Pissed off about piston squirters
 

Well, I was about to start my rebuild tomorrow, but in finishing up the case today, I discovered a couple of piston squirters are clogged or something. 4 of them work and can easily be pressed down against their springs, but 2 don't squirt and when I tried to depress them, they became stuck down. Anyone have any insight as to how this can be corrected, or am I stuck sending the case out to have them changed out. They are soaking in penetrating oil right now.

In case this your first time testing 911 piston squirters you might want to check out my post on the subject. Piston Squirters!
-Chris

Hi Chris, I read that thread a couple of times, but these are really jammed. I'm going out to try and find a better air tip, but I do not have a good feeling about these.

Someone mentioned drilling these and replacing them. Is that DIY or too risky unless you have a good mill? I rwally don't want to put this off a few weeks to send the case halves out, but will if I have to to be sure these are working.

If it makes you feel better, some people would recommend replacing them as a matter of course. Did you have an engine failure?
-Chirs

No, not at all. I don't understand why they would be so messed up.

I just went through replacing one on my car. It was plugged with hardened sealant, and no amount of sovent/air would break it free.

To remove it, I drilled it with a 5 mm bit, pull out the ball and spring. You may also have to relieve peening aroung the top of the bore, which some engines had in addition to the Loctite holding the splash valve. Thread in a 5 mm tap. Heat generously to soften the Loctite. Then pull it out. Twisting some on the tap helped, but you obviously don't want to break off the tap.

The above is what the Porsche manual says to do.

I have also seen these removed by threading in a screw, after tapping the hollowed out squirter shell. With a plain collar, nut and washer you have a sort of mini-puller. This will spare you worrying about breaking off a tap in this sensitive spot.

I installed the new squirter with Loctite 7471 primer and Loctite 640 retaining compound, which is what Porsche recommends. The critical step, in my experience, was to drive the new splash valve all the way in the bore without deforming the top. A soft aluminum drift, fitted to the splash valve, seems to help. This is what the local machine shop made AFTER I DEFORMED the first one!

The Loctite 640 was much stronger than whatever the factory used originally on my car, so removing the second splash valve was considerably more difficult.

You may also want to peen the top of the bore for a "belt and suspenders" approach. The bore depths seem to vary, and I'm not sure that there's enough room at the top of the bore to peen it after installing the splash valve, in all models. There was in my Turbo 3.0, but it doesn't look like there's enough room on a 2.4 crankcase I have apart, now. If you peen the top, a purposely dulled chisel does the peening nicely, and looks "factory."

It helps to have a new splash valve in hand, so you can clearly picture all of this, before you start pulling it apart.

Debating whether I should do this myself or not. I think finding the exact right sized drift may be difficult for me to do...

Thanks for the info guys

If it means anything, this is not a task that I would personally perform unless I had a Bridgeport and some really good machine tools. Too much opportunity for damage...

-Wayne

It does mean something, although I usually won't shy away from a challenge. I brought the case halves to the shop today for the machine work to be done. Thanks all. The week delay is well worth having a reliable case.