I'm going to be doing this job shortly on my $500 944 I picked up here last week. There's a wealth of knowlege in this. THANKS.

 

arash, thanks for the offer, let me know when you're available so we can work something out.

so i got the two front bolts out, or atleast the two front retaining bolts mentioned on clarks garage. one of which came out easily, the other was just a plain nightmare in which over the course of two weeks i snapped two hex keys, an easy out, a brand new drill bit, and a spark plug (becuase in my frustration i gave up, pulled out my hammer and smashed the hell out of it, missed once and knocked off the top of the plug) its out now, turns out the actual screw section was covered in a thick layer of brownish gunk. yuck. i'll post pics of it soon, its pretty scary looking.

also, like i mentioned before, all but two bolts in the cam housing are loose and ready to come out. the two that are stuck in there.. well, one has a somewhat stripped head, and the other was on so tight my hex key snapped off IN the head, so i guess thats going to need some drilling to get that bit of hex key out of it.

 

Have you been hitting the bolts with a punch and hammer to try to loosen up the threads before you go at them?

It didn't do anything noticable for mine, but people always recomend doing it...

Also, if you are still using hex keys to get out all the bolts I HIGHLY recomend going to sears or a parts store and getting some hex key sockets for your wrench. It makes life much easier. I ended up getting three sizes and they have been able to pretty much get everything that I've encountered so far. I got a 6 and 8mm, and I want to say a 5? Not sure on the last one, but the 6 and 8mm hex keys make working on all those stupid hex keys bolts extremely easy. They also help prevent stripping out the bolts and whatnot.

 

i had one allen bold on my cam housing strip, (on the outside thank god) and i happen to have an easy out that was just the right size, tapped it in and it came out. First time an easy-out has worked for me

 

I bought a 7-piece set of ZDMAK allens years ago (2mm-10mm). What I like is they are a forged 1-piece hex that plugs directly onto an extension rather than a socket and allen like most of them. I always give the bolt a few sharp raps first with the socket, extension, and a hammer. Then I use my impact on the lowest setting until they pop. I've never broken one yet. It's hard to believe the cam tower bolts are torqued so low considering how hard they are to remove

 

I had alot of problems with the cam tower bolts also. Mainly the one inside the cam box closest to the firewall. I was using the Porsche supplied extra long allen key found in the tool kit. The head was stripping. I was bugging out because of what a PITA it was going to be to get it out if it stripped completely. I ended up hammering the allen key into the head of the bolt and trying it again. I think the end of the allen key twisted a full 45 degrees before the bolt popped loose (gotta love the kink sound it makes). That was the largest sighs of relief ive ever had with working on my car. Kudos to Porsche for the good quality tools included (i think made by Hazet). Regular allen key sockets do not fit into the holes in the cam box, you either need to grind down some material off the base of the socket, or you can simply take a regular allen key, cut the L shaped end off and tape the end of the key into the proper sized socket (6mm i think?). This gives you the best leverage and ability to seat the allen key. I was not able to find extra long allen key sockets locally.

The two front bolts for the water jacket i was also very nervous about. I gave them a few shots with a hammer and they came out without hassle, probably could have spun them out by hand.

Another method of taking the cylinder head off is to remove the exhaust manifold studs and leave the headers attached to the rest of the exhaust. I was very lucky in that 3 or 4 of the studs started to back off as i turned the nut (Which was incredibly rusted). The other 4 came out very easily with the double nut method. From here i was able to pry the manifold away from the head. Installation was not hard, but required another person to muscle the manifold back onto place. I am pretty sure i put the studs on, then put the cylinder head on. I tilted the head slightly (with whatever clearance i could get with it sitting over each of the head studs) and was able to slip the manifold back onto place. This worked well for me. But whatever floats your boat i guess.

 

I recommend improvising with high quality hex keys with ball ends and deep sockets. They were life savers. I definitely can help with your HG job with advance notice. I did the part of the job on my car and the camshaft housing twice.

 

Unscrewing the head bolts 1/4 angle at a time worked for me. This was an ingenious idea recommended to me by my BMW buddy. The theory was if the head was warped, it would relieve the pressure almost evenly to prevent stripping the head studs.

 

thanks for the advice.

upon starting this job i invested almost $400 in new tools, mainly a full 3/8" metric/standard socket set. a full set of metric wrenches, a 1/2" socket with 15/16 bit for setting the engine to TDC, a hammer, drill, new jack and jack stands, a 6mm equivalent torx attachment for my ratchet, a set of easy outs, a full set of drill bits, a 2-10mm set of hex attachments for the 3/8" ratchet, though they were short shaft so they wouldn't go into the cam housing even with an attahment as it was too wide, a full set of metric hex keys with ball ends, a breaker bar and a few other things..

so far im not too enthusiastic about the ball ended hex keys, they're great if used for less intensive applications, but the actuall ball at the end up the key seems to be a weak link as thats what broke off in the bolt head. even after much hammering of the bolts.

and dont even get me started on the bolts opposite of the head. im afraid if i take out my bar and give it too much torque i'll snap my ratchet in half. last time i tried i'd swear i must have put on atleast a 100lbs of torque and the thing still wouldnt budge. i'll have to get some of that gunk clearing stuff as mentioned earlier. should make life easier.

anyway, for those interested in helping out, heres my schedule.

For some reason i've been stuck with alot of 2:30 - 10:00 shifts at work, i dont know why.

Sunday 4/15: Anytime before 2:00pm
Monday 4/16: I'm off so anytime that day should work.
Tuesday 4/17: I'm off, for the second day in a row im so happy!
Wednsday 4/18: Anytime before 2:00pm
Thursday 4/19: Anytime before 2:00pm
Friday 4/20: Anytime before 2:00pm
Saturday 4/21: Anytime before 1:00pm
Sunday 4/22: Anytime before 12:30pm

Then my next day off is Tuesday the 24th.

So anybody inteterested, name a time and we'll work something out. So far Arash has dibs on paid labor but if anyone wants to come hang out and have a party then just say so!

yeeuck, i just realized thats a 7 day work week.. o_O

 

I'd offer to come and hang out, but I have school during the week and am not at all a morning person (usually wake up around 11 on weekends).

 

lol, im off until august, took off this semester so i could work full time and save up some money.

save money.. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA..

makes my porsche proud..

it use to be that i'd have to wake up at 6:00am to get to class.. now i tend to wake up around 11ish.. or once in awhile 12 if i can get away with it

 

Ah, I hear ya. I took a year off last year and was working full time saving up a decent amount of money. Of course now that I have the porsche that has all gone away...

Luckily I managed to get my class schedule so that I only have to wake up at 8:30 on tues/thurs and 9:30 on mon/weds. No class on friday. And whenever I am on break from school I rarely have to get up before 11 for work. Night owl ftw.

 

Although I haven't tried it on my 944, something which has worked well for me in the past is heat. Alloy expands more than steel, so if you can get some heat in the area, it usually helps free things up. I remember this working for a 1960's Merc I was working on (also took a knuckle bar with a lenth of scaffolding tube!).

Is it necessary for me to warn you to be careful (too much heat, gushing disconnected fuel lines etc!).

 

ooh, time to pull out the torch

 

Who said I wasnt paying...............