Yeah, I'll inspect everything. I ordered all the parts anyway so I'll replace anything suspect and keep the rest for next time.

 

Brett, You asked the question "why" someone might choose not to change the water pump. If you search back through old posts, there were several instances of early failures of replacement pumps. These included "rebuilt" or "remanufactured" pumps, and at least one instance of a *new* pump. Given your situation, I probably would have changed out your 15 year old pump with 55K miles (rebuilding it myself). A four or five year old pump with 55K would have been scrutinized and probably remained in place.

 

Or, If both were changed on a car that then only went 5,000 miles in 6 years, I would check how the pump bearing feels to touch, and just change the belt.

 

I spent Monday and Tuesday out in the garage, but got the TB and water pump job done, along with a lot of cleanup. All the gears and rollers looked to be in very good shape, as they were replaced 15k miles ago, but I did replace the TB along with the pump. My muscles all ache like I've been put into a large potato sack and beat like a pinata, but the car started up right away and is running great! Other than the groaning PS system. I must have wiggled a hose loose as it's losing some fluid.

Some observations:

I love the kempf tension tool!

I have 4 large bolts left over, 13mm, like the ones that hold most of the accessories on. Checked them and they all have all their bolts. Weird and worrysome. Any guesses on commonly left over bolts from this job?

I could not for the life of me get the new rear seal in for the thermostat. I scraped off all of the old seal, lubed up the new one, and still no dice. Must be the wrong size. Will I not get a proper seal without it? What are the repercussions? I assume it will let a little coolant past even when the thermostat opens.

The contact points of each distributor cap were very dirty. Sanded them down lightly and hope there will be some performance improvement and economy improvement from better spark.

Beru wires are nice. They have the cylinder #'s on them. This comes in handy when your marks indicating their position get rubbed off.

It was a royal PITA trying to get the tensioner roller back in!

How do you tell the proper tension on the accessory belts? I think the compressor belt is a little too tight and I don't want to mess up the bearings.

So, now that's done, I can go on to the next projects, RMB, performance chips, kickdown switch bypass, installation of mp3 player and in-dash video, tint, etc, etc.

 

This is a DEFINITE no-no. You need to replace that ring/seal asap as the engine will overheat. That seal is back there to keep the coolant from bypassing the radiator & even though you may think it's only bypassing a little, it does make a difference. That ring is not that difficult to put in, just takes patience. Are you sure you got all of the old one out?

 

Worrysome, yes!

I remember it taking a while to find a bolt under the lip of the passenger side upper timing belt cover, the first time I did the job...

 

I second Bill's cautions. Remember, The 928 T-stat operates opposite of what you would expect -- if the T-stat doesn't seal properly, the result is less-than-full flow through the radiator!

You'd better figure out where those bolts go too.... IIRC everything that uses that hardware is non-trivial in that area.

 

The car is not running hot as yet, but I'll definitely pull the thermostat housing and get that seal in there ASAP.

The missing bolts went into the PS pump and voila!, no mor PS fluid leak. I can't believe I missed those, but you really have to look at the right angle to see them, especially if you reattach the PS pump from the top side of the engine and are looking down at it.

I seem to have developed a spark knock condition after replacing the TB. It is noticable under slight acceleration but I'm pretty sure it wasn't there before. Could this be caused by the timing being off a little or what? I cleaned the contacts in the distributors and checked all plug wire connections are solid. The plugs are getting some oil on them, but this has been present since I bought the car. I'll clean them off again and see if that helps. Any thoughts.

As far as the oily spark plugs, is that rings or some seal in the plug area/valve cover?