CoronaVan

I assume you are referring to the transmission pan. The timing of your comment is interesting... Just yesterday I did two back to back drain and fills on the transmission. I used my , so technically they were "suck" and fills... Man, that transmission is shifting awesome...

ray caldwell

Sorry was selling my engine before I remove it and did not see update til today.. I did a total flush before I change trans and drain and ad if fluid changes color. Have done 2 filter changes and plan on adding a inline filter when I ad a cooler to system. Been pulling stumps so it's time for another stock filter before adding 100 hp

CoronaVan

Soo... the Corona Van saga continues. A few months after my last post the van's transmission gave out. I was pissed; I parked the van in a corner of my yard and put it in a long-term timeout to let the van think about what it had done...

Fast forward to this summer, my son had lost interest in the van, but my brother (an avid camper) was interested in the van, so I began looking into getting it back on the road. At the end of May 2021 came across a suitable motor and transmission (and transfer case). The motor/trans had recently come out of a rolled 1996 Tahoe (IIRC). The seller told me the motor had ~65K miles on it, and the trans has ~30K miles but there was no way to verify (other than believing the guy's story).

I chose to press the "I believe" button and paid him $1000 for the engine/trans/xfer case.



At the time I didn't realize that a 4L60E has a different tail shaft based on 2WD versus 4WD, so it took a trip to the local transmission shop and $500 to swap over the tail shaft and tail shaft housing. The shop also swapped in a new sun shell and was able to verify that (sun shell aside) the trans was pretty fresh.

Here is a pic is of the 4WD shaft and housing


Here is the trans back from the shop with its newly installed 2WD shaft and housing. The housing was installed upside down (sensor should be on the passenger side), but it was easy to flip it.


I would later discover that because of the different (integrated?) bell housing on the new trans, the van's trans cooling lines wouldn't fit without modification. I chose to cut the hard lines and splice in some transmission hose.


At the beginning of July, we pulled the van into the garage. Getting the motor/trans out of the van was challenging. We removed the intake manifold and chained the beam of the cherry picker as tight to the top of the motor as we could.


My dream (nightmare?) of replacing the lower intake manifold gasket became a reality. I was actually very happy to be able to give the intake a thorough cleaning a rebuild. For what it's worth, the original lower intake manifold was in pretty bad shape, not the improved new style, and was in fact leaking...


After disassembling, I gave the stripped upper and lower a good pressure washing...



Here is the manifold, ready for installation


We also pushed the van out of the garage and gave the engine bay a thorough cleaning and paint. These pics were after pressure washing



And here are a few pics of the finished bay



Fast forward to this weekend. After three long months in the garage, we finally got the Corona Van started on Friday, and yesterday I took the van for a very short test drive around the cul-de-sac. More to come on the actual install and punch list...

Twscarp

Nice job, thanks for documenting.

mountainmanjoe

That's a lot of work. Good for you. How did the other family members feel about engine parts on the dining table?

@Twscarp
if you're replying to the last message posted. There's no need to quote it. Especially not all 40 photos! Nobody wants to scroll through pages of reposted photos. Thanks.

CoronaVan

Thank you; now on to the punch list.

The wife is very tolerant...

CoronaVan

I brought the van home from my neighbor's garage yesterday, I was very happy to see the garage floor completely drip-free... After being there for over three months I am sure he was not disappointed to see it go. I also took the van for a slightly longer ride around the neighborhood. I had it up to about 50mph and it felt really good. I plan to reinstall the front bumper, doghouse, and properly bolt down the seats today. I then plan to start "shaking it down" as my daily-ish driver to make sure it's ready to hand over to my brother.

Here is a pic of the motor/trans in its new home. Putting it back in the van seemed much easier than pulling it out.



Once we got everything reconnected, and added fluids, we had a few "Issues". The first problem was a coolant leak that took some time to track the source. It turned out to be an improperly installed goose neck on the intake. It was no fun fixing it, but thankfully it wasn't anything more sinister.

The next issue was a NO START. The engine turned over but would not start. We could smell the fuel, so it seemed likely to be an electrical issue. It turned out that we installed the distributor with the #1 cylinder at TDC of the exhaust stroke. Once we spun the motor and reinstalled the distributor, the motor fired right up. It was very satisfying.

With all the accessories re-installed it was difficult to see the timing mark. I had to stick my phone in there and take this pic to verify.


And then there was for the CEL, an exhaust leak, and the engine seemed to be "missing" just a tiny bit. The exhaust leak was a bit of a pain to fix, but I was able to get it to seal. I was very concerned about snapping one of the exhaust manifold studs. Thankfully that did not happen and the exhaust sealed.

The CEL was a P1345, which related to the rotation of the distributor (CMP, camshaft retard, blah, blah...). It took moving the distributor one tooth and tweaking the distributor rotation to get it cleared. I have an OBD2 code reader but not a diagnostic tool to check and set the distributor, but I did have an extra distributor cap, so I used the "old school, watch the spark" method.

Here is a pic of the distributor cap I modified to watch the spark. Thankfully there are many youTube videos that show how to use this technique, and once we found the sweet spot, the engine was running very smooth with no more missing and we were able to clear the CEL.


This van has definitely been a lot more work than I ever anticipated, and I still have a few things to iron out, (servicing the AC...). But I am looking forward to passing the Corona Van on to my brother who I know will get some great use from it.

CoronaVan

I put the front bumper on yesterday and took the van out for a proper test drive for about an hour at speeds up to ~75mph and the van ran really well, except...

Going up a hill at about 55-60mph the CEL came on. I figured it was the P1345 again but when I got home and checked the code it was a P0101, which I read relates to the MAF sensor. I had cleaned the MAF before reinstalling it after the engine swap so I am concerned it may need replacing. I reset the code and will be driving the van into work today (about 40 minutes each way) so I will see if the code pops again.

I was actually relieved that it wasn't the P1345 again. I was not looking forward to removing the center console and doghouse and messing around with the distributor again... I'd much rather clean or replace the MAF.

Another kitchen island pic...

William Kisselstein

One thing about conversions, usually all four buckets are the same seat, so you can just put the middle seats in the front to replace worn out seats.

CoronaVan

What...? I mean thank you for your insightful comment.

Anyway, I went ahead and replaced the MAF sensor yesterday, and then took the van for a ~20-minute test drive. The van seems to be running even better and has no CEL. I will give it another 40-minute commuting torture test on Thursday. I also talked to my brother about upgrading the (already replaced) stereo in the dash with a double DIN Android Auto / Apple Carplay compatible unit. He liked the idea and he will be sending a new unit to me soon (I am not paying for it...). I know the dash isn't sized for it but I will make it fit.

I promise I only had one before the test drive.