Hello everybody.......
New member and 914 owner here in need of educated opinions.

Background: Just bought my first 914 as an incomplete restoration. The car is a '76 2.0 with a Chalon bodykit. The PO bought the car as a running, driving, street car ten years ago, drove it for the summer, then pulled it into the garage to repair the usual battery tray rust. Tray repair turned into a full fledged restoration, including the Chalon kit. Long story short, ten years passed, children and a new Boxster appeared, and so the motivation and time to complete the resto waned. This is where I step in.
The car has 81k original miles on it. The last time the motor was turned over was approximately five years ago (supposedly). It is stuck from sitting. Spark plugs in cylinders 3 and 4 had rust on them when pulled. 1 and 2 looked decent. I drained about a quart of water from the oil. I squirted a very liberal amount of Marvels into each cylinder and I am holding out hope that I'll be able to turn it over.

In the more likely event that it is not moving, I am going to pull it and do a refresh on the motor. (PO removed engine for the repaint, so it will be an easy pull, already completely disconnected)
Tear down, clean, flex hone the bores, valve guides, seals gaskets etc. I'll obviously do whatever is necessary while it is apart.

Keeping in mind that this will just be to get the car on the road this summer, what other critical updates/upgrades should I undertake while the motor is apart?

Also keep in mind that I have a spare 2.0 from a '73 that was included with the car. I plan to do a FULL rebuild on this other motor this coming winter.



Thanks for any help.
Nick

top end rebuild is easy on these motors. get the 96mm pistons/cylinders for some extra HP, that'll make it a 2056cc. they're the same $$$ (or even cheaper) as the stock 2.0L PCs ...

BUT, if you had water in the engine for 5 years or longer, chances are your crank/cam are rusted into place!
in which case you'll need to do a full rebuild anyways ...

if you have experience with motors and want to do the work yourself, get Jake's Video, it'll walk you through the process step by step ...

feel free to ask for advice here along the way and post pictures of the progress!
Andy

Would that be Mr. Raby? That guy seems to know a thing or two about aircooled engines.
Maybe I'll just bust out the Mastercard and spring for one of his motors. Wishful thinking.......

Will the cam and crank need to be replaced if they are rusty? Or will a good polishing suffice? (Assuming that they are not terribly pitted)

QUOTE (Nick Pawloski @ May 18 2005, 03:02 PM)

Would that be Mr. Raby? That guy seems to know a thing or two about aircooled engines. Maybe I'll just bust out the Mastercard and spring for one of his motors. Wishful thinking....... Will the cam and crank need to be replaced if they are rusty? Or will a good polishing suffice? (Assuming that they are not terribly pitted)

Won't know until you crack that baby open!

Definitely get the Jake Raby video if you plan on DIY engine rebuild, excellent step-by-step video! My only beef with the video is that he doesn't have a hot babe playin' with the parts.....kind of a girls gone....uhh....aircooled!

Oh yeah, we like lots of pics.......misery loves company!

Here she is coming home a couple of weeks ago......

Resting quietly in the garage..........
Some reassembly begun....

Those spark plugs that I mentioned earlier...........
Two on left came out of cylinders 3&4
Nasty, huh?

Water + time = total tear down and rebuild.

I think I have a bit of experience here.

Do the rebuild right the first time and only cry about the money once.

If the full rebuild is the best way to go, do I use this motor, '76 (original 81k, was running when the car was parked), or the '73 2.0, (unknown mileage, overall condition)
Any major differences between the years? (Other than the external stuff,exhaust, airpump etc.)
Does one have bigger valves, better cooling, anything?

The same but the 76 has smog heads ("airpump") which has holes in exhaust ports that can be pluged. The 73 heads would be better but are they cracked?

I'd tear into both of them and use the best parts from each engine.

Get a Raby kit if you can assemble the motor yourself. Heads need (both sets) sent to HAM for evaluation and rebuild. Have the cylinders bored out to 96mm and buy the pistons from Raby. Jake has good cams and lifters available too.

Jake to the rescue!
LOL

Thanks guys!

QUOTE (Bleyseng @ May 18 2005, 10:21 PM)

Heads need (both sets) sent to HAM for evaluation and rebuild.

I have a set here that Len Hoffman did for William Harris' rebuild that I'm assembling. It will be money well spent for sure. Len is very thorough and will do exactly what is needed based on your usage plans, ie valve size, port work, etc..
See the link in my sig below.

Forget the flex hone, they're junk. The rust is more than likely to be too deep to hone out anyway. The crank MAY be unpitted, and even the cam may have been above the "water line". You should still do a complete refurb. Inspect the cam for wear on the lobes, a common problem. If you replace the cam, you MUST replace the lifters. The Cap'n

Update........

I used to like rodents. Mice and squirrels are cute, right?

NOT when several generations of the little bastards take up residence in your cooling system.

I started tearing the '73 motor down and found tons of nesting material packed into the cooling tins. That wasn't so bad until I removed it all (the light fluffy stuff) and found the gooey layer of urine/feces/etc. packed in between the fins on the jugs and heads.

YUMMMY...........

This motor was in a junkyard car to begin with (for who knows how long) and then sat on a pallet in the PO's yard for a number of years. Funny thing is, this one actually turns over.

I never would have guessed that, seeing as it looks like it has spent the last ten years buried underground.

I'll get it up on the engine stand today and crack it open. I'll keep you chaps informed of the progress. Thanks for the help.

This is the cleaner side of the two. I screwed up resizing the other picture and ruined the resolution. I'll post another close-up later.

if you can, put it in the back of a truck and go hose that bitch down first... that's about the dirtiest engine I've seen...

keep us posted! best of luck!

I would pressure wash that engine down first before spreading that mouse crap all over you shop. Mouse poop carrys that wierd disease.

The pictures make it look a lot worse than it really is, but I think I will drag it out and powerwash it. It will make the disassembly a little more appealing.

I think that your right about the danger of rodent turds, but I think that the danger is from inhaling the dust or getting it in your eyes.

QUOTE (Bleyseng @ May 22 2005, 08:56 AM)

I would pressure wash that engine down first before spreading that mouse crap all over you shop. Mouse poop carrys that wierd disease.

Try to stay away from the mouse crap. Wash off as much as you can before you start really getting in there and digging around. I would recommend some respiratory protection until it's all gone. This is Why.

I think that when I store the car away for the winter, I'll set up a little welcome buffet of D-CON and antifreeze.

Or be a little more humane and set up a box on the floor under the shelves that already has nesting material for the little squeakers. They are going to show up looking for someplace to nest wether I like it or not, so if I can give them an easier alternative than the 914, I will.

I had a nice cigarette lighter in the glovebox. the mice didn't touch anything else but the chewed the rubber to pieces on that lighter!

HOLY CRAP! That is one nasty looking engine.

And I thought I had cleaned some bad ones.