2001 GMC Sonoma 2.2L Engine Replacement Series

Hey Eric, Great vids. Most detailed engine swap EVER WOW! Great job. Sorry to hear about the reason of this vid, you rock man.

NOW! I really hope you start that thing up and take us for a drive! AFTER watching every video of this series and only being a guy that can comfortably do BRAKES on his car and has NO idea how to take an engine out, I hope we get to go for a drive in it and hear that motor. I know its only a 2.2 Sonoma but hey lets hear that thing.

I really missed that on the 5.3 V8 tahoe swap, I watched the whole thing and I wanted to hear it in action.

Much like you did in the TL valve adjustment… at the end you take us for a drive. LOVE IT.

KEEP DOING WHAT YOU DO. You ROCK.

I enjoyed the Sonoma series. I felt like I was in the room watching the repair. I love watching different types of engines go together. It’s interesting to see how different manufacturers put things together. My favorites are the domestic V8’s but I can get into the 4’s as well.

Nice job. The series brought me a lot of enjoyment.

Eric, a suggestion, for you premium video on the sonoma, can you put quicklinks/chapter on the video for important sections of the job, like eg: “removing stuck exhaust bolt”, “installing clutch” etc…

that would make it easier for us rather than scrolling thru 8 hours of video trying to find it.

has the full version of the GMC Sonoma been released yet?

I watched the Sonoma videos the other night. By the way, I never would have imagined what a difficult job this little truck would present.

I watch other videos of this sort on youtube. I love the engine pulls. Anyway, one thing that continues to amaze me is how you guys can remember where all the fasteners go. And, of course, sometimes you don’t and I see where this can cause holdups or searching around. For example a part may be attached by three bolts, one of which is of a special design to hold a wiring clip that goes on later. So, it gets in the wrong place and later you have to dig back to move it.

Anyway, I can’t work that way. I gotta keep track of where the bolts go. Otherwise I get frustrated. So, I always have a couple of big packages of Styrofoam cups in the shop. If the part has three bolts all the same they go in a marked cup. If one is different it gets its own cup and the cup is marked as to where the fastener goes.

When I’ve had engines and transmission out I may have a fair section of the workbench covered with rows of cups. I was doing a big job this fall and I got a virus and retired to the house for a couple of weeks. Well no problem remembering where everything went.

Since I’ve never worked in the business professionally maybe I just don’t understand what it is like. Anyway, I love my little cup system. I saw a video where a guy was doing the same thing only he was using brown paper grocery sacks – the big ones. I tried to picture what 50 paper sacks would look like. Pretty funny.

Edit – I decided to add an example)

I had just installed a rear motor mount on the back of a transmission. This was a blind job one click at a time with an angled gear wrench. Four bolts came out of the mount, two were plated and two were that olive green color that the Japanese makers use on parts. Now, this should have told me something but all four had the same diameter, thread and appeared to be the same length. They all four went in a cup together. They weren’t all the same length.

Now it was time to install the speed sensor. It went down in a hole where every time you reached there you had to be willing to sacrifice skin and it won’t go in. So I mess around with this for about three hours until I determine that the end of a fastener is sticking through 1or 2mm and that is enough to interfere with the sensor.

Rather that moving bolts, another three hour job, I chose to grind the side of the sensor. A little more fastener discipline could have avoided a wasted afternoon. So, the cup method isn’t perfect either but it could have been had I used it properly.

[quote=”barneyb” post=90614]I watched the Sonoma videos the other night. By the way, I never would have imagined what a difficult job this little truck would present.

I watch other videos of this sort on youtube. I love the engine pulls. Anyway, one thing that continues to amaze me is how you guys can remember where all the fasteners go. And, of course, sometimes you don’t and I see where this can cause holdups or searching around. For example a part may be attached by three bolts, one of which is of a special design to hold a wiring clip that goes on later. So, it gets in the wrong place and later you have to dig back to move it.

Anyway, I can’t work that way. I gotta keep track of where the bolts go. Otherwise I get frustrated. So, I always have a couple of big packages of Styrofoam cups in the shop. If the part has three bolts all the same they go in a marked cup. If one is different it gets its own cup and the cup is marked as to where the fastener goes.

When I’ve had engines and transmission out I may have a fair section of the workbench covered with rows of cups. I was doing a big job this fall and I got a virus and retired to the house for a couple of weeks. Well no problem remembering where everything went.

Since I’ve never worked in the business professionally maybe I just don’t understand what it is like. Anyway, I love my little cup system. I saw a video where a guy was doing the same thing only he was using brown paper grocery sacks – the big ones. I tried to picture what 50 paper sacks would look like. Pretty funny.

Edit – I decided to add an example)

I had just installed a rear motor mount on the back of a transmission. This was a blind job one click at a time with an angled gear wrench. Four bolts came out of the mount, two were plated and two were that olive green color that the Japanese makers use on parts. Now, this should have told me something but all four had the same diameter, thread and appeared to be the same length. They all four went in a cup together. They weren’t all the same length.

Now it was time to install the speed sensor. It went down in a hole where every time you reached there you had to be willing to sacrifice skin and it won’t go in. So I mess around with this for about three hours until I determine that the end of a fastener is sticking through 1or 2mm and that is enough to interfere with the sensor.

Rather that moving bolts, another three hour job, I chose to grind the side of the sensor. A little more fastener discipline could have avoided a wasted afternoon. So, the cup method isn’t perfect either but it could have been had I used it properly.[/quote]

When I was in school, every teacher gave us an idea for how to organize fasteners. I took notes & decided to try each method.

When I got into real shops, I just started piling up fasteners. On the really big jobs, I try to keep fasteners together by size/type or by part. Some jobs just have a ton of the same fastener holding the whole damn rig together.

Quick Example: When I put the rear EGR onto the right bank of a 2011 Duramax, almost every single bolt of the EGR system was 13mm head, about 3/4″ length, and I “think” all of the threads were M8x1.25 There was a lot of those same bolts and a lot of M8x1.25 so I could be wrong. Almost the entire job was 13MM & 14MM bolts.

The nice thing about sticking with a manufacturer as a Tech is that they tend to stick with the same bolts. I liked Hyundai cause I only ever saw 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, & some 18MM fasteners.

GM on the other hand. Oh boy. They seem to use just about everything from 5-24MM, but your most common ones are 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, & 18MM. As far as I can ever remember, they used 5-7mm for dash stuff, some 8MM here & there mostly just to hold trim panels, skid plate-type pieces, etc. The only 16MM I can think of is older Duramax drain plugs. The new ones are either 13 or 14 I always forget. Various suspension fasteners use the 17-22MM sizes.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it helps me a lot when I know the product I’m working on. I’m pretty sure that if you gave me let’s say a Nissan, They’re probably going to have different fasteners. I worked on a Toyota once where every single 12MM bolt I saw, I could’ve sworn it was a 13MM.

At any rate, fastener organization is usually “recommended” and is always a great idea.