Garage Build - 1982 911 SC

[jakeaugust]

Hello Pelican Parts Forum members,

As I write this, my 911 sits in my garage with no engine and no transaxle, with parts scattered across every workbench and flat surface in my garage.
I will provide some backstory on how I arrived here, with photos to follow once I have proved I am human.

Growing up, my father had a Toyota T100 with some off-road-oriented parts (suspension, bumpers, larger tires, locking differential, winch, etc.) which were not as common in the late 90s as they are now. He did all the wrenching at home, with me handing him wrenches and pliers so he didn't have to crawl out from under the truck. I imagine this is where my automotive interest began.

As a child of the 90s, I became interested in videogames at a young age. I gravitated toward the "Gran Turismo" series, as it was the best racing game at the time. Through this game, among others, and TV series like "Top Gear", my automotive interest quickly turned into an obsession.

I remember reading about the McLaren F1 and how it absolutely shattered road car speed records, primarily due to its low weight and aerodynamic efficiency. I wanted to learn about why this car was so different from anything else and what made it so special. Some AskJeeves searches turned up the name "Gordon Murray", and my ~8 year old self decided I needed to be a Mechanical Engineer.

Fast forward 13 years or so, and I was graduating with a Mechanical Engineering degree and 3 years of Baja SAE experience. After landing my first full time job out of school, my first thought was: it's time to buy my car. At some point I learned of Alex Roy's cannonball record in an E39 M5 and had been planning all through college how I would be able to get one. I bought a 2002 M5, which I intend to take with me to the grave, and began taking it to HPDE days at Portland International Raceway. Prior to this point, I had never driven anything other than Toyota trucks. I had an excellent instructor for my first few events, who helped me to build confidence without getting too cocky. I was hooked after the start of my first lap: it was like playing Gran Turismo in real life.

As I drove faster and faster, I realized the M5 isn't a great car for the track. It's heavy, has small brakes, and it's heavy...so I bought 2011 Corvette Z06. After buying the Corvette, I also began driving at Oregon Raceway Park. ORP is a much more challenging and fun track than PIR, with loads of elevation change, blind apexes, and the ability to run clockwise or counterclockwise. The problem is ORP is around 2.5 hours from my home. The Corvette was a track monster, but despite being completely stock, it was incredibly loud on the highway, the seats were uncomfortable, and it attracted too much attention. I started researching a suitable replacement, and the answer was clearly a Porsche.

I traded the Corvette in on a 2015 911 Carrera GTS with PDK. What a magnificent car. Quiet and comfortable, looks great, extremely reliable, fast when you want it to be, and even somewhat fuel efficient. This solved all the problems of the Corvette, while being even slightly faster on my local tracks. We took it on 1000+ mile road trips, took it to dinner, drove it to the track, on the track, and home from the track, and it never skipped a beat. This car was also flawed, however. It was too good at being a car. I know that sounds silly, but it just wasn't exciting to drive unless you were dancing with it on a track. Even taking it on the local backroads wasn't fun, unless you were travelling 2x the speed limit. I finally decided to sell this car, but there was only one suitable replacement: another 911.

I bid on some Petrol Blue examples on BringaTrailer, but the decent ones seemed to fetch a $20k premium over standard colors. I came across a listing for a Rothsport 1977 911 in Adriatic Blue which was absolutely beautiful, though the BaT bids quickly exceeded my budget. I still regularly open the photos from the listing for ideas and inspiration. I ended up locating a black 1982 911 SC on a Facebook group, which was located in Colorado. I felt the seller represented the car honestly; I purchased it without seeing it in person and had it shipped to Sherwood, Oregon. The car looked great: the interior is immaculate and the original paint still looks beautiful, aside from some small rock chips on the hood from being driven and enjoyed for ~118k miles. The car has some tasteful upgrades, such as a Momo steering wheel, Elephant Racing adjustable spring plates, Rennline adjustable pedals and floorboards, Rennshift shifter and coupler, 917 style shift knob, SSI heat exchangers, M&K 2in-1out muffler, etc. and had great maintenance records.

Remember my M5? I was going to drive it for an annual trip with friends down to San Luis Obispo, but I had the wheels out for refinishing and the shop didn't have them done in time for the trip. I decided to take the 911, though I had only owned it for a couple months. The almost 2000 mile round trip was a great way to get acquainted with the car, but I started to hear what sounded like an exhaust leak under low RPM throttle input when we got to SLO. I looked under the car and didn't see any obvious exhaust leaks and suspected the noise could be combustion blowby caused by a broken head stud. I knew the car had no record of head stud replacement, and the engine and transaxle had never been opened.

I drove the car more carefully on the way home, where it sat parked in the garage for a few months while I tended to some projects on the M5 to bring out of retirement and into track duty, got married, and went on our honeymoon. I used the likely broken head stud as an excuse to buy a set of QuickJacks and got the car lifted up in August. I pulled the lower valve covers and found one broken head stud on cylinder #3. I had the engine and transaxle out of the car less than 2 days later. Over the next couple of weeks, I researched my options using this forum, and removed the CIS, separated the engine and transaxle, got the engine onto a stand, and pulled the heads to see the extent of the damage. A few more weeks went by and I pulled the cylinders to get a better look at everything. Cylinder #3 had "rattled" against the head due to this broken stud and showed some minor damage. At this point, I was ready to start getting my rebuild going.

I sent an email to William Knight (who I found thanks to this forum) and gave him a call. He helped me get started with gathering parts for my rebuild, taking into account that I didn't want to get too crazy or expensive this time around, but I also wanted to increase reliability and durability for some track use. There was a good deal going on some 10:1 Mahle 98mm pistons and cylinders, so we ordered those along with his M1 cams, a 964 oil pump, Glyco main bearings, and Clevite rod bearings. Almost everything arrived the following day, and I can't say enough about how great William has been to work with.

