Speedtoys

Got er done.

With the help of Mike LaBranche (who held the beers, the flashlight, and whispered things like "its ok...nothing else can go wrong now.." into my ear...it took just over 6.5hrs from first lug nut off, to driving out the shop door.

Bleh.


Cool lookin up in the engine..I have a sickly dark yellow/light brown film on _everything_ in the engine, doesnt wipe easy either, almost sticky. Thats gotta go..over time I hope, ideas?

What went wrong??

One of the M8x35 bolts (drivers side front) of the motor mount engine bracket broke..was not coming out no matter what after the first 2 turns..had to sacrafice it. Thats what..missing one of the 8 bolts, and one of the small ones?? (Someone here will say im gonna burn in hell for this..but..) That broke, and..yes, I had a bitchin in/lb torque wrench, but..with the silicone gasket, Im PRETTY sure everything is in the 25" range..at least the ones you can get to. The rest...??? Had to go on a rough calibration of the finger-meter on a wrench. (Double burn in hell someone will call me out for)

Umm...SMOOTH as hell on the Volvo mounts. I come to a light, and my back of the brain reaction now is that "oh no, the car died"...but it didnt, just dont feel it no mo'.

MONDAY, I drive down to LA to get installed the ever so nice A28.16 tranny from Mark Anderson (Thank you for 1/2 Off Santa!)..and about $1400 in OTHER parts (not including labor) to get replaced WYAIT..toruqe tube, rear main seal, new (used) rear cradle (I have a busted alignment eccentric slot)..etc..etc..etc..etc..

The many small demons of my $4000 928 have been exorcised..day 1 was here:



And when I add it all up...ya..a $4000 S4 still costs you another $6k to get "mostly right"..and im in about that place now, having done most of it myself (sans this tranny job, hell no)...and im not even adding up the "look nice just because" stuff, I could have stayed on OEM wheels, the stereo it came with, a PLAIN top end refresh (no coatings, PC, etc)...so theres another easy $5k in there..

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And..never wouldda got here without two important things.

1. Rennlist
2. Bill Ball (whos awesomeness trancends even RL itself)

New Tool In Norcal:


A cradle to lift from the front loop at the front of engine like this:


Worked great FWIW. The two wood blocks have fender bolt holes cleared to sit flat..and its snug as a bug with a towell under it all.

Landseer

Your'e the best thing that happened to that white car, maybe ever!


Missing that bolt shouldn't matter. I might have tried drilling it out though.

Was the yellow coating inside your crankcase like the picture below?
Maybe no correlation, but its the best running one we've got.

Drive that biatch.

Mike LaBranche

Jeff... really good to hear you got it back together with no troubles. That's a very fine S4 you've got there, you've both come a long way. Good luck with the road trip this week, hope everything is tight. For what it's worth, every 928 engine belly I've seen has that color to some extent. Congrats. I'm inspired now to do the same to the black guy.

Speedtoys

Ya...although that photo looks more gummier than mine was.

Bill Ball

That varnish is what I see with cars running dino oil. If you switch to synthetic or some high detergent oil it should be gone in 2 or 3 oil changes.

6.5 hours is fast. Mike must have done more than hold the light. This is a 10 hour job for me, although I spend as much as an hour of that cleaning the oil pan. And sometimes I fight with those two horizontal bolts that go through the crossmember upright for quite a while. And the first time I did it, I didn't have a Gearwrench to get at some of the inaccessible OP bolts. Using a standard open end, turning one face at a time, you can only imagine how long that took.

The MM & OPG is definitely not one of my favorite jobs, especially on jackstands. I don't mind helping someone do it, but the one time I did it alone for someone else for money and looked down when I was supposedly done to see one of the mount plates lying on the ground, requiring me to do it all over again, I decided I was done being someone else's mechanic.

Keep us posted on your tranny swap and other repairs down in Anaheim.

IcemanG17

6.5 hours isn't too bad........I've done this MANY MANY times.....endlessly chasing down oil pan leaks.....that ended up being a rear main seal...

jeff spahn

Those horizontal bolts are a pierce of cake if you loosen the upper bolt for the upper control arm.

supercedar

Nice job Jeff. Did your MMs have the metal band that connects the top to the bottom of the mount? If so did you remove it? I noticed mine are in there and looks like they could rub on the heat shields.
Thomas

Mrmerlin

FWIW a long prybar placed on the exhaust manifold will easily move the angle brackets into position then slide in the bolt

Superceder what is the band you talking about

supercedar

It is about 3/4" wide and curves from top plate of MM down to bottom of MM. Looks to be about 3" long, it is on both MMs and I beleive there is two per MM. The way it bows out it comes in contact with the heat shield. Seems it could add vibration if not cleared with a pry bar fro shield. It may be better to call it a strap rather than a band.
Thomas

Bill Ball

I'll consider that next time. I didn't notice the connection. I've had more of a problem getting them out than back in, problem being having the right combination of tools to get access and hold the bolt head while trying to break the nut free w/o an assistant. Sometimes easy, sometimes hard.

ROG100

The Volvo MM's come with a crash strap as standard. We remove them prior to shipping.
The Porsche system uses the top and bottom hook to do the same job so the strap is not needed.

Imo000

+1 works like a charm.

supercedar

Thank you Roger for clearing this up. I received a great deal on MMs and OPG installed at Sharktoberfest. I see my straps are still installed and I will try to remove them. From the sounds of it I was worried the straps only came on solid mounts which I did not want.
Thomas

Hilton

Nice - and yes, its a huge difference having engine mounts that actually support the engine off the cross member.

Good to hear your wife's warming to the car. Your list of "work needed" has to be right down to small stuff by now? You've ticked off all the big catch-up maintenance boxes.

And on the bright side, your entry was so low, that should you decide you want to sell, you might even get most of your money back out.. something not many of us can say (my '89 stands no chance lol.. but I'll be keeping it for Years to come).

Here's a comparison shot - my '89 with 155k miles on it, that was running 15W50 dino oil for at least the last 4k miles at this point.