Whelp... shop lent me the ring compressor and the circlip pusher. But they need them back Friday morning.

Cylinders and pistons are ready on my bench, and I'll have to do this tomorrow.

What do you recommend as a strategy? Pistons in cylinders on the bench and install the pair at once? Or put pistons on rods first, and then slide cylinders over?

The compressors I have are a sleeve with a clasp, and a solid-piece ring with a lip.

The black ring tool and a couple of circlip insertion tools have been amazing. The shop lent them to me and this morning in just over an hour I put one piston and cylinder completely on and prepped three more pistons and cylinders. So I'm hopeful that tonight I can get the rest of them on in about 2 hours and get the shop back their tools for the Friday work day.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1759407798.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1759407798.jpg

Successful night! Those tools are amazing.
Also, these engines are so beautiful!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1759452779.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1759452779.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1759452779.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1759452779.jpg

Getting ready to put back on the engine tins on my path to assembling heads and cam towers.

What is the recommended prep for the airflow tins? I saw some folks painting them in Cerokote, which looks fairly expensive. I also have no paint gun. Should I just clean them really well? Paint them with something else after cleaning?

Paint and subassembly
 

Semi gloss black high temp rattle can works. This is how I do heads and cam carrier, cam and rockers.
Bruce. Double click for pictures

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads26/6DF021F0_D71A_4335_AA54_B52EE2468D941538762179.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads26/C4541598_71DB_4F5E_8FE8_E080B6D0E7821538762275.jpg

Are you painting the exterior surfaces of the heads and such? Looking at my old parts, the only obvious paint/coat was the valve covers and I think the tins.

Rattle can paint on clean cylinder dividers, don’t paint aluminum as it’s a becomes an insulator.
Bruce

Sounds good! My challenge right now is getting the dividers clean from 25 years of oily grime and a little bit of rust.

I'm considering if I need to find a way to sandblast them or such. Used an entire can of brake cleaner and they still aren't clean enough to paint.

Go to the china store, harbor freight, they have little brushes with metal bristles that works well in the bend area.
Work in a bucket with a gallon of kerosene
Bruce

A neighbor friend of mine in a radiator shop saw me brushing and scraping, and offered to run my baffles through the sand blaster, and strip the valve cover paint with some of their stripper stuff.

So while he works on that front, I went ahead ands started cleaning my chain housings.

I also tried to torque my oil pressure valves to 44 ft/lbs... and it feels impossible. How do you torque a wide flat-blade screw?

The later replacement on Carrera are 17mm hex head, good replacement
On yours, I just Chanel lock them tight.
Bruce

Any recommendation on how to clean the cam tower surface around the studs? I can get the rest pretty well with a scotchbrite pad, but I can't get good contact near the studs.

I do have a Dremel tools, but all the heads I have on hand seem to abrasive to be safe.
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Remove the studs...

Removing studs is one option. I was able to get mine clean recently without stud removal. I found acetone and some elbow grease removed all the gasket, sealant, etc residue. I preferred to avoid abrasives, though scotch brite is probably fine. I'd avoid power tools.

Gloves and ventilation when using acetone.

Razor blade.

A friend helped me clean my baffles really well. Revealed a fair bit of surface rust, although structurally the pieces feel fine.

Do you think I can go ahead and paint them and use as-is? POR 15, or maybe try to grind the rust off? Or just get a new set? They are all about the same condition as these three.

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http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760206374.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760206374.jpg

We pull all the studs and oil tubes, bead blast the housings and refinish all 5 sealing surfaces.
The last two pictures are a 964 cam housing converted for use on an engine with cam feed lines.

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http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760209219.JPG
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760209219.JPG

Sandblast and powdercoat /quality paint the baffles. Mine were way worse than yours and now they are like new. They are not cheap to buy used.

I used a lot of razor blades and scotch brite to get my mating surfaces nice.

Sandblasting cleared off the rust? What did it cost you to get the blasting plus coating done?

The 964 cam carriers were in the mix at the 89 production run, maybe even 88.
Get the cylinder dividers powder coated and never be concerned in the future.
Bruce

dont buy new ones. Total waste of money. Powdercoaters will blast and coat those for a pretty small amount of money.
If you aren't too bothered, just get some flat black paint from your autostore and have at it. Don't overthink this part of your build. Unless you are building an "instagram engine"....

