Out of a purely selfish position, great. I didn't want to see this thread end.

I can change my oil and do my brakes. Anything over that & I am pushing it. I marvel and respect folks like you. I look forward to you progress.

Regarding Mr. Rady's comments, I can understand where he is coming from. I am guessing he fixes a lot of mistakes that folks like me make. Then we blame it on LNs products. And the fact that he is blunt is part of his beauty. You always know where he stands.

Chuck,
While I realize that some people would blame a product line for their own lack of understanding I would not have been in the crowd to blame an LN product because it didn't perform a miracle. I do respect the request however.

Bfeller,
When I was hoping for a quick turn so I could drive the car I was also thinking that I would start collecting parts and a donor engine (with any luck a 996) so that I could take the time to rebuild that and be ready. Were I to go that route I would now probably, ironically, seek out a single row donor so I could implement the plain bearing solution.

Doing it this way I can go "one and done" and enjoy my car for a few years. Until a '89 Carrera and my wallet come in to alignment that is...

BFeller:

Dual row cars are older, less desirable, worth less and have a ~8x lower failure rate. Where is the market considering that LN already offers an upgraded bearing?

The dual row LN plus splash and vapor oiling have proven in thousands of cars to be good for well beyond the LN initial cautious estimates.

Put in a dual row LN and it will probably last you 'till the cars are 20-22 years old.

I apologize if my post appeared to be negative. I understood the market dynamics involved and intended it to be a supportive post.

While the IMS is out you can send it to LN for their Triple bearing upgrade.

Early bicycle chain style IMS w/ triple ceramic bearings & pinning inc. core charge. LN Engineering

Why have I not seen that before? I'd only glanced at the IMS assemblies on the LN page without taking the time to understand what the offering is.

Is it just my browser or is the LN page devoid of much in the way of product descriptions? More importantly, is this shaft drop in compatible with my two row engine, or do I need different chains, cam sprockets, etc?

I grasp welding or pinning the gear to the shaft of course. This assembly appears to have that operation taken care of and includes a triple row bearing I can't even buy separately.

I might have to knock off a few more convenience stores.

When you tear the engine down you should check your oil pump housing. The metal chips in your filter passed though your oil pump on the way to the filter and may have opened up the clearances. Ultrasonic cleaning is the way to go. I rebuilt an engine with a failed IMS bearing (single row) and spent a lot of time cleaning with solvents and still found some chips in the pan after the rebuild. I went back with a sealed greased steel bearing (partially due to bearing contamination concerns) and modified my IMS to keep the grease in the bearing. I've put about 2000 miles on the rebuild, with plenty of redline, heck, almost always redline, and the bearing has held so far. The bearing will be pulled after 15k miles, and if the engine has no sign of metal in the oil an open bearing will be a possible replacement. If there is any metal in the oil it's likely to tear up an open oiled bearing. I looked at using a roller bearing but was concerned about shaft alignment with the rollers after reading bearing manufacturers data. Roller bearings require close alignment, something the designers of the M96 were not designing to as they used a deep groove ball bearing which is relatively insensitive to shaft alignment. I posted my rebuild on this forum, though not as good a job as you are doing. ;)

I guess LN has removed thier original website to minimize competitors using the info there. I believe the triple row upgrade was the 1st IMSB service/upgrade available & has always require installation @ LN. Just send your IMS to LN & allow about a month for shipping & upgrade service. I do this for all the engines I build & consider it a once & done for life operation.

Got it out this weekend.
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4f1f7e7d.jpg
Getting organized. To minimize the amount of greasy hand prints on my books, to eliminate steps already performed by removing engine, and to take care of model specific things (e.g. my car doesn't have a throttle cable) I made a check list. On it I documented the page of the Bentley manual and/or Wayne's book which had the best description and pictures.
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8183aa5d.jpg
Another, while in work. Oh, and there are four hoses not three...

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psb5e3b1db.jpg
Trunk shot. This is one of those steps that when I read it, it wasn't clear. I mean, if I'm going to remove a bunch of connections on the engine, wouldn't I just leave this part of the harness hooked up? Well, no as it turns out. There are a ton of sensors still plugged in when you drop the engine and the least amount of them to pull are when you disconnect the harness in the trunk.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps12a7bf24.jpg
Regarding the steps in the book I'd like to expand on one or two. For example when you split the power steering pressure line it tells you to be prepared to catch some fluid. We're not talking "have a rag handy" fluid. I guessed this was going to happen and had a mostly empty container of discarded brake fluid handy to catch this stream which lasted several minutes.

