I had seen this before but never bothered to listen. It answered some of my questions about the crankcase and the battery. Doesn't talk about auto trans fluid or diff oil though. I guess those vents must be in a position they are not an issue.

When I was an apprentice in the mid seventies a customer had a Vega oil burner. The car was fairly low mileage and in good shape. I pulled the engine and took it apart and it had scored cylinder walls. I took the block and pistons down to the local machine shop for some advice. The machinist had never worked on a Vega engine but he measured the block and said he could order sleeves that should fit it. After putting cast iron sleeves in it was a good engine and outlasted the body of the car.

Prefectca wrote:

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When I was an apprentice in the mid seventies a customer had a Vega oil burner. The car was fairly low mileage and in good shape. I pulled the engine and took it apart and it had scored cylinder walls. I took the block and pistons down to the local machine shop for some advice. The machinist had never worked on a Vega engine but he measured the block and said he could order sleeves that should fit it. After putting cast iron sleeves in it was a good engine and outlasted the body of the car.

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 The Vega (& Astre) block were high silicon aluminum that had their silicon particles aligned (via electromagnetism?) via an industrial process unavailable outside, after boring. Mercedes did the same thing successfully. The blocks were intended to be thrown away (seriously!) but after a spate of oil burners, they developed the iron liners for the bores. They were for field service, and were incorporated into the 1975 Vega's "268 improvements" as they touted themselves. Hydraulic lifters & iron bores for 1976 meant Chevrolet was confident enough to give a 5 year, 60,000 mile warranty.

 

The 1972 Vega Yenko Stinger Turbo came from the factory with a special reinforced block that would be durable under the Yenko turbo conversion. It literally was a COPO Vega.

 

 

As I recall, one of the effects of having early engine failures in Vegas was a bunch of V8 Vegas running around Ancaster, Ontario in the mid-70's.

Truly GM did fix those engines. A friend's mother owned from new a really neat 1975 Astre with the L'il Wide Track graphics. (See attachment.) It had no problems north of 100,000 miles. They also had no rust issues, but that was likely due to having a good maintenance regiment. Their '72 Parisienne coupe with Rally IIs & sport mirrors still looked as good as ever at 240,000 miles.