Guys,
I've searched the message board but can't seem to find the answer to my question. I hope someone can help.
Let me provide some background and a bit of an intro. I have a 1969 European case 2.0 T engine in a 914. I know little to nothing about the engine except that 3 years ago one of the rocker shafts backed its way out during a track day, and I dumped a lot of oil on the track. It was the end of the season and I was building a house, so I parked the car under a cover ... and went racing Formula Vees for the past 3 years.
Recently I got the itch to tear down the engine and get back to my Porsche habit. I've been building my own Vee engines for years, so I'm not too much of a rookie with a wrench, but those weren't Porsche engines either.
(I did manage to do my own oil bypass mod - piece of cake) I've been pleasently surprised but what I keep finding at every turn. It's apparent that the engine has been apart before. Everything is clean inside and all parts from the crank to the rods are within factory spec.
I'm building it back up with 68 2.0L pistons, heads and cams and plan on using the car for an occasional sunny drive to work in the Summer or a Sunday drive with my 3 year old Son. In other words, nothing fancy. Which brings me to my question. The tensioners that I have taken out of the engine visibly look brand new. They are the version just previous to the Turbo style tensioners. The plunger (tension?) is impossible to get retracted into the cylinder. Short of putting it in a vise, I haven't been able to get either tensioner to move. Can I assume that these are still good? Do tensioners start to get soft before they fail? Is there a 'test' of how good these are? I'd like to reuse as many parts as possible within reason, but I'm not sure the upgrade to pressure-fed tensioners is justified with the limited mileage the engine will see every year.
Any thoughts or advice is very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Dion