Since bringing out the 2nd 914 has now overwelmed my garage space I have been working to re-organize my space. So in the meentime I am working on small projects to keep things moving forward. I haven't decided on any engine upgrades yet, but figured I would clean and rebuild the distributor. I will either use it or if I upgrade, I will sell it.

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While the distributor looks like hell, it is actually in pretty good shape mechanically. The nut on the hold down bracket is frozen in place though, so I soaked it and all the other little screws with some PB Blaster.

While waiting for that to soak in I removed the vacuum canister. Tested it and both sides hold vacuum....The removed the trigger points for the EFI.

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The inside of the distributor is dirty with a combination of old lube, dirt and some minor rust. After removing the breaker points I removed the mounting/advance plate as well. (sorry for the poor pic quality)

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As you can see, the centrifugal weights are pretty dirty and have a fair amount of rust as well. To facilitate their cleaning I will have to remove the shaft from the housing.

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In order to remove the shaft the retaining spring must be removed in order to access the retaining pin. I just used a pick tool to walk the spring out og the groove.

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After carefully driving out the retaining pin, the distributor drive easily slides (falls) off of the shaft and the shaft can be pulled out of the distributor. That leaves only the lubricating block for the trigger points in the bottom of the housing.

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Once dis-assembly is complete, it leaves you with a mess of dirty parts and sub components, waiting to be cleaned and checked....

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So starting with the distributor body the cleaning began. After about a half hour of scrubbing, brushing and polishing it was at least clean....inside and out.

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Then on to the points mount /vaccum advance plate. It can be further broken down by removing the tension mount that holds the small bearing onto the top of the plate.

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The two plates can be separated for cleaning and re-lubing. Be careful not to pull the grounding wire off of either plate. The ring on each plate act as a bearing surface and need to be lubed.

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Next up...the main shaft. This had some minor rust and hardened grease on it. There is a center ring in the top of the shaft that can be removed allowing the entire assembly to be taken apart. However I chose to forgo tearing this mechanism apart. Instead I used pipe cleaners and PB Blaster to clean the parts, then sprayed the remnant debris out with carburator cleaner. All of the bearing contact surfaces were polished using 4-0 steel wool.

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The FI breaker points weren't too bad, but I cleaned them using carb cleaner to get all the nasty grease off of them then used electric contact cleaner to clean the entire assembly.

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Lastly I polishedup the vacuum canister....so now that everything is clean I can start re-assembly.

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So I drove into town today to get distributor cam lube. Go to the first local auto parts store and tell them what I am looking for.....deer in the headlights look. I got more specific and told them I was looking for a silicone based grease for lubing the distributor cam....the older guy behind the counter, who I would guess was old enough to have had a car with breaker points in his distributor, tries to sell me silicone spray lube. I knew at this point it was a lost cause.

So I went to the second auto parts store. The first guy I spoke to at the counter said" I never heard of lubricating a distributor before....Refers me to the second guy who is "a hot rod guy". He knows exactly what I am talking about, but says, good luck finding it.

So I guess now I know that out here in east Texas, the days of the old guys working on old cars and expecting to find the parts they need are gone.....Once again ordered on the internet and now have to wait a couple of days.....So much for supporting local business.

Take I-30 to Mesquite,then take I-635 south to I-20 into Arlington. On the corner of I-20 and 360 there is a Summit Racing warehouse. Probably an hour's drive for you. They will have distributor lube in stock.

The only other place would be a NAPA auto parts. I don't know where one is east of Dallas. But the rest of the chains don't have people or parts for old cars, and all the old independent auto parts stores with the knowledgeable counter men are gone.

Hope that helps.

Clay

Thanks Clay. I will keep that in mind for future needs. For now I was able to order it online with free shipping. It just gets frustrating when I drive all over east Texas, trying to support local businesses and either no one has a clue what you are talking about or they just don't have it......

IMO the advance plate is usually the main cause of sticking advance,rust and crap get between the sliding plates so its not just a matter of a bit of spray lube because due to the fit of these parts it simply won't get in there.
The vacuum canister is overcome by the friction and causes slow or no advance and the same issue on retard often resulting in high idle as one example.
I used to overhaul Bosch VW units and found this is common with the "205" units,you have done this overhaul correctly ,well done,keep up the good work.

