Holy crap.. I did not know oversized pistons were $1000 friggin bucks! Good lord.. they are not made of gold!

Whew.. I feel better now. I got a hold of Garrity and the process has begun on shipping my block to him and punching it out. I just can't afford the 2.8 right now, so the 2.5 stays. The good thing is that every mecahnical part in the motor will be new or refreshed... excpet the oil pump.

This leads me to the next question, and I have never heard it addressed. I assume I should get a new oil pump (origional at 128,000 miles, new one $650!!!) Is it possible for me to reuild the current unit, send it out for rebuild, or blow the cash on a new one?

Well.. there goes the paint job. I hope I can buff the replacement hood and header panel to match my paint. I hate mis matched panels. I guess the sway bars will have to wait too! This is quickly eating up the cash I got from my insurance claim. Oh the money!

Hope the lottery is good to me! Come on Powerball!

 

Hi Perry,

I've seen your pictures, heard the story, and it scares me. Did you ever figure out what caused your engine fire? By the way, my oversized pistons were something like $1800CAN, so what you're paying sounds about right. Good forged pistons are very expensive. A stock Mahle piston for my brother's KTM 300EXC dirtbike cost over $300!! I'm not sure about the oil pump thing, no idea what the normal lifespan of those are.

 

Perry-

My hat is off to you. Been following your "experinces" with this car and I must say, you definitely get the perseverance award.

About the oil pump. I have not heard of one of these going bad. I have heard of replacing the seals; I did this summer during the h2o pump/belts/seals ordeal. I have never had one of these in my hand, but I do know that the pump is driven by friction of the crank bolt on the sprockets onto a "sleeve". From the factory manuals, this sleeve drives an inner rotor which acts on an outer rotor. Looks like this eccentric motion (think multi lobed wankel rotor) is what pumps the oil. I would not think (barring a fracture of either rotor) any of these items would wear signifcantly. I'd save the money for for something definitely broken.

Best of luck, keep us all informed.

 

I thought the same on the pump. New seals and send it. However, at this point, I am not going to cut corners. However, $650 is hard to swallow on a part that "might" need replacement.

As for the fire... it seems that we may have pinched the main positive line going to the starter from the battery at the rear of the motor when we did the install, exposing the wire. I know it was fine when the motor was out, and wrapped it in electrical tape to seal some small cracks in the insulation. At some point before the fire, it had come in contact with the block, grounded out, and welded itself to the block. It heated the wire enough to catch fire. Then, the flames caught the main engine harness and vac lines at the rear of the motor on fire. The flames then caught the hood sound panels on fire, and that was that. When I got it home, I noticed a lot of leakage in the battery box. At first I thought it was water, but the battery had heated enough from the ground out situation that it blew the vent caps off and boiled out all the acid. Thank god I just fixed the battery box and sealed it with fiberglass!!! That would have toasted my DME, KLR, everything in there and my perfect condition carpet!!!

Other than wires and hoses, the oil filler assembly, and some plastic sensors and injecotrs, nothing in the engine bay was ruined. All of it is cleaning very well, as most everything on the left side of the motor is covered in soot. Strange thing is that it did not burn that hot or that long. When I pulled the intake, my MAF and turbo were still shining like new and was not even darkened by soot! I pissed myself in relief! How horrid would that be? Brand new turbo and MAF all funked up by fire and soot.

I will replace a few things here and there to spiff it up (coolant and windshield washer tanks) and powder coat a lot of things for a look that I wanted the 1st time around, but ran out of time.

The hood got burned and hot enough to warp, and the header panel got torn up from the over eager firefighter. Hopefully, as stated above, the replacements will match, or be close enough not to look silly.

After so much time and effort, I felt the desire to bring it back again. I hope I burned out the nasty spell the PO put on it!

 

Perry, check your e-mail. I think I night be able to help on the pistons......

 

Did Garrity have any advice on the oil pump issue?

 

Pikey7, how much for the pistons?

I figured that the oil pump would have the minimal wear of any engine component as it is nearly always submerged in oil, unless a foreign particle is caught in it and destroys the pump.

 

On the oil pump, take it apart and check the internals for wear/damage. During the rebuild of our early '85 (with 173k miles) this summer, we took ours apart and it looked fine. Still pegs the oil pressure gauge when warmed up and at 3k rpm. Runs at 1.5 bar when hot at idle using 5W30 Mobile 1.

We also thought about sinking the big bucks into a new pump, but after seeing how good it looked, we thought we could find better places to spend nearly $600.

-Bob P

 

*heh* I've trademarked "The Great Rebuild" terminology for my own 951 project (www.rints.com/hammond/turbo.html) - but you are entitled to license it for a small fee.

Seriously, I feel your pain regarding oil pump and piston prices. We replaced the pistons with Porsche-retail KS 0.5mm over pistons when doing my car. They were $1600 US, and I had a very difficult time FINDING pistons regardless of price. JE Pistons started looking like an option for a while, but I wanted to stick with the same alloy for longevity sake.

Oil pump was around $525 from Vertex. When disassembling mine, the gears and recesses where the gear sets were scored. The price of a siezed oil pump is total engine failure, so $525 seemed like good insurance at the time. My recommendation is to take yours apart and inspect it - if it looks smooth and clean, re-use it. If there are ANY doubts, replace it.

I had checked with Porsche about rebuilding my pump, their answer was "no" - after taking it apart, you'll see why. Replacing the gears/rings in it would leave you with too much or too little clearance, making a bad oil seal. It's a very high-precision looking device!

Greg

 

Greg -

I have consulted with my lawyers. Indeed, you have the rights to "The Great Rebuild".. however.. this round is #4 to me, thus "The Great Rebuild #4" is completely mine. (As was #2 and #3!) Keep in mind that your "Great Rebuild" has given me direction and support for mine.

I need to get the pullies off and the pump off it. That is all that remains on the block. Judging by the lack of crap in the oil pan, I think I should be safe on the pump. If it is scored... well.. guess that headlight kit I wanted will have to wait!

 

From what you guys are discribing, the pump sounds like a critter known as a "generated rotor" or "gerotor" pump. Also sometimes used in industrial & mobile hydraulics.

Not, of course, that this adds a dam' thing of any practical use to this thread....

Hang tough, Perry!

Jim, "Mr. Vocabulary"....

 

Just in case anybody wants to see what the inside of these pumps look like (it's quite an engineering marvel!) I just took apart a spare '84 944 oil pump and took two photos showing the gears and pump housing. Lets see if I can get this right...




The brown oily scum is heavy oil that I packed the pump in to prevent rust.

 

Did you see the movie Doc Hollywood? The oil pumpkin houseing stranded M J Fox in the boonies for weeks while Gomer ordered the parts

Just something to think about.

It was a 356 so it could not happen to one of our 944"s ????

 

Ah, ha! That's what's called an "internal gear" pump... the shape of lobes & pockets, and especially the fixed crescent wall is the difference between that & the gerotor.

A picture is truly worth a bunch of words... Thanks, Greg!

David, I dunno about the 356... _if_ it uses the same oil pump setup as an air-cooled VW (?), it's pretty different from this. A simple spur-gear pump, mounted at the back of the engine housing, down low, driven off the cam ... (this from 20-year-ago VW memory). But no, I've never heard of a total pump failure on a 944, unless maybe you blew something else first and packed the pump with debris.

Jim, waiting on the automation night students to get their last project station up...

 

Hey Greg how did you disassemble your pump? I tried crackin mine open with a hammer and punch and no dice. My pump has aprox 200k so im gonna get a knew one regaurdless, if it makes you feel any better Perry.