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If you are a neatness freak, I took my 87 924S engine pan and had it sand blasted. Then had the road side sprayed with Rino Liner at a truck place. If you bang on the original it is very noisy but with the Rino Liner it quits down the noise and looks better. I did not get the engine side spayed. It could help with road noise.
I'd ask myself "why would someone have taken that cam tower off?"
My guess would be to start a head gasket repair...
I'd pull the head just to find out, but that's just me.
Good luck!
If you are a neatness freak, I took my 87 924S engine pan and had it sand blasted. Then had the road side sprayed with Rino Liner at a truck place. If you bang on the original it is very noisy but with the Rino Liner it quits down the noise and looks better. I did not get the engine side spayed. It could help with road noise.
That's definitely something I'll consider when I get to the final touches stage. I take it the engine pan thing came from the factory? Seems most other 924s that I've seen on youtube don't have them.
Originally Posted by Nowanker
I'd ask myself "why would someone have taken that cam tower off?"
My guess would be to start a head gasket repair...
I'd pull the head just to find out, but that's just me.
Good luck!
I've DEFINITELY been asking myself that, but it's a lot weirder because they took the whole cam tower apart and lost/sold/trashed the housing. If they were going to remove the head or do anything else on the engine, why disassemble it? The cam seems fine. Lifters don't seem obviously terrible...
As it stands now, you could get an inexpensive hose adapter & apply air pressure to the spark plug holes. If valves are bent, you'll easily hear air escaping from the intake or exhaust ports.
here's something to inspire you . It's an hour and half of an Italian 924 restoration modification.
A fantastic project done by a very knowledgeable chap , - designing his own crankshaft amongst other amazing stuff resulting in 429 hp!!!
Definitely worth a watch and and in my opinion one of best restoration films for 924/944s🙂
I especially like the "accidentally" part of this story. I've used that one on my wife for cars that have shown up here in the past... it doesn't work anymore
Judging from the sludge on the belly pan and that nothing else on the engine was apart, there is a good chance the cam housing was removed to remedy an oil leak.
At this age, most of these cars need head gaskets anyway, so it's easy to justify a speculative change but I would first be tempted to assemble what's apart and test run it. Add compressed air in the plug holes to check or rotate the engine by hand to see if compression resistance can be felt. Remember no valves are opening so cylinders 1 and 4 will have mild resistance and cylinders 2 and 3 will have mild resistance, 180 degrees apart. Pull the front belt covers to verify tensioner and water pump bearing condition and install a new timing belt.
here's something to inspire you . It's an hour and half of an Italian 924 restoration modification.
A fantastic project done by a very knowledgeable chap , - designing his own crankshaft amongst other amazing stuff resulting in 429 hp!!!
Definitely worth a watch and and in my opinion one of best restoration films for 924/944s🙂
I especially like the "accidentally" part of this story. I've used that one on my wife for cars that have shown up here in the past... it doesn't work anymore
Judging from the sludge on the belly pan and that nothing else on the engine was apart, there is a good chance the cam housing was removed to remedy an oil leak.
At this age, most of these cars need head gaskets anyway, so it's easy to justify a speculative change but I would first be tempted to assemble what's apart and test run it. Add compressed air in the plug holes to check or rotate the engine by hand to see if compression resistance can be felt. Remember no valves are opening so cylinders 1 and 4 will have mild resistance and cylinders 2 and 3 will have mild resistance, 180 degrees apart. Pull the front belt covers to verify tensioner and water pump bearing condition and install a new timing belt.
Luckily I don't have anyone to explain myself to except you all. :P
I rotated the engine by hand with all the valves closed and I got basically what you described. Lots of resistance, then less, then lots again. I also listened for leaks while doing this and didn't hear any. Then I plugged compressed air into the spark plug holes and again didn't hear any leaks. Turning the engine over by hand with the plugs out, It was very smooth with just one position of a very slight drag compared to the rest. I don't know what that means, but even with the slightly draggy spots, it still feels good to me.
I also boroscoped the cylinders and the walls are pristine. Didn't see anything on the tops of the pistons except not so bad carbon deposits. No evidence of crashed valves.
I think what looked like sludge on the pan was actually just wet dust where I spilled some coolant.
Meanwhile, I have ordered all the parts that I know to be missing and I'm waiting for them to show up. I also broke my door handle where the retaining screw goes into it (dropped it ). Damn, that's an expensive mistake. Trying to fix it before finding a replacement...
This is my first post here, so I'll keep it short for now. Earlier this week I was in a bar in a small town in the Rockies with no cell service and ended up buying my first Porsche from a guy in the Midwest. ....
