Replace cal head studs w/out removing cyl heads?
 

(edit: Sorry, I mean "cyl head studs.")

Sunday I was admitted to the elite club of thousands of 911 owners worldwide who removed a valve cover only to find a broken head stud and bolt. (I had no idea I was even under consideration.)

I'm wondering if I can drop the motor, remove the valve covers, and replace all the lower studs without removing the jugs (except probably the one with the broken stud).

The car is an 83 with only 150k miles. Runs great. No smoke, burns a quart of oil every 1k-1.2k miles. I had removed the valve cover only to investigate a new, minor oil leak.

Clutch, flywheel, and all related seals and stuff replaced less than a year ago. I imagine if I pull off the jugs I'll end up doing a valve grind, honing, rings, and who knows what else. But since the car seems to run so well, I'm inclined to do as little as is necessary now. What do you think?

I guess have a similar problem... Perfectly running engine with suspect cyl #2 studs...
Valve cover is coming out tonight.

that would be no. there was one guy on here a while ago who managed to get one out with little pliers in about 6 hours, so if that works for you......
besides, there's usually some heat needed to loosen the loctite, and the threads need to be chased and bits blown out of each hole.

Nope....engine pull. If it helps you can fix the usual oil leaks and freshen up the valves and guides at the same time.

Thanks, guys.

Good scotch will make you feel better
For a few hours before it sets in.

Sorry to hear that Good luck "

I'm going through this now. 1978 SC with 1 broken exhaust side stud. Engine down to the case with studs and case bolts and nuts removed at this time. Splitting soon.

At first it was just a head stud replacement, which then became a top end, and has now become a full case-splitting rebuild. Major "while you're in there" syndrome. Actually, it wasn't just that. There were wear indications that told me I better do this now for the good of the engine.

Brett

Brett:

The 3.0 has a pretty stout bottom end, what required the case to be split?

I'm not an expert (Actually, this is my first engine tear down.), so I'm not a good judge to say it was "required." But, there was significant pitting on two of the cam lobes, some "dirty oil" wear signs on the cam bearing surfaces (such that I probably won't reuse the cam housings), and the 911 was tracked by its first owner, and there was a catastrophic failure event in the past (not sure of the exact nature) that resulted in a new cylinder head (different from the rest), a broken "elephant foot" tappet that I discovered up against the oil screen in the sump a few years ago, and significant gouge marks inside one of the cam housings. The cam and cam housing wear spooked me enough that I figured it a good idea to have a look at the bottom end just to be sure. If all measures out fine, all the good parts are going right back in, although I'll probably do new main bearings as a bare minimum on the bottom end.

I put up some pics of the cam housings on the engine rebuild forum.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/911-engine-rebuilding-forum/630382-reuse-my-cam-housings.html


Brett

Thanks for the sentiment, ADVCAV. I can't say I'm looking forward to the ramen.