jetrainor

Standing on the 10th green, beautiful warm sunny day...got a good round going with ffriends and my cell phone rings as I'm standing over a birdie putt.....its the mechanic from the shop where my car was trailered this morning to hunt down the mechanical engine noise which suddenly appeared. Car has been running great since TB/WP, valley service, refinished intake and valve covers, RMB, chips, nology wires, motor mounts, tie rods,Jager shifter with kickdown button....not to mention tires and twist rims.....you know, about 7 thousand bucks worth of stuff....then suddenly a weird noise. A stethoscope to the oil pan and a look at the oil filter.....full of metal....the motor is f...ed. With only 113000 kms on it i can only assume at this point its torque tube/flex plate bearing failure. I'm so pissed right now my first thought is to push it off a cliff and cut my losses....i've only put 4000 kms on this car since buying it over a year ago and i've done nothing but baby it. At 10 g's plus for a rebuild, i'm not sure where I'm going with it. If I buy a used motor , am I just begging for more grief?....that's not meant to be a caustic comment against the suppliers, all of whom I have bought from with satisfaction.....guess i'm rambling now and just plain old looking for sympathy. Oh, and by the way.....I bogeyed the hole.
87 pooched engine euro auto

FlyingDog

I can sympathize with the problems, although mine haven't been as bad as thrust bearing failure. It may not be too far gone.

m21sniper

God man, i feel your pain, and wish you the best.

DFWX

One concern I have with rebuilding my 32V 928 motor is exactly your experience. The motor is fully worn out, but it works ok. I am concerned of vast time and expense, only to have one component fail and it's all lost! Porsche tested and balanced each motor when assembled - something we can't really do...
In my opinion (for whatever that is worth), go to Ebay and other online sources and look for another motor. Clean it up, check belt tension, put whatever good bolts ons, wires etc you have, and drop it in. $2500 tops should do it. Shop around and maybe a bit less.
LONG, LONG ago I spend two years building the ultimate (for me) 427 BB Chevy for a hot rod project. The motor made massive torque - and 4,000 miles later spun a bearing.
I was so frustrated and tired of the project, I just drove it like that. The knock grew louder and louder, a few thousand miles later like someone pounding on the motor with a hammer 5,000 times a minute - but it held. In a sense, that was actually impressive, but I was just furious over this.
Finally, of course, the rod or piston went (no way to know which was first). So I swapped out the short block with a junkyard 454. I was out the custom pistons, rods, crankwork etc... but it still ran like a bear.
Get your 928 going - that is your only option anyway. Then you could tear down your bum motor to figure how what the heck happened. Motorless 928 s don't bring squat on a sale.
Are you sure that someone didn't steal your car and fry the motor that insurance would cover? (well, like that has never been done...)
I FEEL YOUR PAIN! (Hope I do not end up sharing it.) That is the fear of any semi-qualified fella working on his own motor - that the motor won't hold.
Anyone who had done many motors (or even just a few) has had your experience. Scream. Swear. Stomp around. And get out your wrenches and start taking it out.
Mark

Louie928

You may have caught it in time before the crank ate into the block. It may be repairable.

G Man

I second Louie's opinion. If the crank is just into the thrust bearing you can probably get away with a simple overhaul of bearings and gaskets. Might as well do the rings while your in there. Good luck.

Ron_H

Once a while ago, I needed to build a new engine for my 914/6 so I could drive to the Parade. I put together a nice fresh engine on a pauper's budget and scampered off to the Parade. This was after not having driven the car in three years so I was pumped to say the least. After the Parade, and a trophy to boot, I noticed a little rough running. I stopped in Albuquerque (sheesh! did I actually spell it correctly?) and tore apart the carbs. After putting them back together and on the engine I cranked it over. Click. Click. Nothing. The previous night I had experienced starter trouble, so I reasoned the starter was dead. A guy standing next to the car in the street (where I had done the carbs) suggested we tow the car with his Chebbie truck. Well, we did and at 40 mph I let out the clutch and you would not believe the screetch and smoke from the rear tires. I got out and smelled gasoline. I had neglected to remove one of the blocks from one carb that holds the float in place to measuer the float level, and it hydrolocked that bank of cylinders. It lasted 75 miles more before it exploded all over the freeway outside of town.

So back I went to California on a trailer, broke but not dead. I scrounged around for more $$$ and a few months later rebuilt the engine with a new case. I headed out to the mountains to enjoy my machine. Life was good again despite all the debt. A couple of days later some punk kid drove his Golf up the back of my 914/6 while it was stopped at a light.
For the next year I had the distinct pleasure to tangle with insurance companies to keep from totaling the car. But a surgeon then told me, after cutting up my left knee, that I could no longer drive a stick shift car. So off I went to buy a 928 to sort things out. The solution was to get a Boxster tiptronic for my six; all I have to do now is find a way to make it fit.

