Newbie engine teardown/rebuild - advice always welcome!
 

Well, continuing from my newbie engine drop which was relatively painlesss ( http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/823477-true-newbie-engine-drop.html ) I move on to the teardown and rebuild thread. I apologize in advance as my terminology is weak and simplistic :)

This is where I left off
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To start off, I have read through the books by Wayne and have all the appropriate tools for the majority of the work. The special porsche tools are on the way. I am bagging and tagging and labeling and taking pictures so hopefully I have everything sorted and recorded.

I started today by removing the fuel injection system (the top half of the engine) while it was still on the ATV jack. The process is straightforward, however not as straightforward as the books suggest. I thought I'd remove 12 bolts and it'd be off, but you need to unplug certain connections (mentioned in the books) and label them and make sure you clear the harness out of the way. You also need to disconnect the oil hose which is directly under the injection setup. Once that was cleared, the whole thing just came of and I put it on the shelf.

The next step was removing the exhaust, so when my buddy arrived we jacked up the engine onto the engine stand. For the record, I am using a generic stand adapter which works perfectly fine.
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Needless to say, the bolts of the exhaust were shot and I will not be using any of it again so we cut the muffler off.
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We managed to get most of the bolts off the heat exchanger but here is the big problem - one of the allen bolts stripped, so basically the allen top socket now rotates by itself. How do we get around this? I've seen threads were people welded another bolt to the existing one and then rotated them together, but is there any other tried-and-tested way?
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Once the heat exchangers are off then we can take the engine and engine stand into an air-conditioned room to avoid working in 40c weather :eek: Sorry for the lousy pics but we can only work in the evenings

Use an impact wrench and an extraction tool. You can pick one up from your local sears. If that doesn't work drill them out but make sure you are careful not to drill and damage the heads. Very expensive to replace damaged heads.

Find a 'friend' with oxy welding skills
 

You may be able to get in there with a Dremel tool and a carbide bit to cut a chunk out of the round nut so you can split it with a chisel.

Heat &/or welding is the usual way of attacking these frozen nuts.
If you are removing the engine to fix broken head studs - you are probably going to need Heat treatment again to get those out.
So find somebody with oxy welding skills to help you when needed.

Good luck
Peter

PS: I live in a hot country too - but we learn early to wear protective shoes or boots when doing this sort of work :eek: Working in bare feet is very risky.

can't see an ozzy jandle in sight ??????,whats with the shoe police:D:D:D:D:D:D

Thanks gents..

Anyone ever try to use epoxy or gorilla glue and a sacrificial allen key to remove these? I think thats what we are trying next... barely enough access to get a dremel in there.. I'll try to pick up a torch on my way home today..

Zelrik, aren't crocs good enough? :D

Hmmm - sorry to be the Shoe Police, I wont do it anymore ( I am actually wearing crocs as I type this ;)

Try & find a slightly bigger size in Imperial (not metric) for your sacrificial tool and grind it too fit or maybe a TORX.
I do recall a tip I read sometime about using abrasive cleaning powder (from kitchen?) to help with grip in the head!! I havent used it myself yet.

My epoxy of choice is JBWeld

Good luck with it
Pete in crocs

Bought some reinforcements

http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/n...pstxfirx8h.jpg

A friend actually used gorilla glue to attach a sacrificial allen and it worked. He says that stuff is very strong. I bought the allens and the glue, so we will see how it goes.. and heat should help

Turns out I didn't need to use anything other than the new allen key. The old ones had a rounded ball bottom and these were straight. I fit it, hit it with the cheater bar and the stud/nut broke. There is still enough on there to remove and replace the stud. Might as well replace all of them when putting the engine back together, with new headers and a nice 2 in 2 or 1 out exhaust.

Took me all of 5 mins to finish the job
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Next step is the harness, shroud and fan.. will reread Waynes book before proceeding further

drop links
 

Good progress!! Waiting for the next instalment.

One other suggestion (no not shoes again :) ) is that I noticed in your engine removal thread that you had squashed drop link ends on your rear anti-roll bar.

Today I just removed my squashed ones to see if they were OK - but they were NOT . The rubber inside was worn away & metal was touching metal.

You will soon be ordering a lot of new parts, so I suggest you add new drop links to that list.

Peter in his crocs

That is the beginning of a slide that ... costs money, and a lot of trouble, when you wake up a sleeping dog. Next month, you will be posting on how to drill out broken exhaust studs in the heads, and can you "please borrow a drilling rig?"

Presumption is the killer.
Then we have a bunch on here that will suggest you throw unnecessary crap away... like that exhaust system.......(do not know who that might be LOL )
Dont be afraid to ask !

