Just wanted to announce I'm back on the road again. Back in May, I reported over torqueing the nut going to the oil pickup. It was supposed to be 9.6 lbs. Instead, I put like 20 on it, heard a LOUD pop and realized I was screwed. Many of you know, that pop is usually the eye bolt up in the case crackign the case. Lucky for me, once the case was opened, everything looked good!
A MOST helpful board member contacted me offline, Al Meredith, who also lives in the Atlanta area (actually 4 miles away). WHAT A HELP! We talked on the phone and he offered to help me as I was really concerned with the time to rebuild the engine and doign it right since I had not tackled anything like that before (not to mention I have a 1 year old). We met, agreed that I woudl pay him and he would do the entire rebuild. Now I have my engine back.
Al took care of everything after I dropped off the engine and delivered it to him. He disassembled everything and cleaned up what we would be reusing. What he did not clean, his son took care of using their sonic bath! Everything looked like Chrome when it came out!
My engine had ~102,000 miles on it and amazingly most of the innards were within spec! The cylinders still had the factroy honing clearly visible, the bearings all looked good with minimal to no wear. Hell, The engine tin still had the factory ID numbers painted on them in white and small little fasteners holding some of the wires. Al commented, "You never see this!" My engine had obviously never been rebuilt before, but was taken care of and still ran strong when it was removed.
Continuing on with the rebuild, we sourced all new bearings and decided we would re-ring the cylinders in favor of new ones. This was mostly to save cost. Also, all all cylinders were within 2g of each other. All in really NICE shape. The cylinders were lapped in, the vavles installed and then shimmed to bring back to 65#. The smog setup was removed and properly capped. The engine was then put on Al's engine stand and heat cycled a few times and the valves adjusted, timing set etc. Did I mention he he did all of this in his garage and basement?
After picking up the engine and getting it home, I put the FI and tranny back on the engine. A few hours each night this week and everything looked ready to go. Last night, I put the key in the ignition and guess what... Started right up! Idles without any adjustment right at 1K RPM. No hesitation, no hunting, no spurting, no smoke, just a sweet sound!
I went for a ride last night and was instantly rewarded and reminded of why I love this car so much. Great engine, great handling, open roof. Purrrrrfect!
In case you have not noticed, I am SOOOOO happy! A BIG thanks to Al, who some of you may know or have dealt with. He is a SUPER guy and VERY helpful. Hopefully, he will finish his 914/6 one day and let us have at all the extra parts he has been collecting over the years!
Thanks again Al and thanks to everyone else who has been supportive of this board as it has been incredibly useful to me over the last year.
--Jason
PS: Al is workign on gettting some pictures of the engine to me. If anyone is interested, PM me and Iwill send once I get them.
