How it all started: Well it seemed as if the car had always run hot, from day one. While driving this car home from FL (In live in DE!) it overheated near Ft. Lauderdale due to a crack in the radiator housing. I limped to an auto parts place and bought some two-part epoxy and managed to make a bond strong enough to get me home. I did however need to pull over every two hours or so for more water! After making it home (I liken this to the journeys west for Lewis & Clark) I replaced the radiator and was happy to see no leaks, although it continued to run hot. I drove it this way for several weeks, keeping the temp down by turning the A/C on to run the fans non-stop. I know this is no solution, but when money is tight, you do what you can! Nevertheless, the car suffered a heater hose blowout, which dumped practically all of my coolant in a matter of seconds! I replaced the hose (near the heater valve) but noticed several other hoses were bulging, an indication of severe overheating. Well, before I could address the rest of the hoses, matter of factly, the day after I repaired the heater hose... ***KA-BAM*** head gasket failure! I knew it the moment I drove away from my house... that tell tale puff of white smoke and the milkshake consistency of the oil on the dipstick. OK this is bad! So, what now? Pay a dealership 2 grand to replace the gasket? Not me, no way. I always wonder how good a job it is if I cant view it with my own eyes, plus there was more wrong here than just the gasket blowing. Sooo... In I dove....
The tear down was pretty straightforward: Remove the air filter housing, intake and exhaust manifolds, hoses, fuel rail, drain the oil and coolant, remove the belts and camshaft housing and you're there...
Aside from the head gasket failure, there were several other problems to address. Since I was tearing in this far, I might as well take the time to replace all the ventilation lines and vacuum hoses. I managed to find all the correct bends I needed from a local shop, with the exception of one "S" bend multi-diameter hose that I needed to order from Zims. I saved myself a bundle using shelf hoses and fortunately, the shop didn't mind me looking around in the inventory for similar sizes and shapes. I rebuilt this motor "on the street" in the town where I live! I didn't plan it this way, in fact I even had a garage accessible, but when I went to start the car to move it, I found the clutch pedal traveling to the floor and sticking there! WHAT NOW? Well it seems as if the clutch slave cylinder decided to quit at the same time... not only that, the brake master cylinder actually developed a leak THROUGH the ATE aluminum cast housing! so, off they came. It did give me the chance to repaint the brake booster and check it for damage. I also decided while I was waiting for the head to come back from the shop that I would replace ALL of the coolant lines, brake pads, stainless steel brake lines and bleed both the clutch and brake system (refilled with Super Blue Racing fluid). Incidentally, no matter how long you leave the oil pan and coolant drain, you'll have a mess when you dislodge the head! First string of images shows it all too well. Also note the oil/coolant mix had been sucked all the way up through the recirculation hoses and actually been re-injected into the cylinders! Total cleaning was very necessary here. The head required only new valve guides and seals as far as parts go. Surprisingly the valves were in very good shape for having 122,000 miles on them. The guides were well out of range and probably added to the rattling within the head. The head was resurfaced, pressure tested, re-valved, cleaned and torqued. I know I've gained a few HP from the job as the milling of the head removed enough to decrease the total volume in the cylinder. I didn't use the thicker head gasket for this job or a WFR gasket, neither was necessary here.
I also decided to take the camshaft in for cleaning as well. When the shop opened it up they found CONSIDERABLE wear on the shaft eccentrics and stem. It appears as if some metal shards worked their way in here and wore away at the cams and the stem, enough so to change its diameter my several thousandths. This caused considerable play and so, needed replacement. I found a used shaft quite inexpensively. I may however in the future replace it with a custom ground shaft from Jon Milledge Engines. For $650 bucks I could gain almost 15 HP here. I'm also considering having a head done by Huntley Racing (ported and polished) to gain .3 to .5 points of compression. Other setbacks included the fact that Id need to replace the belts and have them retensioned with the "tool". I had several Rennlist discussions on my rebuild and it became evident that I should also inspect the oil cooler for leaks, since, at this time, I still wasn't sure where the system had truly failed. I removed and rebuilt the oil cooler and found nothing out of the ordinary there aside from some floating remnants of gasket seal and salt buildup on the seats.
