Originally Posted by fastrt

I have not seen a write up on Arp rod bolt installs, so I will try to be as detailed as i can. I used ARP 2000 stock ls1 replacement rod bolts on my 2006 2wd silverado. 4wd/AWD guys may have more to remove to get the oil pan to drop. I started by draining the oil and leaving the filter on. Then I unbolted the rack to clear oil pan. That was not enough, so I had to drop the cross member under the rear most a-arm to clear pan. After that, take off all pan bolts, and 4 or so 10mm bolts that have stuff bolted to pan. Then after the pan is off, take the pickup tube, and windage tray off, and your ready for rod bolts. Make sure you always replace the o-ring on the oil pickup tube with a new oem o-ring. Then spin the motor over by hand enough to access 2 rods at a time. Take one rod bolt out at a time, put assembly lube on the threads, replace it, and torque it to specs, then go to the next one. Then torque the new ARP's 3 times at 40ft/lbs each time. Torque it down, back it off with a ratchet till loose, torque it again, Back it off till loose, and torque it a final time to stretch the bolt and get max clamping force.


NOTE: The stock rod bolts have a sleeve that holds the bolts in the cap durring factory installation. I found a couple tricks to get them out if they dont come out when you remove a rod bolt, and a trick that will get them out everytime a rod bolt comes out. The first bolt sleeve came out with the bolt, and the next two didn't. For those that don't, screw a new ARP bolt up in the rod bolt hole a few threads, and wiggle it slowly till the sleeve comes out. For a sure fire way to get the sleeves out with the factory bolts is to unbolt the factory rod bolt, and once its free and held in by the sleeve, take a pair of long 45* needle nose pliars and gently pry them out the rest of the way against the rod cap. The sleeve came out every time for me this way for me.

I left the bottom end undone till I finished my Head and cam swap, Just in case something fell thru from the top. But, if your just doing the rod bolts, put the new o-ring back on the oil pump pickup tube and torque pickup tube bolt to 106 in/lbs, pickup tube and windage tray nuts to 18 ft/lbs, and oil pan bolts to 106 in/lbs ( tighten the two back trans bolts that go thru to the oil pan bolts to 18 ft/lbs). Change oil filter and put back rack and crossover, and your ready to put oil in and fire it up. Here's some pics....

pic of what has to be removed,cross member, and rack dropped


Turn rods so they face like this


Pic of the sleeves, and how some come out with the rod bolts


Pic of how some didnt come out with the rod bolt


Pic of how the new ARP bolt will grab the sleeve and you can wiggle it out of the rod.


Oh and my 06' 5.3 has HD/ls2 rods FTW!!