Good for you.. just read the thread because of your update.
One thing.

Get that sink dishwasher pvc thing out of there.
no telling what its quality is.. could last long time.. could shatter anytime.

 

Yeah that wasn't my first choice. Was one of those "I need to finish this damn thing & this is all the store has" deals. I would have preferred a brass T ... which, with spring coming, I'll probably be ordering soon to have on hand.

Spring & summer will be time for upgrades and repairs, since the truck will be parked. Other than that I just need to repair the speedometer/odometer, or if that's not possible I might take on the project of upgrading the unit to a digital one. Always liked that setup in our old '91 we had.

Well so far so good with the new power source for the pump. Ran great yesterday to & from. The real test will be next week - forecast is for 70's pretty much all week.

Oh .. and I think I forgot to update that the cruise control started working after replacing the steering column multifunction switch last October. So now everything works as before the swap.

 

Should be the final update on this thread unless something catastrophic happens that's related to the build ... which I don't anticipate.

Fuel issue is fixed. Wife drove it all day yesterday, nice & warm in the 70's, so that was the true test.

All I did was rewire the fuel pump. Turns out the stock power supply for the in-tank pump has a warm weather issue. When I installed the Walboro pump, I used the same power source with a different ground, but had all the same problems. After sourcing the pump's power from the heater circuit in the fuse block, we haven't had an issue since.

But other than that & the speedometer/odometer issue, this Blazer has been as reliable as a stone ax. Winter is nearly over - almost time to park her in the corner for the next 8 or 9 months. She started right up every morning without fail, & when the pump wasn't acting up it ran REAL strong. HUGE difference over the stocker .. and an even BIGGER difference over the '00 Jimmy the engine once powered. It's amazing how reliable these engines are .... once you eliminate all the sensors & electronics!
NOW the project is finished! Finally!

 

You're Next project '00 4.3 vs 572 marlin big block".

Do it...lol

 

Hahahahaa! If I win the lottery you'll be seeing several projects using that motor! :cheers:

 

Guess I should update this one to save someone the trouble of doing this twice ... like I AM ... although I don't think anyone is this stupid ...

Well, if you read back in this post I was contemplating doing all the gaskets: head, oil pan, etc since I had the engine out. Against my better judgement, I went ahead with the project without changing any of them. BIG F'ING MISTAKE. It developed a HUGE oil leak near the front of the pan. The whole point in doing this swap was to end the 1 qt. every 50 mile BS we put up with with the old original engine.

I've now spent 3 days trying to get the oil pan off without removing the engine. I've raised the engine with the hoist .... raised and lowered the tranny ... unbolted the entire front diff - NOPE! No clearance at all. Maybe there was in the Jimmy, but not in the '89 with that big aluminum pan on the '00 engine.

Could've installed the old steel one off the old engine, but I don't want it rotting off in 3 years or less. Could've should've would've .... either way, engine has to come out ... AGAIN!

Deja-vu .... the exact same time last year. Go figure.

I don't plan on making this a yearly tradition, so this time she's getting the oil pan gasket, head gaskets, valve seals, rear main seal, timing seal, & exhaust manifold gaskets while I'm there.

Here we go again!!

 

Whelp, she's all back together now, aside from some minor interior repairs I need to do today. Yesterday I got the exhaust all bolted back up with new donut gaskets at the Y, bolted up the crossmember, replaced a Moog upper ball joint on the passenger side that failed after 2 years and 12k miles, and then buttoned up all the loose wiring & topped off the fluids.

Went for a little drive last night, and I'll have to back off the timing a bit - was pinging like hell. I'm thinking the new head gaskets bumped the compression up a tad, as the distributor was installed precisely the way it was removed.

So anyway, she's got new head gaskets, rear main seal, front crank seal, valve seals, timing cover gasket (and yes, you can re-use the cover no matter what it says), oil pan gasket, valve cover gaskets, Comp Cams timing set, and a Melling stock volume oil pump.

I had originally purchased the H/V pump, but I had a clearance issue ... so after re-thinking the whole thing I decided to just go back to the stock volume. Plenty of pressure anyway and less drag on the engine. That gigantic Comp timing set is enough drag! Look at the pic below - that's the stock timing gear on top of the Comp set for comparison. It's 3x thicker!

