gregg911

I've got an 80SC with a nagging oil leak that I cannot trace. I'm assuming it's the oil pressure or thermostat O-ring. How many of you have actually dropped a motor yourself and how hard was it really. Remember that if I do it I may be asking for advice along the way.

I've swapped motors, transmissions, rear ends on muscle cars in the 70's but getting the motor out of a 911 looks like taking a ship out of a bottle without messing it up.

Bill Gregory

You can do a partial engine drop of a 911SC engine, which will give you access to the back, without dropping the entire engine. It's a useful procedure to know. There's an article on tech.rennlist.com under 911 engines, by Walt Fricke that describes it. After a few times, you'll be able to do a partial drop in minutes.

scottb

You're in LA. You should set up an engine-drop party and get some other Pelicans to give you a hand. For the cost of pizza and beer, I'm sure someone with experience would be more than willing to guide you through the process.

M491

Taking an SC engine out is VERY easy. There aren't very many parts tethering the engine to the chassis. Really just a matter of disconnecting everything and dropping it down and out!

I've done it by myself, using just jackstands and a floor jack, many times (although I would recommend having an extra set of hands the first time!).

Key is - just make sure everything is disconnected before you begin to drop. Esp. be sure the shift linkage is disconnected at the firewall, otherwise you may bend the input shaft going into the transmission, which is bad news.

Haynes or Bentley has a pretty good step-by-step. But, it's really just a matter of looking to see what's there, and disconnecting as necessary.

If you've taken out engines in other cars a lot, you'll have no problem. The comment from most first timers is "That was a lot easier than I thought it would be."

That being said, it's very easy to change the oil switch without dropping the engine at all. Just remove the CIS boot, that gives you enough room to reach back there, disconnect it, and get a socket on the sender. Took me about 1/2 hour the first time, now I can literally do it in 5 minutes. Thermostat o-ring, never changed with engine in the car personally, so I won't comment, but I think it can be done without a partial engine drop, and am certain the worst case scenario is a partial drop to get to that.

Before you do anything, you should take a look back there to see if you can spot the leak. Take off the CIS boot, and use a mirror and flashlight, and you can see very nicely back there. The sender is a VERY common leaker. Hopefully that's your problem, and you'll fix it for $8 and 1/2 hour time.

gregg911

Thank you all. I'm going to give a shot this weekend and I REALLY appreciate all of your responses.

DGaunt

Make sure you lift the car enough to get the engineout from underneath it. Including the height of your floor jack, it is higher than you might think.

Double check that EVERYTHING is unhooked. I seem to like to forget the ground strap and the plastic loop that supports it.

While you have the engine out, plan to clean up the whole engine bay.

Have fun!


Last, number all the wires. Remember it will be you hooking it back up.

77TARGA

if you do drop it and have a digital camera, take pics of evrything before you disconnect it, that helped me tremendously when reinstalling it.

jbaeng

I went through this with my '81SC a little over a year ago. My thermostat o-ring had deteriorated and the car smoked real badly. I tried a partial engine drop, but could not get the thermostat out due to CIS interference. I got a Porsche 911 Engine Removal Jack Adapter Tool from e-bay (also available from Pelican, see pic) and worked like a charm! The above advice is right on the money but the only problem I had was reinstalling the half shafts and CV joints. I Found out that unless you torque them and lock tight them, they WILL come loose. Again, there is great guidance on-line and in Bentley, but a little past experience (any cars) will definitely help. I did it all solo, but a party would have been much more fun. Well at least now the engine does not leak a drop or smoke (not to mention the engine is clean now too). Also though, I replaced all gaskets only accessible with the engine out (changed plugs and adjusted the valves too, why not?) and pressure tested the oil cooler as well.

And yes, as an earlier person said, I too replaced the oil pressure switch before dropping the engine with my fingers crossed it stopped the leak, but to no avail, there was no change. A good idea may be to try this first too with the hope it works?

B.T.W. Al at Partsheaven here in Nor Cal was a tremendous help giving me tips on what to do and providing all required parts.

Good luck!

Pic from Pelican: