Pit Maneuver Survivor

[rustingsoftly]

2014 Caprice PPV

40,xxx miles
Engine 105,xxx miles + refresh by me!
City of Centralia, WA Police Car #2

Learned this cars full backstory after purchasing it and learning where it had come from. Called the city shop and asked about its history.

Here’s the low down:
My car pit maneuvered a lifted duramax in late 2020. Front clip was replaced with a good 2012 parts car by the city with the intentions of making a training car. Ultimately another PPV in their fleet needed a good engine and they swapped it with this 40,000 mile one from this car and put the bad cam lobe/lifter failure engine in and sent it to auction. Luckily it still has its original 40k tranny.

Goals: reliable cruiser. Similar to stock mpg. 87 octane/flex.

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Decided that if I fix it and I will eventually get my moneys worth out of it. Plus I’ll get to enjoy a cool car. win-win.

So I got it home and drove it. Learned it had bad misfire at idle on cylinder 3. While driving around the misfire went away. Checked the coils and felt confident that their diagnosis was accurate.

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Pulled cylinder head and found lobes/lifters for #3 were bad and #4 was also on the way out

[rustingsoftly]

Original plan was to just replace the cam, lifters, and associated parts. When I initially pulled the camshaft it acted stuck. I had all the lifters out but something was in a bind. I pulled really hard and it came way out and got stuck again . Finally got it to go but the cam was covered in scratches from the cam bearings trying to hold the cam from coming out.

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No buenno.

Well so much for the slam and jam with the new camshaft. It would just ruin it trying to put it in. So I guess it was time to learn about cam bearings.

I decided that it would be much easier to replace the cam bearings by pulling the crankshaft out.

Well that spiraled into finding more junk embedded in the main bearings and a little in a few connecting rod bearings.

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The crankshaft journals seemed pretty good so I had it mic’d and polished locally.

I ordered fresh Clevites for the bottom end and some Durabonds for the cam bearings. (I’m not against trying all the brands to see what’s good).

Shiny ✨

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[rustingsoftly]

Decided to try painting an LS for the first time. Turned out pretty good!

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Plasti-gauged the bearings and had consistent 0.002” for all them which was very reassuring.

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Reused the main cap bolts because sloppy mechanics has proven it’s fine. You can torque them 3 times so it’s mint.

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Slammed some new cam bearings in it for the first time ever.

[rustingsoftly]

Torqued the inner-mains, set the thrust, final pass on the inside, then I jumped outside and did my first and final passes. Bada bing. Checked my crank end play and we had 0.0035”

Mint

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Tomorrow will clean up some pistons and start that process.

[rustingsoftly]

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Pistons in! This part is always time consuming. Cleaned up the rings. Left a little stubborn carbon on top of the pistons for extra compression.

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Bopped these a37 bearing pieces in with a little cherry flavor loctite.

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Slammed the cam in
Installed new timing gear and ls2 chain
Shimmed the oil pump and torqued it down.

I have had good luck with the stock 2500hd truck pump. I had like hot 35-40 psi and 80+ psi oil pressure at 7,000 rpm in my turbo truck so it’s gonna work good.

Put the new springs on the heads today.

[rustingsoftly]

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Oil pan and rear cover put on. Upgraded to a Sac City Corvette aluminum bar bell, improved racing oil pickup brace, and ICT Billet oil cooler block off. Little upgrades. I’m deleting the oil cooler/heater thing. Mostly because this engine had lots of metal in the pan and I don’t trust that the cooler brick thing is going to clean up. Simpler is better. They made millions of 5.3 suburban and trucks without them so it’s not gonna make a difference for near-stock performance. I’ll just run some rotella t4 in it. That stuff is really good for summer time.

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We’re gettin it. Slowly but surely.

Gotta torque the cam bolt down and throw the front cover on but it’s basically all together.

Will continue this next week.

[Mooseman]

I like the retro orange look. Good work.

[rustingsoftly]

I like the retro orange look. Good work.

Thanks. We’re given it a whirl.

[rustingsoftly]

Engine is sitting in there. I’ll try to get the starter and wiring harness ironed out tomorrow. Getting closer. Have a coolant hose, filters, and suspension part on order. Should get it fired up this week hopefully. Running and driving next week??? Fingers crossed! Needs alignment really bad. Car never was aligned after they dropped the cradle to swap motors and it has bad right front/lower rear control arm. Everything else suspension related felt great.

[Scrammbledeggs]

Hell yes keep it up !