First post of my 1989 3.2, and a question

[Dauner]

Hi Everyone. Been a forum member for a while, and purchased my 1989 Carrera 3.2 last fall, but haven't posted since the purchase. phone pic attached...

I did what many recommend not to do and purchased a car with absolutely no service records. It is a black 89 Targa 3.2, that had 202K miles on the odo. The car was in Wichita, and I live in the Minneapolis area, and so had a PPI done at a local Porsche mechanic (Mo Zahr), and he gave the car a pretty clean bill of health. Drove the car home, put an additional 2500 pain free miles on it, and stored it for the winter. Interestingly enough, the car spent most of it's life in Tulsa OK, and so I spent the winter trying to piece together the cars history. The state of OK sent me the entire title history for 7 bucks, and so I contacted the owner that had the car the majority of it's life. He was extremely happy that I called, and we keep in communication. I also spent the winter calling every Porsche mechanic in the Tulsa area, and have now pieced together the vast majority of the service records. The shops were all extremely accomodating, scanning in docs and emailing them to me.

Fast forward to this spring, and the car fired right up, with it's usual sewing machine smoothness. Unfortunately, I have developed what I believe is a timing chain tensioner issue. Symptoms are: 3 times this year in the last ~1000 miles the car has made a metallic rattling noise at startup. It is pretty repeatable in that if I shut the engine down, and restart, it gets quieter. When I shut down a third time, the rattle dissappears. All three times happened after somewhat spirited driving, or long drives in hot weather, followed by roughly 4 hours of engine off and cooling. The rattle sound is extremely periodic, and varies linearly with engine speed. The most recent time was last weekend, where I was able to grab a stethescope and isolate the sound to the left timing chain cover. listened to intake and exhaust valve covers, and the sound was definitely much louder at the chain cover.

The second occurance happened at a friends house, and so I made a mediocre video with my phone, which can be seen/heard here:

YouTube - ‪1989 Porsche 911 3.2 Timing Chain‬‏

This past week, I started reading posts, and discovered I need to diagnose prior to starting again. I plan to remove the muffler, tin, and chain cover to inspect.

Quite suredly a red herring, but I did come across a post where someone had very similar symptoms to mine after they changed oil to Brad Penn. The last thing I did last fall was change oil to Brad Penn 20W-50 from Valvoline (previous owner)

My question is, is there anything else I should do prior to embarking on the several hours of disassembly? I'd be curious to hear peoples opinions on the video. The rattle is most noticeable at the end of the video. Again, it has only happened 3 times, with the car being a daily driver all spring.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

Mark

[DRACO A5OG]

Remove you fan belt to take that out of the equation.

If still there, get a Stethescope from HB and check which side the rattle is coming from.

I had this scare along time ago and it went away. PM me and I will tell you what I observed. It is not scientific but too much of a coincedense in my case. I no longer have the Garbage Can Rattle.

BTW, Beautiful TARGA Brother!

Jim

[Dauner]

Thanks for the feedback. it's only making the sound every so often, but I was lucky enough to have a stethescope this most recent time. My untrained ears said definitely loudest at left timing chain cover, but know that sound can travel through in different ways. I'll send a PM...

Thanks again,

Mark

[70S Targa Guy]

Originally Posted by Dauner

Hi Everyone. Been a forum member for a while, and purchased my 1989 Carrera 3.2 last fall, but haven't posted since the purchase. phone pic attached...


Quite suredly a red herring, but I did come across a post where someone had very similar symptoms to mine after they changed oil to Brad Penn. The last thing I did last fall was change oil to Brad Penn 20W-50 from Valvoline (previous owner)My question is, is there anything else I should do prior to embarking on the several hours of disassembly? I'd be curious to hear peoples opinions on the video. The rattle is most noticeable at the end of the video. Again, it has only happened 3 times, with the car being a daily driver all spring.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

Mark

I hope their is no relationship between Brad Penn oil and strange engine noises. I just changed from Mobil 1 to Brad Penn 20W-50 last month.

[Dauner]

Bump