pat944

I'm about to buy a 944 1200km's from my home. As near as we can tell the timing and balance shaft belts were replaced 21,000kms and approx 16 years ago.

Would anyone here suggest driving this car the 1200km's home before replacing the belts.

Thanks

Hans

So: that makes it 1312 km/ year...??
If correct: NO
- Any belt older than 4 years is very suspect,
- Any belt older than 6 years is dangerous
- Any belt older than 10 years is a plausible cause for bankruptcy
At the age of 18, these belts will sure cause you a very long walk home.
TakeCare

seb928s

Do you like towing and walking home? If so you can drive it oh yea I forgot to say a deep wallet.

Dave

eather you load it onto a truck at the place of purchase or drive it away, it will arrive at your house on a truck. The question is, will it need a new head when it gets there?

Songzzz

Replace the belts, you will enjoy the ride home with a peace of mind. Btw, welcome!

hacker-pschorr

Drive the damn thing home. Your not a true 944 owner until you've replaced a few valve's, cracked a head, or destroyed a couple of cams.






/I'm hoping you all sense my sarcasm and don't flame me.

Travis - sflraver

Just bring 2 belts and a set of rollers. Change them in the lot before you take it home if it worries you. Its not all that hard.

SoCal Driver

A closely tensioned NEW timing belt is much better than an old properly tensioned timing belt.

What year is it?

pat944

Thanks for the info guys, it's pretty much what I thought but I needed something to convince my old man a little more.

I'm somewhat tempted but I don't think there's much chance of changing the belts and rollers down there, I'd need the parts before this weekend, and it's all downhill from there, a mechanic friend of mine compared changing the 944 timing belt, which I have been told is quite quick and easy, to changing one in a mitsubishi v6, which isn't.

At the moment if we are decided on buying this car we are looking at having it shipped back home, a person we know shipped a $30,000 car with these people and it cost him $250, he was quite happy with the job they did. I know I'd much prefer to ship it home and have the car near me and all the time i need to work on it or have anything done to it.

The car is a 1985 944 with the old style dash, it has 97,000km's on it, and has had all of it's factory handbook services except for the 12,000 mile one. It's 500 mile service was in the 4 month of 1985. It's last service was in 1990, at about 81,000 km's.

From what we've been told by the person selling it we feel it's in very good condition, it's had regular services, kilometer-wise regular anyway, the owner before it's current one apparently had the car garaged for most of the time that's why it's been so long since it's last service.

We (my dad and i) have spoken to our mechanic, he said he would be concerned possibly by oil sludge in the engine because of the amount of time it has sat for, my old man thinks running the engine with deisel oil in it for 20,000 km's will clean it out, i'd rather run something like mobil 1 in it to clean it out before going to something like diesel oil, at least i know the mobil 1 is still going to protect the engine, and i think the general belief is it does a quite good job of cleaning oil gunk and sludge out, at least the stuff on leaky seals anyway.

At the moment either my dad, or both him and i, are going to see the car on sunday, if we decide to buy it we will get it home by not driving, otherwise we decide not to buy it and keep looking.

I'll let you guys on the list know what happens, it'd be great to finally own a car that i've dreamed about for years.

pat944

If we do something like replacing the belts and rollers before driving it back where can i find a method to do it, and about how long does it take, for someone who's never worked on a 944 before, my dad has had a fair bit of mechanical and engine experience though.

Porsche-O-Phile

I wouldn't even start that engine.

pat944

The current owner has put 16,000km's on the car in it's current condition.

Everything else about the car sounds quite good, i'm worried it's gunna grenade before we look at it, or before we get it on the truck if we decide to buy it, any suggestion on how to get it on a car carrier without running the engine??

pat944

Keeping anyone who's interested on how we're possibly gunna get this car home in it's current condition. The car carrier idea dies when the price was near $1000.

It looks like only my dad is going to look at it this weekend on sunday, if we decide to buy it he will stay in melbourne overnight and take the car to a porsche specialist, the same place who did the last service on the car, 10 years ago according to the handbook, and the belts will be replaced, he'll also have a look over it while he has it apart for anything else that may be suspect, he's quoted $600 to replace just the belts.

So now it's only gotta run long enough to get to the shop if i buy it, it's been going 16,000km's on 16 year old belts, so i think it should run just a little bit more, i don't wanna learn how to do a head job on a 944, not quite yet anyway.

billybones

Take a 10mm socket on a 1/4" wrench with an extension with you. pull the belt covers off. and actually look at the belts. IT will take only a few minutes.. I would do this before you actually start it.

Mighty Shilling

for the love of god man, at least get a tow to the Porsche specialist. even for driving it a short distance, it's TOO risky. on a belt that old, a little bit may make it snap, and it could happen in even a mile. I agree with Porsch-o-phile. don't start it. Otherwise, it'll cost ya.

think of it like this, my rebuild, which did not include any bent valves cost me in the range of $3,000-$4,000 USD, and I did the work myself (until we tried to start it and the flywheel reference sensor was touching the flywheel, ripped off, and jammed itself into the bellhousing locking the engine in place)