What the hell’s been going on with the Toolmonger Shop Truck Build? Well, for a while, a lot of nothing. You may have noticed that the economy isn’t exactly stellar, and honestly we just didn’t have the dough to mess with it for a while. But we’re off the dime, and the truck’s on the move again.

Once we got the engine out and on its stand we discovered we had a lot of work ahead of us. (Remember: a “free” truck is never free.) Time did a number on this truck, and its previous owner had ridden it hard and put it away wet more than once. Under the hood was just as rough as the interior and body work. In fact, it was worse.

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After a bit of a hiatus we resumed our search for a transmission for our shop truck project. We learned several things in the process, not the least of which is this: transmissions can be expensive.

Thankfully our luck held and we managed to find one in the local area that would suit our purposes — but not without first looking damn near everywhere for one that fit both our budget and level of desired risk.

The simple fact of the matter is buying a new tranny would cost about as much as the entire build put together, so we decided to look for the used/rebuilt solutions. These, however, come with the knowledge that you could be right back in this position sooner rather than later. We broke it down into several categories.

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Once we’d lifted our shop truck’s motor we knew we’d have to pay some serious attention to it to get it up to ‘workhorse’ status again.  Because we’d blown our wad on parts for the motor, we decided not to spring for an engine stand but build one ourselves from a few casters and some plywood.

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Remember our budget shop truck? We just took the next step in resurrecting it from the (almost) dead by pulling the motor and assessing the real damage to its components. This would be a major undertaking even for a truck in good condition, and after 235,000 miles of wear, tear, and generally getting beat to hell, our big blue “piece of Chevy” is showing the signs of Mother Nature and Texas roads.

Gunked (or rusted solid) bolts made for a fun day, but any day in the shop is a good day, right? Read on to see how we fared and what issues took us by surprise.

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At Toolmonger, we think of a shop truck as a vehicular multi-tool — as necessary to an active shop as fire and the opposable thumb. But what if you don’t have $25k burning a hole in your pocket? All isn’t lost, especially if you’re willing to turn a wrench and get your hands dirty.

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This Dodecasub makes a great DIY project for a Toolmonger, but cutting the angles can be a problem. After reading this post on the All-In-One Clamp, and this post on the MilesCraft Saw Guide, I still had no solution for how to cut long, straight lines that’re at odd angles to the edge of a board. A table saw with the guide set at an angle will do the trick, but here’s a way to manage it if your shop hasn’t grown that big yet.

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A few weeks ago we finally put the finishing touches on Project Yukon’s late-model engine swap — a task not nearly as difficult as most sales people will claim, but still not for the faint-of-heart.  The good news: The Yukon’s running great with its new heart, and it’s a lot more driveable than it was before the swap. 

Read on past the jump for some pictures, sounds, and a final project summary.

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We survived the “nothing fits” portion of this late-model swap, though certainly without a good bit of frustration.  While the GM Performance Parts H.O. 350 we selected does bolt to the stock engine mounts and transmission, that’s pretty much where the “bolt-in” part of the swap ends.

In this installment, we’ll walk you through our upper-engine trials and tribulations all the way up to installation.

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There’s no such thing as a bolt-in engine “swap.”  If anyone tells you different, they’re lying.  Even though GM Performance found us a really close match for the Yukon, none of the brackets that direct wiring looms and hold electronic packs over the intake manifold fit.  So, in this project garage update we show you how we fabricated replacements.

If you’re considering a late model engine swap — or just want to see how to make brackets from scratch — this is a must read.  (20+ pics)

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We mentioned GM’s Performance Parts division briefly in part one of Project Garage’s Yukon engine swap, but we didn’t get into the serious details.  In part two, we’d like to do just that, and hopefully let you in on what seems to us to be a too-closely-kept secret:  GM offers some great engines and a great service team to back them up.  If you’ve been considering installing a GM engine as part of late-model engine swap (like our Yukon), or if you’re looking for a great late-model engine for your ultimate ‘rod, these people should be high on your list to call.

We bet you’re thinking the same thing we thought when we first started researching the project: Buying performance parts through a standard dealer is a pain.  They rarely know a lot about the parts you’re interested in because they don’t sell very many of them.  Indeed, though you can purchase parts from the GM Performance Parts catalog from any GM dealer, most dealers aren’t intimately familiar with these parts from the road-less-traveled and won’t be able to help you.

However, GM has established a network of “authorized dealers” — 300+ dealers who’ve committed additionally to have at least one person at the dealership who’s trained and up-to-date on the catalog and its application — to assist you.  Furthermore, each of the authorized dealers has access to a support team back at GM Performance Parts headquarters who can answer their questions should your questions stump them. 

As we discovered, calling one of the authorized dealers yields a totally different experience, superior even to that of many custom parts shops.  We called up a Dallas, Texas area dealer who was part of the program when we were first seeking an engine for the Yukon.  We had a difficult situation for a variety of reasons:

• We had a 1995 Yukon that depends on its computer for more than just engine managment.
• We weren’t willing to give up fuel injection.
• We have to pass emissions testing and yearly vehicle inspections (which are moderately difficult here in metropolitan Texas).
• We required a daily-driveable vehicle.
• And, most of all, we wanted more power.

They eventually sold us their H.O. 350 in “base” configuration — no intake manifold or fuel system — along with a carefully-selected intake manifold that fit the Yukon’s non-Vortec throttle-body injection.  The engine’s rated at 330 HP in base configuration.

GM Performance Parts indicates that they have an even better solution for 1996-1998 model Yukons (and similar vehicles): an emissions-legal 383 producing 425 HP with an almost completely bolt-in experience.  Neat stuff, and not nearly as expensive as you’d think.  (They did indicate that there are five states in which the 383 isn’t legal.  Though it’ll pass emissions “sniffer” tests, these five states require that an engine be of the same displacement as the one it replaces in order to be legal.  A stroked/bored 350 doesn’t qualify.  Luckily, Texas isn’t one of those states.  If you need to know what they are, ask a GM Performance Parts authorized dealer; It’s just one of the very interesting things they can tell you.) 

