Note: The following Story is Copyright 1997, by Harry Pellow, All Rights Reserved. Now available on Floppy Disk from HCP Research, 20655 Sunrise Drive, Cupertino, CA 95014. Phone: (408) 727-1864. Fax: (408) 727-0951. E-mail: maestro@well.com |ml1. |mr60. |ar0 | |cSEINFELD | | The Maestro has always wondered- just who builds the cars for the Hollywood Stars? Well, actually, he's really wondered about who builds the ENGINES for the Star's Cars? Specifically, who builds the Porsche Engines for the Star's 356's.| | Rumor has it that several Stars have 356 cars. Like David Letterman, Paul Newman and Jerry Seinfeld. And the Maestro has always wondered what their engines are like. Are they nice? Do they run well? Are they Gold Plated? Are they built by a Vegetarian Tofu Guru? | | Well, the Maestro knew of one Star whose car had one of the Maestro's engines- Mrs. Roy Oberson. But she sold it to Whoopie Goldberg. And Whoopie sold it to a non-star. So, no Star no mo' for the Maestro.| | Until one day when the phone rang.| | "Maestro here, said the Maestro.| | "Uh, yes," Maestro. "I have a friend who has a '58 Speedster with an engine problem," said the VOP.| | "Weeeell, you certainly came to the right place," said the Maestro. Porsche Engine Problems are our Business. How can I help you?| | "Well, my friend just had a loco Beverly Hills Porsche Place fix the leaks on his engine, and a week later the fan belt broke and it overheated."| | "Uh oh," said the Maestro. "Did it do a lot of damage to the engine?"| | "Well, I don't know," said the VOP, a MFP. (VOP=Voice On Phone; MFP=Member of Female Persuasion). "But it seems like there are funny noises inside that weren't there before."| | "That's not a good sign," said the Maestro. "Tell me, did BOTH the Red and Green lights come on the dash? Or just the Red one?"| | "I don't know. Would it be OK if I had the owner, Jerry Seinfeld, get back to you?"| | The Maestro, thinking, now where have I heard that name before? Does he have a TV show or something? | | "Sure," said the Maestro. "Hell, I'll talk to anybody."| | One hour later the phone rang. "Hi, said the VOP. This is Jerry Seinfeld".| | "THE Jerry Seinfeld?," questioned the Maestro.| | "Yes," said THE Jerry Seinfeld, modestly.| | "I heard about your engine problem," said the Maestro getting right to the point. "The fan belt broke right after an overhaul. Tell me, did only the Red light come on the dash, or did BOTH the Red and Green lights come on?"| | "Uh, BOTH the red and Green light came on," said Jerry.| | "Oh," said the Maestro. "Too, bad. That means the engine got hot enough to lower the oil pressure enough to light the oil pressure Idiot light. That's NOT a good sign."| | "Yeah," said Jerry. "And that's why I want to send the car up to you to have it done right."| | "Sure," said the Maestro puffing up his chest over the phone. "But wouldn't it be easier to just ship the engine rather than the whole car?"| | "Well, after all I've been through, I want to make sure it's right- and who to blame. That's why I want you to do it all."| | Well now, how could the Maestro decline after THAT. He likes Challenges. And after all, here was a chance to see what a Star's car is REALLY like. Up front and personal like.| | Sho' 'nough, Jerry's '58 Speedster arrived by enclosed car carrier, courtesy of a district rep from PCNA (It sure helps to have the right contacts!), Friday night at 9pm. (Well, it was either 9 at night or 7 in the morning. The Maestro, not being a morning kind of guy, preferred 9 at night though it conflicted with the X-files. Thank God for Video Tape.| | Once the Speedster was safely off the trailer and into the Shop, and the Deck Lid popped, the Maestro got to see the Cause of the Problem- an inner pulley half with the center section COMPLETELY MACHINED out! Another creation of Murphy's Machine Shop! And one the Maestro's seen more than once- and usually caused by a too-loose generator nut or too few pulley shims. (You need a total of at least TEN pulley shims. Those shims between the pulley halves + those shims between the pulley nut and the outer pulley must sum to 10 or more. | | Too few shims means that the pulley nut "bottoms" against the generator shaft before fully tightening the pulley halves. A too-loose pulley half will have its insides eaten up by the chord-cut-outs of the pulley hub. Which leads to the loss of the inner pulley half, a loss of the fan belt and (possibly) a loss of ENGINE from very rapid overheating!| | And, to make matters Worse- once the Inner Pulley half fails, there is NO WAY to "hold" the generator to take off the still-tight pulley nut! The only way to get the damn nut off is with an Impact Wrench, which you're unlikely to have out in the Boonies.