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Just joined Rennlist.
My 15 year old son was surfing facebook marketplace and came across a 944 that looked reasonably clean. It was reported to need a head gasket, and was being sold cheap enough that my son could afford it.
I'm a subaru guy, but had an Audi phase. First german car in the household in over 20 years. This is a 1984 red 944.
Brought back and started working on it.
We did a compression test, which seemed good, one cylinder was a touch lower than the others, but not a huge worry. Leak down test indicated the back 2 cylinders seemed to be the culprit. Coolant pressure test also resulted in the some coolant dripping down the driver side rear of the motor near the flywheel. Wasn't able to see exactly where.
We've started tearing in to it for head gasket. previous owners notes suggest the whole engine was recently rebuilt and the head gasket failed shortly after rebuild. All fasterners look new, timing and balance belts look new. It came apart fairly easy. Currently just to remove the timing belt, balance belt and valve cover to be at the head.
Looking at special tools. Found a way around the flywheel lock (6 mm allen wrench in flywheel and screw driver to keep it from moving). It's an older style timing belt setup with both 24mm ecentric rollers as well as 27mm on the balance belt.
I'm assuming thin 24mm and 27mm wrenches will do the trick as opposed to the special tools?
A couple concerns that struck me as odd worth asking you folks about.
1-It's noticeable after watching nc944er's head gasket video, that this engine is missing two allen head m8 bolts from the head to the block near the temp sensor. in nc944er video he suggested those are often problematic bolts. Wondering how disastrous it is that those were missing? Head isn't off yet, so unknown if maybe the bolts broke off or if they are just missing. I assume you don't want to go without those.
2-In the plastic timing belt cover as my son removed it, a black half moon keyway fell out. Looks virtually unused or scratched. My first concern is to make sure it's not missing from anywhere. One video showed a flat keyway on the camshaft. I assume if its missing that would be noticed. Any thoughts where else I should be looking? I'm guessing by it's color it got dropped in there and couldn't be found. Basically want to confirm it was an extra left in the timing cover by accident.
Overall, pretty excited for the project. All the nuts and bolts freed up easily etc.
First off, welcome! Please post pictures of the car, that's always appreciated. (Never mind, our messages crossed in the intertubes. Good looking car.)
If you haven't found it, Clark's Garage has a ton of useful information, as does PET, for visual diagrams of the various systems and parts, and how things go together.
For the early cars I'm no real help, but you're in the right place and I'm sure that experienced folks will be able to get you the information that you need.
Added a picture of the interior which is also quite good. Previous owner did a lot of renewing of interior parts and gave us supplies to finish it up. We redid the leather and cloth on the center console.
Radio was half done, and are waiting on a wiring harness to arrive to finish the job. We've also worked on bringing the paint back to life.
Also need to figure out what to do with the stone guards....cover with a dark color, or pull off the old cracked nasty ones and put new clear ones on. We have circut to cut vinyl. So we just need to find the correct stuff.
Welcome to Rennlist and to 944 life.
My vote on the stone chip guards is to take them off and leave them off.
Be sure to replace all the idle air and AOS plumbing while the manifold is off. 944 online has aftermarket replacements that are good quality and cost much less than factory pieces. This is also a good time to replace the heat control valve, the reference sensors, and clean the two ground points at the back of the block / clutch housing.
Got the head off today. Now to get the head to a shop to evaluate. Seems good, but at least one valve was replaced previously.
Also had time to play with the laser to make a custom leather key chain for the new ride in the fleet.
No better time than this to reseal the oil cooler and housing too.
Believed to be done by the previous owner.
Kept some decent notes.
He ended up sending me the title to the car after the fact. I don't need it to register it Vermont so I wasn't worried about it at purchase. As luck would have it, I use race with the previous owner as well as his dad.
So I was able to reach out to him to get history of the car before the seller received it.
He paid 5k for it. It was running, driving good car.
He sold to the guy we bought it from for $2k.
He put less than one thousand miles on it and felt the need to do a full rebuild. It then appears the head gasket failed after rebuild. He chased that thinking it shouldn't be the head gasket, only to conclude it was..... frustrated sold it off at a loss.
I'll do a thread for head gasket post mortem.
Doing some touch up paint under the hood.
Notice a Velcro strip along the leading edge by the latch of the hood.
What is that for?
Maybe for a leather bra or something. Has me scratching my head
Well first third of the torque process done.
Next up the quarter turns.
Hoping to complete and run the car next weekend doing little bits daily.
Somewhat thwarted by a wheel bearing in the wife's Subaru Ascent and go karts needing to be ready for a race on Wednesday. Mix in weddings last night and next Saturday. Ah, life.....
Got it up and running before dinner tonight. Going to borrow a coolant pressure tool tomorrow to help blead air out seems to run fine. Still some smoke from the tail pipe
. Hoping the cat still has stuff to burn off
Hi speed fan seems to be fouling on the coolant house coming by the water pump. Unsure why just yet. Unplugged it for the moment.
Back on the lift looking over things. Definitely have the fans off by 180 degrees.
Alternator belt is running on the lower timing cover. Will need to figure that out.
Well, It's a driver!
Pressure bled the coolant.
All seems pretty good. Plenty of noises to explore. Gauges are wacky, but coolant temp and fuel gauges seem to work. I'm not sure on oil pressure.
Passenger fan still rubs on the coolant hose even after getting oriented correctly . So that fan is disconnected for the moment. Has an aftermarket radiator, which sticks out a bit....not a fan of that.😏
07-25-2024, 06:58 PM
Yet another 944 father and son project--Vermont