Another point or two.

When it has you disconnect the big electrical cable at the top front of the compartment, do not assume that just because the cable is black and that the housing is black that it is a ground cable and therefore inert. It's not.:eek: Disconnect your battery ground in the frunk before doing that step.

Speaking of the cable junction. The steps have you remove the three A/C compressor bolts, but the top one is sort of blocked off by the power steering reservoir. Since it has to come off anyway it makes sense to remove it first. But. Reaching the twist ring at the base is easier if the ground cable is out of the way. Not just the ground cable but the junction it is mounted to. So it's: cable, reservoir, A/C bolts.

The A/C removal was cake by the way. All three easily reachable from the top with a long extension.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps396cd8a3.jpg
Okay, goofy MacGiver trick. When you pull the fuel line connections the books also mention to be prepared for some gas, so I had an old lawn mower jug available. Gas continued to drip from the hard line (mounted to the car) and wasn't that good about dripping precisely into my container. So I put a small zip tie around the end which would serve as the low point and path of least resistance. At first I just pointed it down into the gas can but then decided that if I rotated it at an angle I could see at a glance when it was done dripping.
After an hour I got annoyed and created a plug out a piece of fuel line and a bolt.

Front mount disconnected and I was out of excuses. Time to get my #3 son to help me lower it down. I didn't know how smoothly it would go so I ran him through the various jobs I might be yelling at him to do on short notice. Like the A/C compressor, or going back up a 1/2" in case anything was hung up.

I had done a pretty careful job of tending to the various hoses and connections that might get hung up. An obvious one is the power steering return line, which looked like it would just love to get hung up on the left suspension. So I zip tied it to the pressure line, tucking it nicely out of the way.

After lowering the engine about 5" I was able to rearrange the various items that had been intertwined and push the main harness in and get it situated. Likewise the A/C compressor was moved to behind the driver's seat at about this point.

Then it was on down, eventually working it off the jack and onto a long piece of wood that will allow me to slide it like a pizza.
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5453e3f6.jpg

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...pse8d5589c.jpg

Done. On the ground and bleeding its last. I had to quit for the day and didn't check how much clearance I needed to create before twisting the engine 90 degrees and sliding it out the back. Quite sure it's too tall, just not sure how much.

Last night I was able to get the engine rotated 90 degrees on my pizza board and turned sideways inside the engine compartment. That has to be done to slide it out the back of the car. There is really no room to spare while rotating it and it takes as much care as when you lower the engine to not have anything hang up on something. Just take your time and you'll see what needs to be adjusted.

When I finally got the board to slide to the very back of the car I was about 3" too short. I read up on removing the bumper and decided on just jacking the car up higher. I gave up for the night and decided to just get on it today.

Today I was able to get home from work a little early and get on it. Jacking up the car in stages I got it just high enough to clear and slide the engine out where I could begin working on it.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5efecb0c.jpg
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psba062471.jpg
It's actually a pretty sizable chunk of machinery.

The intake manifold comes off in a fairly large unit, and with it comes the wiring harness, plug wires, fuel rails and fuel injectors, and some random bits. After examining it for a few minutes I could see the places where it all had to come apart and it looked pretty easy.
I started by grabbing a roll of blue tape and a sharpie pen and labeling all the wire connections. Truth be told most of them are one of a kind in their given neighborhoods so there aren't a lot of places to screw up. However it is good to take the time to grasp every connector and figure out what it does. It will certainly help on assembly and if nothing else I now know for certain where every one of them is in case one goes TU.
The knock sensors are a little hard to reach until the manifold is pulled part way off. You also need to tend to a crankcase hose, alternator connections, a vacuum line and the plastic tube for the AOS. I took several pictures to help un furball things later.

Then off it came.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps97147066.jpg

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1cbb5208.jpg

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps03bfddc7.jpg
Next up will be removing the starter, alternator, power steering pump, oil cooler, oil filler tube, EGR and it should start looking like a big metal suitcase.

