Granite 944

My wifes gotta work this week, but I DON'T. Christmas vacation week for ME! So, I made a list of things to do to my '83 and started today (rather late in the day, butt, I did get started). First up, rear wheel bearing R&R, followed by, gas tank removal (about time I get 'er out, and see where that leaky is coming from), and head gasket R&R ( a little coolant getting into #2, and I need to do all the vacumn stuff under the intake along the way). I'm a heck of a dinker, so, we'll see how far I get with all this.

Heres a few pics of what I got into today, with more fun a coming!

If anyone is bored, looking for a place to make a drive to, wanna wrench with me or harass me, or wanna see my 914.... massive project I've got in the garage and just starting to think about, or maybe even if your looking for a few early 944 parts (I've got like 30 some large rubbermaid boxes full of parts from a couple of the 3 parts cars I have), THAN.....come on down! I'd love the company/distraction/harassment! I kinda like anyone who's kinda into these Porsche cars, for some reason.

PM me if interested, and I'll give ya my address.

PS. Wolfe, ya know! Anytime! Come on over!

Heres a few of those pics of what I played with today.

michaelathome

Go KEN!! Nice work.

Michael

ibkevin

Now THAT's a vacation!

Granite 944

Well, I FINALLY got the wheel bearings done and over with! Butt, as I've said before......... I DO dink around a lot! And, I get a rather late start.....most the time...hehe....what the heck!.....I'm on vacation.....right!

This is the 2nd time I've done this on one of these cars, and must admit, I'm a little dissapointed with the final result so far on this one.

I knew there was a little "play" in the stub shaft splines to hub splines (but, no real "visual wear"), but figured at 350 ft lbs plus, this wasn't gonna be the cause of any real play, top to bottom on the wheel/tire, when installed, like I started out with on this car. I did find out that the outter bearing bores in the control arms are hammered out somewhat, top to bottom (both sides....the castle nuts WERE fairly loose, when I started this). After a good wipe down/clean up, and finding out that I could easily, slip the new bearing in the control arm outter housing, and seat it by hand, I could rock the brand new bearing in the housing top to bottom, but not side to side. Ok, housing is hammered, so I know I need to aquire much better control arms, with good outter bores in them for the outter bearings (in the future). As a temporary fix to this, I did center punch/peen the outter housing for those bearing OD's, and used some locktite retainer adhesive on the outter race of those bearings, and drove them in. I could easily slip that bearing in and out of the control arm prior to starting this process, without anymore than using my hands.....everything dry!

What I don't really remember, is, if, there is supposed to be any play, up and down on the wheel/tire assy. AT ALL, when all is good, and assembled. I recall, that there should be NO up/down movement, when all is good. I've made these bearing/wheel assys., MUCH, much better, but I'm still a little leary of the longevity of my "fix", and dissapointed at seeing ANY slop in the wheel up/down after it was done, as I don't remember that, being the case, the last time I did one of these cars (been a while ago). Maybe there was a "slight" up/down movement to the wheel/tire, and I just don't recall that?

I've got tons of pictures and such along the way in doing this, but I really need to get onto the other projects I've got slated for this week. Tranny, and gas tank removal IS next, and I'm running out of time! Oh well, its ALL GOOD.....anyway!

F18Rep

This is getting waaaay to easy for you Ken... Time for a Turbo

SoCal Driver

There is some slop in the roller bearing. Also check the stub axle where the roller bearing inner race sits. Bet it's at least 0.010" under. You will not notice this play as the spacers are all tight with the 350 lb torque. But as the miles add up the bearing race will cause the spacers to loosen. This allows the hub to move around and the castle nut to come loose.

Either replace the stub axles or get a set of aluminum trailing arms and the longer axles. You could also have the spacers/seal races on wrong. Not so much the inner as it's apparent that the bevel has to go against the stub axle CV mounting flange but the outer spacer as this has a chamfer that has to go against the roller bearing inner race.

The stub axles should be removed, cleaned, inspected and repacked every 30,000. Seals should be replaced too. Or you get the red rust that can be seen in your second photo.

hacker-pschorr

At first I was like "WTF is he doing, that's not a center lug wheel" then I put down my beer and looked closer.

Looks like your having fun!

Granite 944

thanks guys!

SoCal, I did replace all bearings and seals with new, but NOT any of the spacers as they "looked like" they cleaned up alright, and not a wear grove deep enough for a seal surface concern. I don't really know if they can/could spin/wear on the outter contact surfaces with the bearings (due to the castle nut being kinda loose when I started), enough to cause any spacing concerns regarding the measurement between the control arm's inside to inside bearing seating shoulders. I didn't measure the spacers lengthwise, or the inside of those shoulders, but I didn't think that to be a real concern from what I saw on disasembly.

