Milehigh981

subscribed . keep us updated, eager to see how this turns out. cool find!

951Dreams

+1 both have happened and been reported many times on here. Yes, it has to do with age sometimes, and on overall neglected cars very often. #1 killer of these cars is broken timing belts, normally due to them being kept too long or for to many miles. Lots​ of theory, but no one is exactly sure why these eat them the way they do. Honesty, by all rights they should be good at least 45-60k. But, they aren't. Heat and oil may play a large part in it. Most of these have leaky front seals, and that seems to be a factor.

After age/miles, next most common reason they go is likely improperly installed belts. That's hard to quantify, most would never admit they did it wrong even if they knew. Also not rechecking them after about 1000 miles is not good practice either. But I bet it's rare it's done like it should be. The stupid price of the Porsche tool to check proper belt tension doesn't help the situation. I'd be willing to bet money that a perfectly installed belt in a non-leaking engine that was checked every so often would last 45-60k. But if your taking the time to check that much, might as well just replace it. And why chance it anyway. Better safe than sorry. But that being said, Porsche themselves knew there was a problem, even before they were very old. This was back when most of this service was still done at the dealership. And even throughout the cars run you can see them trying to address the issue in the design. Don't think it ever made much difference.

After miles, age, and improper installation, rollers is likely the next biggest issue. I'm sure more often than not, it comes from them never having been done, and these are getting old. They do wear out, and you often don't know till it's too late. Personally I feel they should be good 10 years or 100k miles. Any more is tempting fate. But 6/60 is convenient and a very safe guideline. And they are not that expensive.

From years of reading the fourms, I'd say the balance belt and water pump came in last as reasons for failure. But it does happen. On any car that has a timing belt driven water pump, I'd say never go more than every other belt change without doing the pump. Likely​ we'd be ok with every 3rd, since we do ours so often, but once again, most don't want to chance it. I'll likely​ do mine every 3rd.

The balance shaft belt you have to remove anyway to do the timing belt. And they are cheap. What wouldn't you just do both???? Why even bother chancing it? You have it off anyway!

Anyway, that's my .02 cents. Everyone has their opinion. And it comes down to personal tolerance of risk.

adie

just out of interest how much have you invested into the $100 car to get it started, I personally would have checked the oil and visually looked at the belts and started her up but it seems everyone has an opinion on how to spend other peoples money

neunfünfeins

Only two-hundredths of one cent?
Aren't you selling yourself a bit short?

[But hey... just my $0.02 ]

951Dreams

I think we're offering advice, not telling people what to do with their money. We've all read the stories of those that didn't do these things, and paid more for it in the end. Then the person gets overwhelmed and gives up, and we lose another car.

It isn't just these cars, this is the good rules of thumb for any interference car that's been sitting for years. It would be different if it had just sat a year or two.

But back to the OPs thread! We can't wait to hear how it goes this weekend!

elgy

When I bought my 924S I did the belts, front end seals, rollers and a rebuilt water pump all from Pelican as I remember. Four years and over 5000 km later no problems. Normally I check belt tensions each Spring at the end of Winter hibernation. Will likely do just belts later this year.

Tiger03447

If you don't run the balance shaft belt, and many here don't, you can expect the oil pickup tube in the pan to crack..unless you do mods to it. Many here will tell you that you to change out the balance shaft belt and all rollers when doing a cam belt change...Saves headaches later on when all the parts are already in place....kinda like changing out the water pump every 60 K or so. just my .02 cents worth.

touareg

Even being lazy and not looking for a bolt you just dropped while installing the top cam/distributor cover after a belt job...

Trekintosh

Ouch! Was the engine recovered?

touareg

Fortunately it was caught in time, the engine was started, ran fine, just made a loud whirring noise. The bolt wedged just right under the balance shaft belt, you can see it there in the second picture. I doubt it started there?

Trekintosh

Whirring noise? Did you reuse that gacked timing belt? Or was it one of the bearings?

touareg

I think you miss-understand, this was a job I had outsourced to a well respected mechanic, I got the car back heard a whirring noise complained, and was told it was normal, I insisted it was not. After that took it to another shop and they found that. I was lucky the bolt did not have a washer a few milimeters bigger and tear the balance shaft belt, and take the timing belt. Those groves are the washer on the bolt tearing through the balance shaft belt teeth.

The bolt had fallen I assume after the job was done, between the front and the rear covers, you will see when you get in there, and I assume was pulled under by the balance shaft belt, I was very lucky it did not go.

It was obvious the bolt was lost as a new shiny bolt was used on the distributer cover.

I can't say for sure, but I assume it would be even more expensive to fix my engine, as I have a 968, there are much less parts for rebuilding I would imagine on the 3.0 variocam motors.

Trekintosh

I see. Yeah, definitely glad that it got torn down and fixed.

Update 5/7/17
Started to fiddle with the engine in prep for timing but it started to rain so we had to abandon it. We encountered a problem with setting the engine at TDC. My dad's belly is in the way of him leaning over the top of the engine to see the mark on the flywheel, and I can't see it at all even if I do move there. Why's it so hard to see, and how can I get around this?

touareg

Tell your dad to lose weight? Kidding

You are talking these marks correct on the cam first, then double checking on the flywheel?




Been a while since I looked at doing a belt job, but I thought you could check from below, pull the starter and put a flywheel lock in.

MistaX

Pull the #1 spark plug, drop a chop stick in the hole, and rotate the engine carefully while holding the chop stick so it doesn't wedge itself and break. At it's highest point, that is TDC. Make sure the cam is correctly located too, since it could be 180 out using this method alone. (Exhaust stroke instead of compression stroke)