I'm confused. What is the relevance of that comment? Were you commenting on my conversion?

I was just saying the 964 cam carriers were in production in 89 for the 3.2 so the change was worked in pre 964 runs.
I didn’t recall in 225 postings your conversion was involved

Bruce

I'm just having a little difficulty finding someone to do it. I messaged three different companies which I discerned from Google searching did blasting and didn't get any replies. I'm going to get on the phones on Monday I guess.

This is currently holding up my rebuild progress.

https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=powdercoating&find_loc=Milwaukee%2C+WI

We build a lot of engines from scratch (no core) so sourcing things like good/usable 49mm cam housings is becoming more and more difficult. This conversion is just another option.
We are also line boring 47mm 3 and 4 bearing housings to 49 mm to alleviate some of the sourcing issues.

That's because shops that do this kind of thing are slowly fading away.
I think I paid $300 and they had to weld up some holes from sandblasting.

Called 4 places, ended up finding the guy the local Porsche shop uses.

The clue was when I texted pictures of the baffles on my bench he recognized the engine just by the baffles. Its costing $250 here in Milwaukee.

Cleaning cam towers with 800 grit dremel this morning, coming out well. Pics later.
Picking up powder coat baffles tomorrow. Maybe I can put together this top stuff this weekend!

Maybe just me, but powder coating seems over the top for tin baffles--not like anyone is gonna see them! If I need to paint/recoat mine, I'll try electro-galvanizing them. I can do that in my shop, and it's more corrosion resistant than paint.

I build engines for other people (not as many as some others have, but they are all successful and leak -free builds under my belt now).
They are usually the sort of owners that want to do it once, do it right, and have something they can share photos of with their mates; something to brag about and be proud.
For a couple hundred bucks, I get all engine tins powder coated.

I also get parts vapour blasted, cerakoted, zinc plated etc. Lots of stuff cannot be seen afterward. But during the process of assembly, I take hundreds of photos and progress vids for the owners. They appreciate it, write me nice testimonials and tell their friends.

I agree, a lot of items won't be seen again, but it's a nice 'journey' and experience for the average owner who only wants to do it once.

I was in the position where I needed them at least blasted, because I couldn't get the rust off myself. And once you blast it, my understanding is you need to get it coated immediately or it will flash rust.

I might have been able to get it sandblasted and then immediately paint it, but I didn't see a good way to get there. So while I wish I could have a few bucks on an invisible part, I am content.

If you're content, that's what matters.

Mike, I get the reason you powder coat the baffles for your customers. I think gold colored zinc plating would look pretty trick too.

Pretty baffles are back. I'm gearing up to put together the top end this weekend.

How do you all clean the inner journals of the cam towers? I can't reach my fingers down there, so the best I've managed is a cloth on the end of a stick, or the tip of a very long brush.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760712557.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760712557.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760712557.jpg

Worked on those journals with a long brush and some twisted fingers. Now the baffles are on... hoping tomorrow morning I can get the uninterrupted time to do the headers and cam towers!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760736205.jpg

Watched some more videos to prep and saw people using "wavy washers" for the cam-to-head nuts.

I don't have any of those... do I need to get some?

I may have missed it somewhere along the way but did your shop remove, clean, and re-install the oil spray tubes in the cam carriers? If so, be sure to verify the spray holes in the tubes are correctly oriented to spray on the rockers.

Yes, spray tubes were redone and all clear. I also tested them with compressed air before assembling.

Cool pics in a second, but question first: the nuts holding the cam towers to the heads are nylock nuts, but some studs in the heads are short enough they don't emerge to fully lock into thy nylock band.
Am I using washers that are too thick? The washers came in my giant "washers and gaskets" kit. The nuts I bought on McMaster Carr.

Here are some pics of the ones that didn't stick out as far.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760800678.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760800678.jpg

That aside, here is the engine starting to look a bit like a real 911 engine again!
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http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1760800843.jpg

No nylocks on the cam carrier to heads. Use standard nuts and spring/wave washers. And there should be 3 barrel nuts on each side. Total of 6 barrel nuts (901 111 271 00) and 34 standard M8x1.25mm nuts (900 076 064 02). The washers and nuts you used look like those for the valve cover gaskets.