Blown Colorado 3.7 Atlas 5 Cylinder Engine Teardown. You Asked, Fan Delivered! Solved a Mystery Too

forgive me if i sound like i've been beaten by a dead horse or something i read all of the comments every single one i know i said that before but i do i want to pay attention to what you guys are saying there's a lot to learn plus i really like to see what engines people want to see torn down sometimes it's not something i will run across but sometimes it is and then sometimes someone brings me one just brings me one a fan of the channel came by and picked up a 5'3 and some associated parts and he brought me a gift a 3.7 liter gm atlas engine at last an atlas been waiting to say that and if it wasn't for bill thank you bill for bringing this engine by we wouldn't have this i don't typically buy vehicles with atlas engines and i don't really see them as course that often at the places i go to so this is almost the only situation where i'd have this here and for that i thank you so much hopefully you and your girls like watching this video we're going to find out what happened here i will tell you one spoiler for you guys someone installed an inspection port i don't know why you would do it behind the starter you can't see through the starter bill did share a few details about this engine which i appreciate most of these cores i have no idea this engine came from a 2011 chevrolet colorado which he is left swapping i think that's awesome he told me that the seller of said colorado told him the engine had a slight knock and it was a bad engine a hole is not really the same thing as a slight knock but we'll go with it now i haven't worked on one of these engines in depth ever i've never torn one down i've never really had one through the shop it's just not something i go after so there's gonna be a lot to learn here for me and probably for you as well one thing i did hear over and over and over again is that the head bolts are on the tight side of things but don't worry we have the tools now normally we'd start by pulling a harness no wait we always start with the spark plugs but this doesn't have any it also doesn't have any manifolds on it so we're going to go right to pulling the valve cover i guess i didn't mention that this is an inline five for those of you that don't know this is not a six cylinder or a four cylinder it's in the middle it's an inline five and it looks pretty varnished in here i don't really see anything terrible yet this is actually a very simple engine it's very traditional there's nothing crazy inside and everything looked pretty okay at first glance it's always at first glance but if you look a little closer a little bit closer you start noticing man those cams don't look so hot this is very rough textured here i can feel it through my glove why would the lobes be wiped out maybe they used hemi cams it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke relax relax and this is a later engine because it has variable valve timing i don't think the early ones had this you can see there's the actuator there there's the oil control solenoid and then there's a trigger wheel for the cam sensor i think at this point the next step is to get the chain loose get the cam gears out so we can pull the cams that's what we'll do next i'm actually kidding we're gonna turn this thing over why wouldn't we that's not a good sign also not a good sign oh okay we're good it's gonna be fine all right let's get this cam gear out of the way so we can get the chain off this is the appropriate tool sounded like a timing chain tensioner there we go can i get this out without pulling the cam gear yes i think as i was cracking those cam caps loose i noticed there's a little bit of sparkles in the cylinder head just a little the first thing i'd like to mention and i do like seeing this is that with the exception of this end cam cap the rest of these cam caps have replaceable bearings and nothing tickles my fancy like serviceable parts so not so much that one but these all have replaceable bearings that's cool however we've got some damage there's definitely been some metal running through this engine and look at those cam lobes they're rough this could have been a pretty high mileage engine again i have no bases for comparison this is the very first one of these i've torn down the other cam much of the same there's also wear on the cylinder head consistent with metal running through an engine in the oiling system there's even some damage to some of the rollers it doesn't really take much now if you notice there's two plugs on the front of the cylinder head i'm going to remove these and then there are bolts behind that hold the timing guides to the cylinder head if i don't do that i won't be able to pull the cylinder head you should not use an impact with these they are plastic and now we can take the 10 millimeter headed bolts behind them out now there's a few 10 mm bolts that hold the front of the cylinder head to the front of the block and timing cover area before i get ahead of myself i'm going to make sure that this is actually drained oh there's uh it's silver it's silvery sparkles we're just gonna let that go for a little bit now there's no signs of foul play in the intake ports it's just dirty we're going to try to make this as easy as possible well let me do something about that i'm gonna pull all of these followers out of here so they don't go everywhere now turn this the rest of the way over all crunchy stuff just a little bit more okay let's see how tight these really are okay wow it popped