944 S2 Rod Bearing Service

This little marshmellow came in today for preventative rod bearing maintenance. At about 140k miles on the clock, it is good idea to replace those bearings. The 944 series is prone to spun bearings which will wipe out the engine, so a little preventative maintenance goes a long way.

Engine support bar back in action.

The poor thing has been neglected for awhile and so we need to clean up some of these oil leaks while we are in there. Maybe some day she will have a better owner (sorry Jim! HEHE). Nice thing about doing the bearings is we knew we would be able to tackle some oil seals while in there, and kill two birds with one stone. Since the car is also coming up on the timing belt service, we decided to do it all at once and get the front engine seals done. After this, she should be good for a long time.

Oil everywhere.

Oil that starts at the front of the pan, pretty indicative of front seal leaks.

Oil pan off and front of the engine torn down. New rod bearings are installed.

It is hard to see in the picture, but quite obvious in person, but the edge of the bearing on the #2 connecting rod cap has a half moon shaped wear started. This bearing didn’t have long, we really dodged a bullet by going in now.

The upper front balance shaft seals and the oil pump seals are definitely the source of oil leaks.

When I pulled the pan, I noticed something very odd, in that the oil pickup tube strainer was crooked, leaning towards the front. I have never seen this before, it almost looks like a manufacturing defect when they bonded the pickup tube to the strainer. We decided to be safe and replace it with new.

Cleaning lots of parts.

When you replace seals in the 944, you must also replace the races they ride on. Over time, these races groove against the edge of the seal, and will leak if you only replace the seals.

Nice and clean going back together. Pictures are a bit blurry as the damn Suburban seen in the few posts before this claimed my camera, so the phone on my camera is having to do full time duty.

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