Thread: 2000 GTP: Still Alive! New Trans?

Took a vacation at work today to get a head start, kinda glad I did. Originally I planned 2 days to do everything this weekend (in the mud), but my dad is coming down on Sunday to hang out. Now I don't (hopefully) have to work on the car while he is here.

Anyways, hopes are to get the valve springs done, I have 4 valves done so far. I'm not in a rush, I'm taking my time just to make everything goes smoothly. Pics!

Pretty much done for the evening, all the springs, seals, and retainers are changed. The front rockers are back in and torqued down, I just need to put them back in the back and put everything else back together. Tomorrow I'll do that, install the band clamp on the rear crossover, change the oil, change the front sway bar endlinks, and the outer tie rods (hoepfully). Here's some more pics.
2 done on the rear:

Rear complete:

Old stuff:
Rear springs:

Rear seals:

Front Springs:

Front seals:

Not sure if these are sock seals or not. They look like they were originally blue, under the oil. I pulled the ring off of one of them to show. WHat do you guys think?

All done, everything went as expected. I left the ICM disconnected for the first crank to prime the oil pump a bit just to be safe, then once I connected it she purred like I drove her yesterday. Seems sooo much smoother. Idles smoother, and seems to have more power across everything. Definitely pulls harder from 4300+, and I only have KR on a downshift...which leads me into Monday's purchase. DHP. That'll be fun. Oh yea, I installed a cabin filter and the water in the floor board fix today. Here's everything all done:

I decided to hold off on the tie rods and all that stuff until tomorrow, when it's less of a mud pit out there.

looks good. what you do the old shoe lace in the piston trick to keep the valves up? i see a fat lace.

Flat rope. 3 years ago I worked at a PVC plant for 5 weeks while I waited for the job I'm at now. They ran this flat rope through the pipe so you could tie it to smaller pipe\wires\whatever else you want to pull through the bigger PVC pipe. Whenever there was scrap, they threw the rope away or gave it to us. I've got a milk crate full of the ****. I shoved somewhere around 6 feet into each cylinder.

More good news, I got approval for the DHP purchase on Monday, just need to e-mail the guy and such. Even Janelle noticed a big difference in the way it drives, so she's happy. I'm wondering if the rear band clamp might have something to do with it, who knows. It was less than $100 well spent, this car just keeps running smoother, it's crazy.

Nevermind on DHP for awhile. Stupid rack and pinion took a ****. I took the driver side boot off to replace it and dumped a cup and a half of power steering fluid out. Things were starting to fee loose, but damn. $200 later and yet another vacation day tomorrow, and I'll have literally every single front end component replaced. Only thing left for the entire suspension would be the lateral arms.

being you need a alignment after the rack now would be a good time for the lca's. unless you got a lifetime alignment warranty or something like that.

good part is that DHP box aint going no where. it will still be there next month.

Already rebuilt them a few pages back. Everything suspension related has been replaced except for the lateral arms in the rear.

oh, rear got ya lol carry on.....

Old one is out, new one has the tie rods installed to the right measurements. It'll at least be good enough to get me to an alignment shop. Here's a pic:
This was the leaking side...

You see see how much came out when I popped the boot off...

Ouch lol.


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Yea. Good times. It's all back together, I just need to measure the tie rods against the subframe to make sure the alignment is somewhat close. New endlinks are in, and I need to change the oil...I think that's it, lol.

you made a mess. lol when i did mine at my friends house i made sue i had lots of cardboard to lay under the car, cause he flips out big time if i stain the paver driveway.

i only had two small drips that hit the cardboard too. was being extra careful.

90% of that is from the original leak after I pulled the boot off. I had a drip pan under it when I disconnected the lines. I have to wait til Wednesday for an alignment. That sucks. Oreillys want's $30 for 2 camber bolts. . If I need to I'll elongate the strut holes a bit. You guys think I will, since I'm only on Vogtlands?

slot the new struts before they go on the car. tell the shop they are slotted so they dont play dumb.

Yup slot the struts or you could of picked up those camber bolts in the FS section but they're sold now


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I think I might be okay, I say this for 2 reasons. First, I got rained out. I did get the rack installed, Moog front endlinks installed, changed the oiled, bled the power steering, and all that stuff...but had no time to slot the struts. Second, I looked up the stock specs and they are 0.4* thru -1.4*, and according to Eibach if I'm lowered an inch, I went -0.75 on camber. I've read on here that we'd be okay to -2.5* so even if I was at the worst spec, I'd still be okay to drop .75*. If I'm not, then I'll go ahead and slot them and take it back, lol.

I had to drive to the store about a mile away, and I'll say the alignment is ****ed. The steering wheel is about 45* off, it's mainly the driver side tire. If the weather lets up a bit I'll run out and pull that tie rod in a bit. Passenger side looks pretty close eyeballing it. I'm talking about toe here, not the camber above, lol. 2 different things going on, FYI.

Just went and pulled the driver side toe in a bit, should have gone more, but it'll be good enough until the alignment on Wednesday...about 2.5 miles of driving til then, lol. I also damn near got stuck in the yard thanks to the mud, I actually threw some rooster tails, lol. Needless to say she'll get hosed off before the alignment. Steering is a lot more responsive, I guess the rack was going out for awhile and I didn't really notice it since it was so gradual. I can't wait for the alignment.

After that, I get to tackle the rust if no one flakes out and I'm done for awhile. I'll get DHP and an SD wing at some point this year, but it's on to working on the truck after this...

What rack.did you get?.was gonna get.one from.advanced for 200 but it got bad reviews. There is a acdelco remain on ebay for 242..just wondering if its any better..mines got over 200k on it and since the motors out might as well replace it.

I ended up going with a Duralast from Autozone since I was in a pinch. I would have gone to Oreillys but they only had stock in the warehouse and I couldn't make it that far. Turns out they're all the same thing across the parts stores, they are all Cardone (Part number: 22162). Most of what I've read has said if they were going to fail it'd be on startup they'd start leaking. A lot of that can be explained by not flushing everything out during install, but a lot of it can't be explained away too. I think (so far) I got lucky, but who knows. It was my only option.