GM Performance Parts also recently re-created their website completely to provide signficantly more information about the program.  We checked it out — link below — and discovered it to be true.  The new website is now the program’s preferred first-point-of-content and can direct you to the authorized dealer closest to you. 

When you call, be sure to ask for a catalog.  Not only does it include some of the most drool-worthy engines you’ll see — such as the Corvette Z06’s LS7, producing 505 HP and gobs of useable torque — but it’s a who’s-who of engines you’ll see installed in mega-rods on TV.  Also, be sure and ask (or check the website) about the GM Performance Parts Mobile Show — a semi-truck-based show that travels from city to city stopping at authorized dealers to give you a chance to see some of the rarer engines first-hand and learn about the product line.

GM plans to release additional improvements to the website in October, including an “engine configurator” that’ll allow you to select from hundreds of engine components (pistons, rods, heads, etc.) to assemble you’re dream engine, then instantly see the exact performance you can expect from your specific combination.  Incredibly, they’re not using simulation to determine the numbers; They’re actually assembling each of the 3,600+ combinations, dropping them on the engine dyno, and testing them.  So, when the configurator says your combination’ll make X-many horsepower, you can bet that some poor guy(s) had to actually build it to see.  (And if you’re an out-of-work engine builder, well, you now know where to call.)

Pricing is quite reasonable — considering what you’re receiving — and their basic 290 HP 350 small-block starts at around $1,700.  We paid around $3,000 for our 330 HP H.O. 350.  GM indicated to us that their engines range from $3/HP to around $17/HP, so they offer products for almost any budget.

We’ll be back next week with an update on the Yukon.  We’ve been busy fabricating upper engine mounts and locating a few of the harder-to-find parts, all of which we’ll tell you about in the update.

GM Performance Parts [GM]

We’re smack in the middle of the Project Garage Yukon’s engine swap, and while we’re not quite ready to spring the next post on you, we did want to give you a heads up on a couple of items that are awfully usefull to have around when you’re taking on an engine swap.

The first is what we’ve always referred to as “board tape.”  It’s the stuff that professional audio engineers use to label mixing boards as it fits perfectly in the little indented strip below the faders.  We use it to label plugs, wires, and other items that we want to be sure to put back in the same place during assembly. We’re not horribly concerned about its specific size, but we like to use it because it’s easy to write on with a pen, very smudge resistant, and comes in a nice-sized roll.  You can usually pick the stuff up at big music stores, or you can order it online from a variety of sources.

The other item is a box of locking-top sandwich bags.  We’re partial to Heftys or Ziplocs as they have the “zipper” across the top for easy opening and sure-fire closing.  The Ziplocs also have a slick white section on which you can write with a Sharpie.  The advantage to these: now you can put all the bolts, nuts, or other little parts that go with a larger part in a bag and label it.  In fact, if you’re pulling the part you can also go ahead and tape the bag to the item as well, which makes reassembly easy.  You can find these at any grocery store.

You can lose hours or even days if you misplace fasteners during a large task like this, so why not spend the $20 or so on these items and make sure you’ve got it all under control?

We’re just sayin’.

Ziploc [Ziploc.com]
Board Tape [Froogle]

Earlier this week we mentioned that we brought a few new projects into the garage, and this is one of them: a beautiful 1995 Yukon GT — the two door version — that spent its easy 24,000 mile life in Arizona.

As clean and nice as the Yukon might be, though, it’s horribly underpowered.  With the stock 5.7L (350 CID) engine producing only just shy of 200 HP, this SUV makes a lot of racket but doesn’t really do much to move itself.  The question we’ve been pondering is how to give this creampuff a much-needed injection of power without sacrificing driveability or reliability.

In our minds, one of the big factors in driveability is fuel injection.  We don’t want to give up the Yukon’s instant start capability, and we don’t want to be crawling back under the hood every time the weather changes, either.  So high on our list is keeping the injection.  Calls to numerous crate motor manufacturers made it clear that dropping in an injected crate motor would be very, very difficult.  Most of the pre-configured injection systems available are designed more for installation in older, carb’d engines as opposed to integrating with other modern systems like an electronically-controlled transmission and computer controlled gauge package.  In short, we were told that to install an injected crate motor we could expect to scrap the transmission and build our own gauge package for the dash.  And we could forget the climate control.  Ouch!

Enter GM Performance and their very thorough catalog.  It was a bit difficult to track down these guys.  Calls to GM directly were answered by people who’d either never heard of the performance division or forwarded us to someone else they thought might know something.  Eventually one of them did, and we were informed that GM Performance parts are only sold through dealers which support the program.  Currently there are five of them in the US.  Luckily, one of them is located relatively near our offices and shop here in Texas, so we made a beeline there.

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We’ve received a number of email requests from readers asking for more project coverage in general and for more automotive project coverage specifically.  Well, ask and you shall receive.  This first Toolmonger “project garage” post will cover the beginning stages of one of the automotive projects we’re currently undertaking: the teardown and rebuild of a wrecked BMW “airhead.”

BMW fans refer to their line of horizontally-opposed-air-cooled-twin series of bikes as “airheads.”  We came across this particular example — a 1976 R90/6 — as a “haul-it-off” special in the Fort Worth area.  As best we can determine it was parked in “as wrecked” condition after an accident about five years ago.  Apparently it was “t-boned” at low speed from the rider’s right.  Though there’s certain to be some frame damage, the bike rolled straight and appeared surprisingly together considering what it’d been through.

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