964 Full engine service

[AVI_8]

C2 dweller, yes slightly more complex than my first car also, a 3 litre Capri in 1987! Did my own valve adjustment on that one also.

A tip that I forgot to mention, after youve removed the nuts from the valve covers, under them will be washers, it's quite difficult to get your fingers into some of them due to location, I used a pair of angled long nosed pliers to remove the washers.

Now to the valve adjustment, tip here it's fiddly until you've got the technique sorted, which will happen after a couple of valves, if it's not working for you straight away, leave it for a few mins, swear a bit!, go and make a coffee and come back to it.

Firstly, you need to rotate the engine using a 24 mil tool, again your service kit in the vehicle will have one of them in the tool kit. Use that to turn the engine with the fan nut (clockwise) it'll be easy to turn as you've removed one set of plugs per cylinder (you've taken the car out of gear??) turn the engine until the Z1 mark on the crankshaft pulley is at zero degrees (12 o'clock) it will align with the Top dead centre mark on the housing behind the pulley. Pic attached though it's out of focus unfortunatelly.

Have a look yourself it'll be obvious.

Now the crankshaft will rotate twice per firing order cycle....The firing order is 1-6-2-4-3-5, To go to basics for those of you who don't know, the rear left cylinder is No.1, the middle left is 2, the front left is 3, right rear is 4, right middle,5, right front 6.

One revolution of the crank will fire cylinder 1-6-2, the next revolution will fire 4-3-5

Hope I'm not confusing you here it quite simple!

You want to start adjusting the valves on cylinder 1, so turn the crank until you have Z1 alligned, this will either be Top dead centre for cylinder 1 or cylinder 4, how you tell is by checking the valve rockers, go to cylinder one, try to move the rockers from side to side, if they're (both) loose, (upper and lower rockers rear left of engine) , it'll be quite noticeable, then you've got cylinder 1 on TDC, if they're not then check cylinder 4 (rear right) if they're loose then you need to turn the engine through one full turn.

Ok now you've got TDC for no.1 you can start to adjust the valves using this tool

You'll need it, a normal set of feeler guages wont work with the 911, I got one from my OPC for around £30, including 5 blades (I didn't break any doing mine)

 

[AVI_8]

Here's a picture of where you need to insert the adjustment tool (where the arrow is)

And here's a few pics of the tool in the correct place on various valves on my engine (apologies for getting to basics here, it's for the benefit of those who haven't done this before)

Right so you've inserted the tool at the top of the valve stem, what you need to do is move the tool from side to side, you're looking for a "slight drag", the best way I can describe this is that by using a small amount of force, you're looking for the tool to move but with a slightly jerky action, thats about spot on, if it moves easily and with no resistance the valve needs to be tightened, if the tool is hard to insert and needs force to move it, or impossible to insert, the valve needs to be loosened.

You'll need patience and 3 hands (it may seem like this but in practice you'll manage with 2) Using a spanner and short flat head screwdriver, turn the spanner anti clockwise whilst holding the screw in the centre steady, once the nut has been backed off the adjustment screw in the centre can be turned clockwise to tighten and anti clockwise to loosen, turn the screw a very small amount, then tighten the nut an check, hold the screw in the centre steady when tightening the nut (tightening the nut will tend to tighten the screw also so you may need to try this a few times to get the correct gap)

This all sounds difficult but in practice it's not really, once you've done a couple of valves which will take some time, you'll have got the knack, don't adjust for the sake of it, if it's ok and most probably will be leave well alone.

I had to adjust 4 of my 12 valves, the 4 were very slightly loose, none were tight, a loose valve will be noticable by a ticking when the engine is running, no major problem there, a tight valve will be silent, THIS IS BAD, as the valve may not be fully closed during the combustion cycle which can easily burn out the valve and seat.

Ok so you've adjusted the valve on cylinder 1, now you need to do cylinder 6 (front right) to get this cylinder on tdc, turn the engine through 120 degrees (one third of a turn) until the next mark on the crank pulley aligns with TDC, again check that both rockers are loose and repeat the process.

