Hello, I’m in the process of putting my 3800 engine back together. During the process I scratched the housing to the front seal housing during removal of front seal. I’m unsure if these scratches will cause a leak. Any ideas if this may cause a leak?
​​​​

 

I wouldnt think so. That isn't a sealing surface and is expected to get some oil on it during normal operation (hence the reason for the drain back hole beneath).

 

Thank You Bumpin96monte! I remember following your threads about your white 5th Gen L67 Swapped Monte Carlo I believe on Mymonte.com and cardomain.com. Cool to see your still around the forum. What ever happened to your white monte?

 

That definitely brings back some memories! I joined the mymonte FB group a few years ago, but unfortunately there's near zero activity as most everyone has moved on at this point. Its too bad too, I had a lot of good times with some of the members on there- especially at the ultimate mymonte meets.

Still have it, and probably always will at this point barring any catastrophic event (as I've spent several multiples of what the car is worth by now).

I used to be 100% on the looks / audio path back in those days. After the L67 swap, I started leaning towards performance and after someone broke in and stole all of my audio equipment, I shifted focus 100% to the performance side of things.

The last decade or so I've been playing with various performance projects off and on (picked up a few other toys in that time, so its been sharing my free time with other stuff). I custom made front coil overs to match the rears and I shaved the upper radiator support. Most of the rest of my focus has been on the engine - whipple conversion, E85 swap, bigger headers, big intercooler setup (with a custom 1 of 3 PRJ core), heavily modified/ widened LIM, twin fuel pump conversion, and a one off adapter for a 102mm LS style throttle body.

Runs and drives great, but visually its a complete mess. I didn't have the heart to hack up the limited run fiberglass cowl hood to fit the big blower so its been run 100% without a hood the last 5-6 years. I never did paint the side skirts for the body kit so they're still primer.

I never did do anything with the audio system damage from the theft. The fiberglass rear deck still has the 6.5s, but the old amp rack is obviously empty. Ive got all of speakers in the doors still with the one off fiberglass panels, but nothing to drive them. The dash was pretty banged up so I didn't even put a head unit back in it - I just stuck in a switch plate for engine stuff (IC, water pump, cutout, fuel pump, etc). Its obviously very confused looking having so many main speakers but literally nothing to drive them.

Its also getting some cosmetic issues that are showing its age- tint is turning purple and I'm starting to get the dreaded paint bubbles under the fuel door from rust.


The last 2 years I've done literally nothing to it - we moved into a new house with virtually zero garage space and a wreck of a house, so all of my free time has went into fixing the house up. I'm closing in on finishing the house projects and am now turning my attention to building a real garage out back so I can start doing real car projects again.

I'm starting to prep for the next phase with the monte - a RWD conversion. I don't have any of the (now discontinued) mega bucks GMR hard parts in the transmission, so I know the 4t65 is on borrowed time and is my #1 worry every time I take it out (which admittedly is fairly rare these days). The plan is to swap to a t56/tr6060 so I never have to worry about trans issues again and can really crank the engine up.

I've started picking up parts to support that once the garage is built - Ive got a T56 adapter plate from Australia, picked up some 6 piston CTSV calipers + 14" rotors, and I've started grabbing some suspensions parts from Midwest chassis when they run different sales through the year. Id bought an 01 Camaro maybe 5 years ago to use as a sheet metal donor for the swap, but I ended up having to sell it unexpectedly as my DD at the time got rear ended by a semi, so I needed somewhere to park my DD inside while I worked through the insurance issues. I still keep an eye out every month or so for another good Camaro donor, but haven't found another perfect fit yet.


Probably more than you wanted to hear, but that's the story.

 

Hey, I appreciate you taking the time to share. I will admit witnessing other members such as yourself push the potential of the 5th gen has always been interesting to see. I think that’s a commendable thing that you managed to keep your’s through hardships. You mentioned something’s I‘m interested in learning more about. It would be nice to see a thread dedicated to your white Monte.

I relate to the aspect of losing interest in audio upgrade after a break in. I had a similar experience. I’ll explain my efforts first. I converted my bench seats to good condition black leather seats bucket seats which gave my tan interior a two tone appeal. I got a center console from the junkyard an I custom fiberglasses it for a 7 inch touch screen. I was satisfied with results. If I can find some pictures I’ll post it. At the time I didn’t have a garage. When I discovered the theft. The passenger window was broken and my fiberglassed center console was destroyed. It took a couple of years for me to decide to recreate it. I just covered it up at night without incident.

That’s something about the rear end accident. Hopefully you turned out alright after being rear ended. One of my 5th gen’s was totaled parked outside on a side street. The driver manage to T bone it on the curb on a one way street. Good thing GM produced more than one Monte Carlo. lol

So far I’ve owned 6 5th gen. That’s all I’ve driven since my first 5gen. I currently still own three. They all are runners with the exception of one which is down for maintenance. For the first time I’m attempting to Topswap. Initially I planned on waiting for zzp to get a Topswap kit available. My first inquiry was a year ago an I followed up in January. I wasn't given a definite timeframe when kits would be available so I put it out my mind.

