mouse

Early March 2002: I purchase my 1988 944 S from a local dealership for $3999 with 120,000 miles on it. (no warranty) At the time, I thought this was a great deal, because it needed its share of little fixes, but the important stuff seemed in good condition.

April 2002: My father picks the car up from the dealership and parks it at my parents house. I decide to start fixing many miscellaneous things in the car on the weekends when I can drive up there (I don't want to start driving the car until I have fixed all the little things).

June 2002: I install my cd player and sub, and continue to fix up the car.

Mid June 2002: I drive my car around the block for the first time. It drives great and I wear a smile for 2 straight days. This would end up being the only time I have driven the car.

Late June 2002: I go to start the car and drive it for the 2nd time when about 2 seconds after starting her, it dies. From this point forward the starter only makes a bunch of noise when trying to start the car. I post my problem on Rennlist and the concensus was, its the starter.

Mid July 2002: I get under the car to bang on the solenoid, with no luck. The next week my car is bombarded with golf-ball sized hail. I have dents all over the car, especially the hood, and the insurance company gives me a check for 175 dollars. 1000 deductable. Yipee.

Yesterday: A friend comes over to help with installing the new starter he helped me order. After replacing the starter, we go to start the car, and it makes the same noise it has been making, no engine cranking. My friend gets under the car and removes a panel so he can see if the starter is turning the flywheel. It is. We notice that the timing belt is not turning when starting the car. We remove a bunch of stuff around the engine so we can look at the belts when trying to start the car. After several minutes of inspecting, we found the timing belt was not turning, and the other belts were. The timing belt is intact(and looks brand new), but it is not turning, and so niether will the engine. I have no idea how to fix this, and I have a feeling it means taking apart the engine, which means lots of money. We are going to put the car on a trailer and bring it to a mechanic this weekend. (I dont have the towing bar for my car)

Can anyone give me any insight as to what may be going wrong with my car, how much it will cost to fix, how long it may take? Does anyone know any good and low-cost porsche mechanics in the denver area? Has anyone had this happen to them before? As you can see, I have had my car for so long and want to get driving it! AHHHHHHH <img src="graemlins/cussing.gif" border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" />

Thank you for the replies.

-mouse

TomH

Uh-Oh. With a slipped timing belt, you've now got major bent valvage. Probably happended the first time you had problems, and now you've likely spent all of the valves. Your car being an "S" means you're gonna spend about the same amount you paid for the car to get it fixed. Sorry man.

Look for the post here of the other guy with an S, trying to add up all the parts he's gonna need to fix his timing belt failure.

Perry 951

Well.. sounds like you sheared the teeth off the timing belt, and when cranking, you smacked some valves. Best case, you bent a few valves, worse case, you poked a hole in a piston, bent the rod, or shoved the valve into the head.

You will need to remove the head to see what is broke. After that, you want to check the height of the pistons at TDC with a dial indicator to see if they are all the same.

Can;t do much until you tear it down.

As for the cause, it could be an old belt, broken something somewhere, or something in the track of the belt (like a bolt or screw)

mouse

Ah damnit, I didn't think it was that bad...because it happened when starting the car.

David J. Harrington

Just to offer a ray of hope, there are a few angles that the camshaft could have been in where if it was not moving, no pistons would hit it. The car still wouldn't fire up in this scenario. BUT, this is a long shot. I have actually had friend's timing belts break on 951s and be lucky enough to have no damage (this is called getting really lucky with the extra space afforded by the lower compression pistons).

Like others said, you need to take the head off. You can do this on your own if you can turn a wrench and follow directions. That way, you can diagnose what exactly is broke, and avoid getting ripped off when taking it to the shop. If you haven't holed a piston or damaged a con rod or the crank, then the repair will be cheaper than you might think.

On the bright side, you picked the car up for so cheap that once this problem is fixed, you should still be a little under par as far as purchase price goes.

Hang in there and don't give up. If you have only driven your car around the block, you surely have no idea of how fun it will be when fixed. IMHO, it will be worth every penny spent.

Good luck, and you know where to turn for help.

