911 nightmare!

[jith]

As this business grows I am going to post up interesting projects, particularly if they are problems associated with a particular model or engine.

This however, was a new one on me and was yet another example of how an MOT can be a real hit or miss affair, especially on a classic.

One of my customers came into the workshop late morning last Saturday to say his 911 had "broken down" in the middle of the MOT test, and the garage reported huge clouds of smoke and engine failure. It is a very tidy Carrera 4 3.6, and his pride and joy. He was utterly dismayed. I told him not to let anyone touch it and get the RAC to bring it in. It duly arrived on the Monday morning and I put the rear up on axle stands.

The underside was wet with oil everywhere and the engine was hydraulically locked; would only turn a few degrees in either direction. This model has twin plug heads: six of the plugs being accessible from the engine bay, the other six from underneath. The only two you can remove without removing anything else are the two right hand rears. They came out soaked in engine oil and when I stood back there was a pool forming on the floor running out of the plug apertures!! On removing the others this was the result :-



Every cylinder filled with engine oil. But it doesn't end there because you have to find out how the hell the oil got there. This is what I found in the inlet manifold and plenum chambers:-









Then there was the exhaust. This is the main silencer stood on its end to drain :-



I then had to strip, degrease and clean virtually every part of the intake and exhaust systems, renew the plugs and filters and change the oil.

This is what happened.

For those of you not familiar with the 911, it is an air coooled engine that is dry sumped and has a catch tank in the offside rear wing. To properly check the engine oil level you have to have the car fully warmed up until the oil thermostat opens allowing the system to fully circulate and then dip the tank with the engine idling. If you check it with the engine switched off and cool, you will get no reading on the stick. You may be starting to get the picture.

Before carrying out an emissions check the tester is obliged to check the oil level. Guess who thought the engine was empty?

The close circuit breathing system on this engine has two large breather hoses going into the top of the tank. They overfilled it so much that the vacuum created in the hoses cause the engine to suck oil from the tank and pump it straight into the intake system and into the cylinders. The engine smoked like hell and then eventually hydraulically locked.

After the clean up operation I got it fired up and took it for a jaunt, still smoking quite badly for the first few miles, but finally clearing. A couple of cans of injector cleaner and some oil additive and she was purring like a kitten.

Incredibly, no engine damage, but my god what a time consuming job.

One relieved customer and a nice engine bay once again.



The MOT station are of course fully liable for any damage carried out during the test, so we will stand by and watch the sparks fly when he visits them with our techinical report. By the way they actually passed it with the engine seized and no emission test results!!

The moral of this story is always stand over them when they do your MOT!!

[jith]

Danny S said:

Oh my, is it a reputable garage?

I presume instructions on how to check the oil level are clearly shown somewhere? Or did the owner presume the tester knew ?

I'm not familiar with the garage Danny, but I wouldn't reveal who they are anyway on an open forum, it's not my style.

If your knowledge of motor vehicles is so sparse that you don't know how to check the oil level on a particular vehicle, you either find out, or you simply don't touch them.

[jith]

We have a wee finale to this. The tester has agreed to pay for a substantial portion of the bill; I think he is being philisophical and putting it down to experience.

I have to say that, all things considered, the owner is being very calm and reasonable.

Still, all's well that ends well.

J

[jith]

Stablelad said:

James,

You will be getting my Business from now on (964)

Ali

Many thanks Ali, I'll look forward to that.

It's quite surprising the amount of response to this post; I'll get around to answering those of you who e mailled me as soon as I get a spare moment that is!!

Someone mentioned different tyres on the rear, and I spotted this when the car came in. Believe it or not, the size, make and model and the speed rating are identical on both those tyres; they are Kumhos. But the tread pattern is different. I can only assume they changed the design for some reason, and they were purchased at different intervals. I gave the car a good seeing to on the second road test to make sure it was ok, and it certainly handled beautifully.