| | Too few shims is the usual cause of this problem, but this time there were 9 intact shims, and the remains of the 10th. So what happened? (The Maestro later learned, after he had time to examine things more thoroughly, that the shims were the larger diameter ones sometimes used on the fan side of the generator. These larger shims sometimes hit the fan belt, and don't let the belt tighten properly. But it wasn't that! In fact it wasn't until about a year later when the Maestro was about t o use Jerry Seinfeld's old Bosch Rebuilt generator on another engine (he had replaced Jerry's generator with another new Rebuilt Bosch on the odd chance that something about it cause the pully failure. Turned out that was the Right Thing to do!) Just as the Maestro was putting the Pulley nut onto Jerryt's Generator he noticed sometrhing fuinny- the nut was hard to start on the threads of the generator shaft. Real hard to start. The Maestro tried another pulleyt nut. Same thing. Hummh. So he got out his Special Pulley Nut the one he uses as a "tap" to clean the threads of the generator. Low and behold, when he threaded his "tap" onto the generator shaft- it went on a few turns and STOPPED- like it was tight. Only it wasn't tight. Not tight enough to compress the pulley halves much. And THAT, bets the Maestro is what REALLY happened! The Boys from Beverly thought the pulley nut was tight- it sure FELT klike it was tight. But it wasn't! It was misthreaded! And it took the Maestro quite some time of running his tap back and forth on the shaft before the threads cleaned up enough to allow a "regular" pulley nut to thread on fully.)| | Anyhow, to see what was really going on inside this Traumatized Hollywood Star, the Maestro hooked up his 0-80 Psi oil pressure gauge to the inlet oil line going to the oil filter, so he could measure oil pressure directly. Then to the shock of all concerned, he fired up the fan-beltless engine up for a short diagnosis. (He wanted the guy from PCNA there as a witness.)| | "Twenty psi" said the Maestro's gauge. The Maestro revved the engine up. "Still 20 psi" repeated the gauge. The Maestro revved the engine up higher. "I'm STILL at 20 psi and not budging," repeated the gauge in a huff.| | The huff was masked somewhat by the not-so-good engine sounds coming from deep within.| | "Well," said the Maestro- 20 psi isn't terribly good. And it sounds funny."| | "Yeah, I agree," said the guy from PCNA, more used to 911 Racing Turbos that have on the order of 100psi oil pressure, and not such funny sounds.| | The Maestro took this opportunity to eyeball this Hollywood Special. It actually looked pretty good- decently painted sheet metal. Tangerine oil filter can with black top. Nice decals. Then he eyeballed a little further. Hummmh, didn't bother to plate the carb linkage pieces. Hummh. One powder painted strap for the oil filter can, but a plated strap for the generator. Looks a lot better ifin you either plate or paint BOTH of the bands. Not paint one and plate the other. | | Hummh, 6mm cheese head screws on the Vertical surfaces, rather than the 6mm BOLTS that should be there. And no special 6mm bolt with the cheese head screw holding the side vertical shrouds to the fan shroud., No brush cover on the rebuilt generator. Guess Hollywood doesn't detail their engines as well as the Maestro thought.| | It being about 10PM on a Friday night, the guy from PCNA, having completed his delivery task wanted to get on with his life, and the Maestro wanted to finish watching the "X" files. So, the car was secured for the evening and the boys went their separate ways. | | As the Maestro was locking up the shop, the PCNA guy's car phone rang- it was Jerry just a-makin' sure that the car arrived safely. And the Maestro overheard: "Yeah, it arrived safely, no dents scratches or problems. But we put an oil pressure gauge on it, and it has pretty low oil pressure and funny noises inside. Looks like it'll have to be taken apart."| | On Saturday, the Maestro couldn't wait for his son's Little League game to be over so he could hightail it over to the shop to do a little more diagnosis on the Southland Speedster. Finally, when Andrew's team finally won 20-5, the Maestro zipped over to the shop.| | This time, the Maestro got out and hooked up his Nuclear Oil Pressure gauge ("liberated" from an obsolete test rig at a Generous Electric Company), with a 6" dial and each 1 pound increments being an eighth of an inch. He wanted to be accurate.| | He fired up the Speedster and returned to the Big Gauge. Nineteen PSI it read, there being no doubt. As the engine warmed up, the Maestro attached his Timing Light just to see what the Beverly Hills Boys thought was proper timing. He revved the engine. Thirty Degrees advanced. Not too bad. Then he let it idle. After a few seconds the idle dropped way down and the Timing went RETARDED! To AFTER top dead center. Guess they like being retarded in LA. | | The Maestro loosened the distributor clamp and advanced the timing a few degrees. Eventually he got 35 degrees high speed advance and 3 degrees Before Top Dead Center at low idle. | | But when he did this he found why the LA timing was as it was. The Original Distributor, like many Original Distributors, was "sticky" coming down from high RPM. It would "stick" at about 15 degrees advance, and only come down verrrrryyyyy slowly. Leaving the RPM stuck at 1500-1800. Then, all of a sudden it would drop back to 0 degrees, and the engine would fall to a low idle.