Luis de Prat

Thanks Barry! I feel better about turning the engine now. Those tugging belts had me worried.

A few more questions, if you don't mind:

1) If I can see the two lines, do I position the reference "tab" right between the two to get to TDC? I can also see some raised blocks after passing the lines, but it's the lines I'm looking for, right?

2) The 24mm socket is a bit wobbly on the crankshaft bolt with the pulley on. Will I be able to get a better purchase on the bolt by removing the pulley when I need to loosen the crankshaft bolt with the cheater bar?

3) I only have the top section of the front belt cover off. Should I take the distributor cap off already in order to see if the TDC marking on the cover matches the marking on the cam pulley?

Thanks again!

Mark944na86

Luis,

There are two inspection holes for the TDC flywheel markings, one at the back of the engine (awkward to see), and one in the clutch bellhousing under the car (easier to see).

1) I don't think the "OT" appears in the bottom marker -- it's just a tab that you centre as best you can in the inspection hole. So that's probably the source of your confusion there.

2) I don't understand completely. You need to remove the crankshaft bolt in order to remove either of the pulleys. Are you using a six sided socket or a 12-point socket? Six sided are a bit stable for high-torque applications... all the impact sockets I've seen are six sided, for example.

You will need to remove the radiator fans to get enough clearance to work in there. (On my S2, the wiring didn't easily unplug from the wiring harness, so the fans just got moved out of the way when detached.)

3) Yes. Just remove the cap (but not the rotor), and the distributor housing moulding (three or four bolts), and you will be able to see the cam sprocket timing marks clearly.

Luis de Prat

Hey, I'm back. Didn't get any sleep last night working on this but it finally worked out well thanks to everyone's help.

First I couldn't find TDC and spent a good deal of time looking forit to no avail. Barry suggested removing the distributor early on to match the markings on the pulleys with those on the belt covers. Doing this revealed the TDC markings

Then when it came time to acdtually fit the cam belt I couldn't get it to fit over the cam sprocket.

In all, a very laborious process when but now that it's behind me I just wanted to thank Mark, Barry, and everyone who helped me out.

EDIT: Crankshaft bolt removal was a cinch thanks to Mark's heads up on the "cheater bar"!

Mark944na86

Congrats!

Barry Lenoble

Hey,

Congratulations! It's not a fun job. Next time, you'll be able to do it in half the time.
Remember to retension the timing belt in 3000 miles or so. I set the engine to TDC, then loosen the adjuster and let it do its thing.

IMO, the worst part is removing and installing the timing belt adjuster. Getting the last bolt on it a royal PITA.

One last thing, good job on the brake write up!

Barry

Luis de Prat

Hey fellas. After succesfully replacing both belts, rollers, sprockets, tensioning and retensioning 1K miles later, I've now noticed the waterpump on this car just started leaking.

It was replaced with a new unit only 36K miles ago!

I guess the fact that it was replaced 10 years ago may have something to do with it, but still...

Having never replaced a waterpump before, how much more complicated would you say it is than what I've already done? Thanks again everyone.

Mark944na86

Hey Luis, I'm in a similar situation, the front of my engine is all stripped down waiting for a WP to arrive. I also had an old but relatively low mileage WP, and did the same calculation you did. Oh well. Clearly the Porsche gods don't take kindly to changing the belts but not doing the WP.

I decided to replace the thermostat to new as well rather than re-use the old one (I think the Porsche gods need to be appeased.) I ordered a set of cheapish snap ring pliers on ebay to help with the job, since I've read many a write-up over the years to describe how tricky that can be without a pair of pliers.

The other issue that I noticed is that the nuts and bolts holding the WP in place are very lightly torqued -- 6ftlb/8Nm -- and also are supposed to use Loctite 270 threadlocker.

I've not yet finally decided whether to buy a small torque wrench just for this job yet -- seems a bit excessive, but I may yet. It depends on how I feel about it when I'm torquing the nuts and bolts by hand. (See recent thread "Little torque wrench for WP")

The Loctite 270 I've decided to replace with Loctite 242 (the blue medium strength stuff). The Loctite 270 is described as a "high strength, permanent thread locker and sealer" in their daa sheets, and I don't really like that word "permanent". If Loctite 270 was used in the last job teplacing the WP (PO did it), it will be interesting t see how easily the nuts and bolts come off. We will see when the time comes.

In the meantime, I will keep you appraised of my progress, or lack of it. BTW, getting the front of the engine stripped down goes about ten times faster once you've done it before. I did have to read my own write-up (at the beginning of this thread) to remind myself of the steps, though!

Barry Lenoble

This is actually pretty common. Because the water pump is driven from the cam belt, installing a new belt and tensioning it, can wear out the water pump bearings.

Anyway, after you have mastered changing the timing belt, changing the water pump is a piece of cake. It takes longer because more parts need to come out (rear plastic covers, more rollers, etc.) but it's not bad. I would buy a new thermostat and some new hoses while you're down there.

Good luck,
Barry

Luis de Prat

The waterpump and mount kit are on order. I'm going to do the thermostat as well. I have a feeling I'll be checking into this thread again and again!

Here's a dumb question, if I'm replacing the waterpump, can I remove it with the thermostat inside and preinstall the new thermostat in the new pump to install it as a unit? This would spare me from removing the old thermostat from the old pump and having to deal with the snap ring with the pump on the car.

Thanks to both for the advice and words of encouragement.

Bill

Question for the experts,

I have owned my 85 944 for 21 years and my 86 951 for 8 years. I have a lot of experience changing belts and own a belt gauge. I understand the S2 cam belt is wider than the 944/951 belt. I also have set the auto tensioner and understand that proceedure, so no suprises there.

Heres where I get into uncharted waters. I just purchased a 90 S2 Cabriolet with 88,000 miles on the clock. I was told the belts were changed at 60k (there is a dated/mileage belt change sticker under the hood), but I plan on taking a peek at them soon.

My question is this:

There is a pad/tensioner? in the head between the cams to tension the cam chain, correct? I believe this needs to be changed at/near 100k miles? If this fails, the cam gears get shredded and new cams must be purchased?

Can anyone shed light on this? Is there a write up on this proceedure? Thanks.

Barry Lenoble

Yes, and that is much easier.

BTW, if the old T Stat doesn't want to come out (not that you care b/c you're replacing both) liberally spray the inside of the pump with liquid wrench. Sometimes the snap ring gets stuck in place. A little liquid wrench helps a lot.

Barry

Mark944na86

Clark (once again) to the rescue:

http://www.clarks-garage.com/shop-manual/cam-04.htm

Eric_Oz_S2

Just changed my belts today.

Some comments on the procedure:

No need to sight TDC through flywheel - just use mark on cam pully.

It is easier to just remove the starter rather than suspend with wire.

If changing the belts and rollers only, there is no need to remove the AFM or the radiators. I had no problem accessing the AC bolt and crankshaft pully bolt.

You need to loosen the top bolt of the tensioner also, not just the locking nut - otherwise the spring tensioner won't be free enough to provide appropriate tension on reassembly and you will struggle to compress the spring when removing.

Remove the metal guide rail (2 x 8mm nuts) that runs between the water pump and belt to make cambelt removal installation easier.

Superglue the washer to the nut for that difficult to reach left tensioner bolt and use a socket and extension to install the nut finger tight first.

Mark the position of the notch on the lower balance gear on the front of the pully to make it easier to line up.

Thanks to Mark for the write up.