CK5
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The Equinox "baby black"

Reminds me of earlier chevrolet shenanigans with the corvair transmission shaft being hollow to run a shaft back to the trans-axle
I can ask my neighbor, he has several Corvairs.
 
Could this gasket be the whole problem? It sits at the top of the oil pan, sealing the pickup to the pump when the pan is bolted on. (Pulled one on the left, used one from donor engine on the right). I'm just imagining it sucking some air when things get hot and expand.

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I don't want anymore bearings like this.

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I love to see how things get modified, when things go wrong. This is from a tbi engine that they kept trying to identify the noise. 20250210_074507.jpg
 
Could this gasket be the whole problem? It sits at the top of the oil pan, sealing the pickup to the pump when the pan is bolted on. (Pulled one on the left, used one from donor engine on the right). I'm just imagining it sucking some air when things get hot and expand.

View attachment 497030

I don't want anymore bearings like this.

View attachment 497031
Was the oil pressure ever low? Its certainly possible but I would think you would see that on the gauge, if there is one.
 
Could this gasket be the whole problem? It sits at the top of the oil pan, sealing the pickup to the pump when the pan is bolted on. (Pulled one on the left, used one from donor engine on the right). I'm just imagining it sucking some air when things get hot and expand.
I should mention that she must have put 100 short trips on this engine and at least one road trip I remember was over 8 hours each way, so plenty of thermal variation. What I really think happens to engines like this is that sludge breaks loose as it starts getting short oil change intervals and this gets lodged in an oil galley somewhere. A lot of things I read say that some oil is always bypassing the filter, depending on the state of the filter, temperature, etc. Maybe when "catching up" after years of sub-optimal maintenance I should throw a new filter on every 1000 miles?
I love to see how things get modified, when things go wrong. This is from a tbi engine that they kept trying to identify the noise. View attachment 497091
I may have identified the issue ;)
 
Was the oil pressure ever low? Its certainly possible but I would think you would see that on the gauge, if there is one.
Yes, the oil pressure was low exactly once. :frown There is no gauge in the cluster, just a message. It does have an actual sensor and not just the old "change engine soon" switch. IIRC, you can read it over OBDII, which is how I knew it was OK. It's too bad idiot new car buyers ever allowed the gauge to go away in cars. You can spot trends that let you know to look into something long before you get to the 2-3psi threshold. I'm told they don't shut off automatically because it would be unsafe to lose the power steering and brakes.

With the first engine, she panicked and ignored the warning, trying to make it home, stomping the pedal as the car slowed down. :doah:"I didn't know you should shut the engine off." Well, she listened to me after that and with the 2nd one apparently pulled out of traffic and shut it down as soon as she thought it was safe.

Still, even if it was shut down immediately, the engine probably still has to come out. If you find a bad oil pump, plugged pickup or something of that nature, maybe the engine is saved. If not, I suppose you're tearing it down or replacing it anyway. :dunno:
 
In that case it sounds like something high on your priority list to fix.
 
Here we have 99% a FWD LF1. The casting is actually a little different around the starter, but you can still get ar least 7 bellhousing bolts in.20250227_210419.jpg

These projects take forever at a few hours a week.
 
Good work Luke.

This reminds me of when I had an Oldsmobile Intrigue as a daily, bought it used with 75K on it, 20 yers ago now. Had the 3.8L V6, great engine, was still running good at 180,000 miles when I sold it. Anyway, it developed a loud whine noise coming from the power steering, wasn't all the time, but would get very loud all the sudden and power steering would get weak.

I drained and put in fresh fluid and a new belt...still did it.

So I changed the power steering pump....still did it.

So I changed the whole power rack and pinion and blew out the hoses......still did it...

I'm thinking, the only thing left is the hoses/lines at this point.

So I changed those, thinking, this has to be it...still did it!

At this point I was back to square one, everything was replaced, same problem.

I started thinking, when you get a new pump for those you put back on the old reservoir with the metal clips, which I had drained and flushed out, but I decided to check it again...and I when I looked down in there with a flashlight after removing it from the pump and draining it, I found one of those paper/foil caps that's on top of the fluid bottle when its new, someone had dropped it in there, and it was lodged in there, and then the pump would suction it over the inlet, and starve the pump of fluid. So the entire time I was replacing everything, the problem was a little piece of foil paper that someone had dropped in the fluid reservior before I bought the car and it didn't show up right away. :eek:

We need a head slap imoji.
 
Maybe I should contact HR, because my partner isn't really getting much done. It's weird because he has so many more hours out here than me. Although with the 0 mice in shop record, I should probably let it slide.

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