Project "Steppin Wolf" LS swap

[Liltroy]

Well, as has been the theme with this project, nor catastrophe has struck. I'm pretty sure I have a knock in the bottom end. Drove it for about ten minutes today, didn't even get on it much. Pulled into the driveway and had a loud chirping( possibly power steering pump or maybe belt tensioner) coming from front of engine and what sounds like the beginning of a rod knock coming from the rear of the engine. Wife's pissed, I'm depressed. Don't really know what to do now.

[Rich84]

Sorry to hear about that..maybe your flex plate bolts are loose. Sounds like a low end knock. Good luck.

[Liltroy]

I'm hoping it's the flex plate bolts but I'm probably not that lucky. I remember torquing the snot out of them but a friend told me last night that they need to have locktite on them. I've only put about 50 miles on this engine so I don't see how they could have backed out but I'm going to try to straighten up garage after work tonight so I can get it in there and check it out. I just borrowed $500 from my uncle for a set of drag radials for the back so this really sucks. I was going to try to fix the heater this week so I could start daily driving it too. Man I just can't describe what I'm feeling right now.

[MalibuSSwagon]

I had a belt chirping issue on my 5.3L recently. So I took the belt off, that looked good so set it aside. SO then I started spinning pulleys by hand, tensioner pulley was hard to spin and made noise. So bolted on the new tensioner I had bought and no more chirping.

[68Timber]

Crank it up with the belt off, won't hurt to run it briefly just to eliminate all the accessories from the mix. Many a "rod knock" has been a cracked flex plate or something else, don't sweat it till you know.

[Liltroy]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I got my garage cleaned out and pulled the truck in but I've got my jack and jack stands loaned out to my buddy. Hopefully I'll get them back tomorrow and get this figured out. Keeping my fingers crossed!

[TrailerTrash]

fingers crossed for ya dude!

[Liltroy]

so i unhooked the torque converter and slid it back, hooked up an oil pressure gauge(dash unit was leaking so I had unhooked it), and statred the engine. No knock, not chirp. tryed to rev it and converter slid forward and smacked against the flexplate!!! That was a horrible noise! Anyway, Bolts werent loose and I didnt notice any cracks in the flexplate. But engine was only showing 20psi of oil pressure. I wasnt able to let the engine warm up due to the converter. I need to figure out a way to tie the converter back so I can let the engine warm up and be able to bring the revs up without the converter vibrating forward again. Im afraid that the chirping I heard at the front of the engine may have been a a cam bearing or something but I dont know. This build has frustrated me so much that I've lost enthusiasm to keep diagnosing. Especially knowing that if it is bearing noise or the knock was coming from the engine, I dont have the money to rebuild it. I was really hoping to start working on the bodywork this summer but I'm afraid I may be saving up for yet another engine instead. What really sucks is I had just borrowed $500 from my uncle the day this happened to get the drag radials put on so I have to pay that back before I can even start saving for repairs.This is only the 2nd time in my life I've ever bought a used engine. First time was about 15 years ago and it was a 350sbc. It threw a rod through the side of the block after two days. Now this with the 6.0. I guess this is what happens when you gamble on used engines.

[lowrodderchev]

sorry that's happening to you. don't give up your thread has inspired me to try to hammer out my ls swap in 7 days. were all rooting for you to get the problem fix and be back on the road

[daddyjeep]

Easier said than done, but don't get discouraged. Projects have set backs. I lost a whole year on my Jeep build chasing electrical gremlins, which turned out to be the pcm. It will absolutely be worth the aggrevation in the end.

[Liltroy]

Well it's confirmed. The knock is definitely inside the bottom end. We're thinking main bearings. Gonna pull the engine in the next couple weeks and scope it out. I'm hoping to be able to just put a crank kit in it so I can get it back on the road but it'll probably be April. Before I have the money. That's when my yearly bonus comes in. I'm trying to look at the bright side....at least I didn't throw a rod through the block like I did with the last used engine I bought. :P

[Liltroy]

Originally Posted by lowrodderchev

sorry that's happening to you. don't give up your thread has inspired me to try to hammer out my ls swap in 7 days. were all rooting for you to get the problem fix and be back on the road

As long as you have everything ready to go, and do t run into any major issues, you could do it in a weekend. It's the part gathering that takes the most time. And the cleaning and painting of parts if you're worried about looks. The actual swap itself is just replacing the drivetrain and doing a bit of wiring. Good luck brother!!

[OutlawDrifter]

well if you know what the deal is, you can plan accordingly and have some time to source the parts at a good rate!

[Jeramy]

Originally Posted by Liltroy

Well it's confirmed. The knock is definitely inside the bottom end. We're thinking main bearings. Gonna pull the engine in the next couple weeks and scope it out. I'm hoping to be able to just put a crank kit in it so I can get it back on the road but it'll probably be April. Before I have the money. That's when my yearly bonus comes in. I'm trying to look at the bright side....at least I didn't throw a rod through the block like I did with the last used engine I bought. :P

well that sucks but like you said atleast it didn't grenade itself so you can do the bottom end rebuild.

