Wednesday, January 7, 2015
#2 Chevrolet 4.3 G Body Serpentine - Air Conditioning
Living in Nevada, having working A/C is mandatory. This part of the swap was a bit complicated due to a larger distance from the condenser to the compressor due to the V6. The serpentine conversion relocates the compressor from the drivers to passengers side of the engine.
The first complication is that the high side port can be placed in a number of differing spots depending on whether it's a B body, F body or BOP G body. On the Chevrolet G body the port is on the line coming into the evaporator. On the B body it is in the manifold that connects to the compressor. On the BOP G body it is just aft of the manifold going into the condenser.
Below is a B Body a\c manifold with the high side port.
The evaporator outlet on a G body points to the side where the F body comes straight up. Below is a F body outlet.
On the Chevrolet G body, the condenser is on the top left side. On the BOP G body it is on the right top side. The F body that is late 80's has a high efficiency parallel condenser where the connections are middle right. I went the F body route. The condenser was a direct fit that didn't inter with anything on the El Camino.
Another snag is the accumulator. The Chevrolet G body has the low side line hooking up at the top. On some B bodies and BOP G bodies, the accumulator line is on the bottom and is not removable.
The setup I cobbled together were the late 80's F body manifold and a G body BOP high side line from the condenser to the evaporator. There were three issues with this setup. 1) The high side line of the manifold was too short as it came off of a V8 Camaro. 2) There was no high side port on this setup. 3) The low side line was kind of long and hit the overflow tank off the radiator.
The high side fixes were to first cut off enough of the 1/2 line with the condenser male fitting from a junkyard unit. Second, cut out the high pressure port from the old G body piece leaving the male end. Lastly using a 1/2 - 3/8 compression adapter fitting from Home Depot, make a new piece. To say it another way, take the Home Depot fitting and mate the 1/2 inch condenser outlet piece to the 3/8 inch end of the high pressure fitting from the old G body line. What you now have is the manifold line screwing into the new piece which screws into the condensor.
The BOP G body condenser to evaporator line fit without any modifications.
The low side fixes involved removing the radiator overflow tank and judiciously working the line with a tube bender and doing the same coming off the manifold. It wasn't pretty but it worked!
Changing the compressor from V belt to serpentine wasn't too hard with the correct tools. Before I went to the junkyard I stopped at Autozone and rented the clutch tool, a clutch hold tool and a 2 tong puller. You'll also need a pair of snap ring plyers that can spread at least an inch. The crummy Harbor Freight tool doesn't spread far enough apart. With the proper tools, it was fairly easy to change the pulleys. There are some good you tube videos that I am glad I watched beforehand.
#5 Chevrolet 4.3 G Body Serpentine - AIR pump
The smog pump is ugly and takes up valuable room on the left side of the engine. It also can effect the functioning of the TBI injection if it doesn't work. If the O2 sensor can't tell the pump is sending air, the computer will compensate the mixture. The pump has to stay and be operational!
The 4.3 TBI pump is hooked to the double solenoids by various pieces of formed hose. The pump outlet points the wrong direction when positioned in the serpentine bracket.
The fix was to remove the G body outlet and replace it with a F body outlet. The F body piece is solid rather than a bunch of angled hoses. The F body piece puts the solenoid right next to the heater case, so it had to be bent upwards a bit. In a V8 configuration, the whole thing would sit a few inches forward. I have a 4.3 V6. The hard plastic outlet where the solenoid bolts to the F body piece has to be cut flush. Otherwise, the existing solenoid leads are long enough to plug in. The rubber tubes off the downstream pipe and the cylinder head pipe will hookup with a bit of bending.
The really ugly part of this is that with the a/c compressor, the F body smog pump bracket and solenoids, best of luck getting to the passenger side spark plugs!!
#7 Chevrolet 4.3 G Body Serpentine - Costs-not including cores or parts not used
| Fan Blade | 5.50 |
| Water Pump | 11.00 |
| Bracket | 5.50 |
| Belt Tensioner \ Bracket | 11.00 |
| 3 Pulley's | 16.50 |
| PS Pump | 22.00 |
| A/C Condenser | 38.50 |
| Belt | 1.10 |
| Alternator Pigtail (SI) | 2.75 |
| A\C High Hose | 12.00 |
| A\C Manifold | 23.00 |
| Fan Clutch | 5.50 |
| Alternator | 22.00 |
| Battery Cable | 2.75 |
| EC82 Adapter | 19.99 |
| Crank Pulley | 11.00 |
| Compression Adapter | 5.32 |
| Water pump gasket | 1.99 |
| Tax | 20.01 |
| Environmental Fee | 6.26 |
| Total | 249.93 |
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#6 Chevrolet 4.3 G Body Serpentine - Power Steering
The Saginaw pump used on the serpentine belt cars is supposed to be a superior unit to the G body model. A bonus that the F body has is a line that acts like a PS cooler. I used the F body outlet lines and the G body return line.
The cooler section bolted right to the G body lower radiator support.
Here's my you tube video concerning this part and the final assembly of the entire conversion
#4 Chevrolet 4.3 G Body Serpentine - Cooling system
The serpentine belt runs the water pump backwards of a V belt setup. This was pretty uncomplicated but required a few pieces to work correctly.
