JUNK!

Today I took the old 3800 down to the metal recycler,Scrapped!Really nothing good about it the crank and rods were beat and the head castings are a bad year(Prone to cracking with high lift springs at the very least.).Also the Valve springs were out of spec so lose lose situation on to a new motor.Not all bad I can't believe what they are paying for old cats I received 26 dollars for 320lbs of scrap iron and 100 dollars for one rusty catalytic converter(see pic)!

Pulled!

Finally pulled out the old L67 tonight.Used a 4x4 and few friends(Thats what friends are for !)I'll have to get a lift for the new motor but in the meantime I needed to clean up the bay and get this hunk of iron to the recycler.

Brakes,GM bodies and motor mounts.

Well after getting the starter and all bolt on accessories off Im ready to pull the engine just the motor mounts and transmission bolts left.
The GM bodies are interesting having done some research into the C and H front wheel drive platforms.The C introduced in the Electra in 85 was used for all Park avenues till 2005,the very similar H body introduced a year later in 86 is still in use with the Buick Lucerne.My conundrum was if rear disc conversion is possible.As the older C and H cars like my 96 PA and the Bonnevilles up to 96 for the PA and 00' for the Bonnys have drum brakes.Now don't get me wrong drum brakes can work pretty well I had a 63 Buick with 12" drums all the way around and it had stopping power.It did suffer from fade and contamination issues common to all drums though .Id love to switch to disc brakes but Im not sure it's worth it for me powder coated drums might be the ticket.For what it's worth it's possible to convert to disc on the older PAs but this would involve switching out the whole rear assembly including the crossmember or some fab work with a torch take your pick.These picks show the rear suspensions of a 96 PA and a 99 PA.Basically GM installed an updated suspension on the 99 based on a new rear crossmember.Hence the swap of the whole assembly ,according to Haynes these crossmembers unbolt so ..on paper it sounds like you can swap them hmm.More research needed I believe ..

Double Brr

Way too cold today to work outside I think we had a high of 18 and I had no toe warmers left so..

My final solution is to get an L32(04+ 3800 supercharged) complete.Too much involved parting a motor together.I can take the L32 and pull the intake and install the intake from the L67 and the brackets.Nothing original from what I have read others have done the same and it's the easy way out.I can plop the L32 in heads and all and then bolt on what I need.

Lapping valves,installing Ls6 springs,300 dollar cams and buying 150 dollar head gaskets can be fun,however it can get expensive.The L32 from the factory makes 260hp with a new exhaust,modded airbox and a tune I cant see 300hp being unreachable ,it will be low cost and reliable .

Old Heads

These are the old heads I pulled today.Messy messy so were the exhaust manifolds you can see one on the floor in the pic to the left.Conundrums conundrums ..Well according to what I have read on forums these heads are crap I guess GM didn't make the earlier 96-98 heads to well and they are prone to crack.So my plan now is to locate a low mile L26(NA 3800 with powder coated rods)and find a pair of L67 heads that are casting 4781 I believe but I will have to double check.

This is the fuel line to the fuel rail,not a bad idea but hardly a quick connect .Took three flathead screwdrivers to get it off and an extra set of hands .This cold weather is a pain today we had a high of 22 lol.Thankfully toewarmers were onhand for today.I got the intake manifold,supercharger,fuel rail,hoses,tensioners,brackets,etc.What's left is the rear exhaust manifold,the heads,the ac and the block.Since I am not installing the new motor just yet I will probably just pull the old block by hand with chain and 2x6,it's really not that big or heavy without the extras ,few strong backs will be needed though hehe.This way I can fix the aforementioned firewall problem.

Night Work

Progress is slow at night when you have to turn exhaust manifold bolts with a wrench 1/2 turn at a time.Although I did ok today I removed the front exhaust manifold,fans,coil packs ,crossover pipe,egr and few misc things.I am removing everything off the block as I need the heads up the block will be scrapped as that's where the damage is(Bad connecting rod bearings,possible bad rod and crank etc).The block on these 3800 motors is pretty small though.It looks small enough to just pull it right out by hand lol.Actually about 15 years ago me and two buddies dropped a 350 into 78 Camaro with chains and a 2x4.We just put it on our shoulders and walked it over and plopped it in hehe.(Ah to be that young again.)