Circled in yellow. I may have dropped a valve cover bolt or two down one of them.... In the even that I did drop a bolt down one of them would it just drop on down to the oil pan? (Head was on at the time of explosion of bolts...arrg)

 

not sure ,but it looks to be an oil return passage , if so yes the nut went right to the oil pan.

 

can't be good either way....

 

the valve cover was unbolted but had all 12 bolts on it, I forgot this, grabbe the oil filler on the valve cover and yanked up (pulling the head). Yeah there was an explosion of bolts, recovered all but 2, and I saw one fall down below the camshaft on the head above cylinder #4.... I dont think that the 2 circle connect with anything honestly... but I know that big rectangle does!!

Now if its an oil drain passage, would the bolt have to go through the girdled main to get to the oil pan or do the drain passages come in just below the mains?

 

the 2 next to each other on the side are the oil drains, they come out above the girdle. the one up front is for pcv, it also comes out above the girdle. if the screws are above the girdle, you should be able to get them out, rotate the crank if need be but there is some room, a magnetic pickup tool would help as well.

 

coolant passages.

the big sq one on the right is the main for the head.

 

naaa you would see anti freeze in em if they where coolant passages ,plus they fell down when he had the head on ,so thats out ,its oil passages.

 

*whew* I dodged a bullet there! The bolt I saw fall in next to the camshaft over cylinder number 4 was still in the head. Granted I had to pull the cam, and damn near everything else apart, but I got er out!

Now only 1 valve cover bolt is missing! Time to go get the 200oz subwoofer magnet and roll it along the ground to see what ferrous items it can find!

And why the hell didnt anyone tell me there were no bearings on the camshaft?!?! Holy hell that makes swapping cams easy as pie!! Now I dont have to worry about finding plast-i-gauge, torque wrenches, new bearings, blah blah...

 

well i would still plasti gauge it ,to make sure ,aluminum is soft and they do wear the bearing surfaces

 

good point! The same cams are going back in after they get reground, but it probably would be a good idea to check em out right now!

 

i gauged mine when i did my rebuild.

 

can't see yellow circles, no pictures am I lost?

 

Yes, you're 18 years in the past