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'56 willys truck

jjeep71--good to see you here. Indeed, how do you know?! I found out my tranny is the 4l80e that has issues with heat due to the cooler line locations, so I'm going to change it out. Decision made.
 
Thanks csutton7 On the 5.3 we got a harness with the motor and sent the PCM to get flashed. Something like $500 bucks and well worth the money. The guy cut out all the unused wires and set up the PCM exactly how we wanted it, fan temps, automatic etc. Pretty much turn key when we finally started it. The car had a painless kit the PO installed and it was easy to go from there. My son got lazy and never charged the A/C but everything else works great.
 
Thanks csutton7 On the 5.3 we got a harness with the motor and sent the PCM to get flashed. Something like $500 bucks and well worth the money. The guy cut out all the unused wires and set up the PCM exactly how we wanted it, fan temps, automatic etc. Pretty much turn key when we finally started it. The car had a painless kit the PO installed and it was easy to go from there. My son got lazy and never charged the A/C but everything else works great.
Who did you send it to? I'm going to have to get mine done or order an aftermarket harness.
 
Yea, who did you send it to and no I haven’t jumped that hurdle yet and I’m leaning towards the Holley terminator x to be honest, since I’m 70% done with wiring up the painless wiring kit, but if you had good luck sending it to that guy I’m all ears. Tonight is research night, so if I find some good info I’ll be posting it here. I’ve heard LT1swaps may be a good option, but I’ve not checked it out yet.
 
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If I go the terminator x route my harness and computer will be for sale. I did buy a shallow oil pan and some gaskets, so the money drain begins!! But for good reason. Now I’m on the hunt for a better 4l80e for rebuilding purposes.
 
Go 6L80 if you have the room. Much lower first gear and double overdrive if you have to run a computer anyway. It's the better all around trans. Lower crawl ratios and better fuel economy.
 
Not one to be found around here that's not attached to a motor and I'm going to go look at a 4l80e tomorrow and since I'm not in the mood to change driveshafts and all the support members I'm kind of locked in with the 4l80e, unless something changes between now and tomorrow morning.
 


 
I picked up the 4l80e and now I'm on the fence to try and rebuild it myself(never done one before) or have the guy I bought the LS from do it. Ebay has some clutch presses for $40-$60, so I'm very tempted. Decisions, decisions, decisions!!!! Oh yea I've been watching the Driveway Engineer and he's got me inspired to do this and that may be dangerous, but I do like his videos and so we shall see. Of course if I do go down this road I will need to figure out who's rebuild kit to buy. More research.

The teardown of the 5.7 to be able to pull it out of the truck has commenced, but before we started that I did the diode jumper alternator thingy and it worked. Now the question is will I need to do it on the 6.0LS?

I have ordered the front and rear cover gaskets & tools, camshaft position sensor, a knock sensor(one looks brand new and one is rusted, so I will replace the rusted one), knock sensor wiring harness(one plug was rusted), intake gaskets, exhaust gaskets, evaporator block off, shallow oil pan and a few other things coming. I still need the EGR block off stuff, throttle cable, air filter and elbow(need to get motor in to see what I can make work).

Oh yea we replaced the rear calipers and the brakes are way better, but the pedal is weird, as it's easy to press and goes to the floor, but the rear wheels are stopping now. I may have to replace the front calipers, but we shall see once we get the LS motor in and running before I go down that road.

I must say I do like learning about the LS motors, but wish I had more time to do so. I'm beyond antsy to get this thing rolling, since I was so close a week ago.
 
I'd do both knock sensors for the failure rate they seem to have. Autos aren't terribly difficult to rebuild, just make sure you have good torque wrenches (and make sure one is 1/4" drive in inch pounds) go slow, take lots of pictures while disassembling.
 
1Sinner--got the torque wrenches covered by German(Gutentite) methods--you know someone has done it, but it won't be me. I have them.

jjeep71--no worries, there's good info out there on this, but I'm still leaning towards the HOLLEY 550-917 harness, but since it's on backorder I'm haven't started frothing at the mouth yet since I'm still probably 2-3 weeks away from getting it back together. Depends on the tranny turn-around time if I do it or have it done.

Speaking of that, if I was to go for it and rebuild it myself I see Jake's Performance has some kits. Does anyone have any other recommendations I should be looking at?
 
Anything with a full gasket kit, good bands and clutches. They're pretty much all the same with different names on the boxes because only a handful of manufacturers actually make the clutches and friction material.
 
Knock, Knock? Who's there? Not the motor with a knock, it's out and sitting in the garage.

Now decisions need to be made.
 
Well, I ordered the Holley 550-917 Terminator X max harness setup from Speedway, as they haven't raised the price of it like Holley, Jegs & Summit did around noon today. I have two weeks or so to cancel it while I do more research to see if I do actually want it. What's forcing my hand is I only have the motor side of the harness and not the fuse box and #1 I haven't looked at it the harness thoroughly to see what is there(like turn signals, headlights, etc) & #2 I have the Painless Wiring set up in place(still need to tidy up stuff and run wires to switches and radio and stuff like that), so I'm not sure if I feel like ripping it all out and starting over. One reason I went with the Painless is that the old '92 Chevy harness I had was going to be a pain in the ass to wire up and I'd pretty much be in the same place as that if I use the LS harness. Plus I figure I can sell what I have. I will look at my LS harness and see if it makes sense to cut off the firewall connector and splice it into the Painless Wires on the engine side, but I have the feeling that probably isn't the smartest route to take here.

Transmission has been dropped off(decided to forego rebuilding it myself), so now it's a wait-and-see game to see what rebuild kit makes sense, get it bought and wait for it to arrive.

