Jerome Craig

Leaving Fairfax in about 15 minutes. Bringing two digital cameras, laptop w/wireless card so we should be able to uplaod progress, or "cry for help" in real time. If I can find my cooler, I'll bring some ice as well.

Jerome

dr bob

It takes a strong hand and a 1/2" drive 6pt socket to get those block drain bolts out. It's worth pulling them, IMHO. Failure to drain the block through the plugs means it will drain when you pull the water pump. If you decide not to pull the plugs, be ready with a big dishpan to catch the coolant as the water pump comes loose. Make sure all your tools, rags, towels and helpers are up off the floor, it will make cleanup go a lot faster. When the pump comes off, a LOT of coolant comes out in a big hurry. You have about four gallons of coolant in the system, and one of them is in the radiator. At least two of the remaining gallons will fall out when the pump comes off. Just be ready.

Bill Ball

If you can't drain the block (quite common), make sure you plug the oil dipstick hole. The oil dipstick is pulled to get the covers off before you remove the WP. The waterfall of coolant will head to that area.

The block holds about 2 gallons. If I can't get the block drained, at my house I just flush the hell out of it because we have very soft tap water. When all done I just add 2 gallons of coolants. Many/most areas of the country probably have water with too much mineral content to make this a good idea. You can finish your flush with several gallons of distilled water to dilute any minerals to a low level. Whatever works.

Hope it all goes well. Keep us posted.

wds928

Progress so far.....

Chris's car looks like it just needs the tensioner wire connected. The PO had connnected the a/c wire to the tensioner. Anyway his WP looks good. Added gear oil to the tensioner and adjusted the belt.

Dave's car has been a bear. The 4mm hex screw wouldn't budge, had to use Mr. Dremel to cut a slot for a flat blade screwdriver. Broke one WP bolt.

Bill's car needs a new tensioner housing. The cylinder for the tensioner piston is all messed up. Looks like the teflon coating or something is really a mess. The piston wouldn't budge and there was a lot of sludge between the piston and the washer pack.

Someone will post pics later.

ruf965

Bill,

This is fascinating. Wich I were there for the play by play. Gotta but another GTS first. Aston Martin goes off to the car experience classifieds tonight.

Stephen

FlyingDog

Sorry I'm not there to help. I had a 104* fever last night and it has slowly worked its way from 97.3* back up to 102* today.

I had to use a hammer to remove the piston from my tensioner. There are pictures of the guts of mine on Rennlist. It was ugly. Just pull it apart, clean the hell out of everything, lube it up, reassemble and see how it feels. Mine drags a little in spots and it works fine. Remember, most cars have have dry seized tensioners for years and are perfectly fine.

Jerome Craig

Here is a shot of the inside of the tensioner housing. An $800+ surprise Also, some shots of some of the action

I don't know how to add titles to pictures so here goes...

1. Bill's tennsioner 2. One of Daves manay woes 3. Bill needs new cam sprokets too 4. Protecting the radiator fins 5. Our shade tree mechanics 6. Bill and Bill - not quite what we planned 6. Our mentor takes a much needed break.

bgrabner

Yes, i ran into a roadblock with my tensioner and was not able to continue i think that was the cause of my belt tension light - the tensioner piston appears to have either gummed up or jammed in the housing, and it was not budging. Bill and I ended up basically hammering out the piston and the bimetallic washers - it was actually the end piston that the tension adjuster moves that was jammed. So, i think I am in for a new or rebuilt tension unit. i unfortunately don't have any pictures of my tensioner - i think Jerome's son got some though. Ended up having to flatbed the car home, but at least it is home safe where I have plenty of time and room to work on it.

Here are some pics - many thanks to Chris (and more importantly thanks to his wife and family!) for sharing his garage and driveway. And a big thanks to Bill for his knowledge and helping hands. And thanks and encouragement to Dave on getting his 928 back in shape. And thanks to Jerome for his help, and John for his help, and to everyone for their time and encouragement! Well worth the trip!

bgrabner

whoops - Jerome beat me by just a few minutes! LOL

wds928

Stephen, sorry you couldn't make it. As it was, I got about 10 miles from home this morning and forgot the intake hoses you want. I'll keep a pair out in case you get a Speed Yellow GTS!!

Dave, thinging about the WP bolt that broke. You may want to search some older posts to see how other fix them. I'm afraid after everything gets put back together, that this may leak and not hold. Just a thought.

Bill's tensioner cylinder was toast. That piston really siezed up in the in the bottom of the cylinder. There was so much crud in there. Bill, contact Jim Bailey on Monday and see if they have a used tensioner body and maybe a matching piston. Might be better than a new one.

