Oil Pan Gasket - While I'm in there...

[whalenlg]

I'll keep at it!

Side note - I am pretty happy with the AN12 oil cooler hoses. Easy to build and when I had to reclock to avoid a kink, it was very easy, which is impossible with the stock crimped fittings (this doesn't count the time required to get the oil cooler/block plate removed and installed, but I am getting pretty good at that now).
I did add some Seco conical seals to the AN12 connections to make doubly sure there will be no leaks.

[whalenlg]

Managed to get the oil pump primed today. I tried to put some oil into the oil filter mount (not the center hole, but the hole closest to the block). Didn't seem to hold much oil or it was very slow to drain into the engine, so I gave up on that and hit the starter (no spark plugs) a couple of times its of 10-20 seconds but no joy.
When my son got home from work, I was able to have him turn the key and watch oil pressure while I put a very low amount of air (5-10psi) into the dipstick tube. Voila - 30 seconds later we had almost 5 bar of oil pressure and no initial oil leaks.
Will get back at the clutch bleeding with the pump from below method when I get some more fluid & the $10 oil hand pump. In the meantime, the radiator, hoses and top end can proceed full speed without worrying about the oft reported oil pressure ordeal.

[Tom]

Managed to get the oil pump primed today. I tried to put some oil into the oil filter mount (not the center hole, but the hole closest to the block). Didn't seem to hold much oil or it was very slow to drain into the engine, so I gave up on that and hit the starter (no spark plugs) a couple of times its of 10-20 seconds but no joy.
When my son got home from work, I was able to have him turn the key and watch oil pressure while I put a very low amount of air (5-10psi) into the dipstick tube. Voila - 30 seconds later we had almost 5 bar of oil pressure and no initial oil leaks.
Will get back at the clutch bleeding with the pump from below method when I get some more fluid & the $10 oil hand pump. In the meantime, the radiator, hoses and top end can proceed full speed without worrying about the oft reported oil pressure ordeal.

Awesome. Fire-up this weekend maybe?

[whalenlg]

Awesome. Fire-up this weekend maybe?

Wishful thinking! Getting very close now.
Solved the clutch bleeding issue - I did try the pump from below method but didn't see any air coming back to the reservoir after a few tries. I went back the the Motive pressure bleed with 7psi.
My friend stopped by to check progress and he noticed that while I was bleeding under the car, the level on the front left of the reservoir was draining faster than the rear and going empty. resulting in the spurts of air I had been seeing. Yep - there are chambers in the reservoir which I had seen something about but didn't see a universal sort of caution in my searches. I'm guessing that's a safety mechanism so that a blade clutch slave cylinder doesn't take your brakes with it?\

The solution was to keep topping up the fluid before it got to the midpoint of High and Low marks. No more air shooting through. It did take like 20+ rounds of fill & bleed and literally like 3 hours and 1.5 liters of fluid before the clutch was solid.

Intake, fuel rail (new fuel lines), exhaust and front suspension left, but that should all be doable this week.

[whalenlg]

Update - the rest of the install went well - I realized that I should've attached the dipstick before putting the intake in. It was a struggle until I ordered a 10mm pivoting socket. The universal adapter just flopped too much.
Did have a small fuel leak but that was resolved by reseating the injectors and tighting the rail cap (yes the ball bearing is in there!). I oiled up with BradPenn break in oil (30W).
Started up 1st time. Did see some oil burning off the headers, but that's to be expected. Ran 10-20 minutes with 0 leaks!

Next day (last Friday), fired it up again and gave it a few 2k revs. And then.......exhaust starting spewing blue smoke.

Plugs were clean. Layer of clean oil in the intercooler tubes. Leakdown test was OK, compression was good (not a ring problem!) and then I found a stream of oil coming down the turbo cross over.
Traced right up the the turbo/crossover flange, so pretty obvious the oil seals in the turbo blew out.

After lots of wrestling and cursing myself, the turbo is out and will be on the way to Evergreen shortly. Thanks to Tom for some 944 therapy messaging since last weekend. My machinist was also very supportive and happy it wasn't the new valve guides/seals.

BTW - bought a 13mm pivoting socket for the bolt that connects the turbo outlet flange to the block. Went from impossible to remove to out in 2 min (just like the dipstick).

I also found a flex socket extension to help with getting the socket bolts out from the underside of the turbo. It's not strong enough the break the bolts loose, but with the weird angles, it made spinning those bolts out much easier. I'm sure it will help get them threaded in as well.

[Belgian951]

Good job and sorry to hear about the turbo. I was wondering if you could share a tool number or a picture of those pivoting sockets. I always have issues getting the dipstick attached to the intake manifold.