| | The Beverly Hills solution was to retard the timing enough to prevent this, though at a cost of a very low idle and hard-to-adjust, insensitive carbs.| | With the more proper timing, the Maestro was able to adjust the Zeniths to where they ran halfway decently. And most of the funny noises sounded better. Would it be this easy? Would all this Southland Special need is a laying on of the Maestro's hands?| | The Maestro glanced again at the oil pressure gauge. Sixteen psi. That's not good. 356 A's with the small oil pump don't set oil pressure records, but the small oil pump CAN produce 45 psi at speed (on good days), IF the clearances are proper. If the clearances AREN'T proper, 16 psi is about par for the course.| | This one sure didn't radiate the confidence of proper clearances!| | The Maestro took down the Engine ID Number and Case Casting Number to put into his Engine Data Base (now with nearly 5,000 Engine Numbers in it, and far better than the Neilsons), and queried The Computer about it.| | That's when he found Something Interesting! The Engine ID Number on the Third Piece corresponded to a July/August 1957 Engine- one of the rarer ones just after the end of the 5-bolt Seal Ring engines- the ones that had the Thermostatic Oil Control Valve with the rare, External Oil Booster Line. | | But the Case Casting Number on the Main Case Halves corresponded to as May/June 1958 Engine- almost a year LATER, and one that used the Cast-in-place Oil Booster Line- NOT the External Oil Booster Line.| | The Maestro rushed back to the engine- and sho' 'nough there was NO Steenkin' External Oil Booster Line on the outside of the case, going from the Junction Block, down past the fuel pump to a (special) Oil Bypass Valve on the lower left hand side of the third Piece of the Case!| | So, we had a Third piece that REQUIRES the External Oil Line, and a set of Mason Case halves that doesn't use the External Oil Booster Line. It was not just a mismatch- it was a BAAAADDD kind of mismatch!| | And maybe part of the reason for the low oil pressure!| | It was certainly, more proof of an LA overhaul! Whoever put this poor engine together didn't realize the dangers of mismatching case halves from sensitive eras. | | Sometimes you get the Bear, sometimes the Bear gets you! This was one of the "Happy Bear", latter times.| | Then the Maestro looked up the Speedster's ID number in his data base to see which of the two engines making up this engine was the Original one. The Data Base had another Surprise.| | NEITHER ONE was the Original Engine! The Main Case Halves were a 1959. The Third Piece was a 1957. The Speedster was a 1958. | | Although the engines AVERAGED out to a 1958, it's not Kosher to do it that way!| | The Maestro considered the options. He could find an engine close to the Original one. But that still meant an "A" engine with small oil pump and a rather weak, unexciting Case.| | Or he could build Jerry Seinfeld a REAL engine- with a late-model Case with all the goodies, a Large Oil Pump, late rods, crank, heads, etc. One that would motivate him around LA for a looooong time at Freeway Speeds. One that would Mucho Better than the pile of mismatched poo-poo now residing in the engine compartment.| | The Maestro called Jerry. Being Saturday, Jerry wasn't in. The Maestro left a message.| | Sunday afternoon, Jerry called the Maestro back. The Maestro explained what he had found out about the engine- the mismatched case halves. The lack of the required external oil booster line. The desirability of having a later-model engine.| | Jerry said: "Well, yeah, but I kinda wanted to have the Original engine in the Speedster."| | "Yeah," said the Maestro. "I understand. But your engine ISN'T Original, The Main Case Halves are a 1959. The Third piece is a '57. It averages out to a '58, but that doesn't count."| | Eventually, Jerry saw the wisdom of the Maestro's suggestion and agreed to a rebuilt MaestroWorldMaster Industrial Engine. One of the last three Industrials from the Swiss Military that the Maestro's been saving for just such a special occasion. Made in the 1970's (and one of the LAST 356 Series engines ever made), these guys have PERFECT Cases, "C" crank, 912 rods, C or 912 heads, C/912 Valve train, etc. Sure you gotta replaced the Cast Iron Cam Followers, the low-compression big bore kit and the funky flywheels with the starter ring gear teeth in a different plane, but having only 100 hours on 'em, the major internal parts are PRIMO! They make the best street or racing engines money can buy. And the Maestro sure wanted to make an engine that would make a Favorable Impression on Jerry.| | And so the die was cast. The Maestro uncorked one of the last Industrials, tore it apart, found what he expected to find- Perfection- and began the rebuild.