993 restoration

[Ferry Man]

Out of interest, do you know what in the engine went bang?

When I was driving the car the engine failure was sudden, unexpected and gave no warning.
There was a sickening bang and a death rattle. No smoke, just violent trauma.

Upon dismantling the car I took the undertrays off and peered up.
Pictured below was the sight I saw.
I'm no engineer but I knew it was bad.

[Ferry Man]

When Nick Fulljames at Redtek inspected the engine he soon concluded - as I had done - that the cases were scrap.
That was a low point.
I'll cut through much consternation here and simply say I ended up having to buy a donor core engine for the rebuild.
This is the rod from my engine.

[Ferry Man]

Nick checked the engine carefully looking for the trigger for all this mayhem.
It appeared a rod snapped and the broken bottom half flayed around smashing cases as it went.
I have a souvenir.

[Ferry Man]

The guys at Redtek claim they could find no fault upstream or downstream from that broken rod.
I'm supposed to take comfort from the fact I did nothing wrong.
And in fairness the previous owner could not have known or predicted the failure.

So, look at this photograph. You can see the top left half of the rod section is silvery smooth like a crack. The bottom right half is ripped and torn apart. The rod probably had that casting fault from day one. It lasted 120,000 miles and then, finally, gave up. In a big way.
Nick said I'd been driving around in a grenade without the pin in place....

[Darren65]

993's are indeed beautiful cars......often wonder what they'd feel like 300KG lighter!

Hope this is going radical!

Great colour choice!

[Ferry Man]

993's are indeed beautiful cars......often wonder what they'd feel like 300KG lighter!

They'd probably feel like a 2.7RS.

[Ferry Man]

And no, I'm not going to shed 300 kilos off the car.

[jamie]

I think the reason the engine stopped working is that a conrod snapped.

Just trying to help you get through this a bit quicker.

[Mike]

A Mexico blue emoji, or is it Riviera... been looking forward to this!

[Bootsy]

Likewise, having discussed this project at CLM it's great to see the thread underway and great reference for my Autumn / Winter project

[murph2309]

I'm looking forward to this too - loving the fact it's being done on a 993 (whatever the crowd says)

I think Jamie might have the diagnosis right for your engine woes. Seems to know a thing or two that man. And all done from a distance too

Pi55er about the case halves though - can you get a new set re-stamped?

Will you be putting the tea-ball thingies on the engine (that was a real moment for me when you did that to Turkis Blue)

[911SE]

Hi Paul, having very much enjoyed your previous threads I'm really looking forward to watch this one unfold!

[mycar]

Will you be putting the tea-ball thingies on the engine (that was a real moment for me when you did that to Turkis Blue)

Agreed, tea-ball thingies and quite big trumpets.

And stickers... lots of stickers.

Looking forward to a tale of transportation restoration, narrated by a master thread weaver.

[964RS]

So, I’d purchased a great car for a bargain price.

Something tells me it aint gonna be cheap by the end though.....

Hope it turns out nicely though

[Ferry Man]

So, engine blown up, decision made, start pulling the car apart.
I called in a window specialist to cut the front & rear glass out (they are bonded in on a 993) and one of the first jobs was to discard the rear wiper.
That was purely a styling decision. I think the wiper disfigures the look of the rear and it's not really necessary on a 911.
The photograph shows the wiper motor already removed (it sits in the indentation on the rear shelf).
But the shaft for the wiper arm drive goes through the glass.