After that turn another 120 degrees and adjust cylinder 2, then 4 -3 -5 turning through 120 degrees each time.

Once you've done this Go through the whole process again (unless you haven't had to adjust any valves) this is to check the valve clearence once the valve has fully opened and closed, basically an error check, you've come this far so why not, it'll take a fraction of the time second time round as you know what you're doing now !!!!

 

[AVI_8]

Now just to state the bleedin obvious, you're adjusting the valves at the end of the rocker under the adjustment nut, not the other end between the rocker foot and camshaft, that process is called the backseat method and requires different clearences, use your porsche feeler guage using that method will result in an engine sounding like a washing machine cleaning a handful of bolts (too large gap)

Now thats done remove the remaining spark plugs, and replace with new ones, be careful it's an allow cylinder head, you don't need to tighten them like Mike Tyson on steroids!

Time to replace the rocker covers now, clean them out, I used petrol and a few rags, replace the gaskets from your service kit, basically make sure the mating surfaces are clean, and make sure that you've not got thread lock over the threads like I had, I used petrol on a rag again to clean them, using lots of kitchen roll stuffed into the gaps in the rockers, Make sure you don't get any dirt going into the engine when you're cleaning the area!!!!!!!!!!

I bought new washers for the rockers, they're around 50p each from your OPC you'll need 38, didn't see any need to buy new nuts as they're not Nylock nuts, I soaked the nuts in petrol overnight and used kitchen roll to clean out the threads to remove the remainder of the threat sealant, I used thread sealant on the lower rocker covers when I re-installed them and torqued them using a torgue wrench, get one if you haven't got one you want a uniform torgue on all of the nuts, also I tightened them up in stages, working from the centre out, just like you would tighten up a cylinder head, maybe thats overkill but should minimise the chances of a warped rocker cover.

 

[C2dweller]

Brilliant!

You mentioned thread lock in the final post - did you mean some fragments from the Nylock nut or the other stuff made by loctite?

(PS my last go was on a black Mini 1275GT in 1995 - still miss it now and the above brings it all flooding back)

 

[AVI_8]

Some cleaning now, used a petrol rag to remove all deposits of oil from the heat exchangers

Resprayed the upper metal heat shields with barbecue reconditioning paint after using a wire brush/sandpaper/solvent to remove all oil/grease

Another tip, take a picture of the engine heat shields before memoval so that when it's time to put them back on again you've got a reference.

New Distributer caps and rotors

They're not cheap, origional Bosch parts from Euro car parts, Think I should be getting a trade discount from them by now !!!!


Old cap and rotor, not good! the electrical contact on the caps are burned concave, the rotors not much better, definatelly need replaced, wouldn't be surprised if they're the origional ones

When replacing the caps and this is stating the bloody obvious, don't get the leads mixed up, remove one cap at a time and replace the leads one at a time, they're quite hard to pull off, twist them first to break the seal use a thin screwdriver if needed to gently help remove them, don't pull them off by the leads, you'd pull the lead off the connection knackering the lead, only pull the cap on the end of the lead.

The caps only go on one way, make sure that you're not putting them on 180 degrees out, look at the base of the cap it'll be obvious, there's a flat bit on the seating area on one side of the cap that will slot into a groove.

Fitting the lower screw of the lower cap is awkward as you cant see the screw that you need to tighten, another tip, using your left hand, find the screw head, use the screwdriver with your other hand you'll be able to locate the screw head when it touches your finger which will be touching the screw head.........sounds obvious but it took me 10 minutes of head scratching before I did this!!

Fuel filter, not much to comment on here, held on by a jubilee clip and connections either end, simple change.

 

[AVI_8]

Refitting the cat, this is where you'll want a trolley jack and piece of wood on top to support the cat while you align it to the exhaust flange, before you do this use a wire brush to clean the flange which sits proud of the cat and fits into the exhaust, also clean out the area of the exhaust where the cat slots into using a wire brush.

