1970 2000 S15 SR20DE Swap

[burn8]

The shipping company dropped off the S15 today. It looks like a cocoon sitting on the driveway. Let's see how much more of this my wife can take...

-Allan

engine_drop.jpg

[spriso]

Exciting stuff for sure!

When you get a chance, give the engine a good inspection. We like to pull the valve cover to take a look at the cams and valvetrain to make sure everything is looking good. You will be able to strip off the power steering pump, AC pump, stock motor mounts (left and right) and the stock alternator and alternator bracket. You will be amazed how much that cleans up the engine and simplifies things. (And strips a lot of weight off!)

Keep us updated with your progress.

Michael

[Tacomaboy 1]

As long as she has a steady diet of handbags and shoes you'll be just fine with her. LOL.

[burn8]

"As long as she has a steady diet of handbags and shoes you'll be just fine with her."

Tacomaboy, you have no clue how dead on this comment is for me!!!

-Allan

[burn8]

Exciting stuff for sure!

When you get a chance, give the engine a good inspection. We like to pull the valve cover to take a look at the cams and valvetrain to make sure everything is looking good. You will be able to strip off the power steering pump, AC pump, stock motor mounts (left and right) and the stock alternator and alternator bracket. You will be amazed how much that cleans up the engine and simplifies things. (And strips a lot of weight off!)

Keep us updated with your progress.

Michael

Thanks Michael. This sort of information is invaluable for me. It's the only way I'll be able to get this done properly.

-Allan

[burn8]

A buddy and I pulled the body off yesterday.

body_off.jpg

[Roman]

Nice, quick work. I remember seeing that car. The guy had been trying to sell it for a while.

Now you are breathing new life into it.

However, may I point out, it seems someone had lost a shoe in the process.

[burn8]

Thats not a shoe, it's a wheel chock

-Allan

[burn8]

Long day with a couple of trips to Auto Zone.

I started with the front sway-bar which went smoothly except for the stripping of a flathead screw. Who was it that invented the flat-head screw?

Next was the Steering components. I had a tough time disconnecting one of the assembly sockets from it's arm. Off to the store to pickup a ball joint tool. Really had to whack the thing a few times to get it loose. This happened with two other connections as well.

Next came the steering box. The frame is a bit ripply up front from an accident. It was bent back but Im guessing not exactly as it was before the damage because I could not for the life of me remove the box. Off to the store to get a pitman arm puller. The arm came off pretty easily.

Finally I removed each of the front suspension units. I still need to break them down for cleaning, powder coating and rebuild.

One thing that has been really annoying is dealing with old, soft cotter pins in awkward locations. I had to destroy one of the castle nuts today just to get one out.

Sorry for the single boring picture. It really doesn't communicate what I went through today, but it does show my two new tools

suspension_off.jpg

-Allan

[notoptoy]

Good progress!
Need more pictures though.

[burn8]

This morning was spent removing the rear-end. The front suspension was much more of a pain than today's work which took about 2 hrs. I'm working on doing more pictures for y'all.

I started by removing the wheels.

rear_left_drum.jpg

Next I disconnected the shock absorbers. The rear nuts are pretty large. My 1-inch socket was too large, but still worked for me.

rear_shock_nut.jpg

Next I removed the four nuts/u-bolts that tie the differential to the leaf springs. Sorry about the focus here.

rear_U_bolts.jpg

rear_bump_stop.jpg

Here is a great underneath view of the plate from an image I took from another blog:

leaf_spring_center_unbolt.jpg

Now I jacked up the differential and put jackstands underneath to support it.

lifted_diff.jpg

The differential was easily separated from the leaf springs.

leaf_spring_separate.jpg

[burn8]

The leaf spring are connected by a scroll bracket in the back:

leaf_scroll.jpg

and single bolt in the front of the springs:

front_leaf_bolt.jpg

And finally the naked frame. You can see the sun creeping up on me - gets pretty hot out here in the afternoon so I'm glad I finished early

no_rear_end.jpg

Thanks for following along,
-Allan

[RCMike]

Nice!

[burn8]

First off I apologize for the lack of photos. I forgot to bring a camera to the shop this last weekend.

So Spriso's "jiggy" came to spend some of the last few days of summer with me. Here he is test-driving the 2000 frame...

jiggy.jpg

The jig was shipped back to Michael today for the next lucky swapper. I'd like to thank Michael of Spriso for the time he has put into this community. I would not even have contemplated this swap if not for his effort in documenting and providing the tools needed to make this a job one even I could complete (I guess we will have to wait to see if that is actually true).

rightmount.jpg

leftmount.jpg

Hopefully I'll be able to take some time later in the week to finish the front-end cuts and welds and maybe even start tackling the x-frame work.

Thanks for checking-in,
-Allan

[spriso]

Well done Allan! Thanks for documenting your build thread-- the more information that we have out here the better for the next guys who want to take on this swap!

Michael