I changed my plan a little and decided to go bottom to top, beginning with the crank seal and sleeve. It turns out my old sleeve was fine at 60k miles. It was shiny where the seal lip runs but you couldn't feel an edge at all. I replaced it anyway. I made a seal installation tool on my lathe out of Nylon 6/6 I had laying around the basement wood shop. I cut about a .02" step in the face to allow me to press the seal in flush or just a few thousands past flush.





Here's what the old round seal (999 707 283 40) looked like:

 

Crank seal done. Lower BS ready to go now.



Again, the old sleeve looked almost new but I replace it since I had it. I'm saving the old ones though.

 

Don't know if you did this but it might be a great time to replace the oil filter housing seal since it's right there.

 

Do you mean item #21 (Part # 944 107 147 03)?

 

Yes, guess I should have said "gasket".

 

I just climbed underneath and it's not leaking a bit. Is this a common sore spot on these as well?

 

Not sure if it's common but I have seen it before.

 

I just ordered the gasket / seal kit and alignment tool from 944Online. It looks like a booger to get to that back bolt even with everything tore down to where it is now. I'm also going to send an oil sample to Blackstone tomorrow to see if any coolant was getting to the crankcase through the seals.

I'll take it off tomorrow morning. Thanks Jerry!

 

Jerry, I'm glad I took your advice...




The problem now is getting this pipe out. I'm soaking it with PB and I can turn it a little but it doesn't want to pull out at all. I'm worried about some galling here.

 

I used two small tire levers behind where the o-ring is, and then pushed outwards.. Worked a treat.. If that doesn't work, try some vise grips. It will mark the little pipe but they are cheap to replace..

Alex

 

I've gone at it with vise-grips to no avail. I'll remove the seal and try prying next.

 

Success - I tapped it back into the hole about 1mm, shot it with PB again, put vise-grips on it, and pried behind the vise-grips with a flat nail bar while I turned back and forth just a bit. What a relief!

 

Please delete

 

Since I pulled my oil housing, I wasn't ready to do my chain and pads yet so I ended up taking the chains to work yesterday to do a hardness test on the pins and the links. Keep in mind that this is only comparative testing and the numbers would be a little different if the samples were prepared. In order to prepare samples properly, I'd have to destroy the chains. The ends of the pins to be checked would have to be surface-ground and the links would have to be removed. However, I am fairly confident that this testing does show some difference in the hardness between the two samples.

Chain Comparison





This morning I plan to try plating my valve cover bolts, some other odd parts, and my heat shields.

 

The zinc plating seems to be working
Cams are out now: