Captain_Slow

I'm three bolts away from having the OPG and pan removed. Bet you can guess which bolts I haven't removed yet. Took about 20 minutes to do all but 5 of the bolts. Now I'm stuck with the four in the upper right of the image (I traced the new gasket upside down so the orientation is flipped left-right).

Getting the bolts out has been the typical PITA. But that's not as much of a concern as putting them back in and torquing them properly (lightly). Getting the OPG and pan on seems straightforward, and I know the trick about using thin wire or zip ties to hold the OPG in place and start all the easy bolts before removing them. But what's the trick for starting the front bolts in their respective holes and then getting them torqued properly? Seems impossible to do even on an engine stand (unless there's a special skinny Porsche torque/gear wrench).

The bolt holes marked with X remain in until until I've separated the pan from the gasket or gasket from block..etc.

dr bob

Rule is that you take the toughest-to-access out first, so the weight of the sump doesn't fall onto the last/worst bolts as they come out. The ones you have left are best removed with a 10mm flex-head ratcheting box wrench (GearWrench), while you stick a finger in there to add enough drag for the ratchet to ratchet. Absent that wrench, it's one or two flats at a time with an open-end and skinny fingers. Patience, grasshopper!

Eric Buckley

Using a 1/4" drive removable head torque wrench such as is shown below you can correctly torque even the front OP bolts with the engine in the car. I had to remove the oil pressure sender, and then I could use a torque wrench on every bolt, with the engine in the car. Sturtevant-Richmond makes these sorts of wrenches. They show up on eBay all the time. You will likely have to source the correct 10mm removable head new, but they are fairly easy to find.




Removable Head Torque Wrench

MFranke

I just snug them up.

That torque wrench looks interesting though.

Some of those bolts take some time due to their location. Eventually you will get them.

joejoe

When I did mine I cleaned the block thread with carb cleaner, used blue loctite on cleaned screws, and torqued to 7(?) lb. Is still leak/drip free 10+ yrs.

Captain_Slow

You know you're becoming a seasoned 928 owner when you know exactly what this means:

I left four bolts at the corners to hold it up while I finish removing the hidden ones up front. Getting the tips of the bolts up front started seems like a challenge. I'm hoping I can get all the easy ones started, with the pan suspended on the bolt heads about an inch below the block. This will hopefully drop the pan enough to make it a little easier to access the heads of the front bolts to start them into the block. Then finger tight until I can torque them.

Captain_Slow

This is the plan...but I'm using brake cleaner:

I also picked up some pipe cleaning brushes at Harbor Freight to clean out the threads in the block.

dr bob

The actual torque on those bolts is really light, REALLY LIGHT, if you are using the silicone OPG. Something on the order of 20 lbs/in. That's POUND/INCH, something you can almost do with your fingers on a socket with no driver attached, just the socket. I used a cool inch/lb screwdriver intended to manage torque on brass screws into plastic backing. The sump need to just pull up against the gasket and a little more. If you can see the gasket squishing out at all, back everything off and start again.

That Sturdevant torque wrench does look pretty cool. I'd have to make another spot in the torque wrench drawer for it. I can do that. I can always find room for new/interesting tools...

StratfordShark

Reinstall is much easier after cleaning the pan once it's out. Amazing how much easier those tricky bolts are once you can see more clearly without black grease in the way.

Dr Bob's advice on 10mm gear wrench is the crucial tip here! You can stick adhesive tape on appropriate side to offer bolt up to hole, or just jam finger underneath. I know I talked about getting sight of bolts above, but with some you're working by feel and you're not looking at bolt. You can also get them started by feel with your fingers, then use gear wrench with finger/tape to wind them in to near snug.

I used similar 1/4" torque wrench on most of the bolts (first inserted bolts just snug, then applied 6Nm to all bolts, then 8Nm so I "crept up" to that final torque) but you can't get it onto some bolts so I just "calibrated" my fingers to what 8Nm felt like with the gear wrench. None of bolts should be much past snug.

Zip ties are great for getting a few easy bolts in and keeping gasket in shape (I used original cork). +1 on squirt if brake cleaner into every hole in block.

When dropping pan just loosen corner bolts at rear slightly then wind them out more as needed to get all oil out, so that remaining oil drips/flows into catch pan positioned underneath. After it's empty you can snug them up again to take weight off as you remove final front bolts. With mine there must have been 1-2 litres in pan and I'm glad I wasn't under them!

Make sure you replace the 5 short bolts in the correct "indented" spots in block.

Captain_Slow

Shark (and Dr. Bob),
Thanks for the detailed descriptions of how little torque is applied to the bolts. BTW, I am using the silicone gasket. I may run to Sears today and get a flex head gear wrench set (I've been wanting a set for awhile anyway). I've been using my regular 10mm gear wrench and it's worked pretty well, but getting it into position is a challenge that the flex head type would remedy.

