Short story: This car was in Ohio a few years ago. A fellow from another forum checked it out for me. The owner wanted to trade for a newer car, so we agreed to swap it for my clean '95 Formula. His friend delivered it on a trailer and took my car away. The Trans Am sat in my garage for a while. It's rough around the edges and needed stuff to be inspected. I had no time and no real money to give to it with two kids in school. I sold it to a friend of mine the summer before last. He drove it a few times and blew the fresh 400 engine. Now, I have the car back.
I'm not sure if I will rebuild the 400 or do an LSX 5.3 swap.
I started working on the car today. I know the engine has to come out, so I started removing the top end to reduce the weight of what will be on the engine crane. Lots of very "cob job" type work has been done on this poor thing over the years.
Lots of wiring like this or worse
This is not a factory Pontiac valley pan. Maybe it's homemade? It certainly was just sealed with a large gloppy bead of RTV
Thankfully, all the exhaust bolts came out easily, other than some on the DS that were difficult to access.
Dead center of this pic you might notice a piece of something in the lifter valley. I surmised it was a piston, but wasn't sure. Removing the PS head revealed intact pistons.
Removing the DS head revealed this
It also revealed a smashed plug.
The little piece of something in the lifter valley was a part of the piston, which must have gotten sucked up into the intake valve and dumped there.
You can see this cylinder wall took some damage. The rod broke, the piston flew up, and then the rod slapped around inside the oil pan for a bit before punching a hole through it. Not sure what kind of damage I will see on the bottom end once I get in there.
That's where I had to stop for now. I'm going to get my engine hoist assembled and move my engine stand from the old barn into the new barn and hopefully pull it soon.