This customer is a real gent actually, and the reason he did not push the issue of full payment is because the act of stripping all the ancillaries and the exhaust and refitting everything, including setting up, has resulted in the car running like a scalded cat, so he's quite chuffed about this and had no objection to part payment. He also had no desire to see the tester lose his job and MOT licence. I can guarantee he won't make the same mistake twice!!

J.

Edited by jith on Wednesday 9th June 10:09

[jith]

Stu - B said:

Thanks for the post.

Have passed link on to two 911 driving mates....one of which came back straight away to say a similar scenario happened to him a few years ago. However, he paid a £3K bill to sort his car out as the garage insisted it was a pre-existing ailment even though the car went in for the MOT with no leaks.

I don't know if the MOT regulations applied at the time you speak of Stu, but now VOSA is absolutely strict about what goes on during and after the test.

If you are carrying out an MOT nowadays and the car suffers engine failure during the test whilst in your custody, the bill is down to you; absolutely no question. It does not matter whther the fault was there before the test or not. As a tester you should have the ability to determine if the engine is about to suffer terminal failure and refuse to carry out the test; if you go ahead and chance it, you are responsible for the damage.

Now this might seem unfair but that's the way it is.

[jith]

larrylamb11 said:

This reminds me of a similar incident when I worked at an auctioneers. They held a big sale in London with some lovely cars going across the block, one of which was a red '70s 911S (from memory). It had enjoyed a substantially expensive refurb and was 'on the button' - a lovely example. It was bid up well and the hammer fell to a relatively wealthy gentleman with a fairly abrupt manner, nothing wrong with that. The new owner was based up North somewhere, can't recall where, so he sent his 'driver' down to collect the car and drive it back up North. We checked the car over as we normally would in preparation for a lengthy journey, even though it wasn't our remit - we always tried to warn new owners of any potential concerns before they set off into the sunset in their new purchase, but this Porka was a beaut.
Anyway, about an hour after this driver had left in the car, we got an irate call from the wealthy owner complaining that the 911 had expired and was stuck at Heston services with gravy everywhere. Again, not really the auction house's problem but in the interests of good relations we motored out there with recovery and rescued the poor beast. Sure enough, it was horribly dead....
It was taken back to HQ while the wrangling began as the buyer then tried to 'back' the car on the auction house and demand his money back... so we started investigating the failure...
The oil looked like mayonnaise and there was 'fluid' everywhere with not a hope of the engine running... after some time the only conclusion was that the engine had filled with water! Yes, water!
We could not understand how at all and questioning the 'driver' yielded no results as apparently it just stopped when he pulled up. It was only later after the legal threats began to be bandied about that the 'driver' admitted that he had stopped at the services for petrol and thought he ought to check the engine.... he opened the engine bay and saw the oil cap, assumed it was the radiator cap (yes! seriously!) and opened it to find it had no 'water' in it.... so he filled it up - yes he filled the dry sump oil tank with water....to the brim.... and then tried to drive it...
Needless to say, this revelation found the 'driver' joining the dole cue, the wealthy buyer eating humble pie and the 911 in the workshop! It still amazes me now when I think back to it

This reminds me of my first experience of this kind of thing as a young apprentice draughtsman. I had managed to buy my first Jaguar, a '56 2.4 MK1, and my boss, the chief draughtsman, not wishing to be outdone by his apprentice, bought a brand new Cortina 1600E.

Now I have to confess that in this era the 1600E was a very nice motor and went very well indeed. After about only a week of ownership his wife was permitted to take her friends out to lunch but was warned within an inch of her life to check the oil, water tyres, etc.

Wife duly drives into the petrol station, fills up tank, lifts bonnet, removes oil cap, to her horror finds no liquid and fills it to the brim......with water!

She actually managed to drive about two miles before the engine expired. I think they tried all the usual things after that, advice from well meaning friends, even Marriage Guidance, but things were never the same between them!