Hey guys, I was thinking of replacing my
connecting rod bolts and also wanted to
change rod bearings. How hard would this
be to do it myself? What ese should I
replace once I'm already there?I'm going
with ARP bolts by the way. Thanks, any
good info is appreciated.

Eric

 

Drop the crossmemeber, oil pan and windage tray. The oil pan gasket is reusable. I wouldn't worry about the bearings unless you feel you have reason to. I pulled down a 165k mile 5.3 and the bearings looked almost brand new.

 

any paticular reason why you are changing your rod bolts. engine knocking ?

 

HOW DO YOU LIKE THE CAM YOU HAVE IN YOUR 5.3? I JUST BOUGHT THE SAME CAM FOR A 4.8L..

 

It is just an easy and cheap insurance mod to do to the LSx engines if you are pushing serious power.

 

No I'm just going to shift over 6500 and it's
just my insurance like mj says.


I like the way this cam is working even though
I haven't installed the converter yet, it feels
asleep below 3000, and I'm also shifting low
for this cam, I know it'll wake up with the
verter and high shifting. I'm running 550 idle
and it sounds killer.

 

what should I look for in my original
bearings? I just want to be on the safe
side. Mileage is 120,000.

 

you will notice if something doesn't look right. Into the copper is bad and gualing as well. I doubt you will see any of this. It is normal to see some smoother spots where there has been some wear but engines with 500 miles on them have some of that. If you think it has gone through a layer then change them. hell, pull one out and take a pic and post it on here or send me a pm. I'm sure you will have plenty of responses quick, most will probably say they'd go ahead and change them while they were out, but most people on here are very concervative and love to overkill. The bad thing with swaping the bearings is it could change your tolerances for the bad, either making it too tight or too loose. Those chances are slim though. I wouldn't feel comfy swapping unless you can check the tolerances, but that is bieing concervative as well. Hope I didn't loose you there, just trying to look at it at every angle. Like I said before, I don't suspect there to be any bearing problems unless the oil changes were neglected sometime in it's life.

 

Thanks mj, now I'm going to start looking
to see how I'm going to dissasemble every
thing. I think I'll be fine with the rod bolts
only. I'll try to send you some pics once
it's open.

 

I"ll be installing the ARP bolts in my rods in a few weeks but I'm NOT going to mess with the bearings. As Mark said, the bearing clearances might get screwed up and I'm not going to take a chance on that. If it works don't fix it.