16Jul2011
951 Radiator
Dave dropped off his 951S to have me go through the cooling system. The car was starting to get fairly hot in stop and go traffic in our lovely 100 degree heat, so it was time to do some preventative maintenance on the front end. We decided it was best to replace the 25 year old radiator and any associated hoses to get the car cooling as optimally as possible. The car was hitting the top white line of the …
06Jul2011
944 Work Continues
With the holiday schedule messing up parts delivery, I finally got the parts in today for the 944T that we have been addressing a coolant leak on. Installed the new cooler auxillary fan switch (75c) And got the top coolant nipple replaced. After warming it up and a quick test drive, I think we have the coolant issue fixed. Last night after my stranded event, I pulled apart the devil car and went after the fuel pump. Sure enough, the …
03Jul2011
951 Coolant Leak
Had a mystery coolant leak in this 951 🙂 Typically when a you start finding coolant on the driver’s side or around the front of the car on a 944, there are a couple of quick (and likely) spots to check. The first one is the coolant port on the radiator for the small expansion tank hose. This is just a screw in fitting with a paper gasket. Over time the gasket will shrink, or the plastic will become brittle, …
03Jul2011
944T Part 5:
Well, got the head back from the machine shop on Friday. Got everything prepped and ready to go, then went to clean the surface of the block for the new headgasket and made a startling discovery. If you remember, we had an issue with the waterpump where the coolant had eaten into the mounting surface of the pump (on the block). Well I started cleaning the block surface, and found the same issue on the number 1 cylinder, and it …
20Jun2011
944T Part 4:
Took some time this weekend to get the head cleaned up and ready for the machine shop. My initial thought was to put in valve seals and slap it back on, but after seeing some very slight coolant erosion in the face, I decided it was best to have the head resurfaced to clean up anything that my cause an issue. Dropped it off this morning, so hopefully will have that back in a few days. Head off the car. …
Got the car buttoned up yesterday and thought we were going to be good to go. The problem with these really really low mile cars is that once you start driving them, stuff starts failing faster than you can fix it. On the initial warm up, I kept getting a puff of smoke off the passenger side of the engine. When it didn’t stop after a few minutes, I looked underneath and found the head gasket was leaking externally onto …
15Jun2011
944T engine work continued
I got the 951 up in the air today and started poking around a little more. Always exciting to see what you will run into next. My plan was to retension the belts to the correct spec, then start on the headers. Ummmm not so much. ROFL. Some people shouldn’t work on cars they aren’t familiar with, lol. We all have our moments, but this is AWESOME! Some things put a big smile on my face. Needless to say, this …
14Jun2011
And now for something a little unusual
Something you don’t see every day anymore. A 1 owner, 12k mile 1986 944 turbo. She started having fits after sitting for a number of years, so time to go through it and see what we can figure out. Another shop went through the timing belt and such, and now we have a no start. I know, I was thinking the same thing, but looks like the T-belt is ok 😉 She’s a beut Clark…..The tow truck driver dumped it …
12Jun2011
944 Oil Leaks Part 3:
Before heading out of town I was able to almost get the 944 back up and running. Just waiting on a set of spark plug wires and we should be able to fire this thing up. Cam tower reassembled and ready for install. And back on the car: Oil cooler housing removed from the car and ready for some cleaning. New seals on the internal cooler: And the block cleaned up and ready for install of the cooler and housing: …
05Jun2011
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 …