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914World.com _ 914World Garage _ My 1.7L is about to crap out

Posted by: jporsche914 Mar 30 2004, 08:43 PM

I bought my beautiful 1.7L 914 about 7 months ago. It is my first car. When i purchased the car it had 3,454 miles on an almost 4000 dollar engine rebuild. Thinking three thounsand dollar for this car was a heck of a deal i jumped at the oppurtunity. About three months later i started to hear a knock coming from the engine. I was told it is most likely an bearing problem . But anyway my question to you guys is how hard is it to drop the motor crack it open replace the bearings and put it back together and have it run. I dont have any experiance with engine rebuilding and i do not have much experiance working an cars but i do know and understand the 914 engines. I have seen many pictures of a dissasembled block and the process lookes fairly easy to do. As much info as you have would be great Thanks!!

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Posted by: Mueller Mar 30 2004, 08:50 PM

nice looking car !!!!

I bought an engine a few years ago that the PO thought had a dropped valve or rod knock.......turns out all that was wrong was a loose nut on the rocker arm assembly, who knows, you might get that lucky as well

Posted by: Joe Ricard Mar 30 2004, 08:54 PM

1st question is that cardboard from under your 914?

What have you done to the motor that makes you think it is rod knock? What kind of oil pressure do you have cold idle and hot idle and 3500 RPM hot?

Have you adjusted the valves? They get pretty loud when loose.

My son dropped his motor using the steps outlined in Pelican parts tech article in 3 hours (had to learn righty tighty lefty loosey).

We can get you through the toughest parts as long as you got the tools to measure and know a machine shop to do anything else.

Posted by: jporsche914 Mar 30 2004, 09:07 PM

No the cardboard is not from under the porsche it is from a leaky 1981 camaro.

I have done nothing to the motor but at 1300 rpm to about 1700 rpm where the car idles due to a crappy air fuel regulator the engine has a knocking sound. the sound is not consistent it will knock for a couple revolution of the engine but then it will stop a then start again.

i got the valves adjusted about 200 miles ago and it was knocking even before the valve adjustment.

Posted by: Brad Roberts Mar 30 2004, 11:20 PM

We pulled one apart recently that was knocking... it was a top end rod knock that didnt need a complete teardown. One of the wrist pins was tight in the piston but not in the rod.

I'm betting they knew damn well it had a problem and masked it with Marvels are something to sell it.

B

Posted by: Lawrence Mar 31 2004, 03:06 AM

Welcome to the BBS!

Dropping an engine isn't too hard. If you own a 914 and do some of your own work, it's something you should learn.

Before you decide to crack open the engine (it's something you CAN do yourself), I would recommend reading everything you can, including the Haynes and the other book about "Care and Feeding of your Air Cooled VW" (or some such title). Both are probably available at your local auto parts store, or Borders.

Hope this helps,
-Rusty

Posted by: Gint Mar 31 2004, 03:22 AM

And I'll add this, learn to use the search function on this board. Upper right corner of the BBS page. There is a TOn of great info that has been covered on this board. We also have several locals in the Springs that would probably be happy to come over and look at it with you. Most of them aren't on this board though. Drop me a PM or email.

Posted by: Kevin@ojai.net Mar 31 2004, 03:31 AM

buy a 6-pack and get some locals over to talk cars...

-Kevin