Now everything is good again

[sajo6000]

Everything was in the oil pan

[LMP]

A brief history of the case would be interesting...

[500hpgtx]

Looks like a snapped off rocker arm bolt. A lost pushrod. A galled balance shaft. Wonder what would cause this? Stuck valve maybe?
Hope it is fixed. Must have been a fun job...cheers

[Jrs3800]

That has to be a 92... Last year the old rocker pivot was used and first year for the 3800 in a van... That is really unheard of for a 3800 tho... I'd like to know what the story is behind that as well...

[sajo6000]

Forgive the delay, it's actually a long story ...

On a warm summer day when the previous owner (my friend) peaceful rolling down the road, he suddenly heard a bang in the engine compartment.
He notes that the AC compressor has a serious breakdown, he manages to get a shorter belt and the journey continues, however, he feels that the engine has lost some power.
My friend has not strength to fix this now so he park the car.

3years later the landowner think that he should remove the car and we decided that, and I buy it for a small fee.

So the engine was a bit weak and sounded a little bad, I have only fixed simple older engines without electronics, so this was new to me.

I found a simple repairbook and began to troubleshoot, according to the book, it was wrong to "trottle position censor" so I changed it, it was wrong to "knock sensor" I do not change that :-), it was wrong on the control box, then I bought a sparecar to pick parts from.

There was plenty of faults in the engine according to the book.

Then I found a diagnostic program that I plugged in, I understand nothing.
My only option then was to buy the large workshop manual, and an hour later I was on the right track.

One of the cylinders (6) was weak said the diagnostics, according to the book may one of the hydraulic valve lifters be wrong, so I removed the valve cover to check the valve lifters.
The bolt was off! But where was the push rod?, so I tore more, pushrod still missing WTF! how is that possible?.
The push rod was fed down through the hole of the balance shaft, down to camshaft who have pushed it on down through the crankshaft, (what are the odds of that?) And I found all completely mashed and twisted in the sump.
Good thing the pushrod only consists of a tube with two balls so I was able to fix everything.

The steel that were stuck on camshaft went off with a chisel and a grindstone, nothing was damaged there.
I bought a new push rod and seals, washed out with oil, screwed together and the engine started.

And yes, it worked, quietly and without vibration.

My companion said he drove on for a while to get to a workshop after the compressor had has broken down , it was probably then the valve bolt broke.
Fantastic that the engine was ok when the exhaust valve is not opened, the head gasket should have been broken by this.

30,000 km since the repair, no problems yet :-)

More pictures can be found at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...3&l=63a5f0ec63

[sajo6000]

Picture of an push-rod redesigned by a 3.8 Pontiac engine.

20120716_150402.jpg