Another frustrating day. I removed the pressure plate and clutch as advised by Brett at Kennedy.
As any of you know who have a 911 engine in your 914, getting to the crank pulley bolt is difficult. Once I got the 19mm wrench on the bolt, I wedged a small board in between the wrench and the tin to hold it in place. Since the wrench is short, to increase leverage, I used a box end wrench over the open end of the wrench. I climbed into the trunk and was able to get a good pull on it but the motor did not budge, even with the plugs out. I had the plugs in when I did the valve adjustment and the effort wasn't terrible, albeit with a longer wrench. With the plugs out, it should have moved.
I called Brett at Kennedy to let him know what had happened. He wanted photos. I got out my inspection camera. It has a feature I had never used. You can take photos or videos with it. I snapped a bunch of photos and sent them to Brett.
After looking at the photos, he could not see a clearance issue. He then asked me to measure the depth from the ring gear to the surface where the starter is mounted. It should be exactly 1.43" Since I did not have a lot of room to get a ruler in that hole and be able to read it, I took a piece of dowel and marked 1.43" on it. I then stuck the dowel into the hole. That mark came out exactly to the surface so the ring gear was in the correct position. This also means the crank is in the correct position. He has seen the crank protrude a bit causing everything else to be off.
Now we are wondering if the outside of the ring gear is hitting the transmission housing anywhere. The most likely places are the bosses at the bolt holes. Brett recommended placing clay at these positions and then see if they are disturbed when the transmission is in place. I didn't have any clay but I did have some strip putty. I placed it in these areas, slid the transmission in place and none of them were disturbed.
He then asked if the transmission shaft was bottoming out in the flywheel. I had taken a photo earlier of that area and it was apparent that it was not bottoming out. In fact I asked Brett if he thought it was engaged enough. He asked if it extended fully into the pilot bearing. With the transmission out, I could see a grease mark on the shaft. I measured that and it did extend fully into the pilot bearing.
At this point, Brett can't understand why it is locking up. He said that, in the past they did have some issues with the backside of the flywheel hitting the bosses on the engine block. But since the flywheel turns freely with a pry bar when the transmission is not in place, that ruled out that issue. The last conversation we had was for me to remove the flywheel and see if anything does show up on the rear of it. He also said that if I sent the flywheel to him, he would check to make sure it in spec.
At this point, one thing I had not done was try the starter with no clutch in place. CLUNK!!
I had sent my son a link to this thread beginning last week to show him how much fun I was having. His response was to be thankful I had a furnace and a lift!!
I called him this evening to discuss this. He is coming over in the morning. He is a better troubleshooter than me and, at this point, another set of eyes can't hurt.
I can't imagine that it could be the solution, but I am going to look at the early photos I took of the engine with the wiring harness in place to see if I am missing a hookup somewhere that is causing some issue. As I was doing the original wiring, I could only see a 12v lead from the alternator, the power lead from the battery, and a yellow wire that I have been putting on one of the spades on the starter. Am I missing something?
Very frustrating week!!!