1976 911S Back to Life

drola · 06:39 AM

I picked up a very rare 360 color code (polar, ice, coppa florio, glacier blue) '76 911S that had sat for a number of years.
i started by redoing the brakes. rebuilt calipers, new master cylinder and stainless brake lines. the pads looked relatively new so i left them. i also had to rebuild the pedal cluster as the brake pedal was frozen solid.
new fuel pump, battery, drained and fresh fuel, new oil/filter
so here she is the day i picked it up:

drola · 06:48 AM

fired up the motor and all kinds of nastiness came out of the muffler. i knew it had some pretty bad oil leaks but more on that later. it even spit out a bunch of little green pellets (?) out of the exhaust. finally the smoke cleared. the motor actually ran pretty well.
the tires on the original fuchs 15x6's are completely dry rotted so i put some 16x6&7's i had on the shelf. the rear 225's are rubbing and cutting into the sidewalls. still deciding whether to stick with the 15's on new rubber, camber the crap out of the rear, or put 205's on the 7's but not sure how that will look with 205's on the 6 fronts and 7 rears
here she is on my maiden drive home:

drola · 10-27-2016, 06:45 AM

the motor was running hot. gauge was almost all the way up. the hotter it got, the more oil gushed out of it.
in searching some threads here i thought low oil pressure, lean fuel mixture, endless possibilities. i checked the t-stat going to the front cooler and the lines were cold telling me that t-stat is not working. one more thing to deal with. lines have not been removed in 40 years so i assume they WILL put up a fight.
so i pulled the motor:
btw - i fricken LOVE my snap-on scissor lift

drola · 10-27-2016, 06:53 AM

tearing into it, i pulled the cis off, removed the shroud and behold:

drola · 10-27-2016, 06:55 AM

drola · 10-27-2016, 07:05 AM

so the oil leaks.....
first, the breather hose on top of the case was loose and seems like the main culprit. quickly looking i found a couple of loose and shifted rocker arm shafts, rms weeping, valve covers leaking, chain housing to case leaking (although i may just leave that one alone since i don't want to get that deep into it), oil cooler seals leaking. fuch, what wasn't leaking ?!?!?!?
so now i need to start making a list of all the parts to buy, clean the crap out of it, remove the oil lines to the front of the car, adjust valves, clean the fuel distributor, replace anything and everything that needs attention. still debating whether to remove the injectors and having them cleaned although the car seemed to run just fine. the alternator nut resisted only to find it had been cross threaded so now the shaft is completely wasted.
updates to come ........

SiberianDVM · SiberianDVM's Garage

Great stuff so far....

JoshCole1122 · 10-27-2016, 09:58 AM

Awesome stuff keep the updates coming!

hillskier · 10-27-2016, 10:10 AM

Beautiful, saw it on CL for a while and was oh so tempted by the color. Enjoy!

LUFTKUL · 10-27-2016, 10:48 AM

I rolled the rear fenders on my '77 to run 225/50-16s on 7s and I'm glad I did. I'm running 205/55-16s up front on 6s and didn't need to roll the fenders so I didn't. Looks very nice on the mid years.

I rented the tool from someone on here and the paint barely cracked. Really happy with the whole project.

JHG · 10-27-2016, 10:56 AM

Love the color. (My same-color '77 below, so entirely biased opinion.) Enjoy!

Luccia at Pelican Parts · 10-27-2016, 11:22 AM

Oh my! That color is magnificent. Looking forward to watching the progress. Don't forget to check out our tech articles while you work on your project: Porsche 911 (1965-1989) Technical Articles - Pelican Parts. Also, if you end up doing any type of repair/upgrade to it that you don't see in our library and document it you can submit it for our enthusiast content and get a discount if it gets selected. More info on that below. Good luck with your new project!

Enthusiast Tech Article Submissions - Pelican Parts

jlex · jlex's Garage

Cool color. Maybe the alt shaft can be re-threaded to accept a compatible nut...

drola · 10-28-2016, 06:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LUFTKUL

I rolled the rear fenders on my '77 to run 225/50-16s on 7s and I'm glad I did. I'm running 205/55-16s up front on 6s and didn't need to roll the fenders so I didn't. Looks very nice on the mid years.

I rented the tool from someone on here and the paint barely cracked. Really happy with the whole project.

i will most likely go this route. i'll give it a proper alignment, correct camber etc and see where i'm at. i agree the 7's on the back of the middies looks much cooler than the 15x6's that it came with.

drola · 10-28-2016, 06:29 AM

i cleaned up the engine
as i suspected, a few of the rocker shafts had moved, #2 exhaust was out quite a bit, past the sealing point. #1 & #2 intakes were also out but not as much. 4-6 looked pretty good.
some of them were torqued like crazy. why???????
also, of the 12 shafts, i found residual rsr seal on only one of the grooves. none of the other 23 grooves had any sign on a seal ?????
they were placed in no particular way.
i will clean out all the bores and make sure the new rsr seals will have a good sealing surface.
can i just tell you how much it irks me to see prior work done by people who either just don't know and shouldn't be doing that anyway or by someone who just doesn't give a $H!T !!!!!!!

drola · 10-28-2016, 06:48 AM

on to the thermostat issue
i had to remove the complete oil line/trombone cooler system. there was no way those lines were going to come off the tstat while still on the car. even after i took it out, only one of the four lines came free from the tstat. plus one of the lines had been cut and it had a piece of rubber hose as a coupling.

drola · 10-28-2016, 06:51 AM

i always say, it's good to have parts

remember those days when you could pick up 911's so cheap you could part them out and pick and chose what parts you wanted to keep ???? and make a few bucks in the process. i miss those days

drola · 10-28-2016, 06:55 AM

back to the issue of people doing things that don't make sense.
am i crazy to think that running the a/c lines together with the oil lines is counterproductive for cooling?
why oh why ????

billh1963 · billh1963's Garage

Awesome color!

drola · 10-28-2016, 07:04 AM

up next: rehab the cis system, lots of cleaning, make a list of parts to buy, clean the tranny, clean the engine compartment and wheel wells, clean the oil lines etc etc etc.
future projects will probably include full suspension bushing refresh, ball joints, turbo tie rods, corner balance and alignment, install those sport seats that are up on the shelf and who knows what else