So I pulled my engine a few days ago. After cleaning the block a bit, I noticed a few small things that seem out of place. One, there are two marks on the housings, one red and one green. Also, the oilpan is sealed with an RTV of some sort.

All of the seals look in VERY good shape, and with the plugs out the engine makes very solid and even PSHHHHT sounds (although I haven't actually comp tested it). Also, looking into the exhaust port with a flashlight, the bottom of the housings (inside) look very clean.. with no major marks.

Also, the car has no issues with hot starts and no coolant issues either. It revs nicely and drives very smooth.



Did I mention it has 106,000 miles on the ODO? ...


This would lead me to belive that at some point in it's past, the engine was rebuilt. When I was dismantling the engine, there were a few bolts missing on the UIM to LIM, a steel LIM gasket (not OEM for 3rd gens AFAIK).

I am the 3rd owner of this car. The previous owner did not do any engine rebuilding (he only owned the car for a year or so) so it leads me to believe the original owner put a new engine in. He was an older guy who mostly drove it on weekends... and he owned it for 13+ years. He was also in the US NAVY from what I can tell from some old records that came with the car.


Here are some snaps of the marks on the housing.

 

Did it have the steel gasket over the top of the old paper gasket? Considering huge chunks of the paper gasket are still visible in your pics

 

I imagine it was rebuild considering (A) the mileage, nearly no one gets that many miles out of a stock motor and (B) I dont believe the factory uses RTV instead of a gasket to seal the oilpan(even though it works better).

 

sorry DJSeven, I mis wrote that.. I meant to say LIM to UIM gasket. The LIM to the block was still paper... and man does it suck to take off!