After successfully removing all of the head studs and buying a Harbor Freight parts washer to start getting things cleaned up, I talked with William about getting the heads, rods, rockers, and crankshaft out for machining. As it turns out, William's recommended machine shop was only a 30 minute drive from my home and is run by Dick Elverud. I took these parts, along with the case halves and cam towers for a more thorough cleaning, to Dick's shop and dropped them off. It was great to meet a legend and see his shop and some of the engines he was working on.

Now that the engine was out of my way and off the stand, I bolted up the transaxle and started to take it apart. I didn't really have any issues with it, but I couldn't bring myself to go through all of this work on the engine without at least checking the transaxle. I opened it up and removed the input shaft and pinion shaft. I was going to buy a Harbor Freight 20 ton press, but it turns out my dad already had one that he hasn't been using and wasn't working. I loaded it into the back of my car, put it in my garage, and eventually found out that the ram of the jack was essentially stuck in its housing for being retracted for so long. I was able to lever it away from this position, and now it works perfectly. I used the press to disassemble the pinion shaft and inspect the components. The asymmetric 1st gear dog ring shows some wear, along with some minor wear on the 2nd gear dog ring. The synchro bands show some polishing as well. The 3rd and 4th gear (still on the input shaft at the time of this writing) dog rings look great, but the synchro bands could use replacement. I plan to replace all synchro bands, along with the 1st and 2nd gear dog rings and 1-2 slider. I called William yesterday to help source these components, along with a taller 5th gear set. I 3D printed a tool to hold the input shaft to remove the 41mm nut, which worked surprisingly well. I had already ordered a laser cut steel version, but this may prove to be unneeded. I also 3D printed a tool for removing the 1st and 2nd gear dog rings. This was primarily to check fit before ordering a metal version, but I did try to use it unsuccessfully. I have a laser cut steel version on its way that should work great for less than $50.

You are now up-to-speed on my life story. I will continue to update this thread as the build progresses. I should have parts back from Dick by the end of this month and hopefully I can add photos to this thread shortly. I intend to share more information on the tools I've purchased, repurposed, or made at home in order to do this build in my garage. I applaud anyone who made it through my rambling story, as I easily get sidetracked and distracted. I hope this story connects with others on this forum and inspires you to focus, get your car back together, and take it for a drive.

[jakeaugust]

Here are some photos of the car.

My first drive:



All cleaned up and ready for the trip:


Meeting up with friends in Southern Oregon for the rest of the drive South:


A lonely road in Mexico:


Made a friend with a 996TT:


Our last stop on the way home through Southern Oregon where we separated from our group:

[jakeaugust]

Lifted up:


Found the problem:


Drivetrain out of the car:


CIS off:


Split:


Dirty engine:


Ready for the stand:


Engine on the stand:

[jakeaugust]

Looking sad:


Heads removed:


Damage to head:



Remaining piece of head stud, broken sealing ring, and debris (material from head) can be seen on cylinder here:


Ready to pull cylinders:


Cylinders removed:

[jakeaugust]

My watchdog standing guard over my new parts:


This was my most successful method for head stud removal:



"One of these things is not like the other"...someone replaced one head stud previously:


All heads studs removed successfully:


Case split:


Shafts removed - main bearings looked to be in decent shape:


Trying to clean the case in my parts washer without making too big of a mess:


Made the case clean enough to not be completely embarrassed when taking it to Dick's:


Pulled rockers and started cleaning cam towers:

[jakeaugust]

915 on the stand:


915 drain plug:


First cover removed:


Next cover removed:


1st gear dog ring teeth:


1st and 2nd gear:


3rd and 4th gear:


Pinion shaft:


Pinion shaft disassembled:

[jakeaugust]

The above gets us pretty well caught up with where we are today.
I should have more photos to share after more cleaning and disassembly this weekend.

Here are some screenshots of the tools I 3D printed and ordered.
I successfully used the 3D printed version of this tool to remove the 41mm nut from the input shaft:


This is what I intend to bolt together and use for removing the 1st and 2nd gear dog rings. Pretty affordable when made out of plates bolted together rather than machining, and I only need it to work twice:

[Rodsrsr]

Wow!

[Hlcass]

Following!

[Joesmallwood]

This is great. Following!

[nospiners]

Following also, great looking car !!!

[Uwon]

Following…
Johan

[jakeaugust]

Not a ton of progress this weekend - just trying to get everything ready for when parts arrive mid-week.

I have everything disassembled now and ready for further inspection and cleaning:


Most of the 915 castings are partly cleaned and have the grease off of them:


I found that several of the needle bearing cages had cracks in them - all of these will be replaced:

[Mike Andrew]

Impressive. following.

[chrisbalich]

I like your spirit, OP.
Excited to see it all go back together.

[PeteKz]

Excellent photo documentation.

[porschedude996]

Looking good, I hope your main shaft / 1sr gear and your pinion shaft and ring gear are in good shape.

[Libeck]

You had me at "parts scattered across every workbench and flat surface in my garage" but it just kept getting better.

I've been around ORP and PIR a time or two in my '83 911 and my long time daily driver (semi - retired [as I'm fully retired]) is a 2000 M5.

Following.

[PeteKz]

Jake, if you are not already a member of the Oregon chapter of the PCA, You should join. Lots of info and assistance available with local members.

And, Yes, Dick Elverud is a national Porsche treasure. He's 90 years old this past August, and still working. Amazing guy.

[reclino]

Welcome. Thanks so much for sharing your build story and your tooling solutions. There should be a separate page here for DIY tools.
David
Performance EngiNerding