The old shitbox needed some rear suspension work.
The rear was feeling like it had hexagon wheels when taking off. The rear bushes pretty much all failed at the same time (originals from factory) and the tail shaft yoke managed to hit and mark the floor even though the car is stock height
Couldn't get superpro via my mechanic is any timely manner and I regret not waiting. The McKay ones needed machining on one to fit and another was so soft that normal driving caused it to collapse in and fall out after only 1 day. So I put a used good arm in for now and that's been ok now.
Then a few weeks later the front end went. Shocker failed and spewed it's guts inside the guard covering everything in oil. The other side shocker jammed immediately after and became solid lol.
Since I did the bushes 200K ago with superpro at the front, they were still in great nick. The ball joints weren't great after 200K but ok, put a new boot on the one that was aftermarket as it failed weeks after installing it some 7 years ago and I never bothered fixing it. New rack ends, shocks, boots and swaybar link bushes (took 6 weeks to arrive from only 70km away
).
I ordered Felpro timing cover gasket/seal set from the US for these engines for less than 10 USD each so I purchased 3 sets.
I also ordered a new Melling timing set as they are all US made and to original specs. All the other OEM type sets looked shit to me. And also got a chain damper off ebay locally, Nason brand.
The timing cover had been leaking coolant for few years and was getting worse, so hence the above parts.
Turns out the main source of the air in the cooling system was actually the water pump. I could see there was some cement looking deposits that leaked down the front of the cover that I never saw when checking. The air promoted severe cavitation that really damaged the timing cover and pump housing alloy.
I prepared another cover and got a new pump too. Got it sand blasted and a lick of Duplicolor caliper paint ( that stuff is awesome! One of the best paints I've used thus far)
Transferred the oil pump which shocked me to how good condition it was in, looked like one from something like a 40k old engine, certainly not what you'd see from a 400K engine that has had an extremely hard life.
The old chain and damper were pretty buggered. The new one was much tighter. Installed with new cam bolt which is genuine GM and I noticed the class and head size was metric and obviously the thread remained freedom units.