Months went by an with no issue until one day the head gaskets blew up. When it happens it overheated and I assumed that it must’ve been just the lower intake manifold leaking. This was my first thought because I’ve never had a head gasket fail on any of my 5th gen’s. With my misconception I decided that I would repair it myself only to find out that it was the head gaskets after white smoke appears from the exhaust. At that point my mind was made up to repair. I began to gather parts and gaskets an necessary tools to complete the job. Things was going smooth until I broke a head bolt for the rear cylinder head in the block. For a while I was stuck. I explored different methods for removal. I chose to the weld method. After multiple attempts to get a good enough weld to mend a nut to the broken bolt. I successfully got it out but in the process It involved me using a grinder to grind away my mistakes. I accidentally grinned away a gouge in the lower edge of the gasket mating surface. It doesn’t appear to me that it will cause a problem as it’s far away from any ports. Only time tell though. I moved past that an installed a zzp VS cam an heads from a donor 99 GTP along with the other necessary components that are pending install to complete the Topswap. I also have a zzp tune computer installed. I keep getting stuck at different points but it’s alright. I will definitely get it running before the first snowfall which = Salt here as long as circumstance permits. This is my winter DD. When I brought my last Two 5th gens they were rust free. I got them a year apart. My winter DD has seen winter but my last one hasn’t. It is garage kept during the winter. That’s why it’s critical for me to have my winter DD ready for snowfall. So far rust hasn’t developed on the body mainly the quarter panel or strut tower areas. My oldest 5th gen’s rear strut tower has been compromised. I still drive it to get it washed an gases up but it mostly sits. I can go on but I’ll have to pick up another time.

For now here’s some pictures. They are not current because I was in doubt when I saw a video of someone’s head gaskets with the indicator arrow an took my cylinder heads back off to correct it with new gaskets only to find out my head gaskets didn’t come with indicator arrows. I actually installed them correctly. It’s alright tho, I’m on my second set of new head bolts an new head gaskets. The issue I’m having now is that my bolts are going in with to much resistance from the thread sealer trapped in the block threads from the previous bolts plus the tread sealer I put on the new bolts. I have a tap an die set but none of the taps match. I’m considering creating a chaser with a old head bolt to clean the inner threads.






I’m not using the green gasket. I just used the green gasket to sit the m90 there temporarily. I’m using the factory L67 gaskets.

 

Ive always loved to tinker with stuff, and this being my first car / where I learned how to do nearly everything, it has a lot of sentimental value. I'll say that I also enjoy it more and more the older it gets. For my car preferences, I tend to prefer more unusual stuff - I get so tired of seeing 20-30 iterarions of the same car at the track / car shows (ie Mustangs, Challengers, etc). At this point, its very rare to see any 5th gen monte out by me - even seeing a stock one is at most a once a year occurrence. So I love having something so different from what everyone else is doing (even if it is slower).

I have several from my last major round of mods that shows most of the big stuff. I haven't done one lately as honestly not much has changed. I'll admit that I got a bit lazy once I got it up and running again (after being down for a year+) and have just been enjoying it as is while spending my time on other projects. Once I get the garage built, I hope to be able to put some time back into the monte.


https://montecarloforum.com/forum/en...-pulley-41261/

https://montecarloforum.com/forum/ge...ispreloading=1

https://montecarloforum.com/forum/en...ispreloading=1

https://montecarloforum.com/forum/ti...5th-gen-54562/

Sorry to hear! I can't stand thieves!

The hard thing for me is that I couldn't afford to replace the stuff (and stupidly didn't insure for it). I was in college at the time and I'd put every penny of my free money into very high end competition level stuff. I couldn't stomach working all those hours again to get it all back.

To make things worse, it was an inside job. I never figured out who exactly, but there were very few people locally that knew what I had (as I wasn't the type to go blasting it down the road to attract attention). They waited to do it until I was out of town on a rare work trip (something literally only 10 or so people that also knew about the car knew I was going on / where the car would be).


On a more positive note - thats interesting about the screen, I'd done something similar (although non touch screen). Oddly enough they didn't touch it in the theft (granted its a super old unit).





That was definitely no fun. Destroyed my ultra clean 60k mile GP GXP. Stopped at a stoplight behind other cars but the semi behind me wasn't looking at the road at all. Totalled my car and the one in front of me and pushed us into a 3rd car (luckily the light had turned green, otherwise he would've taken out the whole line of cars). Had a year or so of neck / back doctor appointments but ended up OK in the end.

Only small upside is that I ended up with a similar mile LS2/T56 GTO as a result. Of course between the low car payout and low settlement, I still had to come out of pocket a couple grand. The only people that really profit off that crap are the lawyers...

 

Wow, thats serious dedication to a platform! I'll admit I didn't stray too far from the monte - my next 6 cars were all various W bodies.

Thats a really cool story! Awesome you stuck with it through everything! So many people today are quick to just scrap cars and move on. Youll be super happy with that top swap too.

Nice job, looks really clean!

 

Love the pictures but I have a kinda off topic question. Which engine stand is that? Just the cheap harbor freight one, Pitsburg brand? Hows that holding up?

 

That was a lot to go through. Cool your all good. The GTO seems like a fun car to have.

 

Thank you!