The motor mounts were replaced by the PO with Anchors, which haven't held up (maybe 5 years tops). Engine doesn't rock as it should, sitting a bit low, and there is slight vibration at about 1200 rpm. While inspecting the mounts I noticed a bit of oil weeping from the OPG up front and less so on the sides. Original cork gasket is squished out in spots. So, it made sense to do the MMs and OPG at the same time. Luckily I was able to clean everything around the oil pan bolts with one can of brake cleaner. I'll detail clean the pan off the car and likewise in spots I couldn't see up front on the block until the pan was removed.

RE starting the bolts when reinstalling: Great tip on using sticky tape or finger pressure. I've already been using the finger pressure to create enough drag for the gear wrench to work while removing the bolts. The last couple of front bolts I had to remove by feel. I used a small mirror to see them and get oriented first.

I have an inch/pounds torque wrench. I used it on the AT oil pan. For the front bolts I'll calibrate my fingers using a gear wrench on a few of the easy to reach bolts. It does sound like just snug with fingers on socket by itself is very close. There's a bit of an art to applying very low torques to gaskets. I've found that soft gaskets are so compliant that the low torque can display on the wrench even while drawing it down too much...without resistance building up and torque climbing on the wrench until the gasket is squishing out. I think Dr. Bob's advice to watch for bulging of the gasket is as telling as what the wrench communicates.

Shark - BIG thanks for the tip on the amount of oil remaining in the pan and the technique for draining the remaining oil out. I would not have anticipated this and would be wearing the oil.

Thanks guys...really great help just when I needed it.

WallyP

Are you guys saying that there is enough oil left in the pan after draining to run over the edge of the pan?

dr bob

I'm pretty sure you can drain the oil out using the drain plug. Can't imagine how there will still be a couple liters of oil hiding in the pan after the plug's been out for a while.

-----

People go on about using brake cleaner as a first-choice degreaser, and I'll go on about it being the last choice. Even though the carbon tet has been eliminated from consumer Brake Cleaners, it's still a solvent that travels quickly through skin and blood to cause nerve (brain) damage if used in any excess. Wear thick rubber gloves, in a very well-ventilated area, don't breathe the fumes, and don't get any on your clothes or skin.

The last MM/OPG project I touched included an oil sump that was pretty well caked with greasy/oily crud on the outside, same mess sans crud solids on the inside. It went into the utility sink and got a couple rounds of ZEP citrus degreaser, diluted 3:1 (25% concentration) in water. Agitate with a parts cleaning brush between rounds. Rinse. Clean as new.

Advice as always on this job is to do as much cleaning in advance as possible. Crud that isn't there won't fall in your eyes, drop into the pan on installation, etc. This is by far the dirtest job I've done on the car, and I keep the bottom really clean all the time. For me the gasket was a PM task, since the original wasn't leaking. The steering rack cavity is a cesspool of accumulated crud from every car you've ever followed. Those cute little NACA ducts that cool the motor mounts also scoop up an amazing amount of dirt, packing it around the motor mounts and on the top of the crossmember. Do all that cleaning that you can in advance, and the project is almost a pleasure.

After all that, it's a good idea to clean out the pan bolt holes in the girdle --after-- you've swabbed out the bottom insides with a lint-free towel. Put a dam and drip-edge of blue tape around the inside of the block to keep oil out of the pan bolt holes if you are installing studs. Then install the studs with just a drop of LocTite on each one. Go do something else for 12 or more hours to let it set up, per the directions. The locking nuts used in the stud kit take more torque to move than the pan normally requires to seal with the silicone gasket. The purists' method is to find the breakaway torque for the nuts, then add the sealing torque needed. Better is to watch the gasket for squish as you draw the nuts up evenly, find the threshold torque, reduce by 5 inch/lbs, and use that as your initial wrench setting.

Captain_Slow

I let my oil pan drain for a week before putting the plug back in.

Yeah, if it was summer time I'd be using Oil Eater and Simple Green to clean all the oily dirt off of everything. But it's winter and I'm in an uninsulated garage so I just keep the front and back doors open, wear gloves and eye protection and hold my breath...rolling myself in and out on the creeper to get air. Near the end of the cleaning I set up a Vornado fan behind me so the fumes went away from me. I don't like the solvents, but they do work well even in the cold.

StratfordShark

Yes but in my case two factors contributing:

Knowing I was going to be removing pan, I drained initially using small hand extractor pump. The little suction tube may not have been positioned right at base of pan when I pushed through dipstick tube.

To do MMs and OPG I had front of car up pretty high, but rear wheels on ground. So oil left in pan would have been piled up towards the rear. Certainly just slightly loosening rear pan bolts created surprisingly copious drips of oil so must have been over edge in that area! Later in OP removal process I allowed it to drop down more at the rear, which encouraged oil to overflow at the rear.

MFranke

I don't recall much oil in the pan after draining. Not enough to be a worry when removing it anyway.