Decided to tackle the oil leak yesterday after doing a bit of research... I found oil dripping off of the filter canister and figured someone pinched the o-ring or damaged the canister.

The car was over due for an oil change so decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

Climbed under the car and went to pull the drain plug and all I see is a wing nut. After looking it over for a bit... discovered someone had replaced the drain plug with a universal expanding rubber plug. It took a good bit of effort but was finally able to pry it off...



Also found a few bolts "missing" from the oil pan so I decided to pull the pan so I could repair the drain plug threads and see about sealing up the pan leak. The threads were a little damaged but was able to chase them and clean them up a good bit. Replaced the plug with an off the shelf GM plug with a rubber seal. (another $5 at the local parts house)



Engine looked fairly clean inside and no sludge standing in the oil pan...


Well the 3 bolts that I thought were "missing" were actually broke off in the upper pan and broke off flush. I decided to not chance damaging the upper pan and drilled/tapped a new hole just to give a little bit of clamping force in that area. "Rigged"... yes... but it worked. No more pan leak.


Then I pulled the oil filter canister and found this...


No damage to the actual housing or bolt.. both filters and spring were in place. Picked up a wix filter locally and re-installed the canister after some tweaking of the lip.. Leak only got worse.

At this point, I started digging around for a new canister.. after discovering that was a joke (not giving $100+ for an oil filter canister for a $310 car).. I decided I best try again to repair what I had.

Pulled the canister back off (3 times).. finally threw away the flat gasket that came with the wix filter and decided to reuse the o-ring that was on it. I also jacked up the engine a bit as the motor mounts are shot. I applied a hefty coat of grease to the o-ring and reinstalled the housing. Much to my surprise, no more oil leak.

Apparently, it decided this spot in my shop was its new territory...


While it was running, I found my fuel leak as well... a pretty steady drip coming from the delivery valves. Considering the look of the oil and filter I removed, I figured it was probably a good idea to run the car a bit and plan on changing the oil again soon...

Time to spend a little bit of money as now the car runs good and is drivable. New shifter bushings, oem delivery valve seals, oem valve cover gasket, oem fuel and oil filters, injector return hose, and aftermarket motor mounts are all on the way... (thanks pelicanparts)

I decided to get the car out of the garage and drive it a bit... then pressure wash it...




I do have the factory bumpers/hardware which will be going back on soon.. and another local craigslist ad just came up with a full set of oem hub caps which I plan on picking up Friday...

All in so far.. just shy of $450 including all new parts.

I plan to go on and replace all of the moving suspension/steering parts along with the front sections of the floor pans as they are in poor shape. One of the front springs has collapsed... strongly debating on putting this car on air as I love the looks of these cars sitting low... but hate the drivability issues that come with static drops.

We'll see. More to come as parts/tools show up.

-Chris