on the recoil holy cow oh this is great so far they're not as tight as a mercedes not even close this is going to be great for my back i can just tell these are by far the loudest head bolts i just want you to watch my socket here i think that's the last one all right now we can get the head bolts out okay now at this point the head should just come right off right that's that's just gonna pop right off i don't know how heavy this is feels like it's gonna come off uh oh something's wrong there let's get this head gasket off without slicing my fingers let's see what we've got going on here there's a chain there's a rail wow it just kind of sits in there okay does this one sit there no that one's bolted in okay so these are all good found the problem it's it's disconnected if you look the piston is actually rotated in the bore and i see one little ding okay two little dings on the top of the piston likely from hitting valves just a little bitty we're gonna not push that too far that might stop the engine from turning so let's go look at the cylinder head this actually looks pretty good at least towards the front combustion chambers are dirty but i don't see any valve damage then you get cylinder five and that's that's the one with the disconnecting rod and if you look right along the edge of the combustion chamber you'll see marks that's from that piston traveling too far in the bore and making contact with the combustion chamber and typically that happens at idle you know you're not doing anything wrong no high rpm here is a much better look at the inspection port and actually it's in a really good location because you can see the rod very well it almost feels like the rod made the hole you can see that there's a lot of heat and it's been hammered a lot that was used as a blunt object to create the inspection port now we're going to tap the piston down and see if the rod moves it does okay oh there we go get back in there there now it's good to go now normally i would flip this engine over to remove the pan but i don't really want to fish pieces of rods and whatever else is in there out of the rest of the engine i just want to drop it like a like a diaper it's the best word i could come up with oh i guess we should get the dipstick out of the way oh come on okay that wasn't too bad uh um really ah you guys are not gonna believe this i don't even believe it you got you guys are just not gonna believe this i i didn't do this all that is a socket and an extension it is a cobalt so i probably can't read what size it is but i would guess oh it's a 10 millimeter is this where they end up is this really it this is where all the tens go and check your oil pans guys all of the missing tents are there i hop how how what how like how how how i i am i'm perplexed and here is the remnants of the rod and uh some bearing foil broken rod bolts more bearing material and lots of sparkles too many sparkles and then there's a couple pieces of piston so we don't have a perfect piston in there we're gonna find some damage maybe that's block damage i don't know but but how i don't i don't have an answer guys bill if this is your socket please come back and get it or send me your address and i'll mail it to you i know what it's like to lose a 10. in all reality this is probably how it happened this just fell through this this doesn't fit this doesn't what the heck maybe the crank was in a different spot that that had to be this is how this has to be how this got in there it doesn't fit through a piston there's no holes in there and the valve cover hadn't been off it took too much force to get that off it had to go through this hole so this is probably either the guy that diagnosed it as a bad engine or this is yours bill now let's get this crank pulley out of the way oh okay it's turning let's let my compressor catch up here let's try this again i don't what it turns it just a little bit at a time i need more air hose i know i know i only think about it when i'm in a situation like this and when it's done it's done okay let's try something else now i'm not supposed to have open flames in the shop so i just i had mexican food for dinner and i just breathed on it a whole bunch all right let's try something else at this point i'm going to gently push the rod and piston down in cylinder five so that it locks the crank and keeps it from turning and then hopefully i can do this with a breaker bar yes this bar gets the job done why is it so tight all the way through wow i've never had a crank bolt like this it's not that it's too tight it's just that it it's tight in a different way it's tight all the way through all right i think i can downsize here i think the impact will take it out now ah it's hot damn mexican food all right i've got this kind of set up i don't know if this is going to work or not there's only one way to find out it worked now we'll get the water pump pulley off i think that's the water pump yes i'll love it when it just falls right off next we'll take the water pump off actually looks pretty good now we can finally get this front timing cover now i'm looking at this and this looks like this could have something to do with the oil pump you stick my head down there yes it does i don't know if i can get this cover off because i think the oil pump is part of it so we're going to flip this engine over finally so that i can remove the pickup so the pickup looks in really good shape but it's more like a bearing foil storage container there's all kinds of pieces in there i know what happened here it starved