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I'm getting them to measure the bore before they put it back together. Didn't think of it whilst it was there yesterday, looked at the photo I took later and the cylinder walls looked thinner than ones I'd seen in photos. Could be just that my photo is from the inside, whereas most are from the head side.
Also, I should have added a photo of the car itself. Here's a fairly terrible one from the evening I took delivery.
Last edited by crimony; 12-14-2017 at 01:08 AM.
Reason: Add Photo
Someone has spent a lot of money on this engine sometime in the last 10,000km. Without keeping records. Who does this and doesn't use the receipts to try to get a better price?
Wow, your fortunes changed abruptly. Good news.
Why someone might not keep (or might not provide) records for a rebuild:
* They never plan to get rid of the car, so it seems less important to keep a binder full of receipts.
* The rebuild was somehow found to be lacking, or an underlying issue that prompted the rebuild was not corrected completely.
* The work was performed by a previous owner's lobotomized pet chimp, and the chimp's notes on the invoice (written in banana and monkey poo) were found to be off-putting.
* The rebuild was done by a previous owner, and the intermediary you subsequently bought it from didn't bother keeping track of the stuff that came with the car.
Whatever the explanation, you appear to be the happy recipient of a Festivus Miracle.
So a few months ago I fulfilled a dream of mine held for 30-odd years and purchased a Porsche 911, specifically one that I could afford, and that meant of course an early 996. I looked around for half a year or so, and settled on a 1998 model, tip, black inside and out, moderate kms (150,000) a few minor blemishes here and there, body straight though. Test drive was fun (first time in a 911 for me), time to get a PPI. Owner recommended a shop (one of only three in my town), although I got quotes from them all, went with the owner's recommendation. Local independent shop, proprietor a former race driver, builds race engines, Porsches only outfit.
PPI showed new brakes (pads and rotors) required, shocks all round, service overdue. No detailed service records, no evidence of IMS bearing replacement. Compression and leak down were good. Mechanic recommended IMS solution as well if I was wanting to keep the car for some time (I was). Got the owner to knock off a few more thousand following the PPI report and we had a deal.
Brakes and service needed doing straight away so I left the car in the shop to have them done immediately. IMS solution and shocks would take longer to procure so those were ordered but I didn't want to wait. Took delivery about 10 days after the PPI.
Had a blast for the next 4 weeks, not too much though, as I had in the back of my mind the unresolved IMS bearing.
Shocks took a long time to arrive, apparently you need 4, but total stock in the entire country of Australia was 3. Slow boat from Zuffenhausen it had to be then.
Finally I got the call that everything was at the shop, bring your car in. Dropped it off on a Tuesday afternoon, was told they'd try to push and get it done by Friday.
Friday afternoon rolls around, no call so I called. The boss wasn't there but the mechanic I talked to said everything was installed and they were doing some final testing but it wouldn't be ready today.
I gave them all of Monday to sort anything out and called late to get a status. Left a message, as the phone rang out. Tuesday lunchtime came around, no return call yet, now I'm suspicious and very nervous, the boss had previously returned calls very quickly.
Early afternoon my mobile rings, caller id shows the workshop. Boss (owner) tells me with some trepidation that there's a problem. Worse, he won't elaborate over the phone, wants me to come down to the shop to explain, enquires when I might be available. I'm in full panic now, no chance I'd get any more work done until I knew what was happening, so I told him I would leave immediately, 60 minute drive from work to the shop. In a daze the whole way, going over my idea of worst case scenarios. And this is the story that awaits me :
When the IMS bearing was removed, it was a ceramic LN unit. Surprising to the mechanic, as there were no plaques on the car to indicate it had been done. Fine, just fit The Solution and carry on. Solution bearing wasn't quite as tight a fit as the previous bearing, but it went in okay. Fitted, buttoned up, trannie back on, start it up. This is Friday afternoon. Fires up, runs for half a minute, gets very rough, dies. Strange. Check everything, nothing unusual. Check the timing. Out! 10 degrees or so. Retime, try again. Same result. 30 seconds of life, dies, timing out again. Right, check the engine over properly. Spend Monday (boss, not me, I'm still oblivious at this stage) on the phone to everyone who might have seen something similar, everyone agrees they haven't. Heads have been off though.
Conclusion is that the engine has most likely failed catastrophically in the past due to IMS bearing failure, heads have come off, valves straightened, IMS bearing replaced, get the car going again with minimal changes. IMS replacement bearing is slightly larger than the stock, IMS stretched a tiny amount along with the drive (crankshaft chain) sprocket. New IMS solution bearing is slightly smaller and now the drive sprocket is slipping on the shaft.
No doubt about it, your engine is coming apart for a rebuild. While we're there we'll replace the things that you have to and the things you do when you're spending all that labour anyway. Many thousands of dollars expected to be handed over, but we won't know the damage until it's in pieces all over the workshop bench.
Now the wait.
12-14-2017, 12:18 AM
