Thanks Yukon Jack. As soon as the Suburban is driveable I get to ascertain if anything else in the steering or suspension feels worn or loose. Only time will tell if I'll need to replace my ball joints too.
So.... A year ago, while figuring out what to do about my saggy rear end (See what I did there? Ha ha!) it was time to take care of a few things under the hood.
Here are the final locations of both my transmission fluid cooler (left) and engine oil cooler (right):
The engine oil cooler was mounted directly to the A/C condenser and a little bit of creative bracket fabrication was needed to securely mount the impressively large tranny cooler. It is a 28,000 lb Tru-Cool unit, very beefy. I had always planned on using this Suburban as my DD, occasional tow rig and off road fun machine. In short it had to be big, beefy and reliable in most every situation. At least that's what I'd deluded myself to believe.
The oil pressure sending unit and tee were found in a box of parts from the '88 C3500.
The oil pressure sender was confusing because it had been wrapped around to the other side of the engine bay and the threaded oil galley hole had had a plug in it.
I'd been wondering how the whole assembly worked until I did a little research online and in the service manual.
In this picture you can also see the spacers I fabricated out of ½” thick plate steel to raise the engine up a bit and help the stock oil pan on the big block better clear my crossmember. It was still a tight fit, but less so than before. You may also notice that the power steering pump had a slow leak but I didn't yet know why.
Before I'm done with this entry I'll tell you a funny thing that happened back at the shop when I had my Suburban up on a lift. I had tightened down the radiator hoses and filled the radiator to the top with a 50/50 mix. Everything was holding well except for the water pump seals and some of the core plugs which had a bit of a weep to them. I had been looking the block over closely and doing research on which threaded holes might still need to be plugged, or if any small bits bolted to them. There was a small threaded hole on the passenger side of the block, directly under the dipstick support and it had been left empty.
I wasn't sure where exactly it lead, but on closer inspection with a shop light it appeared to be packed with dirt. I grabbed a pick from the tool cart and jabbed it into the dirt. Before I knew what was going on a stream of coolant was soaking me and everything in the immediate vicinity. Shoving a thumb over the hole temporarily stopped the flow, but I still didn't have anything on hand to plug it with. Luckily a clean 5 gallon bucket was barely within reach of my foot. While all the coolant was draining out of the radiator I'd just filled, I ran to the opposite side of the shop, grabbed a coffee can full of assorted plugs and then tried to find one that would fit while coolant was still streaming out at a heady rate. Then I realized I didn't have any thread sealant on hand either. I got it taken care of eventually, then wringed out my socks.
When I rebuilt the engine in my Z car there were a number of tips and tricks I'd acquired. The 454 was the first engine I'd ever rebuilt and didn't benefit from the experience I had gained in the intervening 4 years. I'd bolted the water pump and coolant outlet neck to the engine without any sort of sealant, just dry gaskets. I guess the service manual I had been using didn't mention this little detail. Since half of my engine's coolant had drained onto me, or into a 5 gallon bucket, it seemed like a good time to pop the water pump off and seal it up right. This turned out to be a relatively simple affair and went down without a hitch. I also sealed up the coolant neck and attached the two ground wires to their respective studs.