TireSmoke.org

y-pipe is out and pan is loose. Just need to remove flywheel inspection voer and jack up the engine to remove the pan. Up next will be getting the replacement pan off my spare engine.

I had to heat one of the four studs to get the y-pipe disconnected from the exhaust manifolds and the bolts holding the cat to the rest of the exhaust were rusted beyond recognition so they got the sawzall treatment.

Last night I pulled the pan down. It was tight I had to jack the engine all the way up to the firewall (big front window = firewall over half the engine), turn the front crank weights up, and raise up the trans - and with a rubber mallet persuasion it just cleared. I used Chris’s engine support tool to lift the engine in the car and used the engine hoist for the spare.

I then took the pan off my spare engine for a replacement.

While I was doing this I noticed there is a power steering pump on this spare engine. This got me thinking about the time in 2011 where I blew a power steering hose and the pump when I was at Nelson Ledges. I went and bought a new one since I forgot this one existed. Then in the July race at NL there was a 94 Firebird who blew out their pump. They could have used this pump also. That’s twice! If you don’t know you have it then you might as well not have it. Before the Camaro goes out to track day again I’ll have a list of spares.

Anyway I also cleaned the pan and all the other oil/grime covered parts so the next step is to put it back together. I’m probably over six hours so far on this job – lucky eh?

Are we old enough now that these jobs no longer build character/are a good learning experience?

Seriously, though, that's a bummer from a time perspective.

Yuck.

-BP

This one is tough. But I can't send it to the scrap pile so at minimum I have to fix it to sell it. I am thinking about running it at Nelson as a f-body test. I suppose it is better than sitting there watching TV.

I'm going with watching TV on this one.

You could "sell" it on Craigslist for $350 to one of your team members... problem is, I don't think that 3.4 has enough ass to compete with the big boys. A 3.8 would get you about 40hp closer.

-BP

So some electrical gremlins started appearing recently with the headlights and directionals. I first noticed it when the right blinker light in the dash started coming on when I turned on the brights. Well the directional started acting funny - blinking at odd speeds and slow. This made me start looking. I turned on the lights and found the brights and fog lamps were on even though I was on low beam. This seemed like a ground problem to me. So I looked under the hood for grounds. There was one near the battery to the shock tower and I broke the bolt trying to remove it. there was another hole nearby so I used that with a fresh bolt. No luck. There were two ground wires on the top of the core support. I cleaned the connections on both and that fixed it.

I hate rust.

Is the oil leak fixed (I'm guessing it is since you're driving it)?

-BP

The oil pan replacement was successful. It is back to a small drip from the rear main.

With the entrance of Elwood I decided to sell this car. It has been on Craigslist since late September. Recently activity picked up quite a bit and the car sold today. It fetched $2k. So I owned this car 15 years put on 80k miles. This chapter ends.