I learned a lesson today
 

in April i bought a complete 912 motor from a local guy, that motor had some problems and to make it right he gave me a "deal " on a motor that he had stashed away that had 300 miles on it and new heads done by a real reputable shop and he suspected that there was m.c. pistons in it but he wasn't shure. i was excited to Finlay own a Porsche motor having owned many vws and now having a 912 in need of a motor.
considering that this guy has a good reputation in the Porsche community i took his word. in talking to him today,i told him he did not misrepresent anything or sell me something that wasn't what he said it was. he told me everything he knew about the motor. if i had done a compression check i would have found the problem...
one of the heads was never torqued, a couple of the bolts were finger tight. this is what has been giving me problems with bad idle/ starting.
so now i will take every motor apart that i buy, just to know that it is how it should be. fortunately the machine shop said that the heads would clean up easily and there wasn't any major damage.

if this person is reading, i hold nothing against you http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1228191022.jpg

Got any more pics of the car/motor?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1228230203.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1228230287.jpg
this is my first porsche

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1228235737.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1228235798.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1228235833.jpg

i did the front end last summer, boy that was alot of fun!!!!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1228236060.jpg

this was taken when i firs recieved the engine

If you would have shown me this picture I could have just told you that two head bolts were loose.. saved you a ton of trouble. :rolleyes:

how can you tell with the tin on???

Think dry sense of humor. ;) Sorry never been good at jokes.. but I keep tryin.

i have one of those too, but there are some old guys on here that know more than i do so i have to ask.

so if you are troubble shooting dont forget to check the simple things like are the heads on tight

Was his name Larry? Advertises on Craigslist? I have a 912 motor from him as well. He ran it on his bench, we took compression numbers a few times. Hopefully it's a good motor. Seemed like a very good guy to deal with. I have not installed mine as yet, sitting in my shop. Maybe this winter.

Which head was loose!!

3/4 was loose and the intake valve on the number two had beeten its way into the seat. the shop weilded and reground the seat.

i know larry and have got lots of parts from him that are on this car. he knows alot about the 356 and 912. nice guy, if the compression is good and you feel good about the motor it is probably good but it a used motor that he pulled from a car that he bougt and cut up for his 356 habit and after this i would tear it down and make shure it is.

well got the motor back in the car last week and it runs like a new porsche engine should.
all is well with the world now.

Glad to hear you got yours up and running. Nice job. The motor I bought from him was not pulled from a car. I was told he bought it from an engine rebuilder or his estate, apparently a pretty well known around the Portland area but I don't remember his name. He passed away a few years ago. The engine had recently been rebuilt although he had no documentation on it. If I ever get around to working on this car I'm going to get it installed and see how it runs in the car. It ran great on the bench.

If the head nuts weren't torqued, I would question the rod nuts and the flywheel nut.

Best,
Grady

in thinking about this whole thing in the post, the engine was pulled from a car that had a "little" fire and then put on a shelf for (x) years. the o rings that go on the bottom head nuts were hard and cracking when i removed the heads, and two were pressed very thin. also the head studs were not driven completely into the case there was 1/8 inch of threads showing on almost all of them. those two things were the contributing factors that created the masive compression leak. again make sure what you get is what you think you are getting.