Then it will be time to get oily.

Flaps,

A stellar job of documenting your steps!

You should write a book, "DIY Boxster motor rebuild"

I have a feeling this thread is going to be one of the top ones on the forum by the time you are all done. Already almost 2500 views

I appreciate the thought Jay but I don't feel like I'm breaking new ground. Hell if I worked in a Porsche shop I would have been fired already for taking too long. Or smiling too much.

Besides, Wayne already wrote the book which I've found to be super helpful. The Bentley manual does cover engine removal and it was really great to have another reference. Past cylinder head removal though, the Bentley manual goes dark.

I'm mostly writing to add to the database of "how to" and things I learned along the way.

I guess now would be a good time to confess a couple of mistakes I've made. A sort of "confessions of an idiot with tools" section. In no particular order...

1) The dip stick tube is not flexible. The book says to guide the tube down as you lower the engine, and I'll swear on a stack of "Excellence" magazines that somewhere it says to push the dip stick tube and wiring harness into the engine compartment.

That is one brittle piece of plastic, so DO NOT push it. That tidbit will save you about $57 on your next Pelican order. Last night I noticed that there is a disconnect on the tube, so either no one noticed that in time, or it's not accessible until after you get the engine out. I saw reference in another thread today about someone else who broke his but was going to fabricate a new one. That would be tricky to do and still get an accurate oil level reading, so I hope that poster has all the pieces and can measure carefully. Certainly not an impossible feat, you would just have to think it through.

2) There is an instruction that tells you to drain the coolant using the coolant drain plug and the picture is a bit vague. I still don't know where the coolant drain plug is, but I do know where the oil pressure relief valve is. It's right were a coolant drain plug should be.;)

In my case I had it scoped out, and shoved a big metal tub under the car to catch the coolant, blocking off much of the light from my drop light. My typical trick when draining fluid is to crack it loose before shoving the catch pan under it and then spin it quickly and let it fall in the tub to be fished out later.

I remember thinking it was odd that not a whole bunch came out. Later I thought it was also odd that I was getting so damn much coolant out of every hose connection I broke even though I had already drained the coolant.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled the tub of clean coolant out with some oil floating in it, and WTF was a spring and piston doing in my coolant drain?

No harm done really, but like I said "uh. you're fired". Other than that, it has been smooth sailing.

its precisely the little things that you are figuring out that would be very useful to someone rebuilding their engine.

That stuff is not documented elsewhere

Might be a stupid question but about how much does the engine weigh?

How many miles are on your car? I checked your first post but didn't see. Everything is so clean on the engine so it can't have that many miles. It doesn't even look like it has the typical browning from heat cycles and age

Way too heavy to be mounted in the back of a sports car, I'll tell you that. It's a beast. Back in my young and stupid days I used to drop a type 1 VW engine, strip the heater boxes off and carry it in the house. I recall reading that the VW engine would be in the neighborhood of 185 pounds in that trim but I never had one on a scale.

The M96? No idea, but I'm much older, a little bit smarter now and sporting a ruptured disc from about four years ago. I could tell just sliding it out on my makeshift pizza board that there would be a lot of stuff removed, and an assistant before it was going to move to my bench.

My car just turned 120K miles. I agree the engine is way too clean. It would appear that it had a cylinder head recently. The valve covers are both marked and the oil scavenge pumps in the heads are also marked so it may have been torn down even more.

This car was what guys older and more southern than me might refer to as a "pig in a poke". I don't know the history of the car and I didn't get a PPI. That of course goes in the face of everything you read about buying a Porsche. You're supposed to walk away from cars like mine. And if you pay someone to work on your 'exotic' car then that's no doubt a smart recommendation.

However I also got my car for about 2/3 of the going rate for an S model, and I also bought the car as a hobby. Maybe I'm an odd one, but I bought a Porsche so I could enjoy ownership, including working on it. I don't enjoy writing big checks as much as some people I guess. In the end if I have to put $5k in parts and machine shop work then I'm still at a break even, and I'll have a car I know I can trust.

Enough blathering.

