Ok, long story short is I have my 2000 986S 3.2 liter engine out and partially disassembled to correct an oil leak from the head gasket and I was planning on not splitting the crankcase but now I want to see what you guys with M96 engine experience think. The car has 160k miles on it and was running great. I have 6 speed tranny problems and after pulling the transmission and experiencing a bad oil leak while driving cross country, I pulled the engine to fix the oil leak. I guess the heads were pulled recently before I bought the car and then then reassembled with a bit of funk that compromised the sealant lip on the head gasket resulting in an oil leak.
Anyway, my questions are what to do about the crankcase and rod bearings as well as the inner timing chain tensioner pads, not to mention piston rings.
Am I able to inspect the inner pad surfaces before splitting the case to see what condition they are in? (Forgive my obvious questions here as I am 2000 miles away from the car and can't just look at it to answer these questions.)
Also, the outer bores look good with no scoring but I will use a boroscope to check the lower/inner bores when I get back to the car next month.
However, if the bores are good and the pads are good, would you guys still split the case or just put it back together with reconditioned heads?
I think the case has been apart as the sealant between the case halves is black and a bit on the heavy side? Did Porsche slather on the sealant here or is it usually not noticeable? I assume the heads have been off due to the oil leak but who knows, maybe that's OE. I would doubt any manufacturer would do this but in the M96 world, all bets are off!
Can you guys tell if this case has been apart before? You can see how much sealant was used, especially where it comes out the end of the threaded hole where the bolts were installed.
Oh, and how much extra will splitting the case run me? I'm assuming once I split the case, I'll probably want new rings, rod bearings, tensioner pads + aluminum pad arm, tensioner chains, etc. What I'm not sure about is if I'll want ARP rod bolts or OEM.
I'm guessing all of these parts will add about $1200 to my M96 debt. What else am I forgetting?
Anyway, I would love to hear opinions on any of this. Is all this overkill or added necessity?
I guess I'll wait to hear if we can determine whether the case has been apart before....