I have discovered a bag of 5 oil plugs in one of my many deliveries from Roger. Anyone have a photo and or description of how these are installed?
Thanks
John

 

Here's one thread on the subject, starting about post # 20:

https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...-the-plug.html

 

John,

I chose not to put these pins in my engine. The plugs have been in there for 30 years and 100,000 miles. The plugs that popped out on younger cars were probably a little small, or the hole a little big, or both - an unfortunate tolerance stack-up. If one or two were to pop out now, I would notice a change in oil pressure. Balanced against that unlikely, non-fatal occurrence is the risk of the operation, not to be dismissed given my experience.

Or perhaps I felt that I'd already traveled far enough into the intake refresh darkness, that I'd better start my way home.

 

Problem waiting to happen. It's only matter of time. Could be tomorrow or five years from now.

 

+1

 

I'm perhaps too alert to the possibility that anecdotes influence what we do, and it becomes entrenched folklore with only a tenuous connection to actual failure rates. The internet has added to this phenomenon; each failure gets a thread, while thousands of non-failures go unreported.

In this case, as I understand it, Porsche engineers decided after witnessing failures in relatively young engines that the plugs were unreliable. Do we know exactly why they were unreliable? Would these same engineers be recommending that we take them out of 30 year-old engines? They would be guessing about them, or perhaps they would know pretty well that if they survived that long, they must be from a "good" batch of plugs. The existence of "bad" batches of plugs is the sort of information that never leaves a factory.

We don't have to guess in 2016, but do we know? I understand some will take their cam covers off - possibly for the first time since manufacture - and find a wayward plug or two. When did it fall out? Some may know, but most will not.

My scientist tendencies can be very annoying, I know. On the bright side, if my plugs fall out, it will become a valid data point to add to the statistics.

 

It is not a hard job, especially if you are already in there anyway for some other reason.

 

Rubber/plastic whatever original plugs are disintegrate over time. That's all that is needed to make them unreliable. I have opened several engines where plugs were in brink of failure. Factory didn't change design just to fix few plugs which failed when they were relatively new. Every single one of them will fail over time. Its absolute height of stupidity to use any brittle 25 years old part in oily environment when new all metal version costs under $10. Especially when end result is loss of oil pressure to main and rod bearings.

 

So I gather I remove the "bridge", remove the rubber plugs and replace with the metal plugs.
When I reinstall the bridge do I use sealant anywhere?

 

Yes, Loctite 574 between head and bridge. Also something to corners of valve cover and thin alu washers between valve cover bolts and concave washers.

 

Sounds easy enough
Thanks
John

 

Does permatex make a suitable alternate to the loctite?

 

Stick with the factory required stuff.

It'll work better.

 

Difficult to find in Canuckistan

 

Permatex High Performance Thread Sealant might be effective. https://www.permatex.com/products/th...hread-sealant/
I'm a big fan of the 574 though, and I would hold off on a job in order to seal metal flange unions with it.