It came time to remove the usual suspect, the water pump. In doing so I decided when I replaced the pump I'd add a lower temp thermostat and thermofan switch, to keep things cool. The water pump came off easily enough but I found several issues. The first being that one mounting bolt had sheared off near the block and left that way from previous work! I drilled it out and re-threaded it. The second and still perplexing issue....
Know what this is? Well it's a valve seal. Know where I found it? BEHIND THE THERMOSTAT! Yep, that's right, lodged in the pump housing behind the thermostat! I didn't know at first what it was until I saw the rebuild kit for the head, which included new valve seals. How this got in the cooling system is a complete mystery. I do know that this car bent valves once before so maybe it was dropped in the cylinder jacket accidentally. At any rate, it was crushed and lodged in the water pump. Lesson learned: 4 dollar part and lack of caution causes 2 grand in damages! Back to work on the rebuild, I replaced the water pump, this time without the valve seal ;^) and installed the new thermostat and thermofan switch. I also decided to reverse flush the heater core and the radiator to make sure there were no other obstructions. Noting found, thankfully. Another issue was the fuel injectors. When I removed the rail I saw that several had cracked tips, so I opted to rebuild them all.
Surprisingly or not, the tips are stock 928 parts. I know the 944 Shares many parts with its older brother and incidentally the 944, 928 and 959 all use the same valves! So, ok, everything back together after three weeks of waiting on the head. Just about ready to go installing the cleaned up head and camshaft....
(block image shows the rebuilt water pump and oil cooler)
At this point I don't have the exhaust manifolds dropped from the car, but I decided I should since the car always sounded rather loud. I disconnected them from the Cat Y-pipe and sure enough, there was a crack through the 1-4 Y-pipe. The crack followed the weld all the way around where the number 1 and 4 are joined and even started cracking the saddle reinforcement (these are the steel manifolds, not the cast ones). I tried several things, I searched for a replacement from a local dismantler. He too found nothing but cracked pipes. I tried welding the seam again but this too failed because the original seam was just too hard to cover without cutting through the pipe. I opted for a set of Bursch headers. I know these will rust, but I plan to have them powder coated before use, for now I have the welded pipe in place, just to get it up and running. Finally, I have everything replaced, reinstalled and torqued and its time to fire it up! Surprisingly, it turned right over, as if the weeks in between were only an hour since I last shut it down. Ok, now to check for leaks, no cooling leaks, no oil leaks (yet), temp staying low, belts not squealing or singing, nothing burning, no smoke in exhaust, oil pressure good. Ok, let's go for a ride! I have to admit the first few minutes were tense but everything fell right into place. Everything but the balance! When I shifted to second and revved it up, it shook intensely! Well looks like I had the balancers off by a tooth or something. I thought about it and tried moving several teeth in both directions, but to no avail. I'm really beginning to wonder. I happened to stumble across a web-site which notes this problem. Talk about luck! It seems as if the balancers are stamped with an "O" near the top slot, designating "ober". Naturally I thought both the top and bottom gear mount the shaft with this slot on the pin. Not so, it seems as if pre-85 cars have the gears also marked "U" for "unter" and this is the slot that the bottom gear mounts on. I had the lower balancer 180 degrees out! I found an article that read "this case will actually cause more vibrations than without ANY balancers running". Boy, they weren't kidding. Alas, problem solved. So now it seems as if all is good. Well, not quite. It seems as if the retensioning of the Cam belt split the crankshaft seal and it had begun to leak oil at the rate of about a drop a second. I wasn't going to get far like this. I decided to pull all the gears and belts back off, and rebuild the oil pump too. I did so and alleviated all traces of oil leaks from this area. I've also drained the oil twice in two weeks now to remove any debris that may have found its way in during the rebuild and I plan to do the same with the cooling system. I've also installed Bosch +4 plugs, new cap and rotor and K&N Air and oil filters.
This car now runs as smooth as silk with a noticable increase in power. On the maiden trip I drove it from NE PA to DE and I shudder when I think of the ungodly speed I hit ;^)
more to come....
Next job...Remove and rebuild the balancers, reseal the oilpan and install 951 calipers and rotors.
Future...Huntley MAF system, 4 wire adjustable mix 02 system, HEI ignition system, competition camshaft, p & p head, bored out throttle body, rebuild transmission (bad 3rd gear synchro) who knows what else?
Cosmetic...repair dings dents, new door, roof and hatch seals, 951 nose, paint job