From the pic you can see the overlapping area I'm talking about, make sure that it's seated properly before inserting your (new) bolts

Tighten the bolts evenly, you might be surprised as I was to learn that the correct torque for these bolts is only 23NM, thats not a lot, (you've got a new gasket?) I've read from posts in other forums of the exhaust flange breaking off, this is undoubtedly caused by an over zealous mechanic tightening these bolts with too much torgue. There will probably be only one bolt that will give you room enough to use a torgue wrench, the top one closest to you, use that as a guage as to how much torgue to use.

I checked my flange with a straight edge before fitting the cat and it wasn't entirely flat, so someone at some point has overtightened it (which is why I like to service my car myself as that way I know it's done correctly and not by an apprentice mechanic with practically zero experience) rant over!!!!

The other end of the cat is not difficult to fit, slacken off the bracket, you don't need exhaust sealant, just make sure that the ring in the centre between the cat and primary muffler is alligned and tighten the clamp to 25NM again using a new bolt, my new bolt didn't have enough thread for some reason so I used a couple of washers to pack it out.

 

[AVI_8]

Don't forget to push the cat sensor wire back through the metal engine shield and reconnect it from in side the engine bay.

Now to refit the blower, firstly you need to push the rear atachment mounting into place, here's a pic of it, don't forget to do this or you'll have allignment difficulties.

Now spray the hose at both ends, (the solid one which goes from the the point in front of the distributors to the blower) with WD40 or similar, this will help slide them into place (replace the 2 wires going to the resistor on the left side of the hose at this point as well, locate the hose at it's base (beside distributers) first then lift the blower up at the rear, having slackened off the jubilee clip at the other end of the hose it should now slide onto the blower, then push the blower downwards until it's in position to insert the 2 bolts holding the blower in place, do it in that order, half an hour of pisssing about scratching my head has taught me that it's the way to go!!!!!!!!

 

[AVI_8]

Well you're there now, all done except for putting oil in ther car, I'm using Mobil Super S, it's a 10-40 Semi Synthetic, filled with 8 litres and fired her up,

And thats just about it, car started after a couple of turns due to fuel filter being dry, with a sight rattle on startup caused by the hydraulic chain tentioners waiting for oil pressure, first time I heard this it sounded like big end bearings, I often get it for a fraction of a second on start up if the cars been idle for a few days

After running the car for a while it was obvious that one of the oil pipes from the tank was still leaking slightly so I'll need to drain the oil and will replace both pipes, it would be silly to just replace one while I'm in there, also I'll be replacing the gearbox oil and will post some pics of this, I've got new driveshaft gaitors which I'll put up on a new post. As I will for replacing the brake pads all round

Oh one more thing, when I pull my engine cover release it now opens and stays open, I fitted 2 new rams when I had access, so no longer do I need to use a piece of wood to hold open the cover!!

If any of you guys are thinking about doing an engine service yourself I've got a PDF which I could email to you, it's got torque settings etc, in fact it's the Porsche engine workshop manual.

Approximate cost Engine oil £50
Transmition oil £40
Engine service kit around £70
Fuel filter £18
Caps and rotors around £110
Rocker washers and misc items £50
Valve adjustment tool around £30

Probably saved around £300 quid in labour costs if I'd put it into a garage with the added benefit of knowing it's done correctly

 

[AVI_8]

C2dweller, no the nuts are not Nylock, they're just standatd nuts, some kind of threadlock liquid had been added to the threads, and this had to be cleaned off, just make sure that the old threadlock which is like rubber doesn't end up in the engine!

 

[Steve Brookes]

ORIGINAL: AVI_8
then lifted the rear of the car, jacked it up under the suspension arm lust outboard of the shock mounting.

