Frostline

Hi,
So I just purchased a 1988 Chevy Camaro 2.8L V6 with 105k miles for my teenage son as his first car. He was super excited about it and I have to admit so was I. It's a very cool looking car, especially for a first car. He's probably one of the few teenagers out there nowadays that actually wanted a manual transmission for his first car.

So a bit of background, this car sat for several years, and the guy I bought of from is the owner of an auto body shop and this car used to belong to a customer of his. The shop was the one who painted it slime green about 10 years ago (although the clear coat is peeling pretty bad in several spots so I'm not sure what that's says about the quality of their work). We drove an hour and a half to go take a look at it, everything looked pretty good other than the tires which were a bit rotted and had splits in the rubber in several spots. I told the guy I didn't feel comfortable driving it home on the freeway with the tires in that condition. The guy agreed to get new tires put on at no additional cost which sounded like a good deal to me so we agreed to come back the following week to pick it up. There were a couple other issues as well, several of the gauges on the instrument cluster didn't work, including the tach, the oil pressure gauge and the coolant temp gauge. I figured that wasn't a big deal, it would give my son and I a chance to work on it together.

So we drove back down the following week to pick up the car. I checked the oil and coolant levels before we left and both looked good. So we started heading home on the freeway. Everything was great for the first hour until suddenly we both noticed a loud knocking noise coming from the engine. No loss of power at all, just a constant loud noise. So we pulled off the freeway in a panic. I double checked the oil level to make sure we hadn't somehow leaked it all out. I checked both radiator hoses and they were both hot so clearly the thermostat was working. Again, without the oil pressure or coolant temp gauges working I really don't know if we had a low oil pressure or overheat situation going on. We went ahead and drove the rest of the way home on the back roads.

So I've always worked on all of our cars myself over the years (with the exception of rebuilding a transmission on an Acura MDX), but I've never had any issues with internal engine problems. So I've spent a lot of time on this forum in the last week trying to diagnose the problem. Everything I've seen points to rod knock. Obviously I'm hoping for some kind of miracle answer that doesn't require an engine rebuild or replacement, but my hope is dwindling

I've tried listening to different parts of the engine with vinyl tubing in my ear as well as using a big screwdriver pressed against my temple. I do feel like there's a good amount of noise coming from the valve train. I tried listening at the timing chain cover (I've read that a loose timing chain may slap the cover), and the sound does seem to possibly be coming from there, but when I put the screwdriver against the oil pan it also kind of sounds like it could be coming from down there. The water pump bearing also seems to be going out since it started squealing loudly as well, which it definitely wasn't doing when I first test drove the car. I pulled the serpentine belt off to confirm that the knocking sound wasn't somehow coming from the water pump, which it wasn't.

I've tried pulling the plug wires one by one to see if the knocking sounds stops, but I didn't really notice any difference in the sound doing that.

I have not checked compression or verified the timing yet.
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I went ahead and changed the oil so I could look for metal shavings. There was definitely some fine golden "glitter" at the bottom of the pan I drained it into:


Golden dust in oil

Here is a link to a couple videos of the engine running. In the long video you can head the squeal of the water pump bearing, in the short video I had removed the serpentine belt to make it easier to hear the knock.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/E1wJsS9zfk96u9fw8

So what do you guys think? Is this the dreaded rod knock?

Assuming it is, obviously I either need to have it rebuilt or replace it with a junkyard engine or a remanufactured engine. Any advice on what to do about that? I've contacted a local machine shop and he quoted me $1,800 as a starting point (based on me removing the engine and bringing it to him, as well as me reinstalling it). I've been looking at the various remanufactured engine companies out there like S&J, Powertrain products, Jasper and ATK (through Jeggs). I figured if I go the remanufactured route I should probably go with the 3.4L V6 since it's basically a drop in replacement with better horsepower (I have read the 3.4L swap boogie post). Junkyard or eBay used motors scare me a bit just because they may be as bad as the one I'm pulling out.

Does anybody have any recommendations about the reman engine companies? Looking at the BBB complaints from each of them makes them all seem unreliable and unwilling to pay for their warranty claims, but I realize those are only the bad reviews and they may only be 5% of their actual customer base.

So anyway, I'd be happy to get any advice or suggestions from you guys. I know there's a lot of knowledge and experience in these forums and I appreciate you guys taking the time to read this. There is a part of me that can see the bright side of this being that my son will get a crash course in turning wrenches with me and hopefully it will be a bonding experience. I mean look how excited he is about his car!


Can't wait to get his license!

OrangeBird

iTrader: (1)

Hi Frostline, Welcome to TGO !

You will likely get some varied opinions here, and here's mine;

If the situation were mine, given how nice the car looks in the pics, I'd go for a remanufactured long block VS a boneyard engine. And as long as your mechanical skills are at the level of being able to replace the engine, by all means have the kid work right there with ya, to begin his education of what it's gonna take to keep a vintage car running.

exiled350

iTrader: (1)

Speaking from experience I wouldn't drop a lot of money into that six pot. I got mine at 17 with the 2.8/700R4 and had dreams of V8 power before I even handed over the cash, granted it was a 10 year old used car then rather than a cool old sports car now. I even had a truck motor for it within a couple months, but nature had another plan. If you have the skills and space to pull the motor, you can break it down. As its still running it's very unlikely that a catastrophic failure has happened so it shouldn't cost too much to have a machine shop wash the block, true it up, new rings, bearings, and hand you back a perfectly good short block. Slap it all back together with all new 'consumables' (water pump, ps pump, clutch...) hes basically got a new car till he gets the LS itch.

KITT87

I have no advice for your engine situation, but a few years ago I was in the position your son was. A third gen as a first car really makes you feel like the coolest guy in the world, whether or not that’s actually true lol. It makes every penny spent on it worth it to me when I see my car standing out in a row of boring SUV blobs. Hope you guys keep it a while and enjoy it

Oh, and when he starts driving, tell his friends to be careful around the interior. My seatbelts never went through the recall and some poor soul freaked out when he clicked my rear belt in a little too hard and the plastic housing around the buckle disintegrated straight off.

Frostline

Thanks for the replies. I hear you about the seat belts, I will be replacing the driver's one for sure since it barely keeps tension anymore.

I really am torn about whether to have it rebuilt locally or buy a remanufactured one for practically the same price. I'm leaning towards a reman engine because that way we could swap the 3.4L engine in there and get a bit of a power upgrade. Like I said before the only thing that makes me nervous are some of the reviews from the reman engine companies, they all seem to be either 5 star reviews or 1 star reviews! A bit of a crapshoot it seems like...

Frostline

Well I finally got the chance to cut open the oil filter and it didn't look good. Definitely some golden flakes in there, and some steel flakes as well. I dragged a magnet around the paper filter after I pulled the pleats open and it looked like this :


Definitely not good...