cIaRmOaCrZo

my car had a very slight exhaust leak i noticed saturday. Sunday i went to go check it out and verify where it was comming from. who woulda known this was going to end up bieng the WORST day ever, or evening.....anyways i had it running and crawled under the car and heard it comming from the front, then felt around and it happen to be a simple header collector gasket (no big deal). i also had some steering play or shimmy when driving, so i figured hell i might as well check it all out while im doing this....i shoulda just stopped right there !!!!! well i jacked up the car (on the frame, right below the engine), then i took pass side wheel off, as i reached for the jack stand to put under the sway bar mount BAMMM. the car slid off the damn jack and i bout **** myself lol. so i crawed out (which i was slightly pinned). and wondered why the hell i didnt get killed or crushed all the way because the wheel was OFF, that means the car can fall frame flat! so i looked and the jack caught my damn centerlink. i didnt think nothing of it...so i got another jack and jacked the car off the original jack on the center link. once i got everything lifted up and level, i went to start my engine to listen for the exhaust leak again while its jacked up. when i started it up,,,, i got sick to my stomach when it fired all i heard was BANG BANG BANG!!! so i hurry and turned the key off. i got under the car and looked real close and noticed the centerlink was slightly bent, then looked above it and saw my oil pan was dented in..... OUCH. its a straight line dent all the way across the width of the pan. and only about 1/2 in deep. but the sides are slightly creased. it was getting dark outside so i couldnt do anything about cuz i had to get up for work in the moring and then go to skewl for the rest of the night. so i havnt had time to mess with yet, but im starting on it saturday to do something about it. so i was wanting some suggestions on how to go about this issue. i dont want to replace the oil pan, because that means i have to pull the engine up, yank starter, hack exhaust, ect.. alldata shows a pain. id do all that but only if im dropping in the 383, which i dont have yet. so any suggestions on how to pull this dent out???

AaronIROCZ

iTrader: (5)

You could get a stud welder that body shops use to pull dents out. What it does is you load a stud in the welding unit, press it against the bare metal oil pan and pull the trigger for a few seconds and release. You than attach a slide hammer to the stud and gently pull it out. You have to be very careful to not melt a hole into the pan because there could be fuel vapors in there that could ignite. When you are finished just cut or grind the stud off and repaint the pan.

cIaRmOaCrZo

and that was exactly my first thought that came to mind. its just i dont know of any body shop thatd let me use an expensive tool like that. and the whole fuel vapors combustiing scares me a little. but yes, that method sounds like the most effective and FASTEST. it just seems unlikely that i could get my hands on a tool like that, along with the risk of burning thru the pan. but another way i thought of is maybe cleaning up the pan real good to bare metal, and take like a super strong epoxy of some sort and attach a handle or eye-lit to it, let it dry and cure, then start tuggin. thatd be the least "risky" way, but may not be as effective. or work at all. so would you know of any good glues or epoxys??

MTB333

I had something similar happen to me and I didn't have to lift the engine out. I was able to get the pan out and hammer the dent out without even loosening the engine mount bolts.

GTA Sammy

iTrader: (1)

You were able to do that on a Third Gen?????? I don't wanna argue but I call

Bullydawg

iTrader: (7)

I agree. Sounds like BS. I had the worst oil pan replacement experience...

jakemk8706

i have done that same thing. i was jacking the car up on the crossmember or whatev and it slipped off and dented my oil pan. heard that same stomach wrenching noise...but ya pain in the *** but was able to replace the oil pan without removing the engine. is what i did was take out the engine mount bolts and jack the engine up like four or five inches (make sure you remove your d-cap) and place small blocks of wood between the engine and the mount. then get the jack out of the way and you can slide the oil pan out. i dont know how that dude did it without removing the engine mount bolts tho lol. that was the last time i jack the car up from there... (i followed the haynes repair manual instuctions too)

cIaRmOaCrZo

thanx for the advise guys. but i finally fixed it friday night (idk how lol). i yanked the center link out of the way to get to it, and tapped the side creases of the pan in with a hammer (it didnt look like it budged a damn thing). but my buddy steve was there and i was like eh wut the heck, ill show you wut it sounds like. so i fired it up, and to my suprise, NOTHING. i was puzzled that tapping the sides removed just the slightest clearance and fixed it. BUT after i bunndled it up, and replace the idler arm (which was worn so bad, and now slightly bent) i took it for a test drive, and it was cruising alright i guess, and then i mashed it and it just fell on its face. i couldnt go anywhere unless i eased into the throttle (if that). and when i sat there idling, it was lopping like crazy, and choppy, and the exhaust smell was totaly diff. so i turned it off and restarted it, it ran fine. then i mashed it again and it did the same thing, just stumbled and ran like **** afterwards. so i can to the conclusion that the oil pan MAY have still been hitting the crank ever so slightly (that i could not hear), that it would trigger the knock sensor and retard the timing so bad that it would run like it did. because the symtoms i described sounded like timing issues, and knock sensor is the only thing that can "change" that, and an oil pan tapping the crank would make a knock...so yeah lol. then sat morning i went out and started it and let it idle for about 20 mins, then test drove it again and it was fine lol. thank god. i bet the rod cap or crank balancer just brushed against the pan long enough to make the clearance it needed on its own when i let it run for 20 mins.

jakemk8706

ya....if that happened you might worry about having metal shavings in your oil. maybe think about changing your oil.

musclecar70sfan

iTrader: (1)

Glad you figured out how to fix it. But now you know to ALWAYS use jackstand huh? Especially when crawling underneath? lol I'm glad that everything is back to normal and you weren't squished like a bug. When I was working on my 94 Jimmy (never had a chance to really work on my 91 T/A yet) I put cinder blocks underneath the frame & control arm in case my lovely scissor jack gave out.

Oh and sorry for thread jacking (you seem to have solved your problem), but how does a knock sensor adjust the timing in an engine? I always thought it was fixed and chain-driven. lol sorry that's such a newb question, but I'm still learning about these things. BTW my 94 Jimmy with the 4.3 vortec occasionally (about 3 times per year) starts having similar symptoms to your camaro with the knock sensor (where it starts running like crap) but it corrects itself in a few hours. Is my knock sensor on its way out?

cIaRmOaCrZo

thanx for the support lol, and yeah im glad i wasnt squashed like a bug. but about the knock sensor, the primary reason for that sensor is to detect "spark knock" (which you can get from using low grade gasoline that is below the standards your vehicle is designed to have in it). octane ratings on gas is the resistance to combustion. the higher the octane, "the less combustable" it is, which is why higher compession engines require higher octane fuel. more compression raises combustion temperatures, so using a lower grade gasoline or low octane will cause severe detonation in an engine with too high of compression. because it will combust before the piston reaches top dead center (which is where the "knock" comes from) and that will have durastic effects on performance because it fights the travel of the upward stroke of the piston. (trying to push it down while its still traveling up). so low compression engines can run the low octane gas (more combustable) because of lower combustion temperatures. so when it detects the knock, the EST(electronic spark timing) will retard the timing to where the spark will ignite the mixture at top dead center. but what you were saying about timing being "fixed" is actually right, but its called BASE timing. the EST just makes adjustments off of the BASE timing. for instance when the engine is cold, it will run off of base timing, and as it heats (which changes the characteristics of when the combustion occures) it will retard the timing so it will hit at top dead center. hence reducing spark knock. knock sensor tells the computer how much to retard or advance timing.