Progress is being made after another hour or so working on it:

And GM, seriously….making me go through the wheel well to get the last bolt off the alternator? Who do you think you are? Ford?

Here we are.

3 of 8 exhaust studs were missing. On the plus side, every last one of those are simply missing, and not broken off in the head. Easy fix.

Now on to the not as easy fix: the valve train doesn’t move. In the 10 minutes of googling I’ve done, I’ve heard that this is not an interference motor, that is is an interference motor, and that it’s more of a “depends on what RPMs you were at” kind of motor. I’m guessing the timing chain is broken, but I’m going to just continue on with taking the head off before getting down into the front cover.

Good thing these motors are a dime a dozen in the scrap yards. If it comes down to it, I’ll be perfectly fine with swapping.