[Liltroy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zoOv9K817c

After work just trying to get the noise on video before I went to bed.

caught it before it got really bad so Im really hoping I can just replace the bearings. Im waiting to pull the engine till I get paid cause Im running on broke and I want to run a can of engine flush through it before I pull it to clean all the crap out. Depending on where Im at finacially when I finally do this, I may go ahead and throw a cam in it while its out as well.

[aknovaman]

Rod knock. Pull engine and replace oil pump as well as lower bearings. It is save-able. But i would not run it any longet or you may ruin crank and rod journals.

[Liltroy]

Originally Posted by aknovaman

Rod knock. Pull engine and replace oil pump as well as lower bearings. It is save-able. But i would not run it any longet or you may ruin crank and rod journals.

That's the plan. I'm hoping I'll be able to just have the journals polished but if cutting them .010 has to happen I'm good with that too. Just don't want to have to do a full rebuild.

[slotard]

I know you want to flush stuff, but I wouldn't run it any more than you absolutely have to. Flush it once it's back together so you don't need work on the crank.

[65standard]

Without hearing in person, it's hard to tell where that knock is coming from. I don't think it is a crank knock. Could be piston slap, wrist pin, rod bearing, or combination of these. I had a low end knock like that in my truck. I kept running it to see where it was actually coming from. It eventually got so loud it sounded like someone was hitting the motor with a hammer. It turned out that the rod bearing spun. Then both halves of the bearing were on top of each other in the rod. No bearing shell in the cap. This gave the rod enough room to be thrown up and smack into the head. Ruined the crank, rod, and piston.

[Liltroy]

Originally Posted by slotard

I know you want to flush stuff, but I wouldn't run it any more than you absolutely have to. Flush it once it's back together so you don't need work on the crank.

It will only be started one more time to flush it. The reason for flushing before the new bearings is to clean out the oil passages and then be able to clean out that crap out of the oil pan when I disassemble it. The last thing I want is to break that stuff loose after I install new bearings and have it circulated across the new bearing surfaces. As it is currently, it takes longer than five minutes for it to warm up and start knocking audibly anyway so I'm hoping it'll be ok to start it and let it idle for five more minutes with the flush in it and get all that sludge down into the pan.then I'll be pulling it and starting disassembly.

[Liltroy]

Originally Posted by 65standard

Without hearing in person, it's hard to tell where that knock is coming from. I don't think it is a crank knock. Could be piston slap, wrist pin, rod bearing, or combination of these. I had a low end knock like that in my truck. I kept running it to see where it was actually coming from. It eventually got so loud it sounded like someone was hitting the motor with a hammer. It turned out that the rod bearing spun. Then both halves of the bearing were on top of each other in the rod. No bearing shell in the cap. This gave the rod enough room to be thrown up and smack into the head. Ruined the crank, rod, and piston.

I'll be replacing the mains and rod bearings. I'm leaning more toward rod bearing myself. I'm not ordering anything until I disassemble and figure out exactly what's going on. If it ends up being a wrist pin then that means I'm screwed into s full rebuild anyway so at that point SteppinWolf would get pushed into the back yard until I can save for machine work and a 408 stroker rotating assembly. If I gotta do a full rebuild, it WONT be a stock rebuild.

[Liltroy]

On a side note, I'm already planning on a cam while I have the crank out anyway. Plus I want to inspect the cam and can bearings. I'm thinking about a Texas Speed 228r 114lsa as they have them on special for $325 right now. I'm leaning toward the 114lsa not just because of price but also because of the less noticeable idle. I prefer for it to look and sound pretty stock. After all it is a sleeper.

[Liltroy]

Well I talked the wifey into buying me a can of engine flush so I didn't have to wait for payday, lol. Ran the flush, drained the oil. I'm going to start piddling with getting everything unhooked after work this week and hopefully have this thing on an engine stand by Friday.

[robgmaddux]

Any updates on your knock?

[Liltroy]

Ended up being #3 and 4 rod bearings spun. I pulled the crank, cleaned all oil galleys as best I could with carb cleaner, then brake cleaner and compressed air. Put in new crank with new rod and main bearings, a Brian Tooley Racing stage 3 truck cam, BTR 560 lift springs, comp cams pushrods, ls7 lifters,and GMPP high volume oil pump. Dropped engine in last week. Installed Intellitonics digital dash. I had to crank the engine forever to get oil pressure but finally got 30psi cranking with s manual oil pressure gauge. Swapped in the Intellitonix sending unit and digital oil gauge isn't working. I refuse to put the intake on a fire this engine until I get this gauge working so that's all that's holding me up at the moment.