Hold(en) my beer - Monaro, Ute and Commodore content

[SturdyHSV]

grumpy52 said:

S E Kent , Herne Bay area .
He is a car restoration expert that specializes in jags but has a leaning towards loud and lairy race and road cars and very fast motorcycles.
There is always plenty to drool over in the workshop providing you're not looking for modern computer or electronic dominated vehicles.
I worked for him for a while and we have been proper friends for almost 30 years .

That'd be great to see, once all this mess is over I'd love to have a nose around his workshop!

[SturdyHSV]

Picked up the lifter plate from my mate, he also lent me a mic and dial bore gauge which I shall have to start practicing with

Valley plate off (those pillars are for the displacement on demand which are just blocked off on an LS2)



Lifting plate on



Will see whether I need any angle fun or if the central hole is enough.

I do think it's such a nice design the wagon. I will probably take the badges off so it's a bit cleaner, but I'm unsure what to do about the chrome strip across the boot lid.

Although black would tie in with the windows and trims etc, I don't think a black line across is any better than the chrome one (which ties in with the tail lights)...

I can't imagine it being blue to match the body would add much, it'd be really nice if it could be smoothed over, maybe something for the future, any thoughts?


(thumbsnap seems to have made a real compression mess of that image, apologies)

[SturdyHSV]

China's finest crank pulley puller has arrived, not entirely convinced it'll work but for the money it was worth a go as the LS specific ones are very overpriced and obviously in the US.

I think I may have enough room to roll the Monaro back to the garage door and get the hoist in front by rotating it under...

Just trying to avoid having to push the car in and out if possible, or at least enable myself to pull engine out with the doors closed and thus do that any time without having to rely on the weather and being able to get it finished so I can shut the garage up again...

Supporting the bellhousing will involve ingenious use of the creeper and some wood I suspect to allow it to roll in case I do need to push the car back to get the engine out

Definitely feels like momentum is gathering either way, have been reading various assembly guides etc., have found a couple of places locally that look like they could give the block a quick hone just to deglaze it as well.



Ordered HVAC actuators for the wagon from ebay Aus and they'll be covered by the dealer warranty so that's alright.

Wagon is looking to get comfortably over 600km to this tank even with 2 days of crap traffic on the M1, definitely proving even more frugal than I expected.

Must remember to check to see if it's thrown the AC belt off, I know it was a thing on these and would account for why the AC won't turn on if it isn't related to the actuators.

The actuators were £32 each. Although then you have to ship them from Australia of course. I bought 2 just in case, shipping wasn't combined (the bds!) so ended up being £96 ish all in.

Doubtless I'll get stung by duty one way or another and then a fking admin fee for sending me the letter about the duty, but such is life


As an example of how peaceful the exhaust is on the wagon, here's 6 litres whispering away on a full launch

Edited by SturdyHSV on Thursday 22 October 16:06

[SturdyHSV]

Well that went well!



Fit perfectly, took the pulley straight off with zero effort



Would heartily recommend, solid feeling piece and did the job for £40 as opposed to 150usd form the states before shipping / duty etc.



Ebay link for future reference is https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174448127827

It's sold by Autool or Autotool or some such, top stuff

[SturdyHSV]

Yeah the black and blue do look pretty good, thanks for those

I quite like the featureless slab look, it's a nice contrast to all the ridiculously over creased panels on modern cars Agree though that it might be a bit much...

[SturdyHSV]

monkfish1 said:

Im with the strip in blue.

I bet you'd like to see it lowered a touch too eh? It does look like an SUV parked next to the Ute / Monaro

[SturdyHSV]

Bit of a tidy up of the 'workshop' today ahead of making some progress on the Ro



Then whilst dinner was being cooked I got on with pulling the cam out. Popped the lifters / trays out first





Armed with a 10mm, timing cover off first, then the cam gear



Then cam retaining plate



Then time to pull the bumpstick out. Personally I like to use the water pump bolts as a 'handle' to help ease the cam out



Nearly there, can't imagine this being possible with the radiator still in place...



Cam looks fine for 3,000 miles as you'd expect, it's likely to go into the Ute further down the road unless I end up selling the bits off and going sillier...

