carlosvmata

I bought my 1986 951 three years ago as a project car. The car is bone stock and a timing belt change was done when I bought the car with 126K on the odometer. I have only put about 2500 miles on it since then.

I took it for a 20 minute ride last week after a long winter slumber. After 10 minutes, the car began to rumble louder and vibrate heavily, but it still drivable. I immediately thought…this must be the engine mounts as this was on the list to be done. I drove the car several days later for 3 miles and yesterday I started it up to start my trouble shooting.

While the car was on…I noticed the balanced shaft belt was not moving and saw the balanced belt tensioner (944-102-217-05) unattached and was held only by the plastic housing. I quickly shut down the car and opened up a beer and asked myself the question posted in the subject line.

Based on what is broken and the amount of driving I did afterwards, how badly did I screw up my engine?

What would be your next course of action?

Advise and feedback would be great.

Charlie

Your engine should be fine. You are lucky the balance shaft belt did not mess up the timing belt. This may be a good indication that you need to do a water pump and belt and roller job on the engine.

Voith

Change pump+belts+rollers and you should be fine.

SloMo228

+1 to the above. It's a good thing your balance shaft belt didn't get wrapped up in the timing belt. That would have been some serious damage for sure. Running without the balance shafts spinning for a few days isn't going to hurt anything, though. Replace the belts (and I'd do both belts, all rollers, and a new water pump just to be safe) and you will be fine.

Mongo

Don't worry about it. I ran a balance shaft 180 degrees off balance and my car wouldn't even rev past 3000 without feeling like it was going to shake apart. That motor turned out fine too.

As other have said, change your belts, tensioners and rollers. Get it back on the road.

Dougs951S

one more +1, change the water pump, both the timing and balance belts, and all the rollers and you'll be good for another 30k miles. Total cost will be ~500 dollars if you have the tools and do it yourself.

StoogeMoe

You're not screwed, you're lucky!

carlosvmata

The collective has spoken...and the verdict is I am NOT screwed! I appreciate the input folks and will be tackling the work myself in the next several weeks.

ramius665

Absolutely my thinking!