I figure in the meantime I can temp lift the motor in place to figure out the new motor mount locations, since the old 4L80e is still in place and get those tacked in, change gaskets and seals and some sensors, work on switches and wiring rock lights & LED lights, other wiring, fenders, modify the driver's floorboard at the gas pedal and the other multitude of misc little stuff that needs to be done.

I know I'll be chomping at the bit once the harness arrives and the motor is ready.
 
That Holey system is a stand alone engine harness. You'll still need your Painless setup for the chassis side.

I'd bet the Holley system only needs one or two power wires ran to it to work. One being key on.
 
Yea, it's just like the FAST EFI system in that regard, so yea I still need either the Painless system or the fuse block side for the LS harness(if I use it) and maybe more to make all the lights work, alternator, etc.....work properly. I'm probably going to stick with the HOLLEY/PAINLESS combo at this point.

And for last evening's excitement, we cleaned the engine. Scraped off a lot of oil/dirt/crap and then used the foamy engine degreaser. It worked better than I thought it would on the areas we scraped, but on the heavy crudded areas it wasn't as good, so the pressure washer took care of that and then we took the air hose to it to really dry it off. I still need to hit some sensitive areas with some brake clean, but for the most part the thing is clean. Also removed the old motor mounts.
 
Does the Painless fuse block have an empty key on terminal?

Personally, I really like the idea of having the engine side and chassis side completely separate. That way, if the chassis side goes dark, the rig will still run.
 
I think it does, but I'd have to double check that. Why do you ask? To power up the computer?

I looked at the harness tonight to just to look to see if I could figure out the connectors. Some I did and some I have no idea as of yet. Still a hard lean to the HOLLEY harness, but I need to do some more research on my harness to figure it out to make a final decision.

Now I'm wondering about power steering pump upgrades, so again more research.
 
I ordered the Goat Built LS power steering/alternator mount, power steering pump & pulley to solve the "I hate the can pumps and pulleys" issue. I still need to order a reservoir.

I've ordered about every sensor, gasket(no head gasket yet!), oil pump, timing gear, block offs, fuel line adapter, alternator, water pump, steam kit and shit I can't recall what else. I don't know if I'm being smart or dumb. I just don't want to dig into this LS until it needs to be rebuilt, so replacing wear parts seems prudent. Now heads and cams and blowers and turbos are spinning through my head, horsepower junky, but I'll settle for a cam and maybe some 862 or 706 heads if I can find some good enough and the price is right. Problem is, what's a good price and really do I need to do it?!!!!! Do I really need to do any of it? I know guys dig them out of junk yards and swap them in and have no issues, but my luck runs down a different track, so I try to hedge a bit to at least help on the WTF's that come my way. Oh yea, I got a shorter oil pan too. Once some more of the stuff comes in I'll be diving into the replacement of the wear parts. Other than that I installed & wired the neutral safety switch, mounted the GPS speedo, reorganized the mess in the garage to less of a mess and did some wire loom work in the dash to clean that up.

Going to be slow going until parts come in and the tranny is ready. Mostly figuring out rock lights mounts, LED mounts and stereo install and wiring is about all I can do at this point beyond the motor stuff. It's all stuff that has to be done though, so it's not like the truck is just sitting there collecting dust. Oh yea, still waiting on my front driveshaft. I think we are going on a month now, but it doesn't matter cuz I'm not going anywhere soon, parts are delayed and these aren't out of the ordinary parts, except for here I guess!!!
 
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I think it does, but I'd have to double check that. Why do you ask? To power up the computer?

I looked at the harness tonight to just to look to see if I could figure out the connectors. Some I did and some I have no idea as of yet. Still a hard lean to the HOLLEY harness, but I need to do some more research on my harness to figure it out to make a final decision.

Now I'm wondering about power steering pump upgrades, so again more research.

Yes, for powering up the computer.

Are you thinking about using the factory engine harness with the Holley computer? I'm 99.9% sure the Holley system comes with their harness. I would absolutely run the Holley harness for their computer.That's going to be the difference between plug and play and a massive headache.
 
Got it. No, I was never going to try that, as you are correct that would seem to be a major pain in more ways than one. The only use of the LS harness now is for other connectors, like the alternator for example and I really don't want to hack it for those types of things, as I'm sure I can buy them, but we shall see. I need to read the install instructions on the HOLLEY before it gets here to see what I may have to buy to keep me from cutting the LS harness as I would love to sell it.
 
So I have a couple of turbos from my Dodge Cummins diesel days--one is a Turbonetics ball bearing unit(if I remember correctly) and I've got an itch to see if I can attach that to this LS. It may be too much of a pain to do the piping, but to really get an idea I will have to temp set the motor in the truck and do some head-scratching. I probably shouldn't be thinking of this, but it's in my brain and that turbo has very little use on it and it's just sitting in a box, so why not at least pull it out to see what it will take.
 
You can do it, they have turbo exhaust setups off the shelf for the LS family. Question is, will the AR ratio on the exhaust side be the right one for your exhaust flow? I know the KC I have on my Ford will spool to 35psi with no issues, bit that LS will not take that stock.
 
True on that--I'm not looking for mega horsepower, but I remember my '48 with a built 5.0 'stang motor not liking hills and this pig weighs more, so I'm just thinking why not if I can package it in there. Now the LS will have more HP stock than the built 5.0, but still it's in the back of my head that a little more HP won't hurt with 5-10psi of boost from a turbo.
 
Turbo is all top end HP, not down low grunt where you need it. Fun, no doubt, and I'd love to see this build take a turn even further down the road to insanity (much like me looking at that LS2 in mine and thinking supercharger heaven). But I think gearing would be your better, and more reliable bet.
 
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