Tomorrow may be the day to try tugging what's left of the motor out, at least it'll be lighter now!



Angry alien face?

[SturdyHSV]

monkfish1 said:

Of course. And i can help you with that

You're a bad man

I'm really enjoying gliding over the local speed bumps at the moment!

The neighbours have told me off for the wagon being too quiet, apparently they've nicknamed it the electric car... Presumably a VXR8 exhaust fits as same chassis?

There's a walky one for £400 on Facebook, needs some sleeves, but I do think the oval tip and general walky bass grumble would suit it...

[SturdyHSV]

Rolled the car back (another 40 cm in fact) so it didn't quite hit the door and the hoist fit nicely in front (sideways)

Jacked it up, drained the oil and rotated the hoist around under the car and into position.

I'll be replacing the valley cover gasket, so I've left that in place and then bolted the lifting plate down onto the load balancer's lifting brackets, definitely fully professional use of the lifting plate...



Disconnected the last couple of bits that were connected to the block, undid the bell housing bolts and motor mount bolts, supported the transmission, tightened the hoist so it was taking the weight of the motor a bit... Can't separate the hell housing

There are some cutouts that would allow it to be pried apart, I just don't have anything better than a flat head screwdriver to pry with... Amazon delivery arrives on Tuesday

This is why I knew it'd take months

[SturdyHSV]

E-mail about the prybars etc. arriving, round 2 tonight perhaps!

If I can get the thing on an engine stand by tonight I'll be a happy boy, although realistically if I can separate it from the bell housing I'll be a happy boy, anything else will be a bonus!

[SturdyHSV]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, prybars made naff all difference, nor did hammering the back of one of the dowels from the engine side with a punch / 4lb hammer.

So I shall take the gearbox off the back and do it 'properly', serves me right for trying to 'save time'

In boring news, refilled the wagon, certainly not as frugal as I thought, or rather perhaps the Ute is just much worse than I thought, ended up doing 525km and topped up with 66.5 litres, which I make to be a rather unimpressive 22.3 mpg

[SturdyHSV]

irocfan said:

Tbh (coming from the sister engine) low 20's doesn't sound that bad - unless you were driving Miss Daisy

I've been driving relatively economically, the M1 is a 60mph cruise due to average speed cameras, MK is bad because of the roundabouts though...

There were some pretty decent borderline stationary queues as well which don't do these many favours so I'm not entirely surprised, I think I'd convinced myself it was doing about 25 though, hence the 'disappointment'...

[SturdyHSV]

Ah OK, sounds like I won't be making 600km from a tank any time soon then! 550 will be my goal

This morning have been met by the welcome embrace of an ABS fault. Wheel speed sensor presumably, and from a google it seems pretty 'common' for the VE.

Will test it and the loom with a multimeter and then load up the parts cannon.

My deepest fear is the inevitable battle attempting to remove the old one that will have undoubtedly perma-bonded itself to the hub assembly. I'm fully expecting to have to turn it to a liquid to remove it

Having said that, lots of Aussie miles, it does look very clean underneath, maybe it won't be too bad!

Plans for this evening, I may whip the prop off (it's a carbon fibre 1 piece, only 3 bolts to the diff flange and out it slides from the gearbox) and may drain the gearbox oil. It was only replaced about 10,000 miles ago so seems a bit keen, but I can't imagine I'll be able to keep it all in there when removing the box from the bellhousing unless I can rig up a rubber glove and enough elastic bands, which is bound to fail.

I guess no oil means it'll be a bit lighter for when I have to benchpress it off the car

[SturdyHSV]

Not a huge amount to report, interior taken apart a bit so I can remove the gearstick ready for gearbox removal (yes, I have previously wrapped a cloth around it to reduce NVH )



And took the drive shaft out, 3 bolts to the diff and slides out of the back of the box, caught a little gearbox oil but not much came out as the box is fairly level still at the moment.



Driveshaft is a carbon fibre 1 piece jobby from DriveShaft Shop in the states, have had no complaints and seems good quality to me!

I was a bit hungover so being under the car messing about with bolts and stuff didn't do me any favours, I think I'll pick up one of those gearbox adapters for the jack, seems a more sensible idea...

