Stress and Loathing in Illinois

As if anyone really cares - but I didn't make the Octoberfest DE at Blackhawk. What a bummer.

Ten days or so before the event I had the axle bolted back on and had driven the car around town and actually took a longer trip on the highway. Things SEEMED to be doing OK - it had been a long time since I'd driven the blue car and it felt a bit odd, but I had become used to driving the C4 with a much stiffer clutch, and tighter shifting.

So it wasn't unexpected that the car would feel a bit foreign to me.

The three things that seemed out of whack:

• The engine was running REAL rough. Sputtering, sluggish and whatnot. I wasn't too surprised about that since the carbs can be fickle beasts and they don't like to sit for too long without being "exercised". Add to that the fact that we have had some people over working on the house and cutting lumber a few feet from the car, so I'm certain they are dirty and possibly have some clogged ports.
• The clutch felt SO light. Push in the pedal and WHAM, right to the floor. Again, getting used to Amy's C4 with the hydraulic clutch had given me the quads of an Olympic skater, so this too wasn't too surprising.
• The gear box sounded really whiney. I wrote this off again as a difference between the two cars and drove it anyway. Maybe THAT wasn't such a good idea...

I called up Chris during the week and asked that he come over to help me adjust the carbs. His race car has them, so he's the resident expert. A couple of days later we're in the garage with a Guiness in hand. I climb in and start up the car - it runs a bit (rough) and 15 seconds later the whole car shudders. I'm sitting in the drivers seat and figure that Chris is being a wise-ass and is kicking the rear bumper, so I turn around to make some manly comment. And he's sitting on the steps 20 feet away. With a questionable look on his face.

"Turn it off" he states.

I power it down.

"What the hell was that?" I state, not expecting an answer.

"It's in neutral, right?" Chris asks.

"Yes," I reply.

"Put in the clutch and start it again - then let the clutch out slowly".

So I mash down the clutch - check the shifter to make sure it REALLY is in neutral - and start up the car. After it idles for a few seconds I slowly let out the clutch - and it stalls.

"WHAT THE HELL?" I state again.

"Something is really wrong here," states Chris.

Well - duh.

Anyway, Chris does some things - I do some things, and we come to the conclusion that somehow the car is in gear even though the shifter is loose and supposedly in neutral. In fact, it may be in two gears at once.

Not good. Not good at all.

Well - we call it a night and I do some surfing. I check some obvious things to make sure it's not something simple, then a couple of nights later a fellow bastard stops by (thanks Jay!) to offer some support and drink some beer. I had made the decision to pull off an access plate under the gear housing to check for anything suspicious - and also drain the three quarts of trans fluid to check for any foreign bits.

Chock, jack and prop the car - crawl under there and take off the four nuts. Drain pan underneath, and carefully pry off the cover. The 1/2 cup of fluid drains and I get my first view of the inside of a 915 transmission. And my first whiff of trans fluid - man, it is RANK.

And yes, you read that right. One half of a cup of fluid. At the most.

That CAN'T be good.

I look a Jay - re-iterate that the amount of trans fluid that is supposed to be in there is about three quarts, and sigh a BIG sigh.

"Well - that settles that. There is NO way I'm going to risk this thing on the track in a week."

We pack it up for the night - and I go inside to pout.

I'm a good pouter. Just ask my wife.

So the following weekend while the boys are all having fun at the track, I begin to drop the engine.

For those who don't know - to remove the engine (and the connected transmission) from a 911, you DROP it out from under the (raised) car. Typically onto a floor jack (balanced carefully) and then place it either on a furniture dolly or engine stand. It's quite nerve wracking.

Needless to say, I've never removed a 911 engine - or any other engine for that matter, other than ones from the occasional radio-controlled toy car.

This is a right of passage in the bastard community - you're not a REAL man until you've dropped an engine from one of these cars; so I figure now is as good a time as any to get busy and become a man.

An "experienced" engine dropper can remove a 911 motor in an hour.

It took me a week.

Well, not a week straight - a week of working 30 minutes here, an hour there - and taking copious notes to make sure I can get the damn thing back in the car.

(It doesn't seem nearly as important in the "coming of age ritual" to actually get the engine back in the car, so technically all I need to do to prove my manhood is to drop the engine and have the car towed to the junk yard. It does seem rather silly though, to rush through an engine drop and then spend hours trying to figure out if I had everything re-connected properly when it was time to put it back. Remember, I _am_ an engineer; I should at least act like one.)

So the weekend following the Octoberfest, I finally get the engine out. The procedure actually went really well, and I was somewhat proud of myself for:

1. Not having to frantically call in any help
2. Not having the engine fall off the stand/jack/wood blocks
3. Not having to sacrifice a portion of my person to save the engine from any of the fates mentioned in #2

This is what my engine looks like sans car:


Or, I guess you could say, this is how the car looks sans engine - I've always said the glass is half empty.


Now the real fun is to begin; removing the differential and transmission - borrowing an engine hoist and bolting to a newly acquired engine stand, taking about the gears and discovering things like this in the gear case:



Even I knew that was a bad sign...