This morning it was time to clear the decks. I started by clearing my work bench because I hope to have the crank case sitting on it prior to tearing it apart.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6f200f04.jpg
Yet another lousy phone pic. You'd think Katherine Hepburn took these. Anyway this is part way through "making a hole".

And then it was time to clear the top and bottom of the engine of anything that moves.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps836ba8db.jpg
Top side clear. The starter, oil cooler, alternator and crankcase breather apparatus all come off easily. The power steering pump though - what a scream. It's mounted to a pedestal which you would really like to remove in one piece and take the power steering pump still attached to it. But there is one base bolt that is pinned down by a lug on the power steering pump. You can't just remove the power steering pump because first you have to remove the pump pulley and then you'll discover that one of the hard lines is in the way. It's like one of those puzzles with one missing square. I found I could leave the hard line attached and remove the pulley and the four bolts (three from the front and one from behind) that hold the PS pump to the pedestal. By doing that you could get just enough room to sneak a box wrench in and inch the remaining base bolt out. Tedious but it gets you there.

Then you're looking at a pile like this:
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...pscdaba63c.jpg

Next I carefully tipped the engine up on end and removed the exhaust manifolds. Pretty easy with the help of an air impact wrench. It managed to come up with quite a puddle of oil and coolant it was hiding while I did the work. Then back down to a stable position.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps82a792fc.jpg
Before anyone asks, the hideous black area on the board is from being used to host some things I spray painted for my woman recently. So far (other than the oil filter and the IMS bearing/shaft) I have only seen clean oil and clean coolant.

Too heavy to be in a sports car? You might want to educate yourself a bit on engine weights before making such a statement. The m96 weighs significantly less than the old air cooled 911 motors. And comparing it to a type I vw...really? The m96S makes 5 times the horsepower lol. FYI The 3.5 liter cosworth dfv f1 engine only weighs ~30 pounds less than a m96 even with m96 heavy street flywheel. The dfv was not too heavy for Jim Clark.

I was mostly poking fun at rear engine cars as opposed to mid engine cars not trying to roast the M96 as an oversize boat anchor. I'll try to stay on topic.

Humor is good. Thanks for the pointers so far. Damnit need more popcorn.

I took it as humorous. Great thread; keep it up.

Same here. Love this thread.

After posting up yesterday I really thought I was going out to the garage to look at some camshafts. I should have known better though, since I've read about the use of some of the special Porsche tools required to properly remove the camshaft cover and remove the cam shafts.

Put simply, if you just remove the camshaft cover the cams will want to fall out and surely they'll get all gouged up in the process. So, tool # 9634 to the rescue.

Now I noticed on 986fix.com and also "project nutrod" that the guys who were kind enough to post up their pictures made their own special tools. So it seemed fitting that I would do the same. Time to go ponder the requirements.

Tool 9634 uses the same lug used to hold the LN engineering cam locking tool, only instead of engaging the key way there are two cylindrical features which lock in the centers of the cam shafts. Time to measure the distance between cam shafts. Now I noticed that on the two web pages referenced that they show the steps they used to create their tooling but don't mention the dimensions. It can't possibly be proprietary since anyone could measure the distance on their own.

Now maybe it's not kosher to publish the dimension so I won't, but it rhymes with 112.5mm. As for the diameter of the cylindrical features, you just need to dig out the socket head cap screws that used to hold your clutch pressure plate to your flywheel. They fit perfectly in the ends of the cams.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psccff80bd.jpg

Going with that I imagined some tool made from a simple piece of angle. Two tapped holes 112.5mm apart and the clutch bolts threaded in. Then it would need a hole on the other leg of the angle, centered. The biggest hurdle would be getting a face of my new tool to line up exactly with the centerline of the two cam bolts.

I made a shopping trip with my sketch to the local home box store. I came up with a piece of L angle aluminum and after that I needed a spacer. The cheapest spacer I could come up with was a nut that was a slip fit for the M8x1.25 bolt (aka clutch pressure plate bolt) that would hold the tool to the head.

Next it was off to my son's house to commandeer the drill press I left with him. Getting the two cam bolts to line up on the same center as the inside face of my new "spacer" would be easier done than said. Behold:

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps212d5f6d.jpg

I needed a rigid way of starting the two threaded holes if I had any chance of nailing my 112.5mm goal. I chucked up a stiff drill bit which I'm going to erroneously refer to as a center drill (it's a countersink tool in real life, but the closest they had at Lowe's). Bottom line, it wasn't going to wander when starting a hole.

