Timing cover removal
 

Starting tearing everything down to get to the timing cover set. (Was a known leak when I bought the car) Throttle body came off, water pump also removed with no issues. Down to the balancer now, and having issues getting the three outer bolts loose to separate the balancer/hub assembly. Tried using a strap wrench to hold the crank with no luck, is the nylon rope trip the preferred method to side step this? Also, how on earth do you get a puller on the hub assembly with the cross-brace and rack in the way? Am I going to have to release the motor mounts, and jack the engine up? Is there even enough clearance?
Front of the motor is filthy, when I un-plugged the Opti....the pigtail was covered in oil.(The section below the seal, inside the opti-spark unit) Was getting a random mis-fire and hard starting once the engine was warmed up. Vacuum hose to opti was melted through, Found another un-capped vacuum line on the passenger side of the intake manifold.

On a side note, since I had the car in the air, I changed out the fog lights with LED units. (Much better than the flickering HID ones someone threw in there.)

1996 Collector's Edition
LT-1
Auto.

Thanks for the help peoples.:pistols:

Going to have to jack up front of engine. LT1 uses special balancer puller. There is a tool to hold flywheel so pulley and hub bolts can be removed. Along with torqued afterwards. Oil pan will need lowered also.

Just a quick update. Everything is back together, car runs great. No more timing cover leak, the miss and the warm start issues are gone. The majority of the issues I had with the crank pulley were due to an aftermarket underdrive crank pulley. All is well that ends well I guess.

Very cool. Did you end up doing the oil pan gasket too or just the timing cover and associated seals and gaskets?

Just timing cover set and valve covers....all the oil was coming from the top water pump drive seal ( someone had gone in and replaced that top seal with out using an installation tool and the inner lip of the seal was pinched and rolled out.) Opti was full of oil, even the pigtail below the rubber seal was soaked. I'm not really sure how it was running at all. Degreased the motor and undercarriage, no more burnt oil smell after driving, oil level hasn't dropped ( been driving it daily to work this week) I still have some other odds and ends to address trim pieces loose, passenger window regulator, and look at the bushings in the rear. She really needs a thorough detail.