No way will I let all of this destroy my 914/6 fetish. So don't give in. Figure out an effective strategy for the short term like the used engine suggested in an earlier post to keep your shark running.

OrionKhan

As have gone through a TBF, I can feel your pain. I went through the new (used )motor route. But that was a whole different ordeal altogether. My car has had no problems with the new motor. I had considered selling at several points along the way. But now a couple of years later, I've revived my love affair and am back into modding it and completely refurbishing the interior. I've actually gotten to the point where I may go the forced induction route.

Just back away from the car for a while and collect your thoughts. Lot of emotion going on right now.

jetrainor

Thanks guys....i don't know how i'd diagnose the problem without tearing it down and with shaved up bearings in the crankcase.......i appreciate the warm thoughts and suggestions and knew id find them here on a subject like this.....without tearing the motor apart is it possi ble to inspect inside the bellhousing from under the car and get a definitive answer as to whether it was flex plate/torqure tube related? If its possi ble the block isn't ruined, why is there metal in the oil filter....i'm sure that even if it is salvagable you'd want to do the complete engine or you'd just be waiting for somelthing else to f up....I guess if you asked id say thats my major hangup with these cars....seem to be always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Ill call 928 int tomorrow...they seem to be the only ones with complete engines for sale and see where it goes from here.....life would be a bit easier if there were motors available north of the 49th so i could avoid exhchange and duties.

jon928se

jetrainor

The first step in non intrusive detective work is to remove the plugs then using a torque wrench try and estimate the amount of torque it takes to rotate the crankshaft -27mm socket on the bolt on the front of the crank only turn clockwise. Note that the valve gear will cause the amount of torque to go up and as you compress one valve or another. Then remove the bellhousing, undo the clamp that fixes the flexplate to the central drive shaft and see how much the clamp moves toward the back of the car. Leaving the clamp loose fix a dial gauge to the block, with it's plunger on the flywheel, then at the front of the car try and push the crank towards the rear as far as it will go.

I forget the allowable wear specs but it is something like 0.4 mm (15 thou) If it moves to the rear by much more than this you definitely have some thrust bearing wear if it is the order of 2mm (80 thou) then the block will almost definitely have suffered damage but probably only to the rear face of the thrust bearing journal which can be repaired. More than about 3-4mm and it is likely that all the play in the rod bearings and wrist pins has been taken up causing the pistons to try and tip over in the bores - probably terminal.

The next test is to then turn over the engine again and measure the torque again. If it hasn't changed and the endfloat is reasonable then you most likely don't have TBF. If it is much less and the endfloat is big then you probably have TBF.

What sounds optimistic is that you don't mention the other classic TBF symptom - Engine won't idle once warm unless you keep your foot on the gas (too much friction)

Hope this helps at least making the decision. if you buy a 2nd hand engine try and check te endfloat on the crank before commiting yourself, and check for movement of the front clamp on the central shaft regularly - say 6000 miles or 6 months.

Jon in NZ

Bill Ball

See if the shaving are aluminum or steel.

FBIII

You are making the assumption that its a TBF failure, but judging from the noise its making I would lean more torwards a spun rod bearing. The noise you said it was making is a knocking noise and you said it is coming from the front passenger side of the engine. This to me sounds more like a rod bearing issue than a thrust bearing. A spun rod bearing would also put a lot of metal in your in your oil filter.

karl ruiter

Even if the source of the metal is the thrust bearing it sounds like you are llikely still ok. The key question is whether the bearing has spun. Clearly if there is a lot of it spread throughout your motor you want to replace it as well as fix the root cause, but if it has not spun all is not lost. If the bearing has not spun it may still be too big of a job for you to tackle, but probably you can sell it to someone who can do it and get quite a bit more than if the motor was history.

jetrainor

I iknow its not TBF as we pulled the covers off and everything looks fine....TB was replaced only a month ago. Sounds like a best case scenario would be a spun rod bearing.....if that's the case am i looking at the possibility of new bearings and being able to button it back up?.....i know if its a torque tube/flex plate issue that is a different story. It seems strange to me that with so few miles on the car that this could happen....it was based on the low milage , 108000 kms or 62000 miles, that i decided to do so much work to the car this summer. I appreciate the input everyone

Adam C

The best thing to do sometimes is to do nothing - if you've got that luxury. I was so sickened after my SC install at the way the car was running, and after all the dough I put into it. I put on a agrand total of about 2000 miles in one year of ownership. Granted I knowingly bought a car that had issues, which I resolved every single one, and introduced a few more with the SC.

I parked it for about four to five months. Just started it the other day and drove around and it seems like the trouble is minor. My perception made it much worse than it was.