Chucking it up in the drill press I brought it down and rotated my table until the rear (non moving jaw) of my vise was right on the money for the tip of the "center" drill. Then I put my angle in, with the spacer (aka M10 nut) faced towards the back jaw. I could then start a hole any damn where I pleased, and then slide the work piece along the vice jaw exactly 112.5mm.

I did that by bringing my center drill down and just marking off the drill point for the future hole. Then I scribed an arc at 112.5mm. All I would have to do is loosen the vise and slide the part down until the tip of the center drill intersected with my arc.

I'm skipping a couple of steps here but this is another look

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psbb6a5e48.jpg

As you can see, the face of my spacer being pushed up against the rear jaw of the vise assures the holes will be exactly lined up with the lug on the cylinder head.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4e42e284.jpg
This picture is after the holes were drilled but before tapping them for the M8x1.25 bolts. In my previous setup I was aiming for accuracy but could not have drilled the holes through or the bit would hit my vise jaw.

In the pic above you'll see I flipped the part around and set it on a sacrificial plastic spacer. You'll see this plastic again later, when I use it to create the special Porsche tools used to hold the cams in place for timing purposes but for now you're looking at a scrap of plastic. All I had to do was unlock the table of my drill press and relocate the center of the holes I started, then change up to the drill I would us to pilot the tapped holes and blow them through.

Next I tapped the holes M8x1.25, and then verified that they fit the cams (they did). Then I eyeballed the stuff that would need to be removed, marked it with a sharpie pen and took a hack saw to remove the excess metal. Then I grabbed the file and made it presentable at 5'.

I learned a TON from my uncle many, many years ago about taking the time to do things right and making what you couldn't buy. Now, where I used my file to round off sharp edges he would have gone to town and probably would have applied a black crackle finish and some sort of data plate. One of these days I'm going to be as cool as my uncle.

The hole used to sock the tool down in position doesn't have to be a close tolerance hole. It just has to be a nice clearance hole. So I blew it through with a 21/64" bit and then tried to install it.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psb594b868.jpg
It works.

Now my tool looks a bit light duty compared to tools you might spend a ton of money on. I would have felt warmer inside had I used 1/4" thick extrusion, but then I'd have had more work to do. And truth be told the cams don't want to jump off the head when you remove the cover. They just want to be held. This tool does that. In fact when I got to the part where I pulled the cams off I had to loosen this tool to let go of the non driven ends of the cams.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3b936c89.jpg
I was not horrified with what I found when the cover came off. Yet.

The worst thing I see is the cam journal (which is the inside of the cam cover) in the middle left of the pic. It looks worse in the image than it does in real life. You cannot feel any of the marks you see.

Some more exposure:
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7fabd497.jpg

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps53b499fd.jpg

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psa1fc7dd9.jpg

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0a39e652.jpg
Here's that ugly cam journal inside the cam cover. Again, you can't feel any of this that you see. Looks to me like some debris has been pumped through here.

Where I stopped for the evening:
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psb2a588a3.jpg
I got all the cam lifters out and I have my request in for an egg carton which I'll get after brunch tomorrow. I loosened all the hardware I could find on cam lifter carrier, but it didn't jump into my hands. I was way tired so called it quits for the day. I cleaned up my tools and the garage.

Cool tool and great 'DIY clarity'.

Can that cam journal surface be polished or does the cover have to be replaced?

Mine was 393 lbs on a bathroom scale rated to 400 lbs.

Consider reindexing the slots for the exhaust cam sprocket more toward the middle. As they are you have no room for adjustment at a later date. That later date might be really soon.

After its together spin the engine 20 times CW and then recheck cam timing. In most cases a small correction will need to be made.

Class act Mr. Raby. Class act.

Indeed. Much appreciated.

I got the lifter carrier off the cylinder head this morning. It would seem that the builder of this engine was certain that gray goo was supposed to be applied to every possible surface in order to keep the oil inside.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psee4619d8.jpg
Starting to collect a pile.

