Van

I pretty much use a razor blade... but always done it out of the car.

kev951

Arash, I am well, Very busy working for TESLA now. How about you? aside from this problem.

FRporscheman

This car is basically how I spend all my free time - it's been down for 2.5 years! Only drove it twice since buying it. Tesla? Nice! Do they need a physics/aerospace guy?

I bench tested the pickup tube out of the car. I made an adapter for my mityvac and a submerged the end of the tube in oil. With just a few inches Hg it was sucking up oil steadily, so I believe it's fine.

With the pan off, I started looking around. I noticed some dried-out oil crud all along the joint between the block and the oil pump... it looked like a steady bead of crud. You guys are saying when the pump-to-block seal is lost, it will leak inwards, but this crud seems like evidence of leaking outwards, no?

Is it possible this crud is clogging the oil pump? Or maybe the oil gallery from pickup to pump?

I wanted to put the pickup back on (with new seal), put the oil pan on with 2 bolts, fill with oil, and fast-crank to check for oil flow at the filter. But... the dealer gave me a late pickup seal even though I got the p/n from PET for an early seal. So I'm kinda stuck. I'm eyeing that pil pump, thinking I should take it off to investigate while I wait for the new seal.

mhr

the crud you are looking at could be excess loctite that seeped out of the joint the last time the oil pump was installed. If that is the case then it has been removed and reinstalled previously as the factory did not leave visible excess around the seal.

FRporscheman

But is there is black / dark brown loctite? It looks like sludge.




I forgot to answer a few questions:
The oil pump drive gear is in there.
My only indication that this motor is "good" is that it came from a crashed car - the motor must have been running if someone was able to drive it and crash (or get crashed into). Clearly the bottom end isn't the cleanest around, but the cylinders are very nice. We put a fresh head on it.


I read that sometimes a 944 will have a problem where it won't build oil pressure for like 30 seconds. Maybe the block galleries are clogged with sludge and oil flow is restricted? Maybe the pump is clogged? Or maybe there's a bunch of things going on? At this point, I know I need to take the pump off and (ideally) put another '83 pump on it, and clean the galleries as much as I can. But I'm tempted to fill it with light oil like 5-20 and run it for 30 seconds to see if I get pressure/circulation...

austin944

Crank washer could have been put on backwards. That results in no oil pressure. Ask me how I know.

mhr

hard to tell from the picture but loctite 574 is orangeish brownish stuff

have you done the rod bearings? You have the 22 oil pan bolts off so your only 8 bolts away from doing that job

FRporscheman

I have used 574, and it's bright orange. I thought maybe if there is a black loctite, perhaps someone used it on the oil pump thinking that all loctites are interchangeable, and the oil turned it brownish.

I'm not sure I want to do the rod bearings. First, I need to find out if the engine is ever going to work before I invest more in parts. And then, it's just supposed to be a temporary engine (less than a year), and then it will become the spare engine.

It looks like I'll be taking the oil pump off to clean it (or more likely just replace it with a used, known good one) so I'll check that crank washer (and everything else in there).

Where the hell can I get an early pickup tube seal? The seal I got from the dealer is for a late pickup tube, even though I gave them the part number from the 83-85 PET.

mhr

I remember reading somewhere a loctite 574 equivalent from another company that may have been brown. Search this forum and possibly Pellican.

For the seal call Pellican or 944online I'm sure both will have.

kev951

late seal is the new updated and best seal for the block side, but if you have an early early pickup, the seal might not fit snug on the pickup tube. The crank thrust washer.... is not directional.. the black stuff just might be your problem.. someone may have used the wrong sealant, and now your pressure side is plugged. Was the engine a known good making oil pressure originally? I can refer you if you are interested in working for TESLA.

FRporscheman

This is the seal that I got:
http://www.paragon-products.com/Oil-...107.136.03.htm

It fits on the tube perfectly, but when I stick in into the block it's really loose, like the seal needs to be fatter. The old seal I took off was fatter and had a collar or flare on one side.

harveyf

A couple of comments:
As I recall, the excess Locktite will turn black if there is any excess oil drizzling over it. It definitely doesn't stay bright orange after 25 years. For all I know it may turn black just in the presence of air.

Concur that the thrust washer is not directional, at least on the pre 85 engines.

I bench tested my oil pump by sticking the inlet in a bucket of water and spunthe internal ring with a drill motor. I chucked up a 1/4" wood dowel in the drill motor and wound duct tape around the end of the dowel to get a friction fit on the internal ring. It slung water with ease. But if I were doing it again, I would use oil, as some water got trapped in the pump and gave me a short dose of chocolate milk oil upon my subsequent bench test (see below). It will make a mess but you can confirm your oil pump is working. They are pretty straight forward operationally. Not sure what the failure mode would be but I bet it would be noisy!

My new policy is to mount the bellhousing and starter motor on the short block and "bench test" the oil pump system before I install the engine. You could probably use jumper cables but I bought 2 short battery leads from Autozone so that I had a sound terminal to connect to the starter solenoid and another to attach to a grounding bolt. Then you use a small lead to temporarily put 12v on the "ignition switch" terminal on the starter solenoid. Once I fixed all the problems, I had oil coming out of the oil filter housing within 15 seconds of cranking. Oil filter was left off for the test.

Not to hijack your thread but I am strongly considered welding up a little stand out of spare tube I have to mount an engine with a radiator to start it up outside the engine bay and put a few break-in hours on it before installation. With track cars, it is hard to perform that initial break-in, since the cars are not street legal.

FRporscheman

Thanks Harvey, that makes sense (the excess loctite turning brown/black). I took the oil pump off and it seems fine - that is, it turns smoothly and has no crud or sludge in it. I still need to disassemble it.

I think I'll just put a known-good pump on it to be safe.

The thrust washer was there, BTW. The o-ring was missing with some red silicone in its place but it seemed like it was working and not causing problems.

harveyf

I forgot to mention that when you buy the lower end gasket kit (at least in the Reinz kit) you get several gaskets that look like they might work for the oil pickup tube. I think I went with the white one. It kind of squishes out from under the flange on the pickup tube. It may show up in the first picture in my article about the 944 oiling system.

If you are getting one by Porsche part number from Paragon, that should remove all doubt.

BTW, if you look at the PET closely, there seems to be a point in the life cycle of the car where they deleted the gasket on the oil return tube. Makes sense, there isn't any pressure there and a leak would be redundant.

kev951

ya harvey, the reinz kits use the clear whitish seals for the pickup, they almost look like the what comes in an oil cooler seal kit, they are aftermarket