I used pieces off of a 1993 305 TBI Caprice for the parts forward of the water pump. The fan and the FAN CLUTCH go together. GM designed the fan so that it can't be used with a V belt fan clutch. The parts don't fit together.
The water pump donor was from a 1989 TBI Camaro. This is a water pump with a provision for a heater outlet. I pulled the outlet off the original 4.3 water pump and transferred it to the Camaro one. The Caprice pump may have worked but the Camaro one looked fairly new. The Camaro pump didn't use a mechanical fan, so I had to steal the studs off the Caprice water pump.
The parts matched up fine with the 4.3 fan shroud!
#3 Chevrolet 4.3 G Body Serpentine - Alternator
Converting to a serpentine bracket from a late 80's F body meant a SI to CS alternator swap. Not being familiar with the CS130 wiring made this a bit more complicated. The complication was increased due to a previous warning light to gauge swap that rendered the brown trigger wire useless. The SI alternator must not use the brown wire as a trigger as I drove for a couple years with the wire being a dead lead.
My research found that the only necessary wires on the CS130 are the brown trigger wire and the rear lug to the battery. The junkyard cars had variously a red wire from the S terminal , a brown white stripe wire from F terminal and always a brown wire from the L terminal.
I also found reference's to a Delco or Echlin SI to CS adapter plug. There are two item numbers depending on whether the brown wire goes through a dummy light.
My first try was a failure resulting in a burned up voltage regulator. When I checked the voltage on my brown lead from the gauge cluster, I found it was dead. The CS130 needs a 12 volt switched lead with at least 50 ohms resistance through it. In most cars, this is accomplished by the dummy light. The lead power wire to the alternator was also really too small for this high amp alternator.
I went back to the drawing board and this time I bought a junkyard CS130 along with the lead wire and the plug. The Echlin plug adapter I bought was supposed to have a resistor wire built into the yellow wire that hooks up to the L terminal. It did not and as such fried the voltage regulator. Radio Shack has a nice 50 ohm resistor that sells for about three dollars.
The S wire is not absolutely necessary but does serve an important function of telling the voltage regulator what's in the system as opposed to relaying on what the alternator is producing. I didn't figure out the exact function of the F terminal. On the 1993 Caprice wiring diagram, it appears to go straight to another 12 volt source.
The wiring I cooked up was first to tie the brown trigger wire into the EGR solenoid power wire. It only has a load for a few minutes at best, so it seemed like a good enough switched source. Since the Echlin harness lacked the needed resistance, I cut the 50 ohm resistor into this wire.
A new S terminal wire was run to a junction bus that is between the battery and the ignition timing box. The 6 gauge wire that I grabbed was patched into the battery cable to the alternator power lug.
Another way to say it is that the Echlin plug has a S and a L terminal. The wires are yellow and red. The other end inserts into the SI alternator plug. The colors are now brown and red. If your brown wire has 12 volts and goes through an idiot light, you're done. If not, you need to add a resistor. An example is if the brown wire comes straight off the ignition key or through a gauge, there must be a resistor. The SI red wire went to the power lug on the alternator. It's a waste of wire to hook it up like this on the CS. Either leave the red wire off or run it to the battery so the regulator can compare battery and alternator voltage.
I had $30 in the junkyard CS130, $20 in the Echlin adapter harness and $3 in the radio shack resistor. Since the resistor was a 2 pack, I took the extra one and cut it into the original CS plug and sold it on eBay for $10.
#1 Chevrolet 4.3 G Body Serpentine - Brackets
There are a number of choices of donor vehicles for the serpentine brackets and pulleys that utilize the R4 a\c compressor. 1987-1992 F body V8's and 1987-1993 Z code S10 trucks seem to be the most popular. The oddest was the late 80's trucks which used a cast iron bracket rather than aluminum. 1991-1993 B bodies and early 90's trucks are other alternatives. All of the choices that utilized the R4 a\c compressor placed it on the left side.
The S10 brackets mounted with conventional bolts while the cars used star socket bolts. You'll need a special tool to pull the PS pump pulley. You'll need 4 special tools to pull the a/c pulley. You'll also need a 1/4 socket to remove the two studs that hold the brackets to the heads.
An issue with some but not all truck brackets is lack of smog pump mounting. Below is a S10 right side bracket
The left side bracket is similar to the F body and B Body
Some late 80's trucks used cast iron brackets similar to the V belt setup. I noticed some of them had stress cracks which was the main reason I did this swap. My V belt PS bracket broke twice in the last 3 years.
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An interesting alternator bracket was from a 1989 Caprice 9C1. It was larger than the CS130 bracket. Did it fit the old SI or a larger CS144?
I used the drive system from a 1989 Camaro with a 5.0 TBI motor like this one.
Finally, there are several ways the belt gets routed. This is the only routing that worked for me.
GM used a combination serpentine belt for the alternator and V belts for everything else in the mid 80's. The setup below is off of a 85 TPI Camaro. This is very similar to the 4.3 V6 TBI setup. I kept the existing crankshaft pulley (serpentine-V belt combo) but have been having issues with the belt splitting which wasa resolved by using the serpentine pulley.
I thought I could use the existing crankshaft pulley. After loosing the outermost rib on two different belts, I went back to Pic A Parts to get a crank pulley. Here is a comparison of the two. It appears they are different by a 1/16. No sliced belts since the change!
This is the end result!
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