Great write up []. Can you be a bit more specific about where you put the jack under the trailing arm to lift it? I used to lift the engine and then put stands under the rear jacking points but I'm not happy about doing this any more as it can cause problems with the engine mounts.

By the way, when just doing an oil/filter change I start by jacking the car up at the front right jacking point. This gets round the problem of jacks and stands being in the way of the oil tank when draining it.

 

[vitesse]

Hear,hear-brilliant .Only one thing I would add if I were doing it-a touch of copperease grease on the new spark plugs-just helps them come out next time.

 

[AVI_8]

Thanks for the tip Steve, I'll try that next time, pic of where I put the trolley jack, think I mentioned earlier that I used a piece of wood on top of the jack, I didn't on this as the jack pad had a bowl shape which holds the suspension mount nicely,

I would only use this as a temporary jacking point, as you mentioned the only other way is to use a wooden block on a jack and jack it up from the engine seam.

Vitesse, yes I should maybe have used a little bit of copper grease on the plugs, the old ones came out without problem, I've just never used grease on plugs before, will try it next time.

 

[mcgc0]

Nice write up, enjoyed the read and pics (most essential). So, what's your next task? Get that in here too ;-)

I had a MkII 3.0 Ghia Capri (factory fitted manual) myself as my 3rd ever car - loved it. Able to do any servicing on it myself. A lot of fun drifting!

Going through some repairs/improvements myself. Latest being total strip down of the doors; window lifter rail completely rusted and collapsed allowing the glass to drop down to the bottom of the door (windy coming back from Le Mans at 110mph!). Both window frames out and disassembled, seals removed then all frame parts bead-blasted and powder coated - also did the same for the other nearly-good window riser rail (£50 to do the lot!). Everything cleaned, all moving parts greased/lubricated, new snap-in nuts all round so looking forward to the weekend of reassembly.

 

[AVI_8]

Thanks!

Next task is replacing pads, half way through, I've started another thread on them, engine mounts will be replaced soon, power steering rack will need replaced sometime soon as there's a slight leak from one of the bellows.

Driveshaft gaitors will be done this week, I'll do another post there. I've got big plans for the Brakes and suspension, It'll be getting lowered and the brakes upgraded, though this probably won't happen until next spring . Recarro seats is another planned job along with lighted interior. The list goes on.....

 

[AVI_8]

Finally got around to changing my gearbox oil today, As it happened the old oil was still quite golden, so had obviously been changed not too long ago.

Clean the magnetic sump plug.

The refill plug is half way up the gearbox on the left side, used the same size allen key as the drain plug. I had thought of buying a pump to pump in the new oil as my oil (75-90 Synthetic) came in a 5Litre container. What I ended up doing was I bought 500ml of cheap gearbox oil, tipped it out as it was just the container that I wanted, as it had a spout, then just kept refilling it, could get about 250ml in at a time to it took a good 20 mins.

And the old gearbox oil is quite smelly and a buggar to remove the smell so wear gloves if you have any, I speak from experience!

 

[turbo jonny]

Ive heard that slightly overfilling the gearbox oil can give a better shift. Mine is sticky in the cold weather but fine at
present so i might try it ready for the winter. Thanks for the write up. Can you send a copy of that pdf to jaashcroft@hotmail.com
Cheers

 

[AVI_8]

If it's sticky, it's probably caused by clutch drag, mines a bit like that until the box warms up, have you tried bleeding it, I'm going to do mine before I take it off the jacks.

 

[turbo jonny]

I assume that was done when the clutch was changed this winter by redline racing. It was sticking in 2nd/3rd gear when changing down
but stopped when the weather got warmer. 1st gear/reverse engagement has been fine since the clutch change.

 

[Steve Brookes]

The other thing that causes stiff gear changes, especially downshifts, is worn engine mounts. Any 964 that is running on the original mounts is due new ones. They also help stiffen up the rear end and improve the handling.

 

[turbo jonny]

I think mine are originals , so theres another job for the winter - too busy enjoying the summer for now ,thanks steve !