Granite 944

Yep, that’s me!

I am in the process of preping an engine I took from a parts car(its on my engine stand, in the garage), and put it in my ’85 till I “get around to rebuilding the original engine”.

I’ve put all new front seals in, replaced oil cooler seals, cam housing seal, and even painted the cam housing while off.

I noticed this engine had no wire support brackets for the wire harness going to the front of engine, so, we fix, we’ll steal em from the other engine that’s a blue smoking mama. Got two out of the three I was after on ok, then this very front bolt on the head told me right from the get-go……..naw…….I ain’t coming out easy! Ok, BTDT before so I took my time, loosened a little, reversed direction a little, kept sprayin PB blaster at the bottom of bolt head, and did a little more. Went on for about 20 minutes or so this way and yessireee…….it broke off…….about a ½” above the block’s deck inside the head body. I didn't try heat, as I was sure to damage head gasket seal around this area.

Well, I wasn’t wanting to pull the head, spend the extra money for gasket, and of course all the “while your in there” crap, but, I guess I really have to now. Maybe if the bores do look halfway decent, I “should” spend the extra $700.00 or more to redo the head, rings, lower bearings. I suppose it would beat the heck out of spending over $3K to completely rebuild the original. I guess I should get my butt back out there and take the head off and get a better idea…..huh?

Moral to the story……….don’t be so **** and push your luck! And PLEASE use anti-seize on those two 8mm bolts in the front of the head! (not the head studs).

Made my day……….did it make yours?

KuHL 951

20 minutes with PB Blaster isn't going slow from what I've seen. I'll spray and knock on them good, go to sleep, spray again, wait several hours and then try again. Capillary action is slow to respond but it's worth the wait to prevent breakage. I've done exactly what you've done before so I'm not casting stones.

89magic98

I feel your pain...

You should have seen how much anti-sieze I used on the WP bolts on re-installation.

83na944

Sorry, a tough lesson, I guess.

On the bright side, now you get to be a little more compulsive and do the rings, bearings, and head.

Dilberto

Hey- I'm the same way....It drives others batty. BTW...you were off one letter in spelling "prepping".

KuHL 951

Now that is ****!

Granite 944

Kevin, now that looks like that REALLY hurt! Hope ya changed all those front seals too, looks like ya needed to. BTW, I SWEAR by anti-seize on these alum. engines.

2Tight, yeah, I've never been known for a lot of patience at times.....I did push it.

Dilberto, did I just run accross someone MORE **** than me?

Steve, well........thats my problem..........I really don't want to do that with this engine. I really wanted to spend this money to completely rebuild the engine that came out of my '85 originally. **** part again, ya know, I wanted the "complete" experience with that one, a total rebuild, not an "overhaul". Yeah.......maybe I'm nuts! I got the head off, broken bolt out ok, and much to my surprise, the bores look excellent, no scoring, scratches or such. The bores look to be standard size and pretty round as per my telescopic gage and dial indicator say (I really need a digital bore gage that reads in .0001"). The valves held a flood of carb-out for a minimum of 15 minutes (slight seepage in #4 after that). The head gasket shows its age, bubbling, and nasty in places, but no compression ring deterioration. The only thing that somewhat bothers me is the hot engine compression test I took on this motor before I stripped it out of the '83 parts car, that showed values of #1 @170lbs, #2@180lbs, #3@180lbs, and #4@ 190lbs. It didn't smoke, ran "pretty good" considering the conditon of the engine compartment and dashboard/electrical system at the time.
The 170 to 190 spread is my only concern. But, I'm guessing/hoping I can still get another 10k to 20k out of this engine without going that far. So I'm still leaning towards just replacing head gasket, cam housing gasket (again), and going for it. What ya all think?

89magic98

Oh, I had been _pouring_ liquid wrench, pb blaster, into all the holes. You also need to lubricate the drill bit every now and again, and we were flooding the hole with oil to clean out the shavings.

Actually the front end is pretty dry, before and after the belt change, so no, I didn't replace the seals.

Granite 944

It just looked really oily to me in the pictures than. I haven't had to drill out out one of those bolts yet......thank god!

Eyal 951

ok, i was deleting the cycling valve, and thought i shouldnt leave the bracket on, i'll take that off, got it off, got first bolt in, snaped the second one in the head... drilled it out, went to re tap, the tap broke... thats when the i decided to pull the head to have a shop remove the tap... well, since the head is off... i should mod the head... if im doing that i should...(refer to sig, and theres more thats not even listed, such as short shift, and cosmetic and such!) nearly 4000 dollars later... my car is on its way to becoming a weekend/track toy, and I'll looking for a daily driver now... damn bolt! thats kinda **** huh?
~Eyal

Granite 944

Eyal, I think its a lot harder to be **** when your working with a 951! But those rotten broken bolts can lead one down the path of "might as well" real quick.

I was just thinking about this compression difference I have of 20lbs. Is the general rule of thumb 15-20lbs of difference as the "acceptable" range from highest to lowest? Or is the acceptable range 15-20 percent of the highest to lowest reading? If the later, I really am ****!

Peckster

You must have been using too big a tap for the diameter of the hole. Also helps to back it out often and keep cleaning out the metal.

Eyal 951

i did back it out, the issue was the location, it was not the easiest place to be working to be tapping holes and whatnot... maybe someone more skilled could have done it, but I had no business trying. So I pulled the head!

Zero10

Hmm, as a rule I worry if there is more than 10% difference between the cylinders, and you're at like 11%, lol.
If you're getting a bit of seepage by the valves on one cylinder, that may cause it. Did you re-test afterwards to see if it was an anomaly?
Other than that, those numbers seem really good. Mine are all sub-100psi, and the engine still runs and drives, lol.
So I would say you have much more than 10-20k left on the engine.

KuHL 951

A full leakdown test run at TDC and then 180 deg off will tell you if it's a ring or valve issue. A valve repair would be much easier if that's the culprit.