itself of oil because it was full of metal and it appears that i could not get that timing cover with the pickup tube in place so i'm gonna get the pickup tube off and then the timing cover should just slide right off what is going on here why is it under so much tension doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense at all now this front timing cover is rtv on and it has dowels so it may fight me a little bit it might be a little bit of a protest we'll see maybe places to pry that are right next to the dolls that is nice there we go one timing cover when i first took the cam gear off and i released the tension on the chain i heard a ratcheting sound and that is the timing chain tensioner which is this right here now this chain that's a fine piece very fine all right the next thing we're going to do is remove this girdle and main cap plate we're going to get this out of the way to allow us more room to get to the rods and pistons i just don't want to work around it it seems to be a theme with this engine oh no we don't okay we're not going to play that game i'm actually going to use the breaker bar to try to crack these loose i think i'll have better luck wow these are tight i think these are tighter than the head bolts now i can zip these out no we're going to start at the front of the motor you guys know why and we're going to work our way towards the back get all the rods and pistons out and then number five you can tell it's medium well you should never cook your bearings that way and lots of impact marks i think i can just push the rod and piston what's left of them out of the bore something worth noting about this inspection port is that it's also a piston inspection port because if you keep hold on a second here you can start to see the piston there you go you get a good look at the skirt right there that sounded wrong oh that's pretty neat when people talk about fractured rods they're they're not talking about this these are fractured rods which means they don't have a smooth machine surface between the rod cap and the actual connecting rod this is definitely not a smooth machined surface it tried its best there's part of a bearing fuse there and then look at the rod the rod's bent and i've never seen one down to a nub like this i feel like this should be wrapped up in a bandage and it did do a little damage to the piston one little crack right there and then there's some marks around the crown for making contact with the combustion chamber the rest of these are actually in pretty good shape the bearings are decent no i mean there's definitely signs of oil starvation and there's little metal bits in there but it's not it's not awful like it's not like they're all wiped out it's just number five that's trashed the rest of the riser pistons look good there's not a lot of skirt wear some but not bad it's just number five and one thing to note and we're going to dig into this in a minute see there's a hole in these bearings and i have a sneaky suspicion there we are oil pressure goes through the rod and oils the wrist pin but these are full floaters so we are going to pull these apart i'm not going to pull apart this one we're going to pull apart one of the good ones so we can see what it looks like let's pull part number four there's this little circlip in here and uh just got to kind of aim that away from you that got some serious air then you should be able to just tap this wrist pin out of here sometimes you can just use a socket see if i've got a good size socket for that here this looks to be about a 15 millimeter wrist pin you can just kind of so there's the rod and there's the wrist pin and yes those wrist pins are bushed ah yes and then maybe i guess it sprays the top of the piston let's i'll show you this come on in so if you look at the top of that bushing there's a passage for oil to oil that wrist pin and then it goes through the top of the rod and the only thing i can think of is that sprays the top of the piston to cool it instead of having piston squirters they're built into the rods we are not done this engine has balance shafts and i had to pull the block off of the stand so we can remove them we're going to remove this plate which looks to has this been a part before it just has a different type of casting than the rest of the engine we'll get this off and we'll see how to get the ballast shafts out wow that's kind of cool it's got its own tensioner chain one balance shaft another valance shaft and this is to make sure that balance shaft spins in the opposite direction i suppose or the correct direction uh what do you guys think is the most dangerous here i think unbolting the tensioner we're just gonna zip the bolts out and look the other direction there's that's fine and then the other one we're gonna close our eyes see when you close your eyes and you open them everything is okay so now i suppose that these will just come out can do i pry them out let's find out i have no idea what i'm doing here oh it doesn't want to come out why not there we go oh man this thing took a hit let's see if this will take this out okay i really don't know does this whole assembly come out i know there's a bolt there i think this whole thing will come right out it does it doesn't want to at all i don't know why it's stuck it feels really bad coming out i'm sure there's an actual reason come on it's like it's oh oh there's a bearing here it doesn't come out that direction it'll come out the other direction here's one of the balance shafts here you can see there's metal bits