Had an M96 engine apart that had a crank seal replaced. Apparently the dealer mech drilled into the seal, snapping the tension spring.

Spring snaked its way up the pickup and was digested by the pump, with similar results.

Amazingly the engine ran for another 30k miles until it died one of the more common M96 deaths.

Alright, just ordered a new set of 964 cams from WebCam which were in stock and ready for immediate shipment. Any idea of who would be able to recondition my rocker arms in a timely fashion?

Call me on Tuesday and I may be able to get them done quickly, depending on if they need bushings or not.

unrelated,but caught the rock climbing bit. Having the same problem.My 50 yo body having a hella time keeping up with my 16 yo son on the multipitch routes.got him turning wrenches on my 2.2 rebuild.Nice to be leading again,so to speak,hehe.

Chris

Thanks for the offer Steve, it looks like I may be able to exchange them for a reconditioned set this week.

Well, got everything reassembled and the engine started first try. Unfortunately, idle was too high and after a thorough search for the usual 3.2L manifold/TB leaks, a pressure test revealed leaking the of the intake manifold to head interface of #5. Off came the intercooler and this is the unfortunate finding.



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1343005026.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1343005045.jpg

The nut obviously wouldn't hold a torque when checked before this disassembly. No sign of any problem prior to reassembly.

That appears to have been broken for some time. A fresh break leaves a crystalline surface but those have clearly been rubbing against each other. You can often determine where a crack started in a failed component as the early portion will look burnished while there will be fresh crystalline metal in the area that finally snaps. In this case I'd guess that the lug broke during assembly and has been fretting since then.
Regards,
Phil

A competent welder ought to be able to fix that for you easily enough. A little work with a die grinder to smooth where he welded inside, and good to go.

Would be good to try to figure out how it came to break, though. Something had to be out of whack for torque on the nut on the stud to break that off. Bad gasket or thermal isolator? Hard to imagine that the head surface is not true, or, for that matter, that the manifold surface was out of true either. Both machined surfaces.

Not something really nasty, like a leak in the cylinder to head interface, as you started out deciding on how to avoid.

I wire wheeled it and bead blasted it trying to get the pieces clean and fitting properly. It would not go back together and line up the internal edges with all of the sharp crystal edges.

It is a puzzle to me as well as the isolators are all relatively new and I have always been very careful with the torque values. I have had the manifold on and off many times with all of my EFI changes and turbocharging so it has seen quite a few torque cycles. The only other contributing factor I can think of is the intercooler has one bracket that bolts to the boss that is on that runner. Before this rebuild, the engine was not well balanced so I wonder if vibration of the motor caused excessive torque on this runner due to, in part, the intercooler. That support bracket on the intercooler has cracked before.
I'll see if I can get it welded. I don't think I want to try it with my minimal MIG skills.

I don't think you can MIG aluminum. There are spool guns for aluminum wire which I believe can be used with a MIG machine for this, but they are expensive. Expensive enough that a guy might be better off saving his pennies for a TIG.

Based on my one time use of a friend's TIG, I wouldn't attempt it myself - much trickier than MIG for those of us who are self taught. Not hard for those who know what they are doing, though.

I bet you are designing a different support system for your intercooler as we speak.

I actually have a spool gun for my MIG but very little experience using it so I'll get it TIG'd professionally. I had already modified the mount when the support bracket for the IC cracked using a rubber isolator but I guess it was too little too late. The engine is now very well balanced so I think that will significantly decrease stress on the manifold.

Welded up and reinstalled:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1343626085.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1343626102.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1343626120.jpg

Initial break in is accomplished. Took the car out on the hill and did a lot of runs up to 5K and then close throttle decels to seat the rings then did some general VE tuning around town. I was worried about off idle and around town acceleration with the drop in CR from 10.5 to 8.5 but really did not notice anything (did step up displacement to 3.4 from 3.2). It was really hard to keep the car out of significant boost, that GT35R really spins up fast.
Another big improvement is the Rebel Racing rear torsion bar bushings. My rubber replacement ones squeaked too much, these are rock solid and super quiet.

Update!!! Hows it running?

LOL, I've been in Alaska for the past week+ (currently in Skagway) so it will be a while before I get back to completing the break in.