I am not sure but trying to diagnose a knock from my 305 tbi. After looking at the oil pan, it looks to me like the front is dented upward, can someone confirm this.

Looks like something hit the center link. It's bent too.

Somebody might have had a little incident with the k-member slipping off the jack pad.

exactly what I was thinking!

It probably required an underwear change.

Does it look likes it dented enough that it could be causing the crank to hit the pan?

Hard to say.

Usually when that happens you can see it... looks like it has a heartbeat.

I think what I will need to do is run the motor and feel for vibration in that area.

Month or so back I took delivery of my friends low mile minty fresh IROC-Z and underneath it you could eat off it aside from the boulder hit the engine cradle and oil pan took at some point. To the untrained eye one might think the engine cradle was made that way but the bottom of the oil pan is concaved in. Rest of car is perfect underneath. Oil pan is dry as a bone with not a drop of oil on the outside and the drain plug screws in and out just fine. Runs perfect with great oil pressure. It will be getting a new oil pan though and inspection of the oil tube and pickup housing/screen.

This is why I never want a car with an engine that has a cast oil pan. That would have been a blown engine for sure with a cast oil pan.

Well, after jacking the car up and running the motor I can confirm the oil pan is dented and is making contact with the crank which is causing the knocking sound. Question now becomes do I try to pull the dent out or just replace the oil pan which is a pain in the ***.

You might be able to pull the dent out while you're replacing the destroyed steering parts, as I'm sure you'll be doing this weekend. Doubtful butt maybe worth a try.

I'd be interested in knowing how that happened. It does look rather like a jacking issue; a floor jack under the center link instead of the K-member is my guess. Doesn't look like a road debris strike or the like, although there's a place on the K-member right behind the CL kink that looks a bit like a cinder block. Who knows.

And those brand-new-looking transmission fluid cooler lines just dangling loosely there, rubbing on the center link, probably because whoever put them in didn't bother to put them back into the little clip on the side of the oil pan, is probably also something that should be addressed at the same time.

I have no idea what the previous owner did with this car but it would seem who ever played with the car had no idea how to jack the front of the car up. The radiator support was completely crushed up from what I can only guess was from a jack. I had to cut out the radiator support and straighten it out and weld it back in. My guess is as has been suggested, they jacked up the car by the centerlink or had half the jack on the center link and it slipped and pushed everything up into the pan. For a complete car without rust at the cost of 800$, I can live with some stupidity that needs to be fixed. Don't get me started on the nightmare hackjob they did on the fuel pump access door, ugh.

Some people just aren't cut out to be car hobbyists I guess. Sounds like that was one of them.

And yeah, a rust-free car where you are, is a score.

This happened to me early this year... at least it gave me an excuse to replace all the old junk parts that where still in there.