How do I get these caps off, so I can hook up the oil pick-up tube?

 

Well, been busy the last few days. A few days ago I tried to put the truck oil pan on with the LS1 windage tray. Didn't work. The LS1 windage tray isn't cut out enough for the truck oil pan where the oil filter resides. After I swapped out the windage trays, the oil pan went on fine. Then I put the heads on. LS1howto.com shows that after the heads are torqued to 22ft-lbs, there is two increments of 90* turns in the same pattern(50* on the second set for the two short bolts). The book I have says torque to 22ft-lbs, then two increments of 76* (38* on the second set for the two short bolts). I think I end up doing 78-80* on bolts 1-8 and 40* for the second pass on the short bolts. I was using new sets of stock bolts.







I also painted the valve covers a gloss black. Looks badass! Definitely brings out the motor. I painted the valley cover a cast aluminum, didn't care for that color. The regular aluminum looked better, but was scratched up by the time I got ready to put it on. I also took the coil brackets/coils/spark plug wires and cleaned them the best I could with greased lightning and an old toothbrush. That made a big difference as well.









As you can see, I had to put the stock pulley back on. I tried every way possible to get the ASP crank pulley off the other motor and didn't come close to working. I tried every configuration on the 6" 3 jaw puller on the back and on the edges. Nothing. It slipped off everytime. When I get my truck up and running, I'm just gonna take it somewhere and see if somebody else can get it off.



I also went ahead and put the A/C bracket and motor mounts on before putting it in. Had a slight problem getting the motor and trans to hook up. Had to adjust the engine leveler, raise/lower the trans. jack. Finally it was at to wether the top would touch perfect and slowly gap to about 3/8" or the bottom would touch and slowly gap to about 3/8". So I put the bottom two bellhousing bolts in a little loose and slowly put in the top center bolt and it closed right up. I don't know what could have caused it. Anyways, the motor mounts lined-up perfect. The pass. side is bolted down and the driver side has 1. the other two are gonna be hard as hell to get two. Any tricks on getting in there? Also, I don't think I can get the torque wrench in to about half the bellhousing bolts. Do ya'll just tighten them down the best you can with a gear wrench and some red locktight?
I thought that I would be cranking the truck up on saturday, but due to nelson performance not sending the the computer to futral last week like I was told, they were SUPPOSED to send it today overnight. So, it'll probably be another week before I can get my motor started.

 

nice pics, great write up so far

 

valve covers look BADASS!

 

Thanks guys!

Oh yeah, I put the crank pulley in the oven for about 15-20 minutes at 200* and tried to put in on. It went about half-way and the stupid engine stand started rolling back and it cooled off real quick and got stuck. Got the 3 jaw-puller out and got off. Put it back in the oven for about 15 min on 225*. I had somebody stand behind the engine stand and hold it while I pushed. At first it didn't want to go on, so I pushed harder and it popped on there. It went all the way back. When I went to put the bolt on, I had somebody hold the crank still by sliding a crow-bar through the openings on the pulley. I torqued it to like 75ft-lbs. then turned it ~40 degrees. Then the most I could torque it was 140ft-lbs. That should be okay, right?

 

HemiKiller, can you do me a favor? can you take a good measurement from the inner edge of your crank pulley(AC pulley inner lip) straight across to the timing cover maybe take a pic so I can duplicate the measurement exactly on my setup?

 

Sure! Here's what I think you're asking for: (The camera is at slight angle to allow the light in the pic. So, it's lined up almost perfect)

 

thanks bro, what did that read ?

 

looks like a hair less that 2 and 11/16ths

 

Sorry, just saw your post. I just double-checked it and it came out to 69mm with a straight ruler.