| | He also pulled the old mismatched engine out of the Speedster- to find that though the visible sheet metal pieces were nicely painted, those pieces NOT visible were not powder painted. Things like the Heater Boxes, the "J" Tubes or front plate. And that the Front Plate didn't have the engine rubber in it not the rubber grommet to support the fuel line where it went through the Front Plate. (This is fairly important- without the rubber grommet to support the fuel line, the metal fuel line can rub on the hole in the front plate and eventually- leak gasoline right on/near the hot "J" tube. Which could lead to a rather nasty and expensive engine fire.| | Even worse- the Maestro discovered while under the car that the rear brake lines had been replaced by braided steel lines. That's no big deal. But where the brake lines when go through the supports on the axle tubes there were no tie-down clips. So the brake lines were LOOSE and dangling, free to vibrate/rub on the outside of the support holes. If they rubbed a hole in either brake line, you lost ALL the brakes! (NO independent front/rear systems in a '58 Speedster). That might give the driver an even bigger surprise! | | SURPRISE! No Brakes!| | That's the kind of surprise one can do without!| | 'Course Stopping in LA just isn't that important.| | Quite quickly, the Industrial Engine came together. Got fired up. 60psi Oil pressure, just a tad better than 16! With a 200mm clutch conversion for a 356A to handle the extra power, the Maestro expected it wouldn't be long before Jerry came back for a transmission job. | | (Though the Beverly Hills Shop had pulled the transmission, and taken it apart, they just resealed it. They didn't replace the synchros or bearings! So here we have a used, worn 644 Trans coupled to a newly-rebuilt Engine. Give the trans a year at best.)| | And you, gentle reader, can maybe see someday ifin Jerry likes his new engine. Or not. For as part of the Deal, the Maestro lowered the price a bit, PROVIDED that Jerry display the Maestro's Books on his TV show's coffee table. Or show a scene from the Maestro's Engine Assembly Video Tape on the TV on his Show. Or make a joke about the Maestro. Or some combination of the above.| | The Maestro figures that if 10 million people watch Seinfeld's Show, and about 1 in a Thousand people have a Porsche, then there will be about 10,000 Porsche-owning viewers. And if one in 10 Porsche Owners own 356's, that's 1000 356-owning Viewers. If only 500 buy the Maestro's. Well, he won't get rich, but he might break even.| | So, gentle reader ifin you happen to see Jerry's show and happen to see the Maestro's Books prominently displayed, (or joked about), please let the Maestro know.| | And:| | KEEP THE 356 FAITH! | | P.S. After a few weeks of eyeballing Jerry Seinfeld's still-assembled engine, the Maestro could stand it no longer and began to disassemble it, between the paying jobs. He expected it to have the usual LA Stuff inside, and he wasn't disappointed.| | The Top End was Typical- 356A Normal Rockers with the pushrods with the wood inside. 356A Heads with the Brass Intake Seats still there. (The Maestro always replaces the brass seats with seats of steel.)| | There was the Typical Big Bore Kit to make the Normal produce the power a Star expects, but this Big Bore was rather interesting- there were THREE DIFFERENT Oil Control rings! Two pistons had the usual rings that new Big Bore Kits usually have. But the other two had replacement Oil Control Rings. And the rings weren't the same style replacement rings- they were DIFFERENT! Like maybe the Shop couldn't find replacement rings and used whatever could be found lying around the place! Very Strange, Penny Lane.| | Oh- and one piston had what should have been the middle Compression Ring being used as a Top Compression Ring. Guess they couldn't read the ring-installation instructions that are printed in English, French, German, Italian and Arabic. The mechanic must not have been One Of The Above.| | The rods were 356A of course, which the Maestro doesn't use with a Big Bore Kit 'cause they're too weak. (He has one 356A rod in his Broken Parts Collection, still attached to a Big Bore Kit piston, that's been bent into a "U" shape by the power/torque produced by the Big Bore Kit. That's why he doesn't use 356A rods with the Big Bore Kit!)| | Also as expected the crank was a 356A- ground to 2nd Undersize on both the Rods and Mains. Not terribly exciting. Nor reliable.| | All in all, Seinfeld's Speedster Engine was par for the Typical Turkey Overhaul Course. Nothing more. Nothing less.| | Before this experience, the Maestro though the engine builders to the Stars were just like the Maestro- and put their Togas on one arm at a time. But now he knows better- the LA overhaulers must put their surfin' trunks on first. Then the tanning lotion. | | Whatever happened to the Engine Builders who built GOOD engines- like the ones James Dean drove? Did they retire? Or become movie directors? But hey, wherever they be Today, hope they can say, that they: | |cKEEP THE 356 FAITH!