Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

[redfury]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

Well, gotta love the dead of winter. We've gotten a ton of snow this year and I haven't done a dang thing in regards to the boat. Of course, I have pictures to show why I'm not out there...

I did upgrade my tow vehicle, I needed more towing capacity, and passenger room, so I picked this up for my birthday!

Sadly, a week into owning it, the transmission died. Just got it back tonight, still have an issue to sort through....a loud noise that I think is transmission pressure running through the external tranny cooler. Problem is, the lines don't run through the radiator like they should , just to the cooler. This is a problem that I will correct before committing to driving the van to work. I'm not going to ruin a thousand dollar tranny. Wouldn't be hard to do either.


It's got a V8

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

I so want a V8 Astro van

 

[Friscoboater]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

Ohhh that is sooo cool. I did not know they made V8s in those vans.

 

[SparkieBoat]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

F-250 crew cab with a power stroke diesel...get the job done and still get 17-20 MPG..about 3 MPG less when towing

 

[redfury]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

Ohhh that is sooo cool. I did not know they made V8s in those vans.

They didn't

They also didn't make them 4x4 either

They never made a GT ( EDITKay, I found out they did actually make a GT, but it was the older body style and it simply had the rearmost window deleted and a H.O. 4.3 V6 )

My van is a bit of an oddity you see, the PO installed a 350 Vortec out of a Savanna van, and an electronic transfer case out of a Blazer. So instead of a puny 4.3 vortec, I get 5.7 and 4LO for pulling stuff out of the public launch.

 

[SparkieBoat]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

remember that horse power does not change the tow load limits of the vehicle. what ever the towing limits were for that van stock is still the tow limits now. many things other than HP are used to figure tow limits..actually HP really is not a big factor in figuring limits..mainly it is determined by the suspension and braking and weigh of the tow vehicle.

 

[Friscoboater]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

Saweeeeeeeeeeet!!!!! That is what I call a repower!!!

 

[redfury]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

remember that horse power does not change the tow load limits of the vehicle. what ever the towing limits were for that van stock is still the tow limits now. many things other than HP are used to figure tow limits..actually HP really is not a big factor in figuring limits..mainly it is determined by the suspension and braking and weigh of the tow vehicle.

Not planning on exceeding the towing limits of the van, the only reason I went after the V8, is so that it doesn't have any problems AT it's towing limits as far as pulling power. Just because I have a V8, doesn't mean I'm entering it into the tractor pull.

Beyond that, it still has the stock axels, the last thing I want to do is find out exactly what the weak link in the drivetrain is.

However, the COOL factor has jumped exponentially

 

[proshadetree]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

I have seen a few v/8 astro swaps. The rear axle inst your problem it the rear tires. Cool indeed

 

[SparkieBoat]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

it would be cool to jack it up and do a tractor pull...LOL

 

[redfury]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

So, I get the van back and hear this horrendous noise on the way home. Nothing is saying "STOP"! But I know something isn't right. So, I get out and this is what I hear...

If you watch the video, you'll know that the fan blade is broken So, I fought with it for a while and broke down and bought a strap wrench to hold the pulley so I could use my new $40 wrench of 36mm dimensions..the sucker is huge! I pick up the new Fan from NAPA @ 1pm on Monday. I can't wait to finally get the van wrapped up and can use the van daily again!

Apparently they must have broken the fan at the shop when they removed the tranny...tilted the motor up into the fan shroud and broke it at the bolt holes. I'm going to see what they are going to do to recompense me for the damage.

 

[oops!]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

was that your loud "pressure" noise mike

 

[drewpster]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

Hey Red, That Astro needs a body lift and a set of 33's.

very cool

About your polished aluminum stuff. My powder coater suggested clear powder coat. I never heard of it. But he let me see a set of polished weld wheels that looked very good. Might be an option. I'm looking at it for my forward handrails.

 

[redfury]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

Good idea Drewp! I've got a powdercoater just around the corner from me, I'll have to bring the stuff to him once I get around to finishing it all. I know powdercoat is tough as nails.

