Crash's 69 K10

[Crash_OK]

Yesterday I received the x-member from Pacific Fabrication. This was needed due to the 5.3L not fitting into the factory x-member. I had purchased a set of Dirty Dingo 4x4 sliders that were designed for the application, but they would not work.. I was not so much a problem with the Dirty Dingo Sliders; it was more a problem with the 5.3L being too wide for the factory x-member. Brent with Dirty Dingo believes I may have a 6 cyl. X-member. Brent with Dirty Dingo has personally seen several installs using their sliders with no issues. However, in my case the Dirty Dingo 4x4 sliders would not work. I have offered to help him determine why they would not work in my application and we will share that information as soon as we have it. If anyone knows the difference between the 6cyl. and V8 x-members please let me know.

So, back to the new x-member from Pacific Fabrication. I will be doing a complete write up after I have installed the x-member. For now, all I can say is that the x-member arrived at my house in perfect condition. All the pieces were wrapped in corrugated cardboard. The x-member appears to be powder coated with a very nice black finish. All the bolts were quality grade 8 bolts. The welds looked very nice and the clam shell motor mounts look like a high end piece.











Once again If anyone knows the difference between the 6cyl. and V8 x-members please let me know.

[Crash_OK]

Last night I started on the wiring harness for the truck. Some wires need to be removed, some need to added, and some need to be repaired.

[Crash_OK]

Tuesday I received the x-member from Pacific Fabrication. This was needed due to the 5.3L not fitting into my factory x-member. The x-member arrived at my house in perfect condition. All the pieces were wrapped in corrugated cardboard. The x-member appeared to be powder coated with a very nice black finish. All the bolts were high quality grade 8 bolts. The welds looked very nice and the clam shell motor mounts look like a high end piece.










Installation – Installation is straight forward. Position the x-member into proper position, drill holes, and mount.. Obviously, there is more to it than that. The installation sheet states that the x-member is designed to be mounted with the motor out of the way. Basically, you remove the factory x-member, and then install the new Pacific Fabrication x-member. Mock the engine into place to determine the proper location for the x-member. After the position has been determined remove the engine, mark the location for the x-member to frame bolts, and then drill the 8 holes required to mount the x-member. Bolt the x-member to the frame and you are ready to swing the engine into place.

I decided not to follow that course. I installed the x-member with the engine in place and supported with a cherry picker. This made the installation difficult, but it is still very doable. I did run into some issue with my install due to my use of a 4L60e instead of the factory TH350. This required my engine to be moved forward 1.875 inches. Moving the engine forward allowed me to leave the transfer case in the stock location. This in turn allows me to use the stock drive shafts with no modification.
Moving the engine forward caused me to have to make a couple of modifications to the install. On a normal install the front of the x-member would slide right up to the rivets holding the front bump stops in place. In my case I had to remove the bump stops to get the x-member in the correct position (1.875” forward of stock). This would have been a 5 minute job with the engine out of the way, it took me a little longer.. maybe 20 minutes. The second modification was drilling the mounting holes from the outside of the frame instead of the inside. I needed to do some measuring and marking to transfer the bolt locations to the outside of the frame. Another issue that really turned into a non-issue is that the frame narrows as you move forward in the x-member area. This makes the x-member fit a little tighter than normal (due to moving the engine forward). It really wasn’t a big issue after the rivets to the bump stops were removed.
Other items to note.. The x-member is notched on the passenger side for brake lines and fuel line. I went ahead and removed my brake lines to easy the installation, I believe it could be done without removing the lines.

Below are some pictures of the x-member and installation.

























The entire installation took me about 3 hours. It could have been done in half of that time on the stock length transmission and following the manufactures recommendation on removing the engine.

Conclusion – I would/will purchase this item in the future. It is very well designed and constructed. As I mentioned before, the item was well packed and delivered very quickly. I considered building my own, but by the time you included, the grade 8 bolts, the clam shell motor mounts, the ¼” plate material, and the time it would take to do the fabrication, I believe a person would be far ahead purchasing this from Pacific Fabrication.
I highly recommend this item.
Let me know if you have any specific questions on the x-member or the install.

[Crash_OK]

Started the day out by re-installing the brake lines. I was able to use the ones on the passenger side with a little re-bending.



I had to bend a new line for the drivers side




Next step was the exhaust manifolds. I was able to find a set of 5.3L Envoy manifolds. They fit like they were made for the truck.






Next was the air conditioner compressor. It fit with no problems using the Pacific Fabrication x-member.









I will have some problems with this line. I either cut a notch in the frame, or I found another line.



Power steering pump install.



Coil packs and plug wires installed.



Then I worked on getting the belts installed.






Next was the wiring… Starting right here makes the installation of the wiring harness easy.




Then I installed the radiator support and radiator.









By the way.. it was 69 here today.. light winds.. I should have been fishing..



I need to bend the tubing for the transmission lines the cheap ass tubing bender O’Reilly’s sold me does not work on steel lines (copper only). Tomorrow I hope to find a set of 5/16” tubing benders and get the transmission lines done. Next big hurdle is the exhaust. I need to put something together until I can get to a muffler shop.