Getting the cylinder head off was a matter of removing four screws and then the large long bolts. I had neglected to remove the chain ramp pivot bolt but just by wiggling the head it was obvious where the hang up was. Out it came and the head came off.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psc6b3ac8f.jpg

I was a bit startled to see a stray piece of metal, visible in the coolant passage at the lower left of the picture above.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psd1b3fea5.jpg
A close up.

It was that piece of foil that seals every oil and coolant jug we purchase, and somehow this one ended up in my engine. Could have been a really bad thing down the road.

This is a look the other direction:
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps67acdfa7.jpg

Out came my oil pump:
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psc2d98a46.jpg

And water pump:
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...pscc74d67c.jpg

The metal in the coolant passage is cause for concern, particularly since the engine appears to have had some work in the past. What does the block side of the water pump look like? Failed metal impeller water pumps are legend on this forum.

Isn't that a picture of the block side of the WP right above your post?

Looks like I must have missed it multiple times as looking back I don't see it. Metal water pump impellers can machine the block which would be visible in the block after the water pump is removed. I did not find that shot in the pictures provided. If the block was machined by a metal impeller, metal in the coolant passages could be expected. This could obstruct the coolant flow resulting in specific areas of the engine overheating. In any event to me, finding FOD in the coolant passages indicates a complete tear down to clean out the coolant galleys. That's a big deal, but allows building the engine up from the crank out. My engine had 120k on it, and the bearings were shot with dealer service intervals / Mobile 1 oil changes as recommended by Porsche. The timing chains off the IMS can also be changed if the block is split which is a benefit.

Sorry, this is a matter of semantics. I interpreted "what does the block side of the water pump look like" as "what does the side of the water pump that mates to the block look like," but what you actually meant was "what does the block look like where the water pump mounts to it?" :-)

The picture does show a foil tab that seals a bottle of some sort. Maybe from the previous owner applying IMS Bearing Repair in a Can.

Well apparently they didn't read the instructions, or didn't use enough. cough.

I didn't have time for a pic this morning as I suited up for the ride in, but I did look at the crankcase side of water pump housing. It is slightly discolored from the coolant but it is 100% "as cast" and doesn't have a mark on it.

That's good news. Parts are expensive, but you are in a position to turn back the clock on the parts in your engine that tend to wear. My rings had 120K on them, and while clearly worn (about 1/3 gone), they sealed fine, so I kept the $1200 (wow! price rings for anything else) but replaced the really worn parts like the bearings which were down to the steel backing. Check out Gaudin Porsche for good deals, but watch out for shipping. Also, if you are going to replace your IMS bearing do a little research on bearings in general which helps in the decision on what to put back in. I liked the Pelican bolt and seal, but not the bearing due to the seal. Keep up the great work and thanks for the post!

I had a post all typed up earlier with pictures, etc of where I had managed to get to on Friday night, then had a failure to click "Submit Reply".

Well it basically contained this picture:
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6823f813.jpg

Since I was practiced up, removing the other cam cover, cams, lifter carrier and finally cylinder head was pretty straight forward. I had also made a comment in the post about how I've come to the conclusion that during dismantling a Porsche engine if it requires anything more than a nudge with the rubber hammer or gently prying at the pretty healthy spots the designers left you, you missed a fastener.

[sidetrip]
Back in the day I had a 75 Honda Civic 1200 and it blew a head gasket. The manual described how to get all the way down to removing the head bolts and then pointed out two (pathetic in comparison to what the M96 designers left us) locations you could pry ever so gently, but admonished that "what ever you do, don't pry at the gasket surface". (Duh). Let me tell you something, that gasket was STUCK on. I ended up devising a way to allow me to use my floor jack from under the car to push on the only spots allowed and it damn near lifted the car off the ground before the gasket came loose. Compared to that, the Porsche is a dream.
[/sidetrip]

Today's project was to get the case split. So I did.
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7fc68b28.jpg

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps922f6d6d.jpg
I swear to you, that's not a crescent wrench in the back ground. It's not. Really.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psc1d5bcdb.jpg
Chain ramp for the IMS/crank shaft chain. On to the shopping list. The ramps for the cam chains looked much newer.