[Tom]

Update - the rest of the install went well - I realized that I should've attached the dipstick before putting the intake in. It was a struggle until I ordered a 10mm pivoting socket. The universal adapter just flopped too much.
Did have a small fuel leak but that was resolved by reseating the injectors and tighting the rail cap (yes the ball bearing is in there!). I oiled up with BradPenn break in oil (30W).
Started up 1st time. Did see some oil burning off the headers, but that's to be expected. Ran 10-20 minutes with 0 leaks!

Next day (last Friday), fired it up again and gave it a few 2k revs. And then.......exhaust starting spewing blue smoke.

Plugs were clean. Layer of clean oil in the intercooler tubes. Leakdown test was OK, compression was good (not a ring problem!) and then I found a stream of oil coming down the turbo cross over.
Traced right up the the turbo/crossover flange, so pretty obvious the oil seals in the turbo blew out.

After lots of wrestling and cursing myself, the turbo is out and will be on the way to Evergreen shortly. Thanks to Tom for some 944 therapy messaging since last weekend. My machinist was also very supportive and happy it wasn't the new valve guides/seals.

BTW - bought a 13mm pivoting socket for the bolt that connects the turbo outlet flange to the block. Went from impossible to remove to out in 2 min (just like the dipstick).

I also found a flex socket extension to help with getting the socket bolts out from the underside of the turbo. It's not strong enough the break the bolts loose, but with the weird angles, it made spinning those bolts out much easier. I'm sure it will help get them threaded in as well.

Quite the journey, but you went after it with determination and perseverance, without falling victim to the dreaded Abandoned Project Syndrome. Light is at the end of the tunnel now, I can feel it.

It's a hack, but I cut a slot in the little tab/bracket on my dip stick tube so I can screw the bolt in by hand almost all the way, then just slip the tube bracket onto the bolt and cinch it tight. Alternatively, you can bolt the tube to the intake and install them as a unit.

[whalenlg]

Good job and sorry to hear about the turbo. I was wondering if you could share a tool number or a picture of those pivoting sockets. I always have issues getting the dipstick attached to the intake manifold.

Swivel sockets on Amazon
GEARWRENCH 3/8" Drive Metric Flex Socket 13mm, 6 Point - 80336 (turbo flange)
TEKTON 1/4 Inch Drive x 10 mm Universal Joint Socket | SHD08110 (dipstick)

[whalenlg]

Update - the rest of the install went well - I realized that I should've attached the dipstick before putting the intake in. It was a struggle until I ordered a 10mm pivoting socket. The universal adapter just flopped too much.
Did have a small fuel leak but that was resolved by reseating the injectors and tighting the rail cap (yes the ball bearing is in there!). I oiled up with BradPenn break in oil (30W).
Started up 1st time. Did see some oil burning off the headers, but that's to be expected. Ran 10-20 minutes with 0 leaks!

Next day (last Friday), fired it up again and gave it a few 2k revs. And then.......exhaust starting spewing blue smoke.

Plugs were clean. Layer of clean oil in the intercooler tubes. Leakdown test was OK, compression was good (not a ring problem!) and then I found a stream of oil coming down the turbo cross over.
Traced right up the the turbo/crossover flange, so pretty obvious the oil seals in the turbo blew out.

After lots of wrestling and cursing myself, the turbo is out and will be on the way to Evergreen shortly. Thanks to Tom for some 944 therapy messaging since last weekend. My machinist was also very supportive and happy it wasn't the new valve guides/seals.

BTW - bought a 13mm pivoting socket for the bolt that connects the turbo outlet flange to the block. Went from impossible to remove to out in 2 min (just like the dipstick).

I also found a flex socket extension to help with getting the socket bolts out from the underside of the turbo. It's not strong enough the break the bolts loose, but with the weird angles, it made spinning those bolts out much easier. I'm sure it will help get them threaded in as well.

Quite the journey, but you went after it with determination and perseverance, without falling victim to the dreaded Abandoned Project Syndrome. Light is at the end of the tunnel now, I can feel it.

It's a hack, but I cut a slot in the little tab/bracket on my dip stick tube so I can screw the bolt in by hand almost all the way, then just slip the tube bracket onto the bolt and cinch it tight. Alternatively, you can bolt the tube to the intake and install them as a unit.

Great idea - since the dipstick is out of the car, I'll grab the dremel!

[whalenlg]

Turbo is on the way to Evergreen. Charlie will upgrade to Turbo-S components.
He did have an interesting comment when I mentioned my Lindsey Dual Port wastegate + Manual Boost Controller. His experience was that they don't really control the boost well and boost will vary with temperature etc. Suggested to just put in the wastegate spring to get the max boost you want and don't connect and MBC. Kind of matches what I saw over the past 4 years with the best boost results as stock cycling valve, no MBC. On this project I did see that the wastegate spring that I had from the PO was stronger than the stock one I got from Lindsey.
Looks like I'll restore the spring that was in before the rebuild.