Brantley

... I say yes but want validation.

History: I brought home a new to me '86 944 Turbo yesterday that had been donated to charity. The car was not in running condition due to a bad "computer". In reviewing the car, this appeared to be true so took a gamble and purchased it for $1800. Further inspection did show a bunch of rewiring work so figured worse case I would be messing with some electrical issues. The registration expired in May of 2013 so the car hasn't been sitting for too long...

Towed the car home, put a battery and spare DME in it and it started up! Woohoo! Before starting it, looked over the engine bay fixed a few vac leaks, checked the oil, checked the coolant (which was low! so topped it off). Checked out the timing and balance belts and appeared to be in good condition. Could tell some one spent some time in the engine bay as it was fairly clean, new parts, etc. Quart of Brad Penn oil in the hatch so know that this car was cared for by an enthusiast.

Decided to take it for a little drive, no boost, around the block. Well... after the car warmed up it started blowing gray / white smoke out the tail pipe. Limped it back to the driveway and took this video -

www.youtube.com/embed/RYfSu94dkaM

Pulled the plugs... there seems to be some "wetness" in cylinder's 1 & 2. Will be manually cranking car this evening to see any fluid becomes visible.

After the quick trip around the block and the idling, the coolant level definitely went down....

So, I guess the only real question, could this just be burn-off of build up since the car had been sitting for a year or two??

It is probably head gasket... but one could wish... any thoughts?

Thanks,
Mike

P.S. Here is a picture of it. Was this a Rennlister car? Car came from San Jose... i'm sure the owner said eff-it and donated it... It is a metallic gray '86 with 996 TT twists on it... the offset looks silly with no spacers...

lart951

Sheezz are you going to start parting cars too? lol It doesn't seem to be a blown hg more like oil burning

dizzyj

agree. valve guide seals would be my guess

Brantley

No parting for me... not enough patience for that! But, probably a flip once I give it a good once over... this car is definitely worth more than I paid.

Good observation on the oil... the oil level is over the dipstick full level. I'm going to change the oil and filter to get that in alignment.

Some more observations -

No "froth" in the AOS / Oil Filler tube.

Rotating the engine, peering into each spark plug hole looked pretty normal - no fluids and dry.

Maybe a slight bit of oil on a couple of the spark plug's threads, #2 being the worst.

Spark plugs 1 through 4 going left to right -

gruhsy

wow. great buy!!!!

dizzyj

does it smoke more when accelerating, or go away?

Brantley

I didn't notice any smoke while accelerating. Only when I came to a stop at idle. Though have only driven it very little.

ehall

Well, give it a good hot run, after you change the oil. You may just have a leak in one of the coolant hoses, but a boost run will tell you some information...or blow the Hg for you.

hot-J

Whats the mileage? Turbo seals or valve stem seals get my vote. A compression test should point to or eliminate a couple of things like piston rings or cylinder wall wear. Also pull off the J boot and see how much oil blow by there is. Lots of oil equal turbo seals. By process of elimination, you can almost guarantee its the stem seals if all of the above turn out okay.

Brantley

I'll do that! Will double check my AAA is still valid incase it goes while on the road and I need a tow!

Thanks... good suggestions. The mileage on the odometer is 258k so if head and / or turbo are original then could certainly be the cause. The engine bay is very clean so has definitely had some work... I do see a couple bits of burned plastic / rubber on the wiring harness so believe this car suffered a minor engine fire at the fuel rail in the past.

The head looks very clean so probably can't be original. The turbo does have a fair bit of gunk built up under the j-pipe so perhaps could be the source of the problem. Turbo seals may have failed... I did look at the intercooler pipes and while there was oil in them, I didn't think it was excessive. Will look at this more closely.

I did a cold compression test as I have been hesitant to start the car while I finish looking it over. Yes, I know this test was probably meaningless (or not?) since not done at normal operating temp but all 4 cylinders showed about 29 +/- 1 psi. Really low but at least consistent. I'll do a proper compression test once I start running it again.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions... it is appreciated!

Mike

Black51

As ehall mentioned, check your coolant hoses and all around the bottom of the radiator. I have an '86 as well and the rad is leaking. Also check around the turbo coolant pipe, and especially the turbo coolant pump.

Brantley

Thanks, I will do so. Though, I have no visually leaking coolant, that is, nothing dripping to the ground. However, I did see that the PO deleted the turbo coolant pump and just ran a line straight to the turbo. Hmm...

jmj951

Those look like the hollow spoke turbo twists. Probably worth as much as you paid for the whole car. Very nice find, though I worry about the 'turbo coolant pump delete', the 'hot air intake', and the coupler hose on the exit of the turbo. Some things done well, some not, which leads me to think it was well taken care of in the past, but then owned by someone who maybe tried-but-couldn't keep it on the road. At least they didn't part it out.

Brantley

Just an update for those who care...

So I couldn't get the car started again after that first time. I've been through my fair share of no starts so know generally what to look for. I had no tach bounce so immediately checked out the reference sensors. Although the reference sensors appear to be brand new, the harness side has seen better days. One of the wires was hanging by a thread and when I wiggled it came apart.

Ordered up the Lindsey racing replacement harness for the reference sensors, installed it today and now the car fires up quickly and every time... nice!

Next order of business was to change the oil as the oil level was entirely too high. The car had a k&n oil filter. I installed the proper OC142 filter and used Mobil1 15w-50. Although I thought the oil looked clean on the dipstick it was pretty black so glad I changed it. The PO had installed a magnetic drain plug and that was generally clean so that was positive.

Took off the rims and they are unfortunately not hollow spokes, but are Porsche (BBS) nonetheless.

Also found that the power steering fluid was very low (started whining) and the break fluid a little low. The power steering seems to be leaking a fair bit. Topped it off with some Dexron ATF so will do that a few more times over the next few days to get the fluid changed out. Topped off the brake fluid as well.

Found that the massive rear wheels were rubbing against the parking brake line and had worn about a 3rd of the way through it - so, zipped tied that out of the way.

At this point, felt confident to take it out on the road for a short drive after looking over everything. Boost comes on strong (for a stock car) so turbo is working. Took it around the block a couple of times to see if the smoke would come back and strangely it did not! Granted, it is dark out but with a flashlight couldn't see anything....

Is it possible that having too much oil would cause it to burn off through the exhaust like that?

I'll be taking it on a more substantial drive over the next few days but if things keep looking good, I'll probably be putting it on the market!

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions!

Mike