porscheless in georgia

erobinson · 08-18-2004, 06:24 PM

Went for a little drive up the road in the Targa. Ran good, nice night for toplessness. Didn't even run it hard just easy 3500 rpm shifts in each gear.

Coming back home (within sight almost) I glance in the rearview mirror and there is this monster cloud of smoke. I glance over the temperature and oil pressure. Everything is normal. Still shut it down and coast into the drive, clouds of smoke billowing from the engine bay. Not good. I check for the presence of oil in the tank and finding it not anywhere near empty, I crank it back over and immmediately check the oil properly (after the idle stabilises), down quite a bit from earlier in the evening. Look underneath, oil is _running_ from near the base of the cooler. Shut it down and left it, watching over it until it quit smoking.

Tomorrow I think I am gonna start ordering what I know I am gonna need for removal and replacement of the engine.

What this brings me to is a couple of questions. I have crossover heat exchangers with the single in single out muffler (looks like a giant sausage dog). My oil pipe under the car (not the S pipe the steel one) is presently being supported with hardware store strapping material because the original supports are gone. (another PO-ism) It feels like the tube had tabs welded to it originally for a bracket but are now broken off. Its pretty much shaped like an L (the pipe). Are replacement clamps available? The rubber hose with the crimped ends connecting it to the tank appears to be leaking at the crimp. Are they all pretty much interchangeable? I plan on replacing the S tube as cheap insurance. I dont know how flexible they should be, but mine looks VERY much 76 vintage and is so hard I am afraid of road debris causing a leak in it.

My final question is about the air injection tubes. Since I live in a rural area my car does not have to undergo smog inspection. The air pump is long gone and the only components remaining are these tubes..... Has anyone had any success in plugging these by capping the fittings in the head?

Thanks,
Eli

Jim Richards · 08-18-2004, 06:29 PM

Eli, are you sure you need "removal and replacement of the engine."? Perhaps you need to replace the seals on the oil cooler and / or the s-shaped oil line to the oil tank. This can be done with the engine in place.

rattlsnak · rattlsnak's Garage

Ollie sells the air injection port caps. Most people have them around here. The doofus at the emission station wont know if/when testing gets to your county.

VaSteve · 08-19-2004, 04:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jim Richards
Eli, are you sure you need "removal and replacement of the engine."? Perhaps you need to replace the seals on the oil cooler and / or the s-shaped oil line to the oil tank. This can be done with the engine in place.

Jim,
Are you actually advocating NOT dropping an engine? You're going to get your Dorki membership revoked for talk like that

Steve

erobinson · 08-19-2004, 05:44 AM

Well I was using this as an excuse to give everything a once over and replace anything which may be lurking in unseen places. Plus it gives me an excuse to also detail the engine bay.

I read the technical article here on doing the seals with the engine in place and had weighed the merits of doing this. Good thing is I would be riding again soon. Bad thing is I would probably procrastinate on the other little things.

Eli

Paulporsche · 08-19-2004, 06:08 AM

Ah feel y'all's pain. It sounds like just an oil leak. Was the smoke coming from the exhaust?

erobinson · 08-19-2004, 06:36 AM

Yeah the heat exchanger was thoroughly coated in oil. The crossover pipe was smoking so badly it looked like it was gonna flare up.

Eli

erobinson · 08-30-2004, 07:50 AM

Finally got the engine removed. Attached are oil leak pictures. Not for the clean engine types.

Note oil cooler clogging...

Also, does anyone know of the major difference in the 75 and 76-77 crossover pipe?

Please dont steal my identity, its someone else's truck

Eli

Elombard · 08-30-2004, 08:00 AM

Ugh - what leaked

erobinson · 08-30-2004, 08:07 AM

you know how Wayne mentions in the 101 projects book the things you should replace while you are in there to prevent oil leaks? All of those....

Seriously, I think the breather cover had been leaking for a very long time. The straw that broke the camel's back was the thermostat O ring. The entire area was clean and covered in oil around the flange. Both nuts were also loose. I am glad I dropped the engine because there was no way I would have ever gotten the seals replaced without a substantial amount of dirt getting into the engine.

