Anderson/Woods rebuilding class....a short review
12-11-2005, 05:52 PM
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Anderson/Woods rebuilding class....a short review
I just got back from the four day 911 engine rebuilding class put on by Bruce Anderson and Jerry Woods in Campbell, California.
Overall it's an excellent class and well worth the $600. The format is Bruce doing slideshows about history/evolution and Jerry tearing down a shop motor and then rebuilding the engine up again. The class engine is an early 74 engine but Jerry trys to cover all the variations depending on the audience demand.
We had a large class (I think it was close to 15-16 people) but that was OK, I am loud enough to get my questions answered. There were two of us with 993 engines but I was the only one tearing it apart. Another fellow had a 964 engine that was rebuilt twice and in both case the mechanics screwed up and he now is rebuilding it the third time to do it right. He thinks that the previous attempts failed because the mechanics did not clean all the debris out of the oil system and eventually that stuff got back into the engine..pretty sad case. The rest of the class was earlier 911 (like 67-59) some 2.7 and 3.0 engines and so on. I was the only one asking questions directly about the 993.
Jerry did agree that the idea of cutting keyways into the 993 cams and then putting the older style sprockets in order to time the cams in the old fashion way should work fine. I stopped by Part Heaven on the way to the airport and picked up some internal engine goodies to help convert my 96 993 to the 964 style sprockets so I am set. BTW Jerry does do 993 engines without the factory tools by using an iterative approach. I could do that but I also want a positive lock on the cams without any chances of slippage.
I might have been a little irritating since Jerry would talk about the engine and I would always pipe in "What about the 993?". However I did get all my questions answered and now have a pretty good handle on taking these engines apart...even the magical cam timing looks like a piece of cake now. I even now have some old fashioned valve lifters that I can use to set the timing.
It was amusing to read Wayne's book and then have Jerry refute that advice and present his own techniques. A classic example is the use of plastigauge to read the bearing clearances. Jerry does not use this method because he does not want to crush the new bearing shells and then remove and crushthem again. He would rather crush them once so he relies on careful measurements of the crank and from that you can determine if you are OK. For instance if your crank measures in spec then with spec bearings you will be OK. Given his experience I would not doubt that works for him.
Bruce's presentations and stories are always entertaining and he definitely has good insight into what works and what approaches to take on these engines.
All in all, this course combined with Wayne Dempsey's book and a Porsche spec book for your car is an excellent base to do a DIY rebuild and I highly recommend it for anyone who is thinking (or wants to know) how the guts of these engine work.
The days are long (like from 8:45-6:30) but I never got sleepy since the stuff was so interesting.
I will post some pictures when I get the time.
Cheers,
Mike
Overall it's an excellent class and well worth the $600. The format is Bruce doing slideshows about history/evolution and Jerry tearing down a shop motor and then rebuilding the engine up again. The class engine is an early 74 engine but Jerry trys to cover all the variations depending on the audience demand.
We had a large class (I think it was close to 15-16 people) but that was OK, I am loud enough to get my questions answered. There were two of us with 993 engines but I was the only one tearing it apart. Another fellow had a 964 engine that was rebuilt twice and in both case the mechanics screwed up and he now is rebuilding it the third time to do it right. He thinks that the previous attempts failed because the mechanics did not clean all the debris out of the oil system and eventually that stuff got back into the engine..pretty sad case. The rest of the class was earlier 911 (like 67-59) some 2.7 and 3.0 engines and so on. I was the only one asking questions directly about the 993.
Jerry did agree that the idea of cutting keyways into the 993 cams and then putting the older style sprockets in order to time the cams in the old fashion way should work fine. I stopped by Part Heaven on the way to the airport and picked up some internal engine goodies to help convert my 96 993 to the 964 style sprockets so I am set. BTW Jerry does do 993 engines without the factory tools by using an iterative approach. I could do that but I also want a positive lock on the cams without any chances of slippage.
I might have been a little irritating since Jerry would talk about the engine and I would always pipe in "What about the 993?". However I did get all my questions answered and now have a pretty good handle on taking these engines apart...even the magical cam timing looks like a piece of cake now. I even now have some old fashioned valve lifters that I can use to set the timing.
It was amusing to read Wayne's book and then have Jerry refute that advice and present his own techniques. A classic example is the use of plastigauge to read the bearing clearances. Jerry does not use this method because he does not want to crush the new bearing shells and then remove and crushthem again. He would rather crush them once so he relies on careful measurements of the crank and from that you can determine if you are OK. For instance if your crank measures in spec then with spec bearings you will be OK. Given his experience I would not doubt that works for him.
Bruce's presentations and stories are always entertaining and he definitely has good insight into what works and what approaches to take on these engines.
All in all, this course combined with Wayne Dempsey's book and a Porsche spec book for your car is an excellent base to do a DIY rebuild and I highly recommend it for anyone who is thinking (or wants to know) how the guts of these engine work.
The days are long (like from 8:45-6:30) but I never got sleepy since the stuff was so interesting.I will post some pictures when I get the time.
Cheers,
Mike
12-11-2005, 08:55 PM
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Thanks,always wonderd if it was helpful. Nice review
12-11-2005, 09:06 PM
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Great to hear Bruce has made a full recovery in such a short time. He collapsed from heart failure at the Monterey ALMS just a few weeks ago.
CHEERS!!!
Robert & JoAnne
CHEERS!!!
Robert & JoAnne
12-12-2005, 12:34 AM
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Bruce told me that he had his attack in September...the nice scar he has looks pretty healed up to me. He was pretty fiesty and looked to be in good shape!
Cheers,
Mike
Cheers,
Mike
