Guess how much is left!
 

First Post, new member.
I've been lurking and reading a bunch. I just bought a 1987 911 Targa with significant engine damage. At least I knew that when buying it, and my only surprise is just how much any 3.2L replacement engine costs.

123K miles, with aprox 40K miles on a (questionable) rebuild. I say questionable because it was leaking oil like a sieve, and combine that with an ignorant owner, resulted in the poor targa getting run out of oil. At highway speeds. Until it locked up the rear wheels.

I got absolutely no documentation on the service history, but the car is in exceptionally good shape for it's age. Zero rust anywhere, and a few small door dings and bumper scratches is all that is cosmetically wrong with it.

SO onto the engine....
I bought the car, pushed it onto a trailer and when I got it home filled it with 6.5 qts of oil and fired it up. Whoopee! it runs. But jeeze did it sound bad! Rod knock does not begin to account for the noise. It was more like rod not attached to a piston sound.

So I drained the oil, just to see what came out, and it was not pretty. I got lots of tell tale bearing material, and a chunk of what appears to be connecting rod wrist pin material. Oil Tank and sump drained less than 8 qts of oil.

Engine is coming out this week. Tear down should be ....Interesting..... to say the least. I'm most probably in the market for a replacement 3.2L of some sort.

Speculate with me: How much might be salvageable in my engine?
I am expecting crank, rods, and at least one piston / cylinder are toast.
I've had a knowledgeable Porsche engine builder speculate that even the Valve springs have been overheated and lost some of their spring-rate.

Maybe I'm dreaming to hope that the cases and heads and cams are usable.

What's your opinion?

Thanks,
Richard in Kansas City


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camshaft is probably toast as well... honestly you are probably better off just getting a fresh 3.2.

If it were me, I'd drop in a new 3.2, then tear down the poor motor and sell anything that is salvageable. My guess would be:

Case & timing covers
Heads (maybe, maybe not - camshaft bearings could be gone)

uh... thats actually all I can think of.

Ok, so your crank may be salvageable if it can be reground and use oversized bearings... Those thinks can handle an amazing amount of force, its the bearing surfaces that get messed up.

Also, major word of caution - check the front fender cooler and lines for debris. Then check them again. Then check a third time... it would suck to have a new/rebuilt motor die because there was something in your oil cooler.

Other than the engine, you have a nice looking vehicle.
Now, excuse me while I go throw up... carnage like that turns my stomach.

+1 on buy a new used engine and scrap the old one.

+1000 on clean out the oiling lines + cooler!!!

If you get a new used engine for $4-7k you can enjoy the car (nice looking car!) while you have tons of fun ripping the engine apart and learning about it. Contrary to LongHornChris I love to see carnage and then read the commentary from everyone so post up lots of pics ;)

You may find that the case is usable as desk legs ;) Heads and cylinders make great trophies and pistons are great paper weights. I have a few blown ones on my desk :) and people love to pick them up and play with them.

Enjoy!

-Michael

Uh, no worries on that: I know very well the amount of detail and documentation that should go along with anything used and Porsche. I would be VERY upfront and detailed before I sold anything. Though I suspect that some of it will become decorative for my garage wall.

Lack of Immediate funds prevents me from buying a "New" rebuilt motor. But a good running "needs freshened" motor that I can rebuild myself is within my financial grasp.

So I'm truly looking for more opinions from those that have seen this carnage before, and maybe a sentence on who you are, as I do not have the years of history with this group to intuitively know your experience level.

Thanks for playing along!
Richard

Oh, and I guess specifically I don't know a lot about air cooled engines and what goes bad when things run out of oil. Ok, Ok the obvious bearings munch themselves and pistons seize. But it's the unique to air cooled overheating that I don't have experience with...

My water cooled experience is overheat = Cracked blocks or heads, but the valve gear is usually fine (But so are the crank, rods, and cams because they have oil to lube them, and cool them.)

In the 911, with no oil to act as a secondary cooling media, does the entire engine just get blazing hot? Doesn't the fan provide the majority of the cooling? or is the oil more than 50% of the cooling capacity?

Could overheating really change the spring characteristics of the valve springs? Galling and seizing I can understand, but changing the properties of spring steel? I think the aluminum heads would be puddles on the ground before that could happen.
Of course I've put zero math (or better yet, Zero practical Porsche experience) behind that claim, so I'm looking for expert opinion.

I'm just trying to make sure I wrap my water cooled mind around the air cooled engine as fully as possible. And I'm using this as a mental exercise as I sit here at work, instead of dropping he engine like I want to.

I'm definitely going to fully examine and measure the cam housing and cams. But the heads themselves? Other than Valve guide slop, I'm limited to visual examination. and then taking the heads to a competent machinist to check for warpage, and check the springs for proper rates. What else could go wrong on an overheated Air cooled head?

Wayne's book is on the way. It can't get here soon enough.

Thanks,
Richard

If/when you do tear it down, be sure to post pics. I have a morbid curiosity :)

As to heat damage, the oil is used to cool anything that can't get air easily. The heads could easily have overheated before the engine froze. Honestly, even if the springs showed the proper rate, I wouldn't reuse. A good bit of the cost is just getting in there to replace them - everything I've read says if you are in there, replace them. My concern is less about heat damage (which is bad), but more about the camshaft bearings. If they got spun, then your heads may not be reusable.

