At Long Last, Ready for the Body Shop

Sorry for the long time between posts, but not much has happened physically on the car.  Our winter was very rainy so I didn't get a lot of good weather to do work on the car.  I did spend a lot of hours on improving the code for the Android battery pack monitoring app though.  It's pretty much ready to go, waiting for real batteries to watch.

When the weather broke a couple of weekends ago, I dove back in and removed the flywheel from the engine.  I installed the flywheel lock and it came off very easily.

 
Then I got the rest of the car stripped.  The only stuff I can't remove is:

- wiring harness - don't want to pull it if I don't have to as it snakes all over the car
- brake fluid reservoir and brake lines - again, don't want to
- drive shafts - the axle nut is frozen on both shafts.  I've tried WD-40, Liquid Wrench, a heat gun and a 2' breaker bar on the socket.  I hope the body shop can get these off because I'd like to clean them up.

I've found a highly recommended body shop right here in town - Rainbow Marine/Auto Body & Painting.  No web site, but phone is (805)239-3791.  They're going to media blast, repair the rust spots, prime, undercoat, paint and clear coat it.  My buddy Gary at G-Rides does a lot of work on a Porsche Turbo that is painted "Meteor Grey Metallic".  It still keeps the silver theme on my car, but a darker, more metallic shade.  I think it will look really good.

Here are a few pictures to show the state of the car before it goes off to the shop.  I promise I'll peel off the carpet first!

Well that's it.  More details as the shop gets to work.

Drop The Engine!

With the 12-point star driver in hand, it was time to do the biggest project yet - dropping the engine and transmission out of the car.  The engine and transmission actually drop out of the bottom of the car, not pulled up from the top like most other cars.  Having read the other conversion blogs, I figured I could drop it down gently, but it didn't turn out quite that way...

Fred came over on Sunday, bearing pizza.  Feeling satisfied after a good lunch, we laid out our strategy.

First we removed the axles from the transmission at the CV joints.  Using the star driver, it was easy.  The driver's side axle can be locked with the emergency brake, but on the passenger side I had to wedge my knees against the wheel and hold it with my hands.  The important thing is to put a bag over the axle end because it's a greasy mess. You can zip-tie the passenger axle to the spring to keep it out of the way, but the driver's side is impeded by the starter motor.  You just have to work around it as you roll the engine out.

I have two hydraulic jacks, as you can see below.  We used a furniture dolly and two 2x4s, and brought the jacks up to just take the weight of the engine + transmission.

I removed the two bolts holding the engine brace, then the two nuts holding the transmission, and in 5 minutes the engine is no longer attached to the car.  The plan was to drop the front by a few millimeters, then the back, then the front, etc.  That worked well for an inch or so, but then the front jack lost its lock and slipped all the way down.  We tightened it up and jacked it back up about six inches.  We then dropped it evenly until the back jack was down as far as it would go.  We let the front down all the way, then brought that jack around to take the load off the back, then gently let the back down.  Whew!  Would have been better to have two of the blue style jacks, but it worked out.

A final issue popped up - even with the car up on jack stands, the car body was a few inches too low to roll the engine out.  We thought about using the hydraulic jack to raise each side and get a few more clicks on each jack stand, but that would involve a stack of 2x4s to get the needed height and I wasn't comfortable with that.  Then I remembered we had just taken several hundred pounds of the car, so I walked around to the back and lifted the car up.  It actually went up a few inches, so Fred raised the jack stands on each side as I lifted.  That gave us the extra space we needed.  I carefully rolled backwards, maneuvering around the driver's side axle and the tubing on top.  And here we are!

The engine and transmission are strikingly big for the place where they fit in the little car - hard to believe the clever Germans actually fit it all in.  Here's the big empty space from above and below.

We still had some light left, so we decided to pop the transmission off the engine.  I'll reuse the flywheel, clutch and transmission with the electric motor.  That way I can shift it like a normal car if needed.  There are four bolts holding the transmission to the engine.  We got three of them off easily, but the head of the fourth bolt was obscured by where it's located on the starter motor flange, and we couldn't get a socket or open-end wrench on it.  After some creative metalworking (because I won't be reusing the starter), we got the bolt out but discovered that this bolt is very long, and goes all the way through the engine mount to an exposed nut.  All we had to do was back the nut off from the other side.  Oh well!  We wiggled the transmission a little and it separated from the engine.  Fred supported it while I pulled them apart and it came off easily.

