|
Well I'm back at it, finally. I still feel like I came up short in a knife fight but I'm able to work for short periods of time and I gather a little more strength every day.
Two steps forward and one step back.
The night before my surgery I was in a hurry to get the engine shoved up inside and the front motor mount bolted in. That way I would be faced with hooking up connections and other light duty work until it came time to do get the transmission up there.
I didn't write about it at the time because I was so dumbfounded by what occurred that night, but it turns out that both of my two lower engine mount bolts were stripped. When I took the car apart I found one that was undersized and looked like someone had stuck some silicone on it to fake the job. Seriously, who does that? I had no reason to think the threads were toast, just that they must have lost the correct bolt and were trying to cover it up.
So there I was on my back late on a tuesday night trying to set the torque on those big bolts when I realized how bad it was. The bolts threaded in just fine with my fingers but when I went to put a load on them I could just feel the torque rise slightly and then begin to fall off. F.
I obtained a Helicoil set so I could do the thread repair but at that point I knew I was dead in the water until well after surgery. It wasn't until two days ago that I was able to pull it off.
I was really hoping that the tap would be long enough that I could perform the job without having to remove the oil pump housing. It wasn't, and Helicoil taps are so odd ball (by necessity) that you can't just go buy a long one.
I lowered the engine about half way back to the ground, pulled the a/c compresser back out, relieved the tension on the top cam chain tensioner and removed the oil pump housing. I got the Helicoils in while wishing I knew more German, or at least some good German profanity. These are not the only fastener locations I have had to do inserts in. It would appear the castings on this car are actually made of silver cheese and not aluminum. Seriously, how does a bolt that you torque to 7.5 ft lbs ever strip out? I go years without buggaring a bolt hole or snapping off a fastener.
Laying on my back while tapping the hole for the Helicoil I had that brief image of me snapping the tap off flush with the bolt hole. That would have really made my day. Needless to say I was super careful and in the end the job went fine.
I had to buy new gaskets for the oil pump housing of course. It is actually an oil pump housing gasket and then a waterpump base gasket that you snip loose. Since I was on a roll I decided to just head down to my local Porsche dealer where I had to pay $35 for the gaskets that are under $10 for the pair had I ordered them from Pelican or Auto Atlanta. Same gaskets, not OEM copies. They didn't even kiss me first.
Once satisfied that my engine wasn't going to fall out I installed the front mount but noticed that it seemed a little jiggly. Yep, the rubber was torn. Now that is totally my fault as it is something I could have added to my shopping list months ago. I swear I looked at it and decided that it was fine.
I sourced the press in part locally for $55 and then yesterday I had a machine shop press out the old one and install the new one. The mount is back on and I've now raised the engine back up. A/C compressor is on and torqued.
I am seriously considering ditching A/C all together. That is some heavy crap right there, and mine doesn't blow cold anyway (probably vented to the atmosphere by a previous "mechanic"). I live in the PNW and have ZERO use for A/C. None. I'm a hard core convertible guy. Anything this side of light rain and my top is down, regardless of outside air temperature.
I know some will argue that having it removed would hurt the resale value. I can assure you that if I ever sell this car A/C will be the least of the bargaining chips.
As of this morning I'm starting from where I thought I was the night before surgery. I should have the front mount bolted up and the majority of top side connections performed by the end of today (fingers crossed).
|
Threaded Mode
