944 Oil Leaks Part 2:

The latest round on the 944 finally showed some progress at the end of the day.

The cam tower apart and ready to reseal. Waiting on one small cam plug before I can start reassembly.

The front cam housing spacer sleeve wasn’t looking too good.

Trying to make progress on the water pump. In all the years I have sold and installed 100’s of reman water pumps, I have seen 2 bad out of the box pumps. They both came from Vertex Auto and were supplied by customers. I thought the first one was a fluke, but this 2nd one really concerns me, so I won’t ever recommend them for a rebuilt pump. A few issues with this pump. 1: The pulley is not only thinner on the vertex pump, it is also spaced out too far from the body.

2a: Notice my good rebuilt pump from my supplier. The sealing surface has been resurfaced and is ready for installation.

2b: Notice on the Vertex pump, not only did they PAINT the sealing surface of the pump, look at the corrosion of the impeller!

3a: Shaft length issue. This should be flush with the pulley.

3b: How it should look

Pulling apart the front of the engine, I found a lot of RTV on seals. This is a no no.

2 of the 4 seals were also sitting crooked in the housings. No wonder we had leaks.

When I pulled the pump, I found a lot of RTV on the gasket and this was why. There was a broken bolt in the block that holds the water pump on. 10 out of 11 bolts should be good enough right? LOL. I tried for a few hours to get it out with pliers, heat, chisel, etc with no luck. The bolt was broken off at an angle, which was going to make drilling very difficult as you can’t exactly grind it flat without damaging the sealing surface on the block.

So I did my best with a center punch and got a mark made and started drilling with the 90 degree drill. Once it was cleaned out, I was able to timesert the block. Though slightly off center of where it is suppose to be, slightly enlarging the hole on the water pump made up for it.

And the new pump installed.

While I was in there, I replaced the fan switch (85c) with a cooler switch (75c) to allow the radiator fans to kick on quicker, thus keeping the coolant temps down.

While I was messing around there, I could feel the radiator moving around in the mount. I pulled it out to find the rubber bushings missing or flattened too much, allowing for the movement. 4 new rubber mounts, and we were back in business. The left mount is the correct height and shape. The right mount is a 25 year old squished mount.

The radiator sits on 2 rubber mounts on the bottom, and uses 2 on the top to pinch it in place.

944Oil LeakPorschewaterpump