4W4K3

Hello everyone!
Fair warning, this will be a long first post…

About three weeks ago I purchased an '86 Guards Red 944 from the second owner. The story of it goes that the car was purchased by a police officer in January of '86. He passed away in '96 and there was an auction of his possessions in '06, where the second owner purchased it. The car currently has 43k miles on it, and the second P.O. only put about 2k on it in the past 10 years. It's in excellent condition, appears to have never seen snow and is very clean overall, but has been sitting in storage for a majority of its life. Many of the hoses and other rubber bits were dry rotted and the second P.O. had a shop put on a new water pump/belt shortly after purchasing it. They soon after had a fuel pump installed, along with replacing various seals and gaskets. I've put 200 miles on the car so far and it's been a joy to drive and polish up.

I was preparing to do an oil change this evening and I noticed a few coolant droplets forming on the belly pan which had not been there a couple days prior. Upon removing the cover, I couldn't find the source of the leak but did find a few things of interest that I'm hoping you all can help me out with:

1) I have an issue where the oil pressure gauge is "pinned" at 5 as soon as the car is started, never going any lower. I saw several posts on the forum addressing this and it often related to the terminals being reversed. While under the car, I tried flipping them and there's been no change in the gauge reading. Would this now point to replacing the oil pressure sending unit?



2) There was no smoking gun for the coolant leak, but I did find a long strip of tubing (roughly 1.5" in diameter) that appear to be very loose fitting and didn't have a clamp on either end. Is this supposed to have hose clamps on each end? If so, I'm suspecting this may be the leaky culprit.





3) The car was low on coolant when I got it and seems to run mildly hot. I was driving in some traffic for about 15 minutes yesterday and noticed the needle got almost into the red while going under 5 MPH. As soon as I started moving again, at about 15 MPH, it dropped back down. While driving at regular highway speeds there’s been no issue, but today as I was snapping some pictures while it was running on jack stands, it was beginning to verge on going into the red. The fans do kick on without issue. After the oil change I’ll be doing a coolant flush, but is there anything else that could be causing this that I should check out first?



4) What the heck is this plastic thing and should it be connected to something?


5) The main thicker belt was changed with the water pump, but the skinnier belt was not. It appears to be fairly old. What is this belt called? It’s not the one that takes the engine with it when it goes, correct?

6) These engines are known to have some belt whine and my car is no exception, but there does appear to be a slight inconsistency to its whine. There’s a significant whine while the car is getting warmed up, then once it’s to temperature it quiets down, but the whine comes and goes in intervals of about one to three seconds. Is this normal? (I'll try to get a video of it)

7) I noticed there was a slight oil leak (enough to soak a bit of the frame, not enough to drip) from the first time I was under the car. After removing the belly pan, I can see a banjo bolt was just sitting there without a nut on the end. I found the nut that must have vibrated loose after I removed the belly pan and reinstalled it, but then noticed that the other end of the “banjo rod” had a missing nut on it as well! I assume this was an oversight from the water pump installation, but you can feel significant vibrations at around 4K RPM’s and I’m wondering if it has anything to do with this support rod being so loose. Also, why is there oil coming from the bolt - is this more than just a support rod?



Sorry for all the questions - I’ll happily split these up into different threads if need be. Thanks for any insight you can provide. I'm looking forward to joining this community and getting the 944 back on the road!

Arominus

#1 could be the sender, also could be the OPRV sticking. Look in to it
#2 thats a sleeve for the hose. No clamps needed.
#3 Bleed the coolant system, likely to be an air bubble in the system.
#4 Thats for turbos, its blocked off on NA's but they take the same pump as the turbo.
#5 if its the belt outside the covers they are just accessory belts. The belt with teeth on both side is the balance shaft belt and it should have been changed with the Timing belt. That one will wipe out the TB if it goes.
#6 the balance belt is getting warm and expanding, this loosens it and it whines less.
#7. That banjo is missing a nut. Get one on it before it snaps.

4W4K3

Thanks for the info, Arominus.

I'm going to remove the OPRV and see if there's any clogs. I noticed in the service history that the P.O. had a leak resolved a few months ago that was located at the OPRV. If that checks out, I'll look to replace the pressure sensor.

For the banjo rod itself, is there a specific tension I should adjust it to? And the threads on the banjo's retaining bolt were saturated in oil, which may have led to the nut vibrating off in the first place. Is this mount a lubrication point or would that oil have leaked from elsewhere?

Arominus

The OPRV can also stick due to misalignment of the oil cooler, get the tool so you can ensure that everything is lined up properly..

The oil leaked on the banjo.