86 J10 5.3 engine swap and repaint

[Jeepin Jeff]

Just wanted to bring something up that I overlooked after getting my engine swap completed. I had forgotten about dexcool being the coolant used in the original yukon cooling system. My swap 5.3 was pretty much drained (I thought) when I got it and after installing it I filled the cooling system with a couple gallons of new green prestone and distilled water. After the initial startup the coolant mixture looked good and I put the cap on and moved on to other stuff.

I opened the radiator cap last weekend and was shocked to see the nastiest foamy red crap in the radiator tank. It appears there was enough of the dexcool crap left in the block that mixed with the Ethylene glycol and it turns to goo that will cause blockages later. Ended up draining and flushing the system several times once with prestone flush and then a couple more times again with a simple green and water mixture. I removed the thermostat from the housing so water would circulate and ran it through several warm up and cool down cycles, draining it after each cycle. I also found that the heater core would not flow coolant either until I back flushed it, it was full of red sludge. In the end I had everything flushed, thermostat replaced and the radiator looked like new again with nice green antifreeze.

Red and green antifreeze can't be mixed, they are incompatible and will cause a gooey messy sludge. Just remember if it had dexcool in it to completely drain and flush your block well before adding coolant. I knew better but just assumed there wasn't much left that would cause an issue. Anyway I hope this little tidbit will help somebody else, lots of info available out there about how bad it is to mix these two, and it seems to happen a lot.

Jeff

[Tatsadasayago]

Yeah, GM has caught a lot of flak over Dex-Cool including a possible class action suit. I think DC is okay as long as the coolant level is always full. It's the long running with low levels that allow air to begin corroding non ferrous metals and eating gaskets/seals. I found it very hard to believe it would eat through a plastic intake manifold but one of the litigants swears it did.

Glad you were able to reverse the sludge monster before you had a blowout somewhere Jeff.

[Stuka]

Dexcool only eats things if it ages too much. All the makers that use it say to change it every five years.

And dexcool was actually developed by Ford in the 80's. But the dexcool name is trade marked by GM. Which I always found a bit strange.

But just about every new car uses it these days because it's far better for the environment.


Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk

[XJChad]

Thanks for the heads up. I had thought about it and was curious what others were using in their swaps.
Besides the enviromental impact, what is the benefit to Dexcool?

[Atla]

Really nice swap! Good build.

[Jeepin Jeff]

Getting close, few things left under the hood but just about finished up under here.


Windshield was not bad with 2 people involved, need to finish buffing the hood and put the trim back on. Spent a little time removing a few little dents in the trim and even buffed the pieces,
turned out pretty nice.


Seat and most of the interior back in.


Originally had the slider rear window with a plastic latch that had been repaired a couple of times but I decided to use a full back glass when I put it back together.


Just need it to warm up and the bed can be painted. I't's been a long cold winter!

[j20owner]

Got a lot done over the last few days, here is a bit of what has been done.

Throttle cable cut and a cable stop Knarp

More info on this please, if you don't mind.

[Jeepin Jeff]

I got the original 02 GMC throttle cable with my engine. After removing the original jeep throttle cable I had to enlarge the hole in the firewall just a bit and the GMC cable housing snapped right in. Inside the cab I was able to use the original jeep accelerator pedal but the actual cable inside the housing was a couple inches to long. I snipped off the lead cable end that hooked into the throttle body arm (engine side), pulled the slack tight and used the cable knarp from a local bicycle shop to clamp it back on. The one I found is hex shaped but they do have round ones also. It works perfectly, didn't have to modify the throttle arm and it looks good too.
I will admit I didn't know they were called "knarps" until I started looking for them, always called it a cable clamp.


Accelerator Pedal end. Hope this helps.

[Atla]

What's the connection with A/C and breaking the sliding window latch?

[Jeepin Jeff]

What's the connection with A/C and breaking the sliding window latch?

Good question, none really! I need to edit that comment. Never was much for driving around with the rear slider open, never found it very useful myself for anything but an easy way to break in. Since I prefer to ride around with just the windows down or A/C on, I decided to swap the slider for a full back glass and not fix the broken latch again, thats all.

[j20owner]

I understand your work on the throttle cable. Thanks for the info.

[vahokie9539]

Great build I am doing the same conversion on my 1979 J20. Question, what lower radiator hose did you by part# or application I having a tuff time finding one. Thanks

[Jeepin Jeff]

I bought a new upper and lower hose at oreilly auto for a 2002 GMC Yukon with a 5.3. The Griffen radiator I bought has the same inlet and outlet diameter as the stock 5.3 (can't remember what it is right now) but both inlet and outlet fittings are on the passenger side. The lower hose had to be cut and shortened on the radiator side and the upper was easy to cut and make work. I have seen others use a radiator with the top inlet on the drivers side and they used the original top Yukon or Suburban hose.

[Jeepin Jeff]

Last weeks sub project inspiration came from Bills build (protouring442). If you swap in one of these these shift detent plates from a late 80's GM column that had overdrive, you should be able to get into all forward gears. When matched with an 88 (to maybe 94ish?) GM full size van tilt indicator housing/lens w/OD (which I don't have yet) it should tie it all together nicely.



It can be installed without removing the column, took a couple of hours to do but a pretty easy project.



The detent (stamped 5994) can be purchased individually from http://www.steeringcolumnservices.com/ for $16 The OD tilt housing from the older vans is a little harder to round up but I think I have a lead on one. If you can score a complete tilt column from a full size van cheap you will have all you need but those don't seem to avoid the crusher for long in my part of the world.

[Jeepin Jeff]

Have the bed and tailgate ready to spray base/clear but trying to find a good dry day here in Kansas this spring has been tough. Won't be long, really don't have much left to do just a bunch of little stuff.
Better make a list. LOL!

[Jeepin Jeff]

Wanted to add a few more pics of the progress I have made. The swap portion of this is pretty much done, a few little things left to do but I have put around 20 miles on it now and everything is working great so far including the Delphi Cruise control and the Dakota Digital dash.

Made a couple hard fuel lines to mount under the bed, improved the 90 degree corners the nylon lines were making. Really happy with the fuel lines now.


Bed and tailgate painted.




SPI Pure white, a little polishing on bedside with M105 compound, porter cable 7424xp and orange hex logic pad.


Bed back on


Factory rollbar in primer, waiting for satin black paint.


Emblems repainted using syringe, then cleared with SPI universal clear.


Inside of bed prepped, sealed with reduced SPI epoxy and then coated with U-pol raptor black bedliner kit.




Got to finish buffing and a few other little things but getting closer....

[j20owner]

Amazing work. Love how it looks stock, but isn't.

[cmaje72]

Very nicely done. I'm ramping up to get the 5.3 into my wag hopefully some time this month. Do you have a special tool to make the quick disconnect hard lines?

[Jeepin Jeff]

Do you have a special tool to make the quick disconnect hard lines?

I was lucky, my neighbor owns an independent shop and loaned me his Mastercool flaring tool and it does a beautiful job creating push connect flares.
It is one of the nicest most "fun to use" tools I have ever used. It's expensive but if you have a bunch of flares to make it does them quickly, easily, and they are perfect. From what I see of the tool on EBAY, if you buy one, make all your flares and decide you don't need to keep it, you can sell it used and recover almost all your original cost.

[cmaje72]

I figured...I have been wanting that hydraulic flaring tool for years since I first saw it.