I took the 914 for a drive with the wife last sunday. on the way home, it was driving smooth and powerfull, when out of nowhere a loud clanging noise cam from the engine and the car lost power and died. I have less then 1000 miles on the engine rebuild, which is what really scares me. I was going to pop off the valve covers and take a look to see if anything jumped out at me. my question is: what is the easiest way to remove the valve covers? Do i need to take off the heat exchangers? I cant get the car up my ramps to give me room, all I have is a single floor jack.

Jack up one side, and put the ramp under the wheel. Jack up the other side, and put the other ramp under the other wheel. All done.

Use a big screwdriver to lever off the bail that holds on the valve covers. Except some oil to leak out. Take photos.

Just pull the bail wire down off the valve covers and pull them off. Simple. You may need an inspection mirror to really see well in there though. Pulling the H.E.s will let you see much better but that's kind of a pita so I would suggest pulling the covers first and if you need to see more, THEN pull the H.E.s.

I got the valve covers off and had my self a look. nothing obvious that I see. Everything looks as it should, all nuts tight, all valves at least the stems are counted for. I dont knoe what to do next, or even where to start. The noise is to scary to crank the engine to isolate where it is coming from. any ideas on what it could be? I know I havent provided much. it seems to me the car should still run somewhat even if i had 1 cylinder grenade on me, right? all the other cylinders should at least function, unless it was something that contibuted to all cylinders.

It depends, did the engine come to a sudden stop or not?

Did you check to see if alternator is still bolted in place? Could drop down and short the system.

Some-times when a engine is being put together we will get in a hurry and not tighten everything. Check the easy stuff first.

Then drain your oil and check for excessive metal.
Does clutch feel normal? (preasure plate loose)
Pull spark plugs, use socket wrench on front of crank to rotate engine.
You can check if pistons are all moving by useing a piece of tubing put one end in spark plug hole and other end in ear, you can hear the piston moving.

That will give you somethings to check. Let us know what you find.

I have a breath of fresh air now. I went out to the car and bumped the starter and am not hearing a clanking noise. I looked under the car to see if oil was spilling out from the cylinder heads and not a drop of oil was coming out. so I had my wife crank the car while i was watching the distributor rotor. rotor doesnt budge. climbed under the car and looked threw the little peep hole to look at the fly wheel, flywheel spins when cranked. then I tried to turn the engine over itself at the crank pully. and it spins freelys and the rotor now moves. So I belive that it has to be where the flywheel bolts to the crank, right? if so it is alot beter senario all of a sudden.

When you crank the starter does it sound like the engine is turning also or is it

spinning fast. If the flywheel was off it would spin rapidly and or make a nasty

noise because the flywheel and starter gear would not mesh exactly right. If

the rotor was not spinning when you cranked it , check if the dist. is seated all the

way and tightened. Let us know..

I still detect a problem here...

b

the started doesnt sound like it is spining any faster then it used to. but the flywhell turns when the started is engaged but the engine does not. I can turn the engine over by hand and watch the rotor spin as it should and can also see the valves moving up and down as the should.

So it seems as if there is a complete disconect between the flywheel and the engine. I will pull the tranny tomorrow night after work. My perdiction is that the bolts that bolt the flywheel to the crankshaft have sheared off or have fallen out. which would make sense of the loud matalic noise I heard when I was driving.

Or the crank broke.

Thats not funny

Or the crank broke.

I would put my money on a broken crank.

Those flywheel bolts are massive....

That's four engine failures in the last six months

b

I plan on droping the tranny tomorrow. But what is the cuase of cranks breaking. is there something done wrong or a way of preventing this?

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I plan on droping the tranny tomorrow. But what is the cuase of cranks breaking. is there something done wrong or a way of preventing this?
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I think before I did anything I would have a conversation with the engine rebuilder

Mark

six....

Honestly though this sucks man. Hope it's just the flywheel bolts.

Eric

I wouldn't put my money on a broken crank. I've had one and the sound mine made when I cranked it over was like a massively unbalanced load of clothes on spin cycle amplified by 10. If you heard no "clanking noise", I think your crank is probably ok.

[quote name='Bartlett 914' date='May 19 2006, 05:26 PM' post='683864']
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[/quote]

I plan on droping the tranny tomorrow. But what is the cuase of cranks breaking. is there something done wrong or a way of preventing this?
[/quote]

I think before I did anything I would have a conversation with the engine rebuilder

Mark
[/quote]

I talk to my self all the time. what do you mean by that? I Built this engine when I still worked for the local porsche/audi dealer and had all the old farts there to make sure everything was done right.

How did you turn the motor over?

ratchet on the crank bolt that holds the front pully on. It turns over smoothly, watched the rotor rotate as it should and had my wife spin the motor while I peeked in on the valves and watched them move up and down as they should.

Can you take off the starter and wiggle the flywheel?

will go find out now. Hard to get motivated for fear of what I will find.

If you can wiggle it, I think it's just unbolted or a sheared woodruff key. Metal never breaks cleanly and you would have some sort of drag on the flywheel even if the crank did break inside the motor. If you can turn the flywheel with the starter then the crank hasn't backed out of the engine. You say the motor turns freely by the pulley and I would think you could feel some friction if the crank broke. Have the wife turn the pulley while you hold the flywheel steady with a screwdriver or something and feel for friction or grinding. If you can spin the flywheel freely then you need to bolt your flywheel back on.

Nope, I cannot wiggle the fly wheel. And i am also unbale to turn the fly wheel.

