So i dont know anything about cars but since i bought my 84 z28 with a 350 im wanting to learn about them. Well i had a oil leak under the tapet things and i didnt check one morning and i had no oil. My car overheated to the point it lost all power then shut off. I Took it to a mechanic and he is trying to sell me bull****. He says i need a 3 thousand doller motor.. lol then offered me 100 dollers for it. The eldbrok(probly mispelled) carb and intake manifold are well worth over that. Anyways he told me that 3 cyllinders are getting no compression and the one that is only gets 45 lbs. He claims he started it a couple times but just not when im there. I am not buying a new motor so i took it out of his shop. I talked to some people at autozone and they are telling me it sounds like blown head gasket which is no problem they are saying. The newly rebuilt motor only has 80k miles on it and it ran like a freakin champ before this. Someone told me to take off the heads buy gaskets for 40 dollers and i can see from there what the issue is... any kind of insight from you fellow camaro owners would be well appreciated. Thank you

--David

 

That must have been quite a leak. From the sound of it, you seized your engine. It ran out of oil, which causes excessive expansion, friction, and heat. Then the piston rings start to weld themselves to the cylinder walls, and the bearings were probably starting to fry as well. That causes the engine to slow down until it locks together and quits. You might get lucky and get the engine started after it cools down, but not without damage. One thing that can happen is the rings can weld themselves to the pistons, and the end result of that is no compression in the cylinder. I don't think the mechanic is b.s.'ing you. But you might as well take it apart to see for yourself, if for nothing else, to see the importance of having oil in the engine.

 

Never fails, no oil= no engine, but some people have to find out the hard way.

 

I did that only once, and it was to my mini-bike when I was a kid. Poor 3.5 hp Briggs and Scrapiron engine! Couldn't figure out why the bike was slowing down so badly and it pretty much quit. Checked it and...oops, barely any oil. Filled the oil, let er cool off, and it was up and running just fine. It was still a learning experience though, one I'll never forget. Unfortunately, the lessons you learn the hard way are the ones you always remember.

 

only $3000 to rebuild the engine? that sounds like a pretty decent price to me. it generally costs $1200 alone in parts and services to rebuild an engine, not including labor

 

I have found a chevy 350 rebuild kit for around 220, including pistons. The only thing it doesn't come with is cam/lifters lol. So rebuilding a motor for 3000 is quite high to me, considering I can buy a brand new crate 350 for about $1800. It's just knowing how to get it in