This board is not like "most" where 18 year olds flame on.
Very little of that crap here unless you go way way dwn stairs to politics.........LOL

That is definitely on the purchase list, thanks Pete!

What to do? The stud broke.. and since this is a longer term project, I don't mind doing it slowly and doing it right.. I never said this was a budget build :)

aye aye captain :D not throwing anything away yet, but I have a garbage pile which I will revisit down the line..

Going to start working now.. plan is to remove the harness, fan and shroud tonight..

Great progress today - no surprises thankfully! Removed the harness, shroud, fan and oil line and got the engine into my little airconditioned room. Now I need to clean up the room and make good space to start the actual teardown!

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I'm probably going to start ordering the must-change items soon, such as gaskets etc. Any input on must-have upgrades would be appreciated! Looking for reliability rather than power

So you don't want to hear about my SSIs and 964 cams? Really?

I ordered the rebuild kit from our host, which was certainly more straightforward than trying to pick all the necessary individual items from the catalog. When you order, talk to the customer service folks about what you're trying to accomplish and I bet they can steer you in the right direction.

Ok you talked me into it, tell me more, but not about the SSIs since I'm getting rid of the heat.. don't need it.. going for headers hopefully.. are the 964 cams a direct fit?

Post a close up picture of the engine harness. Looks like there are some spliced wires visible. Not a good thing. :)

Will do once I'm home (new wire harness is on top of the list either way ;) )

I spent most of todays allocated time (meaning the time my wife allowed me to work) on cleaning up the work space, removing the plugs and the valve covers. The plugs seem OK except for cylinder 2 which is a bit blacker than the rest. Thankfully everything seemed OK under the valve covers and I didn't find any broken studs.

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I know someone who can help you with that! :)

Still moving slowly and methodically through the teardown process. I removed the crankcase breather cover, oil pressure sending units, tstat, oil cooler, cam oil lines, and front chain housing cover. Everything went smoothly except some of the studs holding the chain housing cover came out. I need to wait for the cam holding tool before I can proceed further.

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Tomorrow I'm going to raise the front of the car on jackstands, give it a good wash, remove as much stuff from the engine bay as possible (MSD, oil tank, oil filter/accumulator) and scrub the area down. I will also try to drain the fuel tank. I want to paint the engine bay area black to get a cleaner look, and also remove and clean the fuel and oil tanks and repaint if necessary.

Hopefully I'll be able to get all new fuel lines from one of the members here, as well as a new wiring harness.

I have a couple of questions at this point:

1) Waynes book says to lock the flywheel and then remove the main pulley nut. I have already removed the flywheel before mounting the engine on the stand. Is there a way around this?

2) I want to paint the engine bay before the engine goes back in. What is the best way to remove the harness/wires/tubes out of the way to get this done?

I washed the car today, scrubbed the engine bay and removed the remainder of the AC stuff and the oil tank. Will take the oil tank to get properly cleaned soon.

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I did this same project four years ago, here is my thread.

You can lock the flywheel by installing a pressure plate bolt on the flywheel, then put a box end wrench over one of the transmission studs and the pressure plate bolt - hope that makes sense. The question will be whether or not you can squeeze the flywheel out of the limited space available.

If I can make a suggestion, I would defer the painting until the end of the project. Everything takes longer than forecasted, especially the first time. See if you still have the energy to paint when you are anxious to get the engine back in. I was going to paint (anal retentive), but then decided that there is little that can be viewed and cleaning was adequate. There really is no easy way to remove stuff that is in the way.

How is your engine mounted to the stand? You obviously don't have a yoke (P201). Are you using just two of the universal arms or are you using one of these?

http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/...nd-mainely.jpg

I completely removed the flywheel and pressure plate. Do I have to put them back on to lock in place then remove the nut? The way I read your instructions is that the flywheel needs to be in-place
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I'm using universal arms at the moment. 3 arms are connected, and before splitting the case I will remove one. I am not sure whether it is worth ordering and waiting for the yoke at this point. I've read many threads where people were happy with the universal arms.

and about the painting - I am trying to multitask :) since my cam holder tool isn't here yet, I thought I'd do something else. I plan on removing the oil lines and upgrading the oil cooler, draining the fuel and cleaning the tank and replacing the lines, rebuilding the brake calipers, etc.. all this in my down time between getting parts

Anybody have any input on the pulley issue?

Newbie engine teardown/rebuild - advice always welcome!
 

Put some long bolts back in the crank, then insert a long square bar between them parallel to the back of the motor, wedged against the threads of the bolts and an engine stand mount location, to hold the crank in place as you remove the front pulley nut.

Same technique I have used to remove stubborn cv joint nuts on front wheel drive vehicles. Leverage is your friend.