In addition to direct heat damage, high head temps can lead to detonation - which can cause spectacular damage to the valves and heads.

Oh - the oil is also used to cool the pistons - Porsche installed oil sprayers in the case that bathe the underside of the pistons with "cold" oil to remove heat from the underside. W/o this, the pistons probably overheated, expanded, and froze.

Finally, at least in race setups (multiple external coolers), it has been shown that the oil provides more cooling than the fan. In a stock config, I'm not sure, but there are stories of racers throwing their fan belts and the engine surviving... not that I'd recommend this. The air cooling seems to mostly get the cylinders, part of the heads, and the engine-mounted oil cooler.

Good luck. And pics, we want pics!!!

I have the opposite problem...a freshly rebuilt engine and transmission that runs very well, but a worn interior and a body that badly needs a paint job. Your car looks beautiful !

I am usually a strong advocate of rebuild what you have......but in this case.....You will buy all the same parts , So Just go get an other one

Oh, one other thing. I doubt the transmission receive any damage... but I'd still flush it and check for crap. Having the engine seize at highway speed can't be good for 5th gear.

That, and anybody who lets the oil run dry probably didn't ever flush the trans.

So I've been thinking about how to flush the cooler and lines... Removal of the cooler, and having it boiled out leaves it in someone elses hands (Which I don't like), but may provide the best result.
I also have been thinking on how to get the 1.5 year old gas out of the tank..
An a CRAZY!!! thought came to my head.
Since I'm not going to be using the gas for even my lawnmower, and I figure I have to use the fuel pump to pump it out anyway, Why not rig up the fuel line into the oil lines and cooler, and back flush all the crap out using the 5 gallons of Gas as a solvent at 40 PSI?

Then collect the gas and dispose of properly, and do a final clean flush of the lines and cooler with a gallon of Isopropol Alcohol, using a gravity flush (Hose and funnel)

I'd probably still take the cooler off after that and ensure that it came clean.

Good or bad idea?

Richard

What kind of cooler is it? I'm assuming Carrera cooler.

I'd take it off and clean it seperatly. Back flush the lines. This way you don't drive any crap in the lines through the cooler. IMHO, you are more likely to get the crap out if you flush each piece individually. Plus, if there is a bad blockage in the cooler, you can at least get recover the lines.

Good luck.

Take the cooler off and send it out to be cleaned at Pacific Cooler or some place like that. That gas trick sounds like a great 1st pass on the lines. Isopropal wont do anything on oil sludge. I'd re-circ the gas a bunch of times until you are satisfied. Even then you wont have gotten it all, but I suspect most of it will be gone. You could also try sea foam.

Enjoy!

-Michael

Engine's out
 

I haven't torn into it yet, But at least it's out.
I'm fighting the shift fork needle bearings, so the transmission is still hanging on. Tomorrow maybe I'll have enough time to at least take the valve covers off.

until then, Here's the obligatory shot.
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Richard in KC

Oh, and a little midnight guessing game:

I yanked this out from under the Passenger seat. It took some thinking to figure out what it was, but when I got there it was an AHHHH! moment.

Wanna venture a guess?
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radio signal amp for antenna in windshield is my guess. don't need with outside antenna.

Nope.

Other clues: It's not factory, and it's not going back in, due to being completely obsolete. SmileWavy

Telephone part.

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

The guts of an old Car phone, Missing the handset.

remember me saying that the engine had a rebuild 40K miles ago? Remember I said it was questionable? Well now I think the only question is how much of a liar was the previous owner?
Ok, one truth, he did run it out of oil.

Two things so far make me think that this engine has not been open beyond the valve covers:
1) the transmission fork pivot shaft fought me the entire way out. I used the deep 19mm socket, a long bolt, and lots of washers as a puller . It was worn badly by the needle bearings and felt like it had never been removed.

2) I removed the valve covers to find two broken dilivar studs resting one on each side. But more telling is that there are four broken studs, and two of them are nowhere to be found. So I think someone had the valve covers off, noticed the broken studs, and did nothing about it except take the pieces out, and put new valve cover gaskets on.
:o

Certainly it did not get a quality rebuild.

More to come. If I'm lucky I'll have the cylinders off by Wednesday, or it will have to wait until next week.

Richard in KC

Carnage report: or Number 5 is not alive!
 

I knew the noise was coming from the right bank, and I speculated that it was from the middle cylinder.

SO I disassembles the right side first. Head came off with no drama, looks good, there are some small "contamination in the oil" marks on the lobes, but all in all look usable from what I can see while they are still in the head.

Rather than go through the head I wanted to look at the cylinders.

Number 5 piston was not attached to anything, so I removed the cylinder, and sure enough broken piston. But worse is the rod broke off both at the piston and at the crank.

See the carnage pics attached: Yes that black thing is the rod journal. Note the gouging the rod did to the case. any more hammering and that rod was going to come right through the case.

I won't be back home to split the cases until next week. But I've found enough to know what I speculated. Engine is D-E-D Dead!!

Richard in KC

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