This is mostly engine related so thats why its here, and its all technical discussion IMO.
This thread doesnt really ask anything, I have another thread I just posted that does that. Just thought Id share my Camaro story with everyone.

OK so Ill start at the begining pretty much.
About 9 months ago
Bought the car (93 z28 100k miles).

About 6 months
ago Brakes squeeked all the time, replaced rotors with drilled and slotted still squeeked, replaced pads with carbon metallic, still squeeked. Now I have 4 new calipers to hopefully stop the squeeking but havent had a chance to put them on.

About 4 months ago
3 tires where bald and showing bad signs of wear. Got front end alignment and they said it was a bad hub.
Replaced hub and had front end aligned again.
Decided changing rims and tires made more sense then just tires. Put on 18's with low pros.
Now my car would shake at like 50+ from the rims being lug centric instead of hub centric.

About 3 months ago
Clutch went out, had replaced by a shop. Then reverse pretty much goes. Now it has to be held in while using reverse or it will pop out. Syncro kit is bad.

About 3 weeks ago
Went to get tires balanced in hopes of fixing the shaking and they told me 2 tires had cuts in them and 1 was bald.
My buddy that I sold my old rims to sold them so now I needed new rims and tires once again, oh why the rims? Because lug centric rims SUCK, even after a balance they still shake.
Found some used newer rims and tires on CL for a good price so I bought em.
Wooooops new rims dont fit on an older car, sweet lots of dremel and now they fit.

Car started getting louder and running hot. Checked and it was a blown exhaust manifold gasket on drivers side.
Bought new gaskets to replace and turned out to have 3 studs broken off in head. yipppeeeeeeeee.
Removed exhaust manifold and all the bolts broke off in it. Sweeeeet.
Had to cut them out.
Jack broke had to buy a new one of those.
Ripped off intake, TB, head and everything else needed. Tried to ezout bolts and broke off ezouts. Machine shop said "we wont even touch it with them there ez out whatchamagiggers broken off in them bolts".
5 hours later all ez outs are out.
Machine shop fixed head, I installed all new gaskets figure might as well do the plugs while Im at it and why not do the 2 front O2's sensors as well.

All back together waited 24hrs before I started to give the gasket stuff time to cure. Next day going smooth but temps still high and im not getting any heat from my vents.

Later the next day nice puddle of coolant under car and it was comming from the seep hole in the pump, f'in sweeeeeeter.
Replaced water pump and waited another 24hrs for gasket sealer to cure and all is fixed but still no heat and car running out.

Now mind you this whole time me and my wife are sharing her car but our work scheduals are different. I have to drive an hour to work and an hour back. Shes about a half hour in the same direction but shes an EMT so she works 4 12hr shifts instead of 5 8hr.
So guess whos on 12's for 4 days of the week and because Im salary Im not getting and overtime for it.
This was like this for 2 weeks and on the weekends it was 10hr's a day on the f'in Camaro.

This weekend
Flushed core fixed heat problem and now temps back to normal (heater core effecting temps ????? Camaros rock <- sarcasim).
Enging all dirty from all the work time for washy washy.
We all know where this is going.

......... Now see my car wont start thread (like you didnt see that one comming).

 

Try some disc brake quiet on the back of the pads..it works wonders...you bought an old car,you have to expect problems.

 

Wet opti = bad. You made me feel better reading this. I hope you feel better to.

 

Its my bad for not being specific on somethings but the brake issue was like a 2 month thing and in that time frame I triead everything, including some brake quiet stuff and even a bunch of permatex black on the back of the pads by suggestion of someone else with the same problem.

 

just added a few more things to the list I forgot about, I know theres a ton more but thats the biggest things.

 

The stock wheels are lug-centric, relying on the conical shape of the lugs, and the matching taper on the wheel holes. The stockers are not hub-centric. There is no reason a different set of wheels would cause the problems you describe, unless they were not properly balanced, the tires were faulty, the wheels were bent, or the stud holes were not drilled correctly.

Again, your problem had nothing to do with the fact that your new wheel were lug-centric. The problem of putting later model wheels on an early 4th Gen, because of the differences in front and rear hub diameters is fairly common knowledge, and is covered in the FAQ on the "Wheels and Tires" forum, and on Shoebox's Tech Pages.

I haven't seen a lot of exhaust manifold bolts that just decide to break on their own. What is the history of this car? Where did it spend the first 13 years of its life? How was it cared for and maintained? How many of these problems were obvious when you test drove it?

A worn out water pump and a plugged heater core are not uncommon occurances in a 14 year old car with 100K miles on it.
Hopefully you are aware that when you "washy washy" the engine, you better not get the Opti wet.

 

hmmm could of sworn their all hub centric on 97+ and the rears hub centric on older models.

Car was a Texas car, bolts broke where the manifold connects to the down pipe, all 3 bolts.
No problems where noticable when I test drove it, well I guess I could tell the clutch was on its way but I expected that with 100k.

Btw when you buy a used car and pop the hood and see stock manifolds do you think to check if any bolts are broken off in the head ????


Well of course but it was the timming that sucked. I just had the whole thing apart and the very next day the water pump goes and now the opti. Do you see how Im doing work twice here?

Yeah its just more senitive then I thought.

 

Wow.... you made me feel better about my problems. I've just had a couple engine lights that are bugging me and not letting me drive it... lol. That has to be extremely frustrating..... :/ Good luck getting everything fixed and back on the road! Hopefully it won't be too much longer.

 

Dude, I feel your pain. Sometimes I feel like taking a sledgehammer to my car for all the agony it causes. Price we pay for the horsepower I guess

 

The bad part is everytime I fix it something else goes.
After getting this problem fixed my alternator will surely take a crap.



You know the worst part is and I didnt mention this, I just plan on selling the car.

As it is my wife drives it except when it snows cause I drive about 90+ miles everyday. Some days I drive over 150miles in one day.

I want to not only keep the miles low but its also not practical as far as Gas, Comfort, snow handling, etc.... goes.

So I really just want to sell the car but I know right now even with it fixed I will take a big hit because its that time of year.
Id rather wait till summer and sell it.
Im already obviously losing my behind when I sell the car just from all the time and money Ive poured into it and Im sure plenty more will go into it.

Im just not the type of person to quick fix something just cause Im getting rid of it, Id rather say heres whats done and heres all the receipts and you will never need to worry about these things again unless its routine maintance stuff.

Lemme tell you I had a nice 92 Lincoln Conti with about 99k on it. Air ride went along with some other stuff. Put on the coil over conversion kit ($800) and had to replace the rear 2 spindal/hub assemblies.
Also did some work with motor/maintance stuff.

Car got tapped on rear pass side, trunk still worked and everything, was purely cosmetic and even not that bad.
Sold car for measly $750 just to get up the rest of the cash for this car.

Just another example of doing things right on the car (coil over conversion instead of used bags) but in the end it didnt make a bit of difference.

Wonder if it will be the same with this car ???

 

Do you want some cheese with that wine? Haha, Sorry I had to. Hope everything works out for ya man. I had a 93' Volvo 850 once that was like that. Bought car, one month later trans went out, 2 months later timing belt broke and ****ed up some stuff, lol. As far as the Lincoln thing goes...shoulda had full coverage. I have a 93 Lincoln that got in a light fender bender and received more than I paid for it even after buying it back. I now daily drive the car until my T/A is fixed and have spent nothing on it since then.