[SturdyHSV]

The need to take the gearbox off somewhat dented my enthusiasm, but made some 'progress' this weekend at least.

Disconnected the gearstick:




Undid the few connectors



Drained the gearbox oil



Thought I'd try disconnecting the clutch hard line... Nope, so flare nut spanner on order. What turned up was ste, attempted to get one from halfords and they don't keep them on the shelf, so a decent one is on the way for tomorrow.




Such faff

[SturdyHSV]

Halfords 10mm flare nut spanner did the job, obviously it cracked loose and thus I punched the side of the block which was a treat.

Pulled the loom out the way, disconnected the rear transmission mount and decided I didn't fancy disconnecting the box, so time to go bold and just pull the whole lot out at once, there looked to be loads of room so...

Once it was convinced to come off the engine mounts (having no rear trans mount meant obviously it tipped back and the mounts were tight against the mount bolts)

Up a bit



Naturally the handle came off the leveller and the screw fell in the engine



Bit more tilt to get the back of the block over the steering rack...



Really quite scary at this point... Crane won't roll any further back because it's against the garage wall, but fortunately I came up with a plan...



Bit of levelling and it rotated round out of the way



I should mention I put the bell housing bolts back in before starting this...

Car now lowered back down onto its wheels out of the way, it got dark and cold by this point so I shall leave it precariously hanging until some daylight lets me roll the car out of the garage, have got a skip coming for some house related bits so it may be swinging there for a worrying week, will be checking for droop regularly



Once the car is out of the way I shall lay the engine and box down on some tyres / wooden blocks and disconnect bits without having to bench press anything. Pleased to have made what feels like proper progress

[SturdyHSV]

It did droop a few cm overnight, so plonked it down on some tyres at lunchtime

[SturdyHSV]

Apologies for the dark photos, really should sort some better lighting in the garage.

Unbolted gearbox, took the weight of the motor in the hoist and wiggled the box off.



Swung engine around for better access to prying the bellhousing off, it wasn't budging off the dowels at all, so took the starter off to allow me to give it a 'light' tap with a hammer, that sorted it one side and was then able to pry the other side off.



Tomorrow's bit of work will be trying the Chinesium flywheel locking tool and hopefully taking the clutch / flywheel off

[SturdyHSV]

Well I got on with it last night anyway, clutch and flywheel are off. Flywheel is the light aluminium one I ordered all those years ago (was fitted by a garage back then) which was nice to confirm at least!

I've no idea how clutches look when they wear, so any input would be appreciated as to how far gone this is (just out of curiosity, it won't be going back in)

Little piece of Chinesium (loosely for best fit ) goes where the starter used to be and did its job



Pressure plate and friction disc off



No idea if that's worn much... Probably 25,000 miles of solid abuse on it at least...



So I can assume those patterns are where bits have gotten hot, but again, no idea if that's normal...



Big sexy ally flywheel, it's comically light compared to the stock LS2 flywheel at least, I'll weigh it at some point and probably sell it on.



So here we are, ready to go on the stand, although it's dawned on me the bellhousing bolts aren't long enough to go through the stand and into the block, so will order some suitable

[SturdyHSV]

5harp3y said:

fair play!

i need to stop complaining about being able to work on my car in a single garage after seeing all that!

Cheers

To be fair, it's a reasonably long garage, about 5.5m I think, so with the front bumper off there's room to have the crane sideways in front of the car which has been helpful! Just had to push it back to be able to rotate the crane around, and then back again to be able to shut the garage door

Also, used an offcut of old carpet from a bedroom to lay across the floor. This has made it infinitely nicer to 'work' in there, and also means you can just pop in there barefoot as it feels more like part of the house so you're more inclined to "just do this little bit" which inevitably leads to 3 hours of spannering and ruining another pair of jeans...

It's reasonably wide as well, in so far as you can sort of fold yourself under the car or roll a trolley jack down one side and there are shelves down one side, it's doable either way, and am fully taking over the 'utility room' as a workshop now, will be making an unnecessary second downstairs toilet into the new utility room so I can have some tool chests and get plenty of shelves up and things, taking cars to bits seems to produce a lot of 'stuff' that takes up space.