I replaced the fresh air/recirculate actuator on the 2013 Impala. After that, I finished assembly on the front bumper including drilling the holes and riveting the front plate holder on, drilling the holes and installing the front plate, popping in the fog lights, and drilling out the old rivets to remove the two center "saddles" for the bumper cap and riveting them on the new bumper. Here are some pics of the finished assembly...

Friday night I reached out to the painter. He hadn't been able to paint the fender and the bumper cap. It has only been six days since I dropped the parts off and he has a day job so I understood. He promised to have them for me on Sunday. Saturday morning (11/9), I went over to the storage to install the coilover conversion. I got both 'struts' out, replaced the passenger side fender liner and had the first of the two coilovers assembled by lunchtime. I needed some snap ring pliers to complete the assembly and didn't have any at the storage so I went home for lunch and stopped at Napa on the way and picked some up. Sean surprised me and came over to the storage with me. With his help, we knocked the job out pretty quick. The quality of the Viking double adjustable coilovers seems really nice and the quality of the Atomic Fabrication conversion brackets is superb.....

Sunday afternoon (11/7) I got the call from the painter that my parts were ready. My sister-in-law was kind enough to lend me her Buick Enclave to go pick them up....

We had family coming over in just a few hours so I just took them to the storage and dropped them off.....

I was really excited by how the parts looked. To walk up on them, they looked like they came right off my truck. All last week (11/11-11/15) I was dying to go over to the storage and start putting the truck together but I got home from work too late most nights and I decided hanging the fender after a long day at work might be a bad idea. I held out for Saturday.

Saturday morning (11/16) Dad, Sean and I went to the storage to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The fender fought a little bit on going on and getting it aligned but all in all it wasn't that bad. The hood practically fell on. I had made marks on the hood and the hinges with a sharpie. We went back to those marks and shut the hood. It didn't require additional adjustment.

I ended up having Dad take me to the auto parts and I bought a pair of Sylvania Silverstar Ultra headlights to replace the LED's I had. I just wasn't satisfied with how much light I was getting with those 4k lumen (set) LED's that I got online.

I couldn't have been happier with how it all went back together. We finished buttoning it up, got it on the ground and I made some initial adjustments to the front ride height and made the base adjustments to the coilovers. They had three ballpark settings: street, handling, autocross. I went for the conservative end of "handling" to start out. We left the storage early that evening and did some running around to get rid of the bent up fender, the boxes, etc. The front end struck me as being high and firm. I was pleased with it initially. Here's a pic of it in the driveway that evening....

Sunday morning we had a lot of chores. We had the yard to clean up, laundry to do and we wanted to wash all four vehicles (the Enclave, Sean's truck, the Impala, and my truck). We ended up washing my truck by hand (we normally run our drivers through a machine carwash at the front of our neighborhood) because we were concerned the paint might be a little too new. Here are some pics with it all cleaned up last Sunday....

The repaired corner....

A good look at the paint match from the fender to the door. I can't believe how well the paint matches. It exceeds my expectations.....

A look at the stance. I initially set it to be 5/8" lower in the front than the back.....

Needless to say, I was pretty happy on Sunday with how things turned out. I've driven it to work two of these last three days. Not everything is rosy. First, the aftermarket headlight assemblies are garbage. I tried to adjust them Monday night after work. They were pointed at the sky, out of the box. I had to adjust the driver's side too much, evidently, as the adjuster came apart. I literally have a piece of folded up paper jammed between the adjuster and the core support holding the beam in approximately the correct position. Also, the passenger side is already clouding up. Finally, even with the Silverstar Ultra's, I'm not satisfied with how much light they are putting out on the ground. The other problem is that the top of the tires have rubbed the fender liners. They aren't hurt but they are marked and that hurts my feelings a bit. They were new. This morning I cut the wheel each way and was able to reach in and adjust the shocks after I got to work. I went in four clicks on both compression and rebound so we'll see how that feels on the way home. I need to measure again because I suspect the front end may have settled some.

On the headlights, I bit the bullet and bought a pair of genuine GM assemblies. I also bought some very bright LED high beam, low beam and fog light bulbs. Finally, I bought a headlight assembly tint kit. The tint is pre-cut to close to the right size. The tint is made in the USA and is supposed to last for 5 years. It is supposed to protect the headlight assemblies from the sandblasting, yellowing, etc. We'll see. I really prefer the smoked look on the headlights so we'll see how it goes.

That's it for now. Overall wreck repair - stunning success. Headlights - failure but working on it. Coilovers, very cool but need to keep adjusting. I'll post an update when there is news to report. Thanks for following along. Until then,

Best,

 

[Texas82GP]

It's hard to believe it's been more than five months since I updated this thread. The 4L80E swap has just under 11k miles on it at this point. The truck has just over 180k miles on it. I've put 92k miles on the cam swap. I haven't driven it much lately. I've worked from home for the past five or six weeks. I mostly just move it to do the yard work. Sean and I changed the oil, rotated the tires, and adjusted the rear brakes about five weeks ago. I had to go to a County Office for work the following week but haven't been anywhere of consequence since.