Good thing I changed it though. Was a ticking time bomb. I think the spec for chain freeplay was a half inch or so, max. Well .... I had 1 SOLID INCH of slop! Not good. Wouldn't have got many more miles out of this thing, especially with cold starts and a carburetor - was due to jump time any second.

Anyway, here's some pics of the process. Enjoy!










































Blazerrunningagainafteroilleakrepairs.mp4 video by jjs05polaris - Photobucket

 

A couple LOOOONG updates to help anyone looking to do the same project ...

Back in the beginning of '13 we started having fuel delivery issues again. Long story short, after replacing the distributor assembly and re-gapping the plugs to .030" from .060", it turned out that the Walboro pump was bad right out of the box! It finally failed completely after sitting parked the winter of '12-'13 (had a '00 Ford Focus on the road that winter that I rebuilt the engine on and flipped). Walboro was GREAT - they told me to send the old one in, as they were amazed it failed. When they got it, they confirmed "Dead as a doornail". They grabbed a pump right off the assembly line in the fall of '13 and sent it out to me. Cost me nothing but shipping to them. Since installing that, everything's been perfect as far as fuel delivery goes.

As of now I estimate we've got about 16k miles on since the swap. The latest issue happened last week. Something in the distributor failed - I haven't tracked it down yet because I just went ahead and replaced all the chi-com eBay electronics in the HEI distributor with quality Eichin brand parts from NAPA, which have a 5 yr./50k mile warranty. Wife had been having intermittent starting issues in the morning, suddenly. I swapped the coil from the original HEI distributor, and it fired right up ... so I figured we were good. Well, she drove it 9 days without an issue (about 500 miles or so) when another no-start morning happened. I went out that afternoon and it fired right up! So on Sunday we took a ride all over the place attending events and visiting friends. Probably 100+ miles round trip. Ran great all day in the rain. Stopped and started several times visiting people. Then it sat about 6 hours ... and when we left, I could immediately tell something was wrong. Was backfiring & stumbling at anything above 1/2 throttle. The volt gauge was bouncing all over, and the lights dimming. Houston, we have a problem!

So we made it 20 miles or so to within 4 miles of my house, when the thing completely died coasting down a hill, 8:30 at night, pouring rain. Popped the hood and started fishing around the distributor. Found the power wire had fallen out of it's plug! Sweet .. so I thought. Plugged it back in, figured it would fire right up ... NOPE. Still dead! Called a neighbor for a ride, hooked up my trailer (blew my back out in the process ...) and winched the dead Blazer up, and hauled her home.

SO - word to the wise: there's a reason you can buy an entire distributor for $60 on eBay! You'll only get 6-8k miles out of it!! DO NOT cheap out on ignition ... or any electrical components - EVER.

For the rebuild of the distributor, I have the following part numbers at NAPA:

Coil: IC19

HEI module: TP45

Distributor pickup: MP146

Condenser terminal block: RR231

And a set of plug wires: 700245

Didn't take any pics, as I was under the gun to get this thing up an running ASAP. I'll post pics of the junk parts ....

Ran me just under $210 after tax - 4x what the eBay distributor cost! But, at least now we can count on the truck to start and do what it's supposed to!

Had one somewhat minor, but very frustrating problem getting the new pickup coil to fit. The metal portion of it was just a couple thousandths too tall, and it was impossible to install the retaining clip. After grinding and dremeling proved futile, I just swapped the metal portion of the housing with the old one, using the new parts inside. Then, that caused the pickup to be out of alignment - the distributor shaft wouldn't even rotate because the teeth were touching ... so I pulled the shaft out, and loosened the screws on the pickup, put a side load on it with a screwdriver, and re-tightened the bolts. After a few attempts, I finally got the correct clearance. SUCCESS!!

All that's left to do now is install the new plug wires, just as a "cover my own ***". I have Accel's on there now ... but they're not the best of quality. Just want to be sure I get some good wires on there so the components last this time, as high secondary resistance can potentially burn up an HEI module.

One week / 600 miles is now under our belt. Been running great! Consistently getting 17 mpg.


HEI module:




Ignition coil:




Condenser terminal block:




Pickup coil (with metal housing removed):




Attempt at making pickup coil fit properly ...