I have another picture at home that is downright SCAREY. Someone had JB welded a return fitting shut on the fuel injection.

Eli

aj88cab · aj88cab's Garage

Eli,

My '88 has just developed a similar oil leak The top of my engine is wet with oil but not as bad as yours. Based on the Pelican tech article it looks like is it possible to do the repairs with the engine in the car but it would be nice to see one out of the car for reference first. I was wondering where you are located and if you wouldn't mind if I stopped by to take a look while you have your engine out.

Andrew

erobinson · 08-30-2004, 09:07 AM

I am near Milledgeville, GA. About fifteen miles toward Sandersville.

If its too far to drive I would be happy to take more pictures or even do a walk around with a camcorder and mail the tape to you.

I plan on attempting to take pictures all along the way.

My drop wasnt bad at all. Had some issues with exhaust (namely crossover pipe clearance, note no heat exchangers in the picture). But I also had to pull the exchangers due to a gasket being blown out between the flange and the head (hidden feature on this car). Apparently the last time my exchangers was pulled, someone put five new gaskets and reused one or something...one was a different color and material and it was the one blown out. I saw where I could have done the repairs in the car as well but I also decided to check the clutch (yup disc was about shot) and rear main (yup thats leaking too).

Eli

aj88cab · aj88cab's Garage

Milledgeville is a bit too far, but any additional photos would be greatly appreciated. I'll send you a PM with my email or you could just post here I guess.

Thanks
Andrew

erobinson · 08-30-2004, 11:04 AM

Alrighty

BTW does anyone out there know the difference between a 75 crossover pipe and a 76-77 as listed in the pelican catalog?

And who is Ollie? *dumb uninformed look*

Eli

erobinson · 09-05-2004, 06:15 PM

Planning on working on the 911 tomorrow on my day off. Will have more pictures then. Still searching for who makes those exhuast plugs....

Eli

erobinson · 09-11-2004, 05:43 PM

things got bad and things got worse....was planning to do the ultimate thrash day today and get all my sealing done....started with a very thorough and time consuming degreaser+hand wire brushing of the case and cylinders. got it looking great...relatively speaking..... Decided to pull the valve covers to finish cleaning them and to put on some paint....

thats when everything started going downhill. I decided to see if there was any noticeable play in the valve guides since every talks about how they have issues. lightly tried rocking valve back and forth....somewhere between an 1/8 and a 1/4 inch of play in it

....not good....resigned self to installing new guides....

decided to go ahead and pull that head assembly....

pull the chain cover...surprise surprise....billet steel manual tensioners....interesting....nut comes off cam, chain ramp is brittle and cracks....

removed the drive dog on the cam (after mild swearing involving a sharp edge cutting my finger) and proceeded to try to get the key out of the cam....

Never did get it out..... finally pulled head with the chain box...cylinders and pistons worn but look serviceable for a little while longer...the head gasket ring broken in two was interesting.....

Pulled the other side...and there in lies the pinnacle of my day....number five cylinder has a dark spot in the bottom, upon inspection the dark spot is actually pitting and it LOOKS like the cylinder is burnt or something...VERY ugly....and definately NOT gonna stay together for much longer I dont think...

Pictures forthcoming

Eli

Elombard · 09-11-2004, 07:22 PM

Ouch - It will be nice when you get it back together - but geez thats gonna hurt the pocketbook. What do you think you can do a top end for your self....with machine work ~$1500??

erobinson · 09-12-2004, 06:56 AM

I think its probably gonna be split the case time. I already have a full gasket set plus there was ALOT of metal on the magnetic drain plugs when I went back and inspected them. I am teeter tottering on it though. Monday I am going to look at two other 2.7s with pulled head studs and hoping against hope that one of them has Nikasil cylinders on it. If I can score a decent set of cylinders (traveling with micrometer in hand!) Then maybe I can get it together for that price. Might have to rering another set of alusils and hope for the best.

Eli