Woo Woo! Engine out

[nyne11]

Nice job mate......I just hope I don't have to do mine in the near future!

[preston_brown]

Saturday I got a few things accomplished.

First, I got the catalytic converter removed. I figured this was going to be a pain in the ass, and it was. Every single nut save one was frozen solid to its bolt. I've been soaking them with Kroil and PB Blaster for weeks, no love. I had to split/cut each nut with an air cutoff tool (need to use a pencil die grinder or dremel because of the tight spaces), and then use an air chisel to get the nut turning or simply break it off the bolt. Took about 2 hours to get them all done, maybe a bit more. Here are the tools of the trade:



And here is the cat, finally removed:



Here is a view of looking down the outlet side of the cat. Notice that the matrix is totally breaking down; this cat is shot.



That view lead me to wonder if my muffler really had parts rattling around inside of it after all, so I carefully dumped it out... ignore that the picture looks like this came out of the inlet side of the cat, this mess was dumped out of the muffler inlet side.



Looks like I didn't really need a new muffler after all. What I really needed was a cat-bypass/test pipe. Oh well, new parts, here we come!

[preston_brown]

I replaced the shocks that were currently on the rear of the car with new Bilstein HDs. Question: the lower mounting bolts were coated in copper anti-seize. I'm just trying to guess if these shocks have ever been replaced, or at least the bolts removed. I'm assuming that copper-colored anti-seize was not in use at the factory in the mid-80s, as I haven't seen it anywhere else on the car. Still, these old shocks look original. Who has more ideas?







Hopefully the Bilsteins will ride as well as people say. The old Boge shocks didn't seem totally shot, i.e. they still will slowly uncompress themselves if you manually compress them, but they are *much* easier to compress than the Bilsteins. Maybe that is just a function of Gas (Bilstein) vs. Oil-filled (Boge).

[wachuko]

Looking good. Thank you again for sharing the process and photos with us.

[preston_brown]

Not a lot got accomplished last weekend. I've got a lot of projects in the air right now, car and otherwise, and the 911 got the short end of the stick. Also, I was waiting on parts to arrive; most came today. I took some pictures of various things.

1. New M&K Muffler. It looks sweet, and from the sound clips I've heard, it is going to sound sweet. Can't wait to put this on.



2. Fabspeed Cat Bypass. Well, we know now that my cat is pretty much shot, and wasn't contributing much, if anything, to my emissions control. Because North Carolina has exempted all pre-OBD-II cars from emissions as of this year, I opted for the cheaper, better looking premuffler rather than a new catalytic converter. Let's hope it fits better than some people have said.



3. New flywheel sensors, both speed and reference. No, these are not official Porsche parts. I simply couldn't bring myself to spend $150 each for such a simple electrical device. Instead, I ordered the BMW equivalent parts, which have a ever so slightly different Bosch part number, for look identical. I mean, the connectors, the wire length, the housing, everything. Plus, the best part is they are $60, not $150. Others have said they are being sold as interchangeable, so what the heck, I'll try it. My old ones worked fine, but the protective sheaths on the wire were hard and crumbling, and it is only a matter of time before the crap out. I'll keep them around "just in case." The picture below compares one of the old with one of the new:

Part number for substitute is Bosch 0 261 210 002. It is a "flywheel pickup sensor" for a mid-80s BMW. The part number that was stamped on the sensors that were previously installed was 0 261 210 005.




4. Fuel injectors were reconditioned by WitchHunter. Good thing too, as a couple of them were leaking and had not-so-good spray patterns. This is a cheap service that I think is going to be well worth the nominal cost.



5. Engine was mounted to my engine stand. I got a friend of mine to help lift it from the jack to the stand last weekend (see, I did get something car-related accomplished). The chinese-made engine yoke knock-off is working fine, thank you nay-sayers. The thing isn't rocket science to build. I sprayed all the exhaust studs/nuts with PB Blaster for the third time in hopes it will help removal of the heat exchangers. I think I'm going to give that a go tomorrow...my replacement hard oil line is in the mail.

[preston_brown]

Whoops, pictures added.

[azasadny]

Preston,
Excellent work! I did that work on my car last summer and I just put 3300 miles on the car (MI to FL round-trip) and enjoyed every minute. Hopefully, you'll be driving the car soon!

[JeremyD]

Man I love your garage...

[preston_brown]

The "while you are in there's" may have just gotten much more expensive and time consuming, but I sure hope not. I finally got the heat exchangers off after fashioning a long 8mm allen head wrench socket, and getting a MAPP gas torch to heat the exhaust nuts (propane wasn't doing the job). 3 studs backed themselves out of the heads, but none broke. I think that was a pretty good deal.

So, I'm all about to start removing the hard oil line to put on my "new" one and begin reassembly, when I peer into the #2 exhaust port. I see tons of carbon buildup, whitish in color. All the other ports have some pretty good buildup too, and two look a bit oily, but this was the worst. I started a thread here:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/336335-massive-carbon-buildup-2-exhaust-port-post3167113.html



Let me reiterate that the engine was burning some oil, but not a lot (like a quart per 800-1000 miles) before I removed it, and there was no smoking issues at all... I really didn't want to pull the heads, so please reassure me. Or give me the bad news.