Wow, I can't believe that 2 months have passed since I last posted on this thread. I've done some work on the car in that time, (a little), but mostly it's been pushed to the side because I've been busy with other things.
Now it's time to bring it back to the forefront because Paul is coming to collect it in approx. 3 weeks. Milt is coming over this week to weld in the new battery box floor, (trunk floor), which is the only rusty spot on the car. None of them escape corrosion in this spot, unless they never had a battery. The new piece arrived from NLA this week, they basically sell every part that you'd need to build one of these cars from scratch.
I had been planning on pulling the engine all along to re-seal it for oil leaks. The seller of this car was deceased but his regular mechanic claimed that the engine had been "rebuilt" some time in the not too distant past. The wrench, (or more accurately shop owner), was a very nice older guy but his garage was not the right place to maintain this car. He supposedly sent the engine out to be overhauled but could not remember where,(??), and there are no records of this ever occurring in the receipts we got for the car.
There is an old saying/truism in the world of used cars and "rebuilds" which is this: if there are no records, it did not happen. Unfortunately, in this case something
did happen, let's hope it wasn't Motormeister. I tore it down today and did not see any JB Weld, still haven't split the case yet, though. The car ran OK and idled fine but leaked oil from every possible crevice due to blow-by and it was a noisy motor. I brought it by one of the top 356 wrenches down in Costa Mesa a couple of weeks ago, (does all of the engines for European Collectibles and others), he drove the car and confirmed my observations about the noises and leaks. He had no firm idea of the sources of the noises w/o a tear-down.
Soooooo, here is what I did today. Tomorrow it will go to a good machine shop for measurements, etc. This is what I'd refer to as a forensic tear-down, just trying to figure out what it needs to really put it right. These are fantastic cars and this one has its original Super engine, which was the "in-between" option. The 1600 normal was 60hp, the Super was 75 and of course the S-90 was 90 feisty German galloping beasts.
I'm sitting in a cafe and battery is about to die, so I'll continue this when I get home.
