Rebuild the low-mile 2.0 or disassemble and clean?
 

I recently bought a '65/'66 911 in great shape with 62K, but the engine is frozen - solid. I bought it from the original owner who purchased it in London. He shipped it back and it sat in his garage for 25 years and has only been driven four miles since 1994. I have a feeling leaking fuel from the miserable Solex's washed all the oil off the rings and they're now adhered to the cylinders.

So the question is...do I rebuild the top end or just disassemble and clean, and then reassemble? I want to remove the engine anyway and give it a thorough exterior cleaning regardless of the prospect of rebuilding.

My gut says to rebuild the top end properly. But if some of you feel that's an unnecessary expense or have any other ideas, I'd like to hear about it.

This is a question that you can answer yourself after you take the engine apart. All the repair books including the dreaded haynes manual have specifications for the wear limit on things like rings and valves. You measure the parts and decide if they need replacing or remachining. If you don't feel comfortable doing these measurements you can take/send the parts to a shop for evaluation.

-Andy

The bearing are suspect? The rings, I would definitely change. I would expect the heads need to be taken apart, and rebuild with new guides/valves depending on the condition of those components. The milage is low. so I concur that you may just need a top end, and good cleaning.

Good luck.

That's what I was thinking. I just needed some concurrance before I began. I didn't want to be half way through the rebuild and find out I was doing something unecessary. Thanks.