986 3.2 home engine rebuild

[OldManMo]

with the cams out, we had a closer look







Some scoring on the carrier but not too worrying

[OldManMo]

So what about the chain guide rails



Some grooving but expected worse and then found worse





wow, chunks missing. As the car has only 70k on it and full service history, what plastic was used here. looking at this, they should have been changed 10,000s of miles ago

[OldManMo]

oh, btw this is what I used to compress the tensioner, Much cheaper than the porsche tool and worked perfectly

[OldManMo]

When stripping down the hydraulic tensioners, one thing I found was the amount of gunk on the pistons. it did not slide easily. Also there was some seriously black oil inside it. I have only done about 800 miles on the car and had done 3 full oil changes, two when I first got it about 300 miles apart, and another when I did the IMS

When I drained the sump the oil was clean but the oil that came out of the tensioner was black so the question is why. I can only think that the it is primed but oil does really flow through it.

In any case after I cleaned the tensioner with paraffin as to not kill the seals in side it now slides smoothly.

Of course I will be changing the guides for new ones and going to test the solenoid on the bench

BTW, important to know which tensioner is which as they have different solenoids. I bag everything in re-sealable sandwich bags that I label and only ever work with one bag at a time as to not mix things up

I'll take some photos to share when I strip and clean the second one

[OldManMo]

next up the lifters and their guides.

Loads of the lifters gunked up AND were stuck and took some effort to get them to move, once they did the same black but very stinking oil came out. I was able to polish them up and get them moving freely even when primed but I have decided to replace all of them with new



carrier was in good condition though the guides were a little gunked up but they have cleaned up nice and the guides polished out

[OldManMo]

next we needed to get the manifolds off but I was dreading this as the bolts were rusted to the point the no longer had a hex head. Totally soaked them in Kroil applying it 2-3 times a day over 2 days and used heat, but snap. snap. snap 4-5 bolts each side snapped.

Manged to get a few more out with a stud extractor but will need to drill and tap out the others.

[OldManMo]

Time for the heads to come off and see what the bores look like (gulp)

Heads, not too bad on bank 1



and we can now see the pistons and bores and the pistons were caked in burnt oil, grud and ***te








The bores, the ones I could see didnt look to bad at all, no scoring visible and felt smooth to the touch