Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hi all,
Just to recap, while looking for the source of my engine rattle I found out it was the bearings, so following previous advice on here I decided to find another engine. At first I thought I'd find one cheaply just to keep me on the road while I fix mine. But I thought I'd see if I could get a better engine and offset the cost by breaking mine for parts.
Of course this hasn't gone quite to plan. After paying £350 for an engine plus £50 delivery for an engine which apparently has 105k miles on but was re-built 25k miles ago, I was perhaps hoping for to much. The front belts and rollers were caked in oil, there was so much oil it was impossible to tell where it had originated from. So I've bought and fitted a front seal kit apart from the camshaft where I managed to round off the internal cheesehead bolt. Sods law dictates this is probably where the leak is coming form but I won't find out until I start it.
More annoyingly though I've found that one of the spark plugs has been cross-threaded and this is where I could use some advice.
Do I
a) leave it alone, it will still work even though its not all the way in.
b) Try and re-tap from above by
i) Doing it dry and hoover out the bits afterwards.
ii) Stuffing a rag in the plug hole with grease on top to catch the bits.
c) Take the head off an do it properly although this would add considerable expense on an engine that I don't know is any good yet.

Hi

If you can get it running and want a trip to Bournemouth, I have a Snap-On rethreading tool for spark plug holes....

It will fix most but not if its extremely bad....but you are welcome to come down and I will try it for you....free of course....

If not , there are firms that will tap and helicoil with the head still on....

All the best Brett

I would take the head off as it would be very easy with the engine out and you could get a look at the state of the bores whilst its off and it would save the heartache of going to the trouble of fitting a shot engine.
The seal kit would come to £100ish and it would give you piece of mind.
A bonnet vent created by a spark plug wouldn't be much fun.

Thanks guys, I didn't know there were people who could tap and helicoil with the head still on. As it is I've got the engine ready to go in now, the spark plug with the crossed thread goes all but the last 2mm so I'm pretty sure its going nowhere (famous last words). I would have loved to have taken the head off and do it properly but can't justify the cost on an unknown engine. If it is a good one then i'll get someone to tap and helicoil, if its a bad one then i'll live with it and spend the money re-building my existing engine. Thanks again