500

Hey Brett, were you able to see any slight parting at the seam?

I know this is probably a dumb question on my part, but are you sure you have all the fasteners removed? There is an M10 nut deep in the chainbox... and a few others that are easy to not see...

The spreader looks like it would easily pop the case... well done.

The other thought is if the case had been apart before and was reassembled with some crazy-strong adhesive...

1stgear

I like the home-made pry bar. Pretty slick.

Ed Hughes

There are 2 or three nuts that aren't necessarily evident. One or two at the clutch end too, IIRC. It should not take that much effort to split....a few knocks on mine with the rubber mallet had it apart.

Brett San Diego

No parting at all. Pretty sure I have all the fasteners out, including the 17 mm one inside the case (That one was on there tight.). Before trying again I'll make another check around.

Yeah, I thought a little tension on the case at that point would be my salvation but nothing yet. I meant to search here and on Pelican for any suggestions last night but I fell asleep at the wheel, er uh mouse. This working two jobs has me exhausted. Chemist by day, Porsche tech by night. LOL

Yes, I'm worried about the "crazy strong adhesive" theory. What is evident around the seam is brown and hard and brittle. Tap it with a hammer, and it shatters and flakes off the case.

Brett

Brett San Diego

Yep, got the ones under the flywheel. Thanks for the comments. Exactly what seems should be the case. I need the jaws of life on this thing.

Brett

theiceman

that just seems like there are fastners still in there

Amber Gramps

Seems to me there are either studs expanded with corrosion or thread locker holding this thing together, or some seriously strong case sealer. If it were one stud there would be some movement somewhere.

Brett San Diego

I win!!!

Brett Allison: 1
case #6282103: 0

The case is split. Too tired to put up pics tonight. I'll try to get a pic post up tomorrow. There are a few reasons I'm very happy with the decision to split the case.

Brett

Amber Gramps

..

500

Congratulations Brett! I'm glad it came apart...

What I liked most about it was that once the case was split, I knew well and truly that there is no going back... you are at the point of maximum entropy and it will only get better now!

Brett San Diego

Yeah. Almost max entropy. Good choice of words. Still have to get the rods off the crank, but very close to being done with tear down. Tearing down is the fun part. The next stage, cleaning, is going to suck. I'm not sure if I take the case as-is to the machine shop for them to clean off all the old, hardened sealant, or if they expect me to do it. Will they do it and happily charge me the hours, or do they not want to do it at all? Is it easy (mechanized) and quick for a shop, or is it labor intensive and, therefore, expensive for me to have them do it? Oil and oil grime will come off easily with solvents, but this sealant stuff is tough.

Brett

Ed Hughes

Don't even mess with it. I got the easy crud off, and Ollie's did a great job of cleaning, for minimal cost. They have parts washers and such for this.

Brett San Diego

So here's the rest of the story of splitting my case. I searched on the Pelicanparts 911 engine building forum, and surprisingly to me, I only found one thread on a difficult to separate case when searching "case separation," but it was helpful.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/911-e...eparate-2.html

Basically, the guy ended up doing the same thing I was working on, getting creative with spreading tools.

After initially failing with my spreader tool between the fan housing mounts, I decided to tackle spreading the lower side of the rear of the engine between the engine mount studs. Given that the case mating surface is broken up by a couple of large openings (crank shaft pulley and intermediate shaft), it looked like it should be a more weakly bonded area.

Here is a pic of the spreader in place. Just a couple pieces of old bed frame angle iron with nuts welded to one side and some wood to pad the threads on the studs.



I cinched and cinched the thing down expecting the spreader to fly out of place anytime. I decided to take a break for a second and think about banging on the case with hammer and dowel again, and there was a snap sound. Damn, I thought, there goes the wood. Looked at the wood. It's fine. Maybe, just maybe it's... this.





Yep, that's a split in the case. Eureka. LOL

I then put the spreader back between the fan housing mounts and torqued it down pretty good. Nothing. So, I'm fumbling for the hammer and case beating dowels, and pow! The bond breaks across the top side. Scared the bejesus out of me. I'm thinking I broke something, but all was good.



I even put a little spreader on the breather cover studs to finish off the top side.



I put a couple of nuts on studs on opposite corners of the case to catch the falling case half and rotated the case to use gravity to help out with initial separation.





As things were coming apart, here's reason #1 that I'm glad I split the case.



This washer was floating around the case. You can see it's bent at 90 degrees (already got in the way of something). I thought I was hearing something tinkling around inside as I rotated the case while working on it. This must have been the culprit and would possibly have stayed in there if I hadn't opened things up.

Brett San Diego

Overall the inside of the case looks good. Pretty clean.




And, on to reason #2 that I'm glad I split the case. Check out the gash in that main bearing.



Others had some small palpable scratches.




The main bearings will be replaced.

Here is the crank journal that corresponds to the badly damaged bearing.



It's the worst of the journals in my opinion, and it's not that bad I don't think. The markings don't really have palpable depth to them using the tip of a pick tool, but there is a slightly different surface quality as you slide the tip of a pick across it. This bearing and journal also seemed slightly drier of oil than the others. I don't know whether this is indicative of anything. The car has been sitting for 3 years.

The other journals all looked good, I thought. Like this one.



Crank will be measured and evaluated.

And, reason #3 I'm glad I split the case. The intermediate shaft bearing is toast.



Brett

theiceman

Wow great work . I wonder if a lot of our cars look like that .. we just lack the courage to go look ..