Depending on where you are in the Rockies, or if you are still in the Rockies, CO has a large PCA community. There are quite a few Spec 944s in the region. That may be a good source for parts and help.
Depending on where you are in the Rockies, or if you are still in the Rockies, CO has a large PCA community. There are quite a few Spec 944s in the region. That may be a good source for parts and help.
I'm actually in Chicago now. Got anyone around these parts?
And some more updates...:
I ordered half a million dollars of parts that I need to replace or were missing, as well as some special tools, and they've all arrived.
The shaft coupler that goes on the end of the cam shaft and holds the small shaft that the distributor rotor goes on which came with my car had a sheared out keyway. The one that came with the camhousing I ordered had been hit with a hammer and smushed a bit so that the rotor shaft couldn't fit into it. The seller had another one sent to me and I got the cam housing fully assembled. I covered all the bearing surfaces and the cams with assembly lube before I put it together, but it still feels a little rough when I spin it by hand.
Is this roughness normal?
I took the belt covers off to see what I'm working with and some of the seals are leaking so I got a seal set and oil pump drive gear and all that stuff. Took some of the belts off and proceeded to prepare for resealing the front of the engine.
I got a spare ignition and door cylinders and tried to install the ignition. I got it all back together--kind of. I can use the ignition when the time comes but the wheel is sloppy and I need to re-do the bushing. What the *#&(*#? I ordered another bushing and will do that later. Good enough for my purposes for now...
Ordered distributor cap, rotor, some screws, sparkplugs, wires, oil filter, fuel filter, the usual...
I broke the door handle by dropping it and shearing off the tab the retaining screw goes into. Going to try to fix that before figuring out a replacement that doesn't cost as much as the car.
Preparing to reseal the engine, I tried to set the thing to TDC. My view through the little port by the reference sensors looks quite different than anyone's who has managed to take a picture or video of this and put it on the internet. My little alignment tab sticks much farther to the left in the viewport so that I can't see the pointy part. There are 50 pieces blocking a direct view. I can't find any marks on the part of the flywheel that I can see, and I suspect I can't see the part that has them.
Has something in my bellhousing shifted preventing me from seeing the pointy part? (see pics below)
Do I need to take some stuff out of the way to get a proper view?
I stuck a boroscope in the hole to see anything at all (this also makes it simple to look in the window while turning the crank) and lined up the balance shaft timing marks. I found what I think is the mark that should be in the notch in the bottom of the bellhousing at this point. Not a good sign. Also found 3 set screws. The one on the left side should apparently be a couple inches before the scribed timing mark...
OK, so since the balance shafts move at 2x crank speed, they can be aligned with that bottom mark as well. I somehow was able to get the boroscope positioned just right to see the OT and scribe line and then discovered none of my 19mm tools will fit on the starter bolts. Luckily, some stores are open tomorrow.
The photo makes this look obvious, but I turned the crank over about 9 times before I found it...
Today I removed the starter (I bought multiple 19mm tools today and none of them really fit on the bolt, but I got it out anyway. It's galled to hell, so I'll need to replace that) and installed the flywheel lock, and rechecked TDC.
Then I removed the crank bolt and power steering pulley. This is where I got hung up again for a while. The accessory drive pulley was locked completely to the crank. I spent a good while trying to get a gear puller on it, and finally did, but it wasn't moving. I had to disconnect the outer pulley from the inner pulley and pull them separately, finagling the gear puller on each time. The timing pulley was the same story but I had a bit more space, and experience, to work with there.
I got the rollers, tensioners, guide rail, and balance shaft pulleys off, then spent about 2 hours trying to get all the keys out. I finally got the smile-shaped woodruff keys out, but the crank key is not responding to any of the tricks I've found on this forum. I ended up just removing a big chunk of it at the front when I finally tried the chisel trick. It's soaking in blaster and I'm going to peruse a hardware store tomorrow for more ideas. If I can't pull it out with a tool, I'm going to get a dremel in there and just alternate between carving it up and pulling on it. It's already destroyed and I planned on replacing it anyway, so have a new one. This is the condition of my crankshaft before I started going to down on the key:
I realized I don't have a new water pump, so I'm getting one of those on the way with a new thermostat, etc.
My "lifters" are covered in gunk so I spent some time trying to get it off. 7 of them don't have residue I can feel anymore, but are still stained. One of them still feels a bit rough, so I threw them all in oil just for the hell of it and to maybe soften up that gunk.
I planned to have everything together and ready to fire by Saturday, but we'll see.
10-31-2023, 08:03 AM
:P
). Damn, that's an expensive mistake. Trying to fix it before finding a replacement...