No ofense intended. I talk to my self all the time. LOL

So now we know you know a little more than most since you had the motor apart. Do you suppose it could be a cam gear problem? That would explain the distributor not moving. I recall the bolts that hold the flywheel are very strong. The flywheel would fall off with out them IIRC. I think this is why the concensus is a broken crank. Anyhow, I feel your pain. My 2.0 died recently and was not on my to do list!

Mark

You may have broke a cam gear or the cam. Front half of motor turns distrib, flywheel half doesnt. Check for compression on the cylinders closest to the distrib while cranking. 0 psi means something is broken.

I beleave he said that when he turns the crank from the front the distributor turns,

it's when he turns it over with the starter that it does not turn.

correct on that. I keep getting hopfull that it is a easie fix, but I fear it wont be. and after I saw the cost of a crank from pelican I am really scared now.

There is at least one crank in the classifieds right now, but I see them their quite

often. Save money, it's a 914, you'll need it.

Hi

Here another possibility...your distributor gear on the crank sheared off.
When you spin it by hand (slowly) there might be anough friction to get the dizzy moving, the starter kicks at about 400+ rpm with anough torque to spin the crank inside the gear...did that make sense ? I am thinking possitive

Here's what I would do next :

Give the front pully a good pull/push, to check the end play of the crank, if the crank is snapped you should have moocho. You might need to loosen or remove the alt belt.
Valve covers off, have your better half or use a remote starter switch to crank the motor while checking the valve train movement, hang a compression guage on it at the same time. This should confirm the basic mechanical internal timing, to make sure nothings...uh...changed...
If it looks good at this point, give the ignition rotor a good twist to feel if something stripps, remove the dizzy and drive, have a look down into the motor and maybe poke around with a long screwdriver.

I have a feeling that the motor is going to come out anyways, but heres some +Karma your way

Later

Well I got the tranny out and checked the fly wheel. All bolts are present and acounted for. Put my hands on the flywheel and was jiggling and went to turn it, got my poor pinky finger cought between the flywheel teeth and one of the lower studs for the tranny at that point I lost motivation. I will look into whats going on tomorrow, but it doesnt feel as if the crank is broken.

Check to make sure the dizzy is completley seated. Just a thought.

Sorry to hear about it. But it sounds like a broken crank to me too. Been There, Done That.

I had a broken crank that made the most wretched banging noises. Pulled the motor, and found it to turn by hand just fine. No problem, no debris in the oil. I started to tear down the motor and still found nothing. Had it pretty much completely torn down, with just a crank sitting in the open case half, and nothing obvious. Until I grabbed one end of the crank, and my friend grabbed the other end to lift out the crank, and we went in different directions.

The break was so clean that when it wasn't under load, the two pieces mated just fine and was able to spin by hand with no problem. The break only separated when under load, and made those expensive-box-of-rocks sounds.

I hope it's something else, but it does sound very similar... Good luck!!

-Josh2

How much $$ do I win?

b

nothing 'cause you guessed wrong on your blown-up motor

do this. have the wife crank the engine while you look down the timing hole. See if the pully is spinning. or check the timing.

hey it sounded right...

well something ELSE caused that hole, that valve is embedded in the piston.

b

Well it has been a few years and im thinking about trying to get the car going again. I just realized that I never posted pictures or updated what happed internally to the engine. Turned out that the camshaft lost about 1/8th of its teeth. I noticed to that some of the teeth on the camshaft are thinner then others. I have no idea what could have caused this im hoping someone will be able to help me figure it out. I don't want to get it all back together to have this happen again.

is that one of the stock nylon cam gears?

must have been something causing resistance to shear those?
when you opened it up, did you find any other signs of damage or metal to metal contact?

Holy COW!

And holy thread resurrection!
Has the car been sitting partially taken apart for 8 years?

Only things I found were bits of the teeth laying in the case. A little markings on the crankshaft gear. Other then that nothing I can see. I will post a picture of the Crank gear in a minute

Its the stock gear yes. Nylon? that's what it is made out of?

I split the case back when I was chasing what had caused the engine to stop running. When I found this I got sick and just left the engine in a corner of the garage. Expansion of the family has kept my mind off had happened.

Here is a picture of the crank gear. No damage I can see. I can see were some material from the cam gear on the teeth.

I had always assumed that the gear could not be replaced separate from the camshaft. Yet I looked around and found things like This Is this an option? I thought that the camshaft gear had to be matched with the crankshaft gear. Is this not the case?

A similar thing happened to me 10 to 15 yrs ago. Mine didn't get that far - i started hearing noise a few hundred miles after rebuild and started seeing sparkly stuff in the oil and took the engine apart and found the cam gear worn. From what I remember, I got a new OE cam, but needed a -3 cam gear and none was available. A place sold me an aftermarket gear which looked like magesium like your gear. Aren't OE cam gears aluminum? I think I ended up reusing my old OE gear on my new cam.

not the case...
there is some clearancing usually required witht he bolts and the oil pump during assembly..

wow that last picture sure looks like a lot of rust pitting on the gears

that's not rust. its material from the camshaft gear. I can pick it off. and you can see in the picture that it is all on the same side of the teeth. If I'm seeing the same thing you are talking about.
So basically I can get that gear or one like it and it should work? Im assuming that you just grind the rivet head off and the gear would just come off?

Foreign object or valve in the combustion chamber???

I've seen stock gears that were both metal and nylon, and aftermarket ones that were aluminum