and then this balance shaft took a few blows and it fought me hard coming out now the other balance shaft it looks i would say worse at the front it took some pretty good sized wax right there that was that rod and now this came out to the side that has the inspection hole and this doesn't have an inspection hole but what it does have is another hole in there we'll i'll show you that as soon as i can get the crank out okay now we just got to get the main caps off whoa there whoa there that went a little crazy i don't know why but i didn't like it crank is ready to remove crank is ready to remove it's ready to remove cheese louise i don't know quite what to do other than it's not that heavy okay it's pretty heavy as you can see the main bearings have some pretty good grooves in them there's definitely been metal run through this the rear one is probably the worst followed by one of the middles and look at the amount of debris in that oil channel as you start to move towards the rear of the engine bearings i mean they're pretty consistently bad they're not terrible scene worse and then of course the inspection hole you can see it tried to fit through that door attacked the balance shaft that was a bad fight eventually popped through the side of the block and then on the other side fought with that balance shaft damaged the bottom of the bore never made it through the block on this side you can see it did quite a lot of damage though it contained it to that cylinder really well i'm pretty impressed with that it kept all the damage in cylinder five the rest of the engine had no idea what was going on i probably knew and here is why i couldn't get that balance shaft out that easily come here it's part of a rod bearing hanging out in there the crankshaft actually looks pretty decent in the front some grooves on the main journals but not bad and then you get to cylinder five all the damage is in cylinder five a few good hits on the counterbalance and look at the discoloration from the heat it's pretty rough oh we are not done we still have to pull the oil pump apart you guys thought i forgot now we're gonna get this oil pump apart and see what's inside there's oil in here i don't even know if i can get these pieces out here this doesn't really want to turn i guess it does it's super gritty oh yeah it's coming out now this piece i don't know yep okay well the oil has a grainy texture to it some grooves around this mating surface and same thing on this this waiting surface is pretty pretty chewed up it's not terrible it's not as bad as i expected we have several things to talk about here but by far the most important as i solve the mystery of the missing 10 millimeter sockets they're in your oil pan and all jokes aside this engine died from oil starvation we've seen it a thousand times okay maybe like 60 times on this channel people don't check their oil this engine probably had higher mileage based on the cam wear based on the oil varnish i don't necessarily think it was ill maintained they just didn't check their oil or maybe something happened and it wasn't properly filled up there we don't really know either way a little knock come on man you heard that or felt it or saw it you had to know either way i can't thank bill enough for bringing this core by if you want your 10 millimeter socket it'll be here i'll put it on my counter and i got a few parts i can sell maybe i'm not really worried about that i don't care this was a free engine it was a fun experience and i saw a lot of people tell me in the mercedes by turbo v8 tear down that i haven't seen a tight head bolt until i've worked on an atlas now this is one atlas so not a huge basis for comparison however the mercedes bolts were at least twice as tight my shoulders hurt for a week after tearing that engine down this was tight i'm not going to argue with that but they came out pretty easily and i didn't have to throw my shoulder out in the process actually a lot of things kind of fought me on this engine the crank bolt fought me the girdle bolts fought me either way it came apart it really isn't that hard of an engine to work on but they are expensive for a reason i've seen different failure modes with these engines at different shops i've seen him jump time i've seen him get in an accident and the crank takes a hit and it shears the pin off of the crankshaft which holds the timing sprocket for the timing chain and it throws it out of time and benz valves it's all crazy stuff but that's what you see in this industry i really hope you enjoyed this video thanks again you guys all oh thanks to bill for bringing this engine by and if you'd like to buy parts off of this 2004 runner limit or that 94 toyota land cruiser which is triple locked they are available i'm gonna leave your email in the video description and as always of all the comments all the feedback and even the criticism i love it all and i'll catch you on the next one

Channel: I Do Cars

Views: 45,379

Keywords: Trailblazer, Atlas, 4.2, 3.7, 3.5, 2.8, Colorado, Canyon, Hummer H3, I5, Buick Rainier, Oldsmobile Bravada, Saab 9-7x, Chevrolet, GMC, Envoy, Ascender, Isuzu, GM, Holdener, reviews, turbo, build, Performance, dyno, reliability, problems, VVT, headbolts, Inline 6, exhaust, exhaust sound, sound clip, 0-60, Acceleration, Towing, diagnosis, how to, remove, replace, check engine light, misfire, coils, timing chain, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, Truck, inline 6, inline 5, inline 4

Id: Fj8T2cfvyxY

Length: 36min 13sec (2173 seconds)

Published: Sat May 07 2022