Ok, update time….sitting here on holiday, the perfect time to start updating the thread with progress.
Firstly here’s some “along the way” pics, including the mandatory empty-engine-bay shot!
Almost 20 years of grime and some oil weeps along the way – the usual mess that everyone encounters, I’m sure.
It’s actually taken quite a while to get to the stage I’m at – I know that the engine/box can be dropped out in half a day by those that do this day-in/day-out, probably a days work for those that have done it at least once before. I deliberately took my time (after all, this is the fun bit for me, don’t want to rush through it and complete it ASAP), photographing as much as I could before dismantling, bagging everything and scrawling notes. If it was a bad day at work, then frankly, I left it well alone – too much to go wrong if working without a clear head.
So far, extremely pleased I bought some items in preparation:
The engine stand you see here is a second one that I have, Sealey and 900kgs capable. I also have one with a “T” layout leg arrangement, fine for my inline “4” Westfield engine – a lot lighter and is never on the stand fully dressed, but not robust enough for the full dressed 911 turbo lump. That’s going to be eBay’d at some point – this 900kg monster is going to be challenging to store when done, lol!
The engine lift bar, sold by our hosts proved very useful – nice and simple, chains are the right length, etc. The only comment that I have fed back to Pelican is that the supplied engine mount “eyes” that you can use to lift the chassis up with, are not suitable for the later cars; certainly not a 964, as the mounting bolts are further apart than the eyes. I only found this out once fully committed to removing the engine at 1.00am (it wasn’t described in the online catalogue, but may well now be fixed after my feedback). Thankfully, I was able to get away with just using 1 bolt per mount, then being very careful whilst hoisting the car up, keeping a couple of axle stands underneath, adjusting one hole at a time.
The full basket style engine carrier yoke. I did debate whether I could get by with just using the supplied mounts that came with the stand along with the half-ring available from our hosts…but decided to spend the extra few $$’s and have the SIR tools version (again from Pelican). Glad I did, very sturdy.
In addition to this, despite having acquired over 20yrs what I consider to be a nice tool set, there have been numerous trips to the local tool shop and many a late night eBay purchase, to get the stuff I’ve never needed before, not least of which my cam removal tool from a chap in Canada!
As you can see in the pics, the rear tinware is completely shagged, so that needs replacing (apparently vital for the intercooler to function, despite somebody tell me to just leave it off!)