Next step is to take the pressure plate, clutch disc and flywheel off the back of the engine.  The pressure plate came off easily, after we jammed a 2x4 into the teeth of the flywheel to stop it from spinning.  I got some repair receipts with the car that show that the clutch was replaced in the past, and both the pressure plate and clutch disc look great.  They're both about .375" thick - I'll have to check to see how that compares with new, or if they should be replaced while I'm in there.  Also, they're both clean and dry - no sign of oil leaks that mean that they're ruined.

We tried to work on removing the flywheel, but the 5 bolts holding it on the engine just didn't want to release, even with my cordless impact wrench.  We gave it a good spraying with WD-40 and wrapped up for the day.  Probably my most productive day so far, and a lot to show for it!  I'll have to do some checking to see if there's a trick to get these bolts out.  I'll probably need to lock the driveshaft somehow.

Engine removal first steps

With the gas tank gone, there is no going back to an internal combustion ride!  I began to follow the Haynes manual process for engine removal.  It said to remove the hoods, then the battery.  First actual work on the engine is to slip off the air hoses and remove the air box.  Here we are at that point.

You can see on the far side that the "hell hole" around the battery has been previously worked on, but the rust was building up again on the battery holder itself.  Time was right to get this fixed anyway.

In a clear case of "The solution is left to the reader", the Haynes manual says "Working logically, detach the electrical leads which go to the engine from the various looms."  Uh yeah, thanks for all of the detail.  There are 2 major wiring harnesses: the fuel injector computer and the high voltage to the starter motor on the underside of the engine.  Here's the fuel injection computer harness:
 

Next, the Haynes manual says "Working logically, detach the various vacuum and fuel hoses from the engine."  Awesome.  So, with this completed, the engine is only held into the car via the underside greasy bits.

Getting underneath the car, I removed the ground strap, the speedometer cable, the clutch cable and pulley, the gearshift rod and the heater boxes and tubing.  The next step in the manual is to remove the driveshafts, but in a stroke of bad planning, I didn't order the special 12-point star bit needed to pull off the CV joints.  With a few more hours of sunny and cool Sunday, I decided to pull the exhaust.  I had initially thought to leave it attached so I can sell the engine and exhaust as a single piece, but getting underneath and looking at it, I decided it would be a good idea to take it off while I had the chance.  The headers and muffler look nearly new which is great, but whoever put it on really didn't do a good job - there were several missing screws and bolts, and one of the sheet metal heat guides wasn't even attached!  It was just jammed in place and probably banged around on every bump.  One big issue was a missing bolt on one of the exhaust ports!  I don't know if it's the way it's designed, but there is no exhaust manifold gasket at all.  The fit is tight, but not perfect so I suspect there was a lot of blow-by.

So I ordered the star bit from Pelican Parts and expect to drop the engine next weekend.

Concours in Avila Beach, and The Engine Is Unhappy

Yesterday I drove the 914 down to Avila Beach for the 2009 Concours show.  My buddy Gary from G-Rides exotic car performance workshop sponsored the show and had a booth, so I couldn't resist.

The first thing that hit me when I walked onto the golf course show grounds were a pair of Tesla roadsters.  I got talking with the guys about my modest electric car project, and the J1772 new recharging connector that was just approved by the standards body last week.

 Just beyond the Teslas was the brand-new Porsche Panamera, the first 4-door sports car from Porsche.  Up close it's not as ugly as in pictures, but it is really, really big.  Can't say that I'm keen on it.

There were Ferraris everywhere, with a nice selection of classic American and European cars.  This Porsche GT caught my eye ($440K?  Pocket change!)

The local Central California branch of the Porsche club had a tent.  I told them I joined the national Porsche club on the web last week and my information should be forwarded to them soon so they can keep me up on club activities.  The lady was very sweet, telling me they didn't care if my car ran or was in pieces, they would still take me.  I told her I bought an 914 and I could see her face drop just a bit, but now that Volkswagen has purchased Porsche, we're all one big happy family!  I did buy a Porsche key chain for $10 , so now I'm official.

The downside of the trip was the engine has developed a habit of randomly stalling while driving down the highway...  It starts as a shudder, the power coming in and out rapidly.  If I beat on the gas pedal it will sometimes re-fire but I had to pull to the shoulder of the highway twice to restart.  Once it restarts, it seems fine, but it happened again several times on the way home.  The 914 forums say it could be anything from vapor lock to the fuel pump to cracked vacuum lines to the fuel filter to bad gas.  I just needed it to run nicely for a couple of months until I start the teardown for the electric conversion, but I don't trust it and I don't feel safe driving it far from home.  I don't want to put a lot of time, effort and money into fixing the issue when I'll just be pulling the engine soon, so I think I'll live with it and stay near home.  I've got 2/3 of a tank of gas to burn...

I'm refining the project task list, and researching additional parts and repair techniques.  Stay tuned!