Dave

PS- let me know if you need to "borrow" and shop manual info if you plan on tearing it down on your own.

mouse

Ah thanks for the suggestion..but I think I'm going to take it to a mechanic, I really would have no idea what to look for when taking the head off and lookin in the engine. I just hope I got lucky...but considering my luck so far, I doubt it. Also I have the factory manuals on cd...its certainly not the best quality, but it works ok.

DangerIsland

when you say it's "intact" but not turning... Is the crank turning? I can't see any scenario where some of the belts (balance shafts) turn but the timing belt doesn't, unless it's stripped and totally fubar, which you said isn't the case.

mouse

Well, the timing belt looks intact to me, I don't claim to be anything of a car expert, but it looks new to me...its black, it has all the teeth on it, but it's not moving. I'm not sure what is moving and what isn't because I was the one starting the car while they looked at the belts, but they (friend, father) said some were moving and some were not. I have no idea what that means. All i know for sure is, the timing belt was not moving.

triscadek

If you only got $1175on a golf ball sized hail claim you got hosed, I think a hood is like $500,add in a sunroof panel then minimum 30min. labor PER dent and almost a full paint job.

I got $2K on an 88 Camaro and over $1500 on a Toyota p/u on smaller hail than that. On the Toyota after I looked at the estimate and added up the dents and labor I made them add a suppliment to the claim and write another check.

Could be more $ for the repair, I used to work in a body shop and they would frequently write a smaller est. on hail then suppliment the claim at repair time, but if you just take the check mumble thanks and don't repair the car or pay the difference they make out. They are required to return the car to it's previous condition and nobody repairs hoods they pay for a new one.

IceShark

Yeah, I was wondering about this hail damage thing. There should have been more money in the pot.

But to move on, get a used hood and head pannel. Did the front quarters get dented? Those are pretty tough.

Roof around sunroof is probably dented and due for a trip to paintless dent removal, if possible. The sunroof itself may be OK. My '88 951S has some sort of composite material that is also pretty tough. It got hit with a foul baseball once and didn't get dented. It fell a good hundred feet straight on it.

Mich924S

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Anyone seen Wolfpri?

Perry 951

Although the belt looks fine where you are looking, if it stripped the teeth on the crank pully (probably did), you will not see it until you get the belt off.

Either way, you need to pull it apart and find out why it happened.

mouse

Yeah, we got hailed on for a solid 10 minutes. No variation during that period, just hail for 10 minutes. It was nasty, my parents house got much more damaged, as well as 2 other cars that were in the driveway. I haven't had a chance to fully inspect the car, but when you look at the car from the side in daylight you can tell the hood is totally peppered. The quarters may be as well, from a glance at the sunroof it seemed ok but I didn't look for long, i've been too busy trying to get the car working. I probably will just get it repaired and have insurance cover the difference...but still, after the cost of repairing my engine...1000 is going to hurt.

Charlane

Don't give up whatever you do! If anything, you will become better for this. I know that you said the you were going to take it to a shop, but sometimes it is good to get in there and do it yourself!

Before I bought my '80 924 and my '77 240D Mercedes, I was a diehard VW fan. I could drop the engine out (four bolts, slide it back) in 45 minutes. I started on it when I wound up with broken piston guides because my engine overheated after taking the advice of a crackhead about air-cooled engines (leave it at that). After I met this girl that was the head mechanic for a racing team, I knew I could do engine work with taking the harder shtuff (like pressing bushings, flux, etc.) to a shop.

Except for the seals and a rather ****ty paint job for which I am getting ready to stand on the back of the painter's neck (I get that she's-a-female-so-she-won't-know bull**** all the time), I need to replace the engine mounts and my camshaft has two flat lobes giving me delayed acceleration. I have a new one only I am considering boring out the case a fraction and oversizing just for grins. Money will dictate that since a have a stock replacement. More than likely I will stay stock though.

The car is worth it and when everything has been ironed out, it's paid for! This car isn't made anymore and it's just one of a kind.

Charlane

Charlane

Double Take. See previous post.

Charlane