I have to do a couple things on my LT1 ('93 6spd coupe) and I wanted to get some opinions on whether or not it would be worth the hassle of pulling the motor over the winter to make the job easier. Motor has 95k and car was set up for street/track by a PO so not sure how hard its life has been. Compression is all really good ~185psi +/- 1 or 2psi.

I have to:

Adjust the valves, they are noticeably noisy.

Change gaskets; head gasket appears to be leaking coolant from the water channel to the outside, no evidence of any in the cylinder and no noticable coolant loss at the resevoir, but there is coolant odor on the passenger side and the gasket tab looks moist between cylinders 1/2. Also, there is bottom end oil gaskets leaking, it looks like the rear main and either the front main or the timing cover at the front end, but it is hard to tell with that cross member being there.

Anything else that is easy to do while I have it opened up?

I think the top end stuff would be easy to do in the car, but what about the lower end stuff? how hard is it to change those main seals in the car vs pulling the motor out? Any recommendation on head gaskets to work with the iron/aluminum mismatch? I dont have a garage so my options are to be hunched over in the early spring or pull the motor and work it in the basement over the winter. I just am not really sure it is worth pulling a motor with only 95k and messing with it for leaky gaskets when I dont have the money to go crazy with the mechanics, but everything does looks easy to access and disconnect.

 

 

Pulling the motor is not a whole lot of fun - but it's certainly something you can do. The book says to take the trans out first - and that's how I've done it. THe ZF gearbox weighs about 125 Lbs, and doesn't like to balance on anything too well. (One hint to making the trans removal go easier is to pull the two thru bolts that hold the rear diff "Batwing" in place - once that can move up and down, the torque arm that seems impossible to get out comes out a whole lot easier).

IF you decide to pull the heads without pulling the motor - one of the real PITA portions of the job will be pulling the steam line that runs between the heads on the back of the motor.

I've never pulled the oil pan with the engine in the car - so can't help you there.

 

On my 84 I got the oil pan out without jacking the motor up or anything.

 

pulling the oil pan with the motor in the car is actually one of the easier things; the motor mounts may have to be loosened and the front of the engine raised about an inch and a 3/4" piece of wood inserted between the bottom of the mount and the frame bracket it was attached to and the motor then allowed to come to rest atop the block of wood.

with all that said, your engine has a one piece rear seal which will require either the motor to be pulled or the transmission to be removed; either one is labor intensive but not particularily difficult. Good Luck.

 

Your rear main is a one piece seal that requires either engine or trans removal to replace.