1994 Camaro z28...

Hi, I have a feeling the rotor screws backed out of the Opti and it has quit running. You have to take off the water pump and balancer pulley to take the cap off the Opti, correct?

Thanks,

Paul

 

That is correct.

 

Water pump has got to come off first, unless your a magician.

 

No man just go ahead and notch as much room as you need off the water pump and when done just jb weld it back on lol yes man pull the pump.

 

hey be sure and be careful not pull your water pump off all fast once the six bolts are out. if there is any left over coolant inside, let it leak out untill it stops so that you dont drench your Opti in coolant. I took my opti off today for the first time and in being too hasty, I think I might have got too much coolant on it.

 

The smart thing to do is just drain the block by pulling the knock sensor off.

 

GM purposely made the WP and opti location relevant to each other. this ensures that when you unknowingly "misdiagnose" a failed opti, you don't have to deal with the predicament of returning your brand new opti to the parts store. instead you just make certain your current opti is indeed toast after removing the WP. haha. GENIUS!!!

 

if your opti is by chance bad and its not just the rotor, i have an AC Delco off my 94 in the garage just layin there. Has about 500 miles on it, blew up the motor and went LS lol

 

Thanks everyone for your replies and in some cases humorous ones.

Cuz as we know, you gotta have a good sense of humor when working on these cars!

As it turns out, it is not a bad opti that is causing the car to run poorly, only a broken valve spring that dropped a valve into a piston which didn't want it, and sent it right back up from whence it came, and it is now stuck in the guide in the closed position. We are gonna get a scope and look into the spark plug hole and see if we can assess if any major damage was done to the piston. Hopefully not.

Wish it had been the opti at this point!

 

Besides a sense of humor, I've found it also takes cussin', and beer to help out.

 

man, that really sucks. Nothing like having to do a rebuild and not planning it. I know how that is.

If a piston is damaged, I have a stock shortblock laying around with pistons in it I can take out if youd want them.