I'm still waiting for my cam holder tool, so I decided to try cleaning my transmission and other parts. I couldn't get my alternator and fan out of the housing, and I also noticed that my housing has cracked :(

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I'm going to do some research on way that I can get the alternator out!

Meanwhile, my transmission came out nicely after some engine cleaner and pressure cleaning
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I used Jim Walkers method for removing the alternator and fan and it worked perfectly - http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/60368-fan-hsng-alternator-removal.html

The housing will go in the trash, however do these "imperfections" on the fan mean I have to replace it?

2 blades have cracks
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The fan is fine to keep using Don't throw away the housing. It's magnesium & worth some $ in scrap!!!

I've scrubbed the fan and will give it a quick DIY paint job with high-heat spray paint. I have a virtual garbage heap currently, nothing is going in the trash yet :D

The shopping list keeps growing, so I should re-use as much stuff as possible

Pelican says it'll take a month for me to get the p9191 tool. I met with a very respected Porsche mechanic today and he said I don't need it when removing the cams. Anyone concur?

You can zip the cam bolts off with an impact gun when you have the flywheel/crankshaft locked. So yep the cam holding tool is critical for tightening, not necessarily loosening

Took the advice of the members here and as per the instructions from timmy2, I was able to get the cam gears, chain housing, cylinder heads, cylinders and half of the pistons so far. It's pretty straight forward taking things apart, I hope its the same putting things together!

I was reading through Wayne's book and it says for the later model SCs there is generally no need to replace the head studs. I'm thinking since I'm here I might as well replace the head studs.

Also, any advice on what cylinders and pistons I should be looking at? any advice on what my shopping list should include? I contacted John Dougherty about regriding my cams to 964 and got a reasonable quote.

http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/n...pskdp5c7tl.jpg

Some cylinders were filthier than others
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PM sent

Great progress! Sorry to be a nanny, but do cover any openings into the engine case while it's in this state of disassembly. It's amazing what can find it's way in through those many openings that might later clog some tiny oil passage or squirt-hole somewhere.

GK

Honestly? Not really since I am tearing the whole thing apart and cleaning it from scratch. Is that dumb? I cover it at the end of the day with a clean BBQ cover, but when I work on it all the openings are there..

Today was the most rewarding day so far! I got the headstuds off with no major problems, thanks to the SnapOn tools. Had to hit one with the propane, but otherwise all of them went smoothly.. some went too smoothly and it made me worry that they were not properly torqued.. All I needed was this
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Also removed the main pulley, and all the case bolts.. was so close to splitting the case but I promised my wife I'd have dinner with her so it'll have to wait until tomorrow :)

Case ready to be split
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So much dirty.. I'm going to enjoy cleaning everything later
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Got a quote for the basic rebuild kit from EBS and considering the 964 cams from Dougherty... Should I be considering a short stroke 3.2 kit as well? I'd like to get my heads rebuilt in Europe since its closer proximity to me, but my research hasn't brought up any shops there yet.. open to recommendations.. in the beginning I said I'd be sticking to stock, but then read an article where the owner was unhappy with the rebuild because the car drove the exact same and I don't want to have regrets.. might as well squeeze a few more HP :D

Right you are - I should've noted that you're doing a rebuild and not just a top end... My point is therefore moot. Good luck!
GK

Thanks SmileWavy

On a different topic, here is a friends mint 1973 2.7 RS
http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps2e5046d3.jpg

and my other Porsche with its big brother, also owned by the same person
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Have you been able to find out what caused the original problem noise that started you off on this project? :confused:

Also, curious if all the headstuds are the same - instead of 12 steel (magnetic) & 12 dilivar (non-magnetic); then perhaps your engine has already been upgraded at some stage before you got it.

Peter 78 SC 3.0

I haven't found the source of the noise.. I've been focused on the disassembly, and now that everything is apart I will start inspecting and cleaning each part and hopefully there will be an obvious reason.. so far everything has looked fine, although I did find some oil on the top of a couple of pistons..

My studs are all the original steel.. and there is no evidence that my engine has ever been opened before.. Everything seems to be original.. I'm not an expert by any measure, in fact quite the opposite, but nothing leads me to believe anyone gave this engine any love in the past..

Finally, I am done and the case is split and everything is out! Now I will read the next chapter in Wayne's book, start cleaning and inspecting all the parts and finding good machine shops to do the dirty work.. we don't have any local porsche shops so any recommendations of shops you guys are happy with will be helpful..

Are there any notorious problems areas I should be looking at first?
Should I start taking the camshaft housing and heads apart at this point?

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I just noticed these scratches on the inside of the case, what could have caused them?

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