Thanks for the compliment. Thats my feeling as well. Wether I use this distributor or pass it to someone else, I want it to be done correctly, so that it is a plus and not a detriment. Those sliding plates have a large surface interface, so just spraying in some lousy lube and expecting it to be successful is, IMHO, a foolish waste of time and money. I'd rather spend a little extra money and do the job correctly.

Unfortunately 3 days of work took place of working on the Porsche. But the lube for the distributor did arrive. It is a silicone based grease, pretty much the generic brand of the Bosch lubricant, which at this time is not available.

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Starting with the distributor body, the first thing is to lubricate the pad in the bottom of the body. It just gets a few drops of motor oil, it is the pad that helps to keep the rotor portion of shaft that activates the trigger points for the fuel injection.

In addition to this lube, I did lightly lubricate the shaft with some of the grease. Then in accordance with the manual, I put a small amount of lubricant on each of the rubbing blocks of the trigger points.

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One important thing is to note that the distributor drive that engages the drive gear is not centered. So I made sure to mark the shaft as to its orientation. The scratch mark was hard to see in the picture so I used a sharpie to make it more visible.

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The next step is to re-insert the retaining pin. This pin free floats in the engagement ring but is a VERY tight fit in the distributor shaft. I recommend pressing the pin in. Unfortunately my press is not here, So I carefully used my bench vise with aluminum jaw covers to push it in, being careful not to pinch the bottom of the distributor body. (sorry no pic). Then used a punch to counter sink it and center the pin in the engagement ring

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Then you just walk the spring retainer back in position over the pin. Next a thin layer of grease goes onto the friction ring on the bottom plate and the two plates a mounted back together.

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Then its time to put all of the guts back inside the top part of the distributor. Its easiest to screw in the retaining screws for the top plate, these are the screws that hold the distributor cap clips as well, I just put them in temporarily so I can put the Vacuum actuator and clip back on. Then its is a matter of re-inserting the points and condensor wire, making sure to dab a small amount of grease on the rubbing block of the points and a thin layer to the distributor cam. Sorry the quality of some of the pictures is a bit lacking, this new phone I got does not take as good of pictures as the old one.

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K; there is an old school napa store in tyler. on beckham I have had good luck there with odd stuff. about 40 min for you.
Good luck
Randy

Thanks Randy, I'll check them out.

My new tool from Empi arrived today. It is the gear puller for the crankshft. Empi's Part number is 00-5714-01. On Empi's web site it sells for $131. Got it on Amazon for $82.
The quality seems to be top notch.

So of course I could not resist to try it out, feel like a kid at Christmas time....

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Of course it comes with no instructions, so when I first tried to install it on the crank gear, it wouldn't fit. Then I realized it does both type 1 and type 4 gear sets and of course was set up for type 1. Flipped the bottom plate over and walla, set up for type 4, and it slid right into place....

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It took me longer to get my airgun and socket (14mm) set up and ready to go than it did to remove the gear set. Definitly a great investment....Thanks Empi.

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Well, back from sunny San Diego. Wish it had been a vacation, but I spent a week re-siding my parents house. Still a fun time.

But now its back to work. So I decided to go ahead and pull the gears, etc. off of the other crank that was laying out in the garage. Before I could get to the gears though I had to pull the fan hub. So a 3 armed puller, a little heat and an impact wrench and done.

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Next came the retaining ring for the gear set. I have a special pair of ring pliers for this job. Bought them several years ago and they reall make the job easy.

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And then out came the new gear removal tool, I love this tool. Within seconds the gear set was gone.....

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Since I was tearing all the crank shafts apart, I figured I would put one together. So I started gathering all of the parts necessary to do my crank assembly. Of course the crank is first. This crank was originally used in my machinists race car as a 2.0. You notice it has been shaved down to lighten the crank. He turned it down .020 on the mains and the rod journals and balanced the crank.

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Got all the crank gear and other spacers and retainers cleaned up and a brass cam gear ready to be installed and laid out the main bearings.

