[gottattooz]

Yay oil pressure!!!!

I came home from work and was going to pull the engine back out. I did a quick search to see if anyone had successfully pulled the oil pan without pulling the engine. The search results were for a 2wd, but it gave me the hope to try. I separated the front diff from the pan and secured it with a strap. The instructions online told me what sizes the bolts were and to let the steering rack dangle from the drivers side bolt.

With the pan off, I compared the new pickup to the old one. The new one was a few inches too short, so I decided to repair the old one.

I used a short 1/2 inch drive extension to hammer into the tube to pull the bend out of it. I replaced the o ring and installed the oil pickup clamp I got from eBay.

I swapped the 4.10 front differential for a 3.42 unit I bought online (verifying the ratio before I installed it). I primed the oil galley again and filled the engine oil. Another friend of mine said it took him 3 minutes to get oil pressure on an ls swap he did, so I was mentally preparing myself to do that. I hit the key and it had 45 psi almost immediately!!! Eureka!! I let it run until the engine reached operating temp and checked for leaks while it was running. Now I just have to put everything back together and get it tuned.

-Josh