New 944 owner...I have some questions...
 

I just bought an 88 2.5L for 400 bux...well it does run...It didn't until after i brought her home but she runs now...I have a few questions.

First...
The owner said the car had overheated and he parked it. He claims its the water pump. The waterpump doesn't appear to be leaking, however I know it doesn't always have to leak for it to be broken somehow. It's had a new timing belt around 15k ago, but no new water pump and the car has 200k miles on it.
After running for about 10-15 min. the car was already overheating again and I couldn't hear the cooling fans kicking in. Is it mostly likely a water pump issue here if it's overheating that quickly from a cold start?

Also, the car is a little bit rough...sounds more like a little misfire...I haven't been able to check the plugs yet, i just got her yesterday....but are there any common reasons why these engines may miss?

In the higher RPMs, the car sounds very nice but when i let off the gas, it bogs down really low and surges back up, and it will surge a little until it finally evens itself out....would that be an idle control issue?


This is also my first car with an actual oil pressure gauge. The gauge is all the way up when running normally and then under a load, the oil pressure appears to drop. Is that normal?

Also the fuel in it is over a year old and needs to be flushed...That May be adding to the little rough idle....

So any help would be TOTALLY awesome....i'm sorry if I am repeating a question someone else may have asked, but i just needed to throw my list out there. I couldn't really find anything that was the same as mine
Thanks
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1222510642.jpg

By the photo it looks like you were smart to have it towed to your home. Will you be doing the repair work? Any prior experience with Porsche?

$400 is a really good price. From what you've said, the repair work should be about $1000 to have it run OK and another $1000 in necessary maintenance (not including clutch) if you do it yourself with the board help.

Welcome to the board.

John_AZ
1988 924S + 1987 924S DD

I would start by seeing why the fans arne't kicking in. There are a couple of ways to do this to see if you are getting power the the thermo switch on the radiator and actually seeing if the switch is working when it is supposed to. Get a haynes manual and look up Clarks garage on the net for repairing your 944. You can drain the gas simply by removing the hose at the tank that goes to the fuel pump at the passenger side rear wheel well. Welcome and good luck with your new find.

I'd pull the plugs and see if one of them is bright and shiny from being steam cleaned. If yes, head gasket.

I'd then jumper the two wires attached to the driver's side of the rad, and see if the fans come on with ignition hot. If yes, may be bad temp switch. If no, bad fan relay.

Drain your tank, and refill with Chevron gas. Dump a bottle of Techron additive your first tank or two. Change your fuel filter.

Idle hunting is likely a vacuum leak. Refresh engine vacuum hoses.

I'm just going to guess that you need a new thermo fan switch and the catalytic converter or muffler needs to be cleared. Critters like to build nests up in there, and it did happen to my car along time ago.

Timing belts are a must, the mileage isn't the key, it's the age of the rubber.

Run ALL the gas through it. You can also add a couple bottles of Heat to help. Once it's empty replace the fuel filter and put some new gas in it.

For the idling, it's most likely a vacuum connection (very common) replace the hoses with the kit from lindsey.

Also do the full workup, belts, rollers and water pump. Less then $600 in parts.

You would not believe how many cars have overheating problems from nothing more serious than a bad reservoir cap or failure to bleed the cooling system correctly. Start with the easy stuff that doesn't require buying any parts other than a new cap. The rough idle could clear up with just fresh gas and a few cans of Techron. yeah, I'm cheap but avoid buying parts I don't need to replace unless I'm sure.

The 2 blog entries give additional information....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/blogs/porschekitty/75-my-944-update-prev.html

John_AZ

not to hijack but HOLY BALLS BATMAN, those drain cover rims are spectacular, ive never seen them with the offset like that. Ill give more than you paid for the car right now! just for the wheels. anybody know what those drain covers came off of with that offset.

you got a great deal, not only is it an 88 with the desirable motor, but it runs too

Those look like 928 rims, and they are heavy too!

45 lbs each those drain covers just gave mine away and shipped them :)

Seriously 45 lbs? Damn, is the navy buying anchors?

Hence why they are called sewer lids....on top of the fact they look like them as well.

Well, porsche kitty, if you ever decide you want to part with yours, i have CASH waiting. Josh

Tell me if I am wrong. If you turn on the fans for heat/AC, like in my 84, the fans comeon, but if I am not running the fans, she will over heat. That happened once to me when I first got my 84, some coolent on the ground from the overflow hose, but I caught it early as I was working on some lighting. If the fans run, let her run and watch the temp guage, if it stays steady, you'll be allright. Possible thermo swith.
Haha, critters nesting in the tailpipe- seen it, bought the car a few days later (924S) A sight to see when the shop owner started her and saw all the shyt flying out.

I did a little more checking...I think I'm pretty sure is the H2O pump because I ran her and had the a/c on to get the fans going and she still overheated...If it were a thermostat or clogged radiator, one hose would be hard and pressurized and one would be soft. Neither hose had any pressure in it and I could pop the cap off and there wouldn't be any pressure release. The more i run the car, it idles a little better. I'm going to drain the tank because it has over half a tank of the old gas and I wouldn't be surprised if the guy that had it put 87 in it or Arco or something AHHH. I always put Chevron in my car. I'm gonna put new gas and techron in it.

Those rims are 928 s2 rims...and I like my car and want to keep her :D sorry guys, I got a steal. lol

Yes I will probably be getting the pump from here.

I will be doing the repairs myself...I'm girl and I love my cars :D I was a Lexus tech and a Mazda tech...but I have some experience working on 944s and 928s with my dad. My dad has a boxster right now. I like the front engines, though. Thanks so much for the responses. This site is awesome.

These cars are pretty picky when it comes to water. An air bubble in the system can cause an overheating issue.

Raise the front of the car as high as you can and fill it full of water. Open the bleed screw to get all the air out. It's going to take awhile to get all the air out, so be patient.

It would be hard for me to believe that the water pump shaft is being turned by the timing belt, but the impellers are not moving water, if it has enough water. Water pump failures are usually gasket, or water seepage through the weep hole. Catastrophic failure of the water pump would most likely take out the timing belt.

I'll try that today then, Thanks for the tip. I'll post what happens....the resevoir was empty when I got and I filled that but thats all. Thanks

That was probably with tires. Sewer lid are ugly as sin, they are all forged and one of the lighter 16'' wheels available for late offset cars.

There is nothing special about working on these cars, Porsche might be branded on the cam cover but there is nothing complex about them other than a few things where you ask yourself 'what the hell were they thinking?'.

Consider replacing the timing belt, balance shaft belt and water pump before running the car much more. The general consensus is replace at 35-40k miles or every 3-4 years. One of the annoying aspects of these engines is they are interference and a broken belt will probably bend a few valves and leave some dimples in your pistons. You will be able to replace the waterpump at this time and rule that out in the future as a potential cause of the overheating. You can also check the thermostat on the waterpump to make sure its opening..however getting the infamous snap ring out with the pump still on the car is the stuff of legends.

Didn't have money to buy coolant today so I tried to figure out if the water pump was actually pumping...
I warmed the car up and took off the upper radiator hose and water wasn't pumping out. I poured water directly into the radiator and then reconnected the hose and this time both upper and lower hoses got hot and hard when the car heated up when before they just stayed soft even when it was hot...sooo I dunno. I'm pretty confused. Seems like a water pump thing to me but again, theres no sign of coolant leaking at the pump. I need to pull the thermostat out and check it.
I just keep hoping its not the