What you DONT want your head gasket to look like!

[many944s]

I thought I was going to be lucky enough to have a slow week and work on my to-do list at the shop... HA.

Anyway, I had a local 924S driver bring his car in after finding out I run a shop. He stated that his car was overheating ALOT, and the overflow tank had turned kinda brown Long story short... Check out this head gasket


Not alot of fun!

[looneybin]

at least it looks like it still had good compression

[AKCJ]

Makes a guy wonder is we shouldn't get in there and retorqe the 25 year old head? Or, maybe this is caused by something else? Or it's just old age.

[jkrustchinsky]

looks like coolant and fuel has just eaten away at it for 10 years, my headgasket looked bad but not nearly that bad, and it had milkshake everywhere for who knows how many years before i got it.

[hpservertech]

Just another perfect reason why I'm going to go ahead and replace mine over the winter...before it goes south.

[Rasta Monsta]

Could be a manufacturing defect. An odd percentage of 87 924S models lose head gaskets at 75-100k miles.

[Techno Duck]

The words of Adam Savage : "Well there's your problem"

I think alot of it is the headgaskets just start breaking down after 20 something years being submerged in coolant and being subject to heat cycles. Its a pretty harsh environment. What did the deck of the cylinder head look like? Any major pitting in the aluminum? I wouldnt be surprised if the wrong coolant was being used also.. phosphate free antifreeze is important!

My headgasket let go after about 100k miles on my n/a. The fiber material broke down and water pushed past, and split the fire seal ring in two, allowing coolant to enter the cylinders.

[flash968]

we are starting to see head gaskets deteriorating on the 968s - they are falling apart - not blowing, just disintegrating

a little unsettling to say the least - i never thought of a head gasket as a preventative maintenance item

[many944s]

I thought there would be a lot of pitting as well, however there wasn't any. There wasn't even any of the head beginning to corrode!
I can't say the same about the water pump, whose impeller wasn't doing much of anything since most of the vanes were gone. The fire rings were still doing their jobs at least. I think I am going to have to lean toward the "manufacturing flaw" or old age. And fyi, it was an original non "turbo" head gasket.

[bland vanilla]

It doesn't look that bad. JC Whitney has a repair kit for it that also adds 100 HP.

Steve

[speedracing944]

mine was not as bad but i was surprised at how much it was deteriorated.

speedy

[Dean924s]

Yiks. And yes I have seen several 87 924's with head gasket problems. I am wondering if they used old stock for those like they did with so much of the rest of the 87 924s.

I keep thinking that Mr Porsche must have been having a pint with the bean counters and they told him to get rid of all the old 924 and pre 85.5 944 stock they had in some warehouse some place. The 88 924s was just a case of they forgot to stop production ,

[Schumi]

That's pretty much the 924S story- they were losing sales, the 959 was running their profits into the ground... and they had a bunch of early components from the 924's and series 1 944's laying around. Thus a new model was born...

[thekidd]

Pshhh. Is that the old head gasket, or the new one? You could fix that with a little super glue and your good to go track it. Or the other solution, Duck tape. That looks gross, but an interesting picture.

[John_AZ]

Originally Posted by many944s

I thought I was going to be lucky enough to have a slow week and work on my to-do list at the shop... HA.

Anyway, I had a local 924S driver bring his car in after finding out I run a shop. He stated that his car was overheating ALOT, and the overflow tank had turned kinda brown. Not alot of fun!

Lets add this up.

Head gasket set, many944s reconditioned head, water pump, front seals, complete block and cooling system flush, chemicals, cracked hoses and a ton of WYAT stuff, tuneup and finally shop fees, labor and tax.

Then add all the other lack of maintenance seen by the shop for future work.

PRICELESS

Now about the crack that Porsche had a warehouse full of spare parts and built the 1988 924S....yup, but I'm happy.

John_AZ
1988 924S 58K to Show
1987 924S 112K DD to Go
1998 Cherokee to Tow
1979 924 + 1977.5 924 + 1970 914 1.7 + MG Midget gone and not forgotten

[Rasta Monsta]

Nah, I think it was more likely a marketing decision. Porsche had a long run of producing 'entry-level' cars, and that slot was empty due to rising 944 costs.

[Schumi]

I wish the fenders had stamp dates in them. It would be interesting to see when some of them were actually made. I'm sure at least the first year a group were made from old stock.

[ERAU944]

wow, that head gasket is atrocious!

Originally Posted by Schumi

I wish the fenders had stamp dates in them. It would be interesting to see when some of them were actually made. I'm sure at least the first year a group were made from old stock.

i highly doubt it. in 1986 you could get a 924S ROW... this 'old components' nonsense is funny though

[Rasta Monsta]

Indeed, the ROW 924 2.0 ended production in July 1985, and the 924S began the following month.