Today I took it over to the storage to get the Roadmaster off the battery charger. I dropped by the grocery store on the way home. I really had a good time driving it. I had my foot in it pretty good. The combination (crankshaft stroke, tire height, axle ratio, torque converter stall speed, cam profile, etc.) is so well matched at this point, it's just a joy to drive.

From 82k miles, when I did the cam and torque converter swap, until roughly 169k miles, when the 4L65E gave up for the third time, I had the combo wrong. It ran fine but the converter I had in it (3200 RPM) was just too tight and made it doggy. I don't think I've properly thanked our friend MHM for his recommendation that I go with at least 3700 RPM on the stall speed. I ran his advice by Circle D to see what they said and then I followed it. Man am I glad I did. Thanks Mike! At first, I freaked out because I've never had a converter that loose but it was just what the doctor ordered. I'm more happy now with how the truck runs/drives than I've ever been. My only regret on the 4L80E swap is that I didn't do it at 121k miles, the first time the 4L65E gave up.

Also, since the last update, I went to the most aggressive end of the "autocross" range on the compression/rebound settings on the coilovers. I also raised the front quite a bit to get it closer to level with the back. That took care of the rubbing issue I had (bottoming on the inner fender liners). The ride is very firm but I wouldn't describe it as harsh. After my little hot rod session this morning, I decided to clean it up. Here are a few pics....

And here is a before pic so you can see where I had the frontend set (height wise) when I was having rubbing issues....

I like the front end lower but I'm not willing to live with the rubbing. On the agenda is to put in the new genuine GM headlight assemblies to replace the trash aftermarket ones in the truck. I'll have to have them tinted because I really like the look of the smoked headlights. Also, my brother and sister-in-law got me a set of CalTracs traction bars for Christmas. Installing them is on the agenda. That's it for now on this one friends. I'll update when there's news to report.

 

[Texas82GP]

Another six months of life. That's hard to believe. The truck got a lot of attention today. It currently has 185,6XX miles on it. That's like 16,3XX miles on the 4L85E swap and around 102k miles on the cam swap.

I've been changing the oil and rotating the tires every 5k miles, at even 5k odometer increments (125k, 130k, 135k, etc.) for a long time since it's easy for me to remember that way. So, I was a little overdue. I don't know why I did, as it's not my habit, but I checked the oil before I changed it. Not good. Nothing read on the stick. It's never been my habit to check the oil on this engine. It's never used oil. I was concerned so I drained the oil into a gallon paint mixing bucket. I only got about 3.5 quarts combined out of the filter and the pan. It looked pretty black too. It was fairly shocking.

Until recently, I always used Valvoline conventional oil in everything. It's been replaced with their synthetic blend, which I haven't wanted to switch to. Also, I've gone to buying my oil, filters, fuel injector cleaner, etc. online since I've become thoroughly disgusted with going to the auto parts store.

The past few oil changes, I used Pennzoil conventional. I'm wondering if that has anything to do with the consumption. Maybe it has more to do with the 6 month change interval this time. We'll see. Today, I went with Amazon Basics conventional oil. I recently watched a long YouTube video and this oil tested really well. Also, it is easily available in both five quart jugs and quart bottles so it is convenient to use in the truck (6 quarts) or the Roadmaster (5 quarts). I'm going to watch it much better and see how it does.

I did a drain/refill on the 4L85E today as well. It's been 10k miles since the last time I did. The fluid looked new. While it was drained, I replaced both of the speed sensors with new Delco units. I've been getting an intermittent ABS code under hard acceleration in 1st gear since the transmission went in. I tried to make it set the code several times on the way home and it didn't, so that may be fixed. I'll know next week.

I also rotated the tires and adjusted the air pressure in them. I added a few bottles of Chevron Techron and filled it up with super (93). Finally, I washed it, vacuumed it, dusted the dash, cleaned the inside glass and cleaned the floor mats. I'm looking forward to enjoying my efforts on the ride in to work tomorrow.

I guess that's it for now friends.

 

[joesregalproject]

It's always nice to have a clean vehicle to drive to work. Truck looks really nice Jared.

 

[superbon54]

I always used conventional valvoline in everything too until it became almost impossible to find in 5w-20 in my area. I switched my high mileage vehicles to their high mile synthetic and I’ve noticed less consumption since. My truck gets changed every 3k and my DD every 6ish.

 

[Texas82GP]

It's always nice to have a clean vehicle to drive to work. Truck looks really nice Jared.

Thanks Joe. They also feel like they run better after you give them a little love.

 

[Texas82GP]

I always used conventional valvoline in everything too until it became almost impossible to find in 5w-20 in my area. I switched my high mileage vehicles to their high mile synthetic and I’ve noticed less consumption since. My truck gets changed every 3k and my DD every 6ish.

Thanks for that perspective. I was hoping to get some. I've never bought into the "high milage" products, but not for any good reason, except maybe that I'm very leary of any "seal conditioners".