Finally got a beer tonight after I got home. It was really hot, but not as bad as this past week. (note my sweaty shirt above). Thanks for every one who was there and who pitched in. Three cars is a bit much to try to get done in one day. Ran into some pretty severe glitches, especially Dave.

bgrabner

Bill - I don't know if Dave is able to post tonight, but he hit a roadblock on his tensioner too - he went to fill it with gear oil and it leaked out the rubber stopper, and not out the bleed valve. I have no idea what that means - if there is not a good seal going on in the tensioner? But I recommended he hold off on putting the belt back on until it could be figured out...

wds928

Bill, do you mean the rubber boot?? If so, I'm not sure what happened.

Dave, when you read this, give me a call at 434-249-3359 so I can help figure it out.

LaughaC

Thanks to all. I counted 7 928s at my house today including mine, which means some pretty cool people were here. Almost everyone drove over an hour to get here, and I hope you had a great time like I did. When next we meet I hope we can go driving!

Today was the best day of wrenching I've had since a weekend in 1990 when I put a new cam, headers, intake, carb, distributoir, and an X-pipe on one of my 60's muscle cars.

I'm not too good with names, but here's synopsis of the attendees as my tired brain recalls...

Bill the expert from Charlottesville - Brought '94 GTS - Thanks for being a Subject Matter Expert Extraordinaire -For sharing your 928 mechanical knowledge freely, and working on 3 cars simultaneously. It had to be brutal and we owe you a great deal for your wisdom, work, and advice.

Jerome - Brought '88? S4- Project Manager - Thanks for juggling 3 project checklists with great enthusiasm and patience, and for jumping in and doing a great job turning wrenches everytime one of us needed assistance. Dave and I both felt like you worked on each of our cars most of the time with us, and we don't know how you managed to be in both places at the same time!

John Pirtle - in absentia - Thanks for providing us an outstanding checklist that guided us through what would have otherwise been an abyss.

Dave - Brought '88 S4 - Thanks for co-hosting this event and for jumping into the deep end with this project. We all have days when everything seems to break, but the bolts that broke or stripped had to be replaced sooner or later. We will get this thing done and save you the labor and stress that a shop would charge.

Bill too - Brought "88 S4 - Thanks for tackling a huge project on foreign ground and motivating us to persevere when the going got tough. We all want to follow your project to completion so keep us informed. You have obviously been down this road before and handled the potholes well.

Bob - Thanks for turning wrenches, cooking our burgers, and providing sage and patient advice. At 80+ years old you are a spry and youthful middle-aged guy and we're glad you bought a 928 this year. Welcome to the club. I'm a newbie, but these guys made me feel right at home.

Lucas - Thanks for being right there and enthusiastically helping anytime someone needed a hand, and for documenting the event with photos.

Michael and your wife and son - Brought Red '87? S4 - Thanks for helping bring this whole thing together, encouraging me to buy my 928, and for contributing time and a cooler full of icy refreshments.

John (Beerfish) - Brought White '84 Euro - Thanks for bringing enthusiasm, stories, and for building a replacement for the TB tensioner wire that my car was missing.

John too - The Bavarian motorworks driver who didn't bring his 928. Thanks for bringing interesting stories and pitching in.

Bill 3 - Thanks for driving so far after putting in a day's work. By the time you arrived we were a bit weary and Dave's nightmares were at their peak, but you helped cheer us up by telling us worse things that happened to your cars.

michaelathome

Had a fun day, sorry that I took off early but I was beat!! It was great getting to see familiar faces again. Seems that the core bunch of the 928/Watercooled guys were there. We were just missing Matt and Steve.

Any one that has pics please send them and I will post them up in the watercooled gallery.

Chris, thanks for hosting the event. Sorry that I wasn't able to contribute to the lemonade fund BTW RTE 50 was a LOT faster going home than 66. Did the 930 guy ever show?

Next time I promise to get my hands dirty

Michael

dr bob

On the tensioner that was seized--

We ran into thos problem on one of our fun-day cars too. Darn think was way too stiff, needed to be driven apart with a punch from the adjusting bolt end.

I ended up honing the cylinder bore with a wheel cylinder hone to get enough clearance for the piston to slide in and out. It was still a little stiff even after all that, so it was later replaced with a rebuilt unit. I could have spent more time with the hone and made it right, I suspect. It seemed OK when we reinstalled it, but was later judged to still be too stiff.

Problem on ours was caused by water in the tensioner. Maybe the oil is in there to displace water... Anyway, the corrosion and galling in the tensioer bore was pretty severe. It needs to be a smooth enough finish for the o-ring on the piston to slide, and for the piston itself to move smoothly.

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