Seems like this is turning into a build thread.

[CARC686]

Read I needed to lift the engine. That wasn't necessary. Read I needed to pull the dipstick tube. That wasn't necessary either. Just smacked it with a mallet and gave it a wiggle. Pan off, mains in, crank balancer on. Old rear was 9 and 3. Tapped out with the butt of a drill bit. Geometry issues torqueing balancer with present tools, so will remove radiator to do it. Not replacing the radiator until new bushings get here. Best to take the old out and put the new in at once. Prevents losing things. Since the rad's in my way and I'm holding the crank inside the block to torque the snout, the pan can go back on after the new radiator's in. I've hurried up. Time to wait.

 

[CARC686]

Something possessed me to decrud the pan while I wait for the mail carrier to hand over my radiator bushings, so I took the opportunity to find out if a Rapco top coat will burn off at 200F. For science. At the very least, it'll make any leaks very obvious at first warm up and shakedown.

 

[CARC686]

I found the radiator's out-of-specness to be understated. In a perfect world, I'd CNC 7076 aluminum cups with threaded shanks on the back sides to nut into the OEM mount locations and drop the bushings into. Taking my fixed income into consideration, I carved blocks of closed cell flame retardant foam and seated them in the bushings with a dab of Ultra Black before binding the whole mess together with 700c bicycle tube. Now I'm a space age material sciences compositing technician. I'll have to put that on my resume.



Tight as a drum. Going to leave it to sit a couple days to see if the material conforms to the shape of the radiator. If it doesn't look trustworthy, I'll have to figure something else out.

 

[CARC686]

If your brand new front left shock is leaking, but your ride isn't suffering, then it's probably not leaking. Found the culprit. Oil cooler crimp was soaked inside. Been dripping on the shock since time immemorial.



Figured I'd rather put breakaway torque to fasteners backed up by something solid, so I disconnected them at the radiator and the transmission before snaking them out the bottom of the truck whole. I could have just cut the hoses in half, but I wanted to start with a single crimp first to see what I was getting into. Replaced the old rubber with 100 PSI oil hose with spring clamps. Since these work fine in EFI systems, they'll work fine under nominal oil pressure.



If it's stupid, but it works, it's not stupid.