Looking over the pistons I could see some very light scoring on them, mostly between the crown of the piston and the first ring. #1 cylinder is the worst one. But the rings look damn smooth and the bores of the cylinders looked absolutely brand new in some cases, and one or two with a few very fine linear scratches. I made a point to head back after I had everything situated on my work bench to go back and wipe out those bores and really take a look

Houston, we have a problem.

I thought it was the strange way light shines on stuff that is dripping with oil but when I wiped the bore of my #5 cylinder I noticed a significant scratch. Shown under two different lighting scenarios so you can see the best. With bare fingers it is just possible to feel the scratches. I did my best to light them well for the pictures.
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psefee8573.jpg
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5f9d0a57.jpg
I had to orient myself with the way the crankcase was situated and then move to the bench to see if I could see any corresponding damage. I was worried that I would find where a wrist pin snap ring had popped out, but it seems to be secure. Looking on, it didn't take long to notice.

Here's what you see at first:
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...pse1b2f1a0.jpg
Then you zoom in:
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9aed3a6a.jpg
There's supposed to be a break in the ring, but it's not supposed to be over an inch long. My guess is this is an assembly mistake, most likely the last time someone was in here. The ring material is really thin and it would not be that difficult to have snagged and got a piece crushed into the cylinder wall.

After taking the pictures here I cleaned up my tools and called it a night. Tomorrow I'll need to obtain the correct sockets for the bearing carrier and connecting rods.

Stay tuned as I dig deeper.

And this, ladies and gentleman, is why you do a complete tear down when you find metal in the filter.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps14cd398c.jpg

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps046bb548.jpg

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps56868667.jpg
This is cylinder #6. The bearing even appears to have mileage on the outside (i.e. it's a spun bearing).

tick, tick, tick...boom. I read that somewhere.

The good news for today is that it appears that my crank is in pretty good shape. I believe a basic polishing of the journals and I'll be okay.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2f398df8.jpg
The good.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5dac5faa.jpg
The bad. My main bearings are ugly.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psfc9001f2.jpg

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...ps48ef69a6.jpg

So, it's apart. I'd appreciate the opinions of anyone who has actually turned wrenches themselves on a M96 engine, or at least an engine, on what I've uncovered.

I've got a couple of local shops picked out that do ultrasonic cleaning. They happen to be shops that build hot rods, so I'm assuming they can also handle polishing a crankshaft.

My wrist pins look great. :rolleyes:

"Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?"

You call those bearings bad? I bet you could have gotten another 1,000-1,500 miles out of 'em.
Mail them to me, I'll replace mine with it:

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1415572043.jpg

:dance:

Great pics and description. I can't wait for the assembly (you too I suppose).
I was going to put my 2.7 in today, but found out I can't get spark plugs locally, so I'm waiting a day or two for shipping rather than doing it with the engine in.

One of favorite thread on 986forum atm. Got to say thanks to the OP for taking the time and throwing those awesome pics at us. Top man x100

quality work, love it. Keep it going man

I had that twice in my life, but on a motorcycle engine quite a while ago. A few thouhgts.

Root cause is usually a lack of oilf pressure / flow in the bearing. If the engine is very old and worn the gap may be too high to maintain enough pressure. If the engine is not worn, there may be a problem with the oil pump or an oil line is clocked. Both happened to me. I think it should be possible to grind and polish the crank to the next smaller bearing diameter as it looks. But you have to measure first.
If the bearing has really turned inside the piston rod, you have to change the rod. But I'm surprised that the clips at the corner of the bearings are not broken. When it happened to me the engine got totally overheated in a minute and the bearing was complety destroyed.

You know, I had put my tools away and gone about my life for a couple of hours when I had the exact same thought. So I went back out and took a careful look.

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...psa5c7a03c.jpg

As you can see, both tabs are knocked off. I'm pointing at one of them still where it is supposed to live. The other one presented itself when I first removed the rod and bearing. It was just sitting on the crank and at the time I didn't know where it came from.

It would appear rods come in sets of six, and they're about $1500. I'd like to think I could get a single rod and have them all balanced as a set.

That I can tell, there are no scratches on the crank that would justify turning it to the next size down (which btw, aren't commonly available for the M96 from my first glance), but would respond well to a polish job.

I'm making a call to a local hot rod shop that has the capacity to do ultrasonic cleaning and do the polish work.