The inner bearings appeared to be a good "tap on" fit for both the stub axles, and on the inside of the inner control arm ends. The outter bearings seemed to be a "good enough?" slip fit on the stub axles, but really kinda sucked as far as the OD bearing fit, top to bottom, inside the control arm outter end.

"Either replace the stub axles or get a set of aluminum trailing arms and the longer axles."

You can put the aluminum arms on these early cars? I never even thought, or looked into that. If possible, I might even have a set of the later aluminum ones for a donor! I'll still need the bearings/seals for those at the very least though. The rubber bushings would be a given, also. I'll be doing that anyway I go, at this point.

"This is getting waaaay to easy for you Ken... Time for a Turbo"

Yeah! Right! I want a Turbo alright.........I haven't gotten down all the nitty-gritty with the early NA's yet! BUTT! I'm still learning....and enjoying!

Thanks guys!

bjzorn

Ken I would love to go over and Harass yeah maybe I can do it friday or something. PM Me your addy, If just up the road from ya!

Brandon

Granite 944

Brandon, sent ya the PM. Rennlisters and Porsche nuts are always welcomed over!

Well, yesterday I started in on trying to find out what and where the leak in my gas tank was at ( I've been driving the car on no more than a 1/2 a tank of fuel at a time for several months now).

I got ambitious yesterday early, stripped out the 1/4 window/side trim/hatch carpet and such, dropped the transmission out, and what do you know, it was staring me right square in the face right after I dropped the tranny out. I SHOULD HAVE noticed this before I even got that far. Though, when I looked months back for it, all I could really see at the time was a wet spot, coming down the tank in that area. It sure wasn't as noticable as it is now.

Its a crack in the under part of the tank, which looks like it may have been caused by a previous tranny install, where the jammed it up in there so far as to ram it into the tank? I'm just guessing.

I didn't plan this out all that well as it seems, since I hadn't looked the spare tank I had taken off of a parts car over, real good, or even looked at it recently, till yesterday. It also has what looks like a crack in it, on the top, AND I couldn't believe all the rust from storing it. I should have cosmolined the bare metal surfaces when I put it in the shed over a year ago.

I have two tanks out near the garage, one is the steel tank, and one is a plastic tank, both from parts cars I've stripped out some time back.

I have one more parts car that has not been stripped completely yet, so.....I decided to play musical cars again, move the 914 out, the other '83 parts car in the garage, strip the tank outta that one, keeping my fingers crossed that the tank in it is a good usable tank.

kasturbo

I've got a good plastic tank if you end up needing one. Let me know.

Granite 944

Thanks for the offer Kevin, but I already have a plastic tank from an 85/2 car, that I could put in. However, it just won't fit under there without just a ton of rework, that I'm just not a gonna do. Thanks anyway!

Got the tank outta the parts car this morning, and it looks MUCH better as a donor than the other one. However, it seems to have a double fracture on top of it, like my other "spare" one had, also (besides all the rust). Seems like this is NOT all that uncommon with these steel tanks. See
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/show...threadid=251194

I gotta find a shop that can do a bang up job of welding this for me. I don't think I want to even try going down the road of the epoxy repair, as I really don't think I wanna re-visit this issue on this car. I've got at least one other car, that now has me thinking it has the same problem too. It has a fuel smell problem also.

Any suggestions as to local shops that could weld this up, or any other thoughts/suggestions, are welcomed! Thanks!

If I can locate a shop to weld it up, maybe I'll just downjack the car a little, and start on the headgasket project, while I'm waiting on the tank repair.

michaelathome

WOW, that tank looks really bad!!! Best of luck with the repair. Wish I was there to lend a hand. FUN stuff.

Michael

Granite 944

I just took the decent parts car tank down to my local "Stan's Radiator" shop. They have it now, and after much discussion about it, they are going to fab a copper patch, and solder it in place. Estimated cost.....$65.00. I can live with that. Now, we'll just see if it ends up being a good repair or not. I should get the tank back by wednesday, hopefully back in by end of next weekend. I guess I need to get on with the head gasket replacement/vacumn stuff, I'd like to do, in the meantime.

Anyone know exactly what these parts (valves) are in this pic from my parts car? Do they ever go bad? Can they be checked for functionality? Should I even care about 'em? They are mighty accessable right now, and I'm really not to keen on what they are, or their function in the overall fuel system. I suppose, I need to get the manuals out, and take a looky-peeky. I'm assuming, they are nothing more than check valves? It looks like the early cars have a "built in", non removable, expansion chamber in the C pillar, vs the later cars having a removable, plastic one. Any info on this would be cool too! Ok, I'll get into the books/resources too.

I don't know WHAT, this nit-new would do without all the resources/experiences of all the members here and other discussion boards! Soooo.........THANKS!

Granite 944

Yep! Thats why I'm not about to use it. Live and learn, I guess. I won't be "storing" any other steel fuel tanks without using a whole lot more caution in doing so.