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Am going to use the original 2.0 Rods. My machinist re-built the rods and re-bushed the small ends. He also balanced the weight of each rod and when I checked them they were within 1 gram of one another.

For the main bearings he provided the correct size Mahle bearings. These are standard case and .50 mm (.020) main journal bearings.

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For the rod bearings he provided glyco in standard rod, .50 mm crank journals. After gathering all of the parts I realized I have no assembly lube. So I guess I will wait until tomorrow so I can go grab some at the FLAPS.... darn.

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I went to the FLAPS and got a tube of Lucas Engine Assembly lube, so now I am ready to test fit the crankshaft. But first I have to assemble the crank. So I popped the gears in the oven at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. I even got the wife's permission before using her oven to cook my auto parts.....

Then I cleaned the crank with carb cleaner and compressed air, lubed up the first main bearing journal with assembly lube. Then same treatment for the bearing and slid it into place. In the pictures it doesnt look like there is much lube, but there is actually a good dose of it, I think the color of it throws the pic off.

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Then after insuring the gears were well done, I moved a piece of scrap carpet into the kitched and brought the crank inside to add the gears. The wife even agreed to help hold the crank upright while I put the gears on. (I think she was afraid I would damage her kitchen). Then after the gears were on it she kicked me out to the assembly room in the garage.

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So now to prep the case. With the right half mounted on the engine stand, I cleaned the main bearing saddles again and put in the 4 locating pins.

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This being my first air-cooled engine build, I have to admit I am nervous and excited at the same time. So here goes the test fit of the crank to the block. It seemed to go in fairly easily. But what I didn't notice was the tiny space between the crank snout bearing (arrow).

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Then I cleaned the left half, and put the bearing half in. When I slid the left half of the case on, I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't go all the way on. Thats when I realized I hadn't gotten the crank quite right, so pulled the case half off and a tiny rotation of the bearing and it went right into place...no harm, no foul.

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Once I was sure I had everything properly aligned and re-installed the case half (which miraculously would now go all the way on, I installed all of the case through bolts, and all of the nuts surrounding the main journals, torqued them down small amounts at a time, rotating the crank as I went, to insure there was no binding. Got all the fasteners torqued to spec and the crank spins like a top and as smooth as silk. I guess I will call that a success. Tomorrow I will take the whole thing apart and plastigage all the rods and install them now that I know the crank is good in the block......

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So, today I got up with the intention of plastiguaging all of my rod bearings to the crank, but alass it was another day of the bear eating me. The rod bearings I have are for a 1.7/1.8. So I had to order another set. But not wanting to waste a chance to get something done, I assembled my cam and cam gear....word of warning, that cam gear is razor sharp......I used threadlocker blue on the mounting bolts, but when I was done I saw red splotches all over the cam gear. looked down and I had sliced my finger all to hell.....never felt a thing....lol.

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Nice work--and attitude. As they say, take your time!

So all in all not a bad week, since I was awaiting parts, I didn't get much done on the 914, but yesterday and today were payoff days. My parts came back from Finishing and Plating Services, beautifully done as usual. Big difference from what these looked like when I removed them from the fresh air blower...

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So I assembeled the blower....but forgot to put the electrical blug and wiring in...darn. Also lost one of the spring clips that holds the assembly closed...was trying to open it up and it came off of the pliers and has been lost in the abyss.....anyone have a junk blower that they can rescue a clip for me...lol.

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So, after removing those darn ring clips again, I installed the electrical plug assembly and put it back together. I didn't install the actuator rod, because I need to find a replacement clip, but the air flappers work great, Thanks to 914 Rubber for the replacement rubber for those.

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Shortly after I completed the airbox the dogs allerted me to the presence of the UPS guy. He brought my connecting rod bearings from European Motor Works. These look correct, so over the weekend maybe I can get the rod bearings plasti-guaged.

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Well, I guess I didn't specify which weekend I would get this done....Worked all last week to help a friend who lost an employee to another job. So nothing during the last week. But I finally got to guaging the connecting rods. Unfortunately my work bench has another project on it, so the crank and rod job was re-located to the floor....sucked.

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