Mikeaagesen

I have gotten rid of all my oil leaks but 2 small ones. My mechanic said they were coming from the the oil cooler lines. He said they were leaking at the fittings by the oil cooler. I have searched to try and find a write up, but the only thing I can find is the full blown oil cooler job. I dont think I need to do all of this to get to them right? Does anyone happen to know a way to do it w/o removing the cooler and everything? Is there a way?

PorscheDoc

I would get under there and look carefully first. If you have a front seal leaking, it will drip on that hose, and gravity will carry down and make it look like it is dripping at the fitting. I thought mine was leaking there, until i looked further up on the motor and saw a small stream of oil right above the line, coming from a front seal.

Mikeaagesen

Im sorry Karl, I ment to say that they were leaking at the fittings by the oil FILTER*, not the oil cooler. Does that change your reply? I have looked around and it seems to be coming from the oil filter area.

cruise98

Mike:

The aluminum crush rings can leak, as well as the hoses themselves. Karl may be right as well. A leaking balance shaft can make it look like other things are leaking too. I would clean the area thoroughly with brake cleaner, and run it and check it until the leak becomes obvious. Changing the aluminum crush rings or hoses is difficult due to limited access. When I did this, I had to remove the sway bar, and the PS pump, and the sender to get enough room. i probably removed the heat shield too. Stubby wrenches, crows feet, or heat and beat to fit cheapos from Autozone may be necessary. Be sure to counter hold the hoses and fittings, or they may leak again. I think they are 32mm fittings. It has been awhile though.

PorscheDoc

Yea, those upper hose fittings look like a real pain in the butt to get to. I know we tried breaking some loose off a motor out of our parts car, but they were on there so tight, we just left them. And that was with the motor out of the car, lol.

Mikeaagesen

Hmm, maybe I could just let the mechanic deal with it then.

hosrom_951

You are talking about the two oil cooler lines that go to the external oil cooler?

Mikeaagesen

Hosrom, I am not sure, but I don't think so. They are by the oil filter. Isn't the external one somewhere else?

jimbo1111

The 951 doesn't have an internal cooler like the 944. The external cooler on the 951 has 2 hoses connected to the oil cooler housing where the oil filter is located. The oil cooler is located on the passing side behind the front valance next to the radiator. On the 944 the cooler is behind the oil housing internally.
I thought I had a hose leak as well. But it turned out to be the oil cooler housing O rings were leaking externally. I just replaced them myself so it's fresh in my head. If the hoses need replacement you will have to drop the power steering pump, sway bar and remove the oil sender unit to access the fittings. Those hoses are very well made. I have never seen them leak with 2 951's I have owned. It's possible that something may have hit them in transit. If the under car shield are not on. If you are going through the trouble of replacing the hoses I would also do the oil housing at the same time. The job looks intimidating at first glance because of the tight work space. But It should be considered because it's a known weak spot in the design. Those seals also leak internally and will cause a milkshake affect in the oil. Similar to a blown head gasket.

Mikeaagesen

I think that's it for me too. I bought these 2 o rings and want to install just those. Are they very hard to do?

z3bra

Like others said it's not hard per se, but the space is very limited and you'll find yourself saying all sorts of words that would make your grandma blush unless she was a sailor. The fittings on the lines are 27mm and 32mm. Don't go get the longest biggest wrench you can find that fits there though, instead I'd consider a "bonney" or pump wrench. Places like McMaster-Carr sell them. They're around 17 bucks each but they've got shorter handles at about 6" and the offset is 30 degrees instead of the 15 degrees on a regular open end. They've also got a thin profile compared to an open end wrench that size as they're designed for stuff like hydraulic fittings primarily. Look em up at http://www.mcmaster.com if you're interested. They're on page 2593 in the catalog. The ones they sell are made by Martin tools. They definitely made the job easier.

You should definitely think about replacing the big o-ring/metal seal that goes around the housing if you do the internal ones. Odds are it's seen better days too. It's around 30 bucks but with that housing being the PITA to get off that it is, trust me you want to do them all at the same time. Make sure you clean up the groove it fits in too before you put it back in so it seals better. (groove is on the housing side not the block side).

I found that there was a bunch of sediment in the block side of the cavity on my car when I changed that seal. It's messy scooping it out, but cleaning it out would be a good idea. (Just get some corks or rubber stoppers at a hardware store to plug the oil lines on the block and hose it out once you get the bulk of the sediment "mud" out of the block if you have it. That cavity there is kind of like the cooling system's analogy to the appendix on the human body and I think a lot of crap just piles up there as the little pockets in the block don't see much flow of coolant to keep it cleaned out.

I used some hylomar sealant on the housing's main metal/rubber seal too since my housing showed slight pitting in and around that groove in it (probably from stupid PO's running regular green coolant). You shouldn't need much of it but a light bead on the rubber surface is not going to hurt anything if you put some on just to make sure it seals up properly. RTV would probably work too, but since there's a propensity for oil leakage in that area hylomar holds up to it about 10000 times better than RTV silicone will. It's also easier to clean off the hylomar next time around whereas you'll be scraping the RTV off once it sets to the metal pieces.

Anyway, hope that helps you out.

One last thing, if you don't have the one piece oil pressure relief valve (you should on an 87) you'll need to get the alignment tool or be prepared to check the heck out of that and make sure it's not misaligned when you put the housing back on. Places like Pelican sell the tool and it's also around 15 dollars I believe. As an aside you can let that tool double as a belaying pin or use it as a makeshift pair of brass knuckles so it's really 3 tools in 1.

Mikeaagesen

Well, if this helps with spacing at all, I will be replacing the exhaust manifold gaskets, so the headers will have to come off. Im getting all new studs and nuts to go along with it. Hopefully with those out of the way, it wont be too difficult.