Mrmerlin

there is an S4 engine for sale on CL ,
it runs with 105K miles 2999.00 in Texas

ammonman

Thanks for the lead Stan. I've been weighing the pro's and con's of installing a used engine vs. having this one rebuilt if it comes to that. My gut is saying that this engine is most likely going to need a rebuild after this incident. Plan for the worst and hope for the best as they say. Going out to get it down off the trailer now and up on stands to start the postmortem.

Mike

ammonman

Some encouraging news to report. The timing belt was completely intact with no missing teeth and the cam timing wasn't horrible.

The passenger side was off by about half a tooth. The driver side is spot on.

The oil mess was due to this little gem. I pulled the seal out with my bare hands and it appears to be undamaged. I also pulled the cam gears and oil pump gear and checked all those seals. They are all perfect. I also dropped the oil and there doesn't seem to be any coolant in it. I have the first gallon in a glass jar settling and will see if any water settles out. If it is ok I'll dump it into the recycle can and pour the remaining oil into the jar and see if anything separates out. I'll get a new seal and a cam belt installed, then do a compression test and plug evaluation before attempting to fire it up. This big oil leak may have been the only thing keeping it from filling a cylinder with oil so best to proceed with caution.

Lots of cleaning still to do as the RF wheel well got pretty oil soaked. If the engine is OK I'll need to change the brake pads and deglaze the rotor as there is a bit of oil burned onto the surface.

More to come.

Mike

MainePorsche

..

ammonman

Agreed. The real test will be compression. I just can't come up with a scenario that leads to excessive crankcase pressure to blow the front seal out that doesn't involve a failure somewhere else internally.

Thoughts?

Mike

namasgt

Remember the outside diameter of the seal and receiving bore should stay dry (oil free) during installation.

Mrmerlin

did the distributor caps have oil in them?
If so then maybe this caused the poor running.
Though as others have posted for the front seal to come loose would require some serious pressures in the block, OR the seal had oil on it when it was installed.

Try wiping the block seal bore with a Q tip and some acetone prior to insertion of the new seal, make sure to lubricate the inner seal area STP works well here.

Good Luck Mike, I hope its just a bad seal but the poor running is concerning

ammonman

The distributor caps were both dry and clean. Depending on the amount of oil ingested the plugs could be fouled. I haven't even pulled them to see what they look like. That will be next on the list once the timing is back together and I can do proper compression test.

Mike

GregBBRD

Post #10.....or anything else that will build up crankcase pressure.

Leakdown test is your next step....although cylinder wall damage is masked when the piston is at TDC. Bore scope would be really handy.

Rob Edwards had a tiny camera that he bought on the internet, which hooked up to a computer. Better than any bore scope I have used.

ammonman

Yeah I'm thinking scored cylinder from a failed piston ring is going to be what I eventually find. I have one of those little cameras and plan to inspect each cylinder at BDC before doing the compression/leakdown. I think I'll throw the old cam belt back on so I can rotate the crank and get each piston to BDC to inspect the cylinders before going any farther.

Mike

FreedP

Good Luck!

ammonman

I put the cam belt back on, pulled all the plugs, and started taking pictures of the cylinders tonight. Based on the plug condition it definitely ingested oil as they are all completely oil fouled. So far I've looked at cylinders 7, 8, 2, 3, and 4. I will re-do 7 and 4 as it took me a while to find the right setup to get the camera to look to the side. I'm probably only seeing the bottom half of the exposed cylinder wall but it will have to do. I'll get the rest of the pics taken and post the issues as I see them.

"Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming....."

Mike

CJ8 2 928

Mike Good luck on finding the problem. Car running are not still need to see you guys at 3rd C...

killav

I was just thinking the same thing. The first year my car was turboed (2010) I was not able to get the car done. Not because of the turbo kit, but I had a torque converter bolt drop out and get chewed up inside the torque converter housing. At the time I had no idea what it was, but when the coverter would grab the bolt, it sounded like I was dragging a garbage can behind me.

So I ended up going in my company truck and still had a blast.



But if I know you Mike, you will have the car up and running before the end of the month barring any catostrophic failure......

ammonman

I got the rest of the cylinders inspected tonight and I'm going to leave it to more experienced eyes than mine to make an evaluation.

Here are some shots of #1 cylinder.




All the cylinders have these grey lines to varying degrees.

Here are some shots from #8.



and #7



and 5




Some of these lines almost seem transparent in spots like a pencil rubbing or carbon streak. Others are more consistent top to bottom and uniform in appearance/color that look like a scratch.

I think I'll do a leak down and if there isn't any gross sealing failures I'll throw a crank seal and timing belt on it and see how it runs.

Thoughts?

Mike