If I didn't have to drive the astro 50 miles round trip to work everyday, it sure would be fun to lift it and put some monsters under it. Matter of fact, I saw a set of 32's with some nice rims that would bolt on for $600 and they were in excellent shape! Not gonna happen though.

 

[redfury]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

was that your loud "pressure" noise mike

Yup, I made an assumption without investigating it first. The Transmission runs like a beast. Could have probably saved myself some time by looking into the problem with the engine off, but the way that it made noise was just strange. It quieted down once the engine settled into idle! It didn't do that once I started it up the next day. At least it was a relatively easy fix, and got me off my butt to hook up the transmission to the radiator like it should be. Now I just have to connect the external cooler and I'll be set.

 

[drewpster]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

Let us know how the powdercoat thing works out. My guy says no yellowing and it is supposed to hold up just like the pigmented stuff.
I also wanted to suggest you look in to Mothers Bullet polish. It should be available at the parts store. Really good stuff to bring out the shine on aluminum. Auto Wenol Polish is also good stuff. We used to use it back in my hot rodding days. Wenol comes in different formulas so be sure to get the right one for aluminum. Its the red one if memory serves.

 

[redfury]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

I'll check into those once I've got the Van out of my hair. It runs and drives, replaced the fan yesterday..only to drive off and have the lower tranny line pop out of the radiator! Lost about 2 1/2 qts by the time I figured out what happened Apparently the lower quick disconnect didn't "pop" when I put it in, it just "felt" like it was in. Fortunately the line was held in place for the most part, so it was sucking up fluid and air at the same time..I never noticed anything with the shifts. It's all together now and passed with flying colors, drove it to work and back...good to go.

 

[redfury]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

Well, it's not a boat update, it's a van update. I've driven the van exactly one week since getting it back from the tranny guy. Why? Because I find out that the computer the guy put in the van isn't compatible with the tranny, which is why the old tranny blew in 10k miles. Not taking that chance again. So where does that leave me?

With a custom PCM out of a 2001 express van...the 411 conversion for those that know. It involves essentially about 90 wires to be pulled out of the old computer and pinned into the new one. Of course, with all this, the transmission shifts awesome! But the van runs like poop. Come to find out that the O2 sensors for 1998 don't work with a 2001 computer..they ground out differently, so the computer can't read them. So much for "universal" O2 sensors. So, I got the express van sensors, which of course, have a wider snout on the me, and the dual exhaust wasn't drilled out for them, so I had to pull the exhaust down the best I could and dremel out the dang things. What a pain. Took me 2 nights to get it all done, but the O2 sensors are in. I'm hoping to start the van up tomorrow.

Problem is, I pulled the distributor to check the condition of the gear, and got it in wrong. I got it so mucked up, that I don't know where it's supposed to be. The battery drained to 40% with all the tinkering, so I had to recharge it before I could check anything again. I'm hoping for the best, but I will still have to get a scan tool on it to set the distributor exactly right.

It's a bit of a learning curve, but I'm beginning to really get a grasp of the whole OBD2/GM system.

 

[drewpster]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

Red see if you can beg steal or borrow a decent scan tool that has OBD2 in it. If you get your hands on a good one it will give all the parameters and a monitor feature for sensor voltages as well. You need something better than a code reader for what you are working on. It may cost you a few bucks, but the best option is to find a shop that does custom setups. They will be able to hook to what you have and tell you exactely what you need. The good readers are expensive but you can do allot with them. Good luck. I'm not as familiar with OBD2 because I work on road tractors but I know all our base parameters are adjustable within a given range. It may save you some parts changing to let someone with a good reader (preferably on a laptop, not just a reader) hook to it.

 

[redfury]

Re: Ooo! Sparkly! Redfury's Grinding again!

Oh, I've been looking into buying EFI live, but I really don't have the spare $500 laying around to buy it. It would be ideal, I could program the computer with it as well. I could just buy the "scan only" version, but what would the point of that be?