Got the 5.3 LM7 stripped down, cleaned, and painted. It cleaned up really well, certainly it’s better looking than the rusty oily heap that I got from the junkyard. Painted it with Duplicolor Pontiac Blue Metallic Ceramic spray paint, I cant recommend this paint enough. Dries super fast, it’s very hesitant to run, and the metallic particles are suspended very well and spray evenly with minimal dry spray even at wide angles. Much better than the Rustoleum engine paint I’ve used in the past, plus a 6-pack of this Duplicolor was all of $13 on amazon.
I was able to get three out of four broken exhaust bolts out of the aluminum heads. One snapped off flush, I tried to use a hardened steel easy out to extract the bolt and that broke too. Now I’ve got a piece of hardened steel stuck in a stuck broken bolt. Any tips to get it out? Can’t drill now... I’m thinking I should be able to weld a nut to the broken extractor/bolt and remove it that way. Steel weld shouldn’t stick to the aluminum head?
I drained a couple quarts of oil and pulled the original truck oil pan as I will need to swap it out to a 98-02 F-Body assembly, the bottom end looked remarkably clean for 190k mi. There was no metal in the oil and nothing stuck to the drain plug magnet. I see no reason to tear it down any further.
Anyone have a clue what this part is on the drivers side of the block? All the service manuals I’ve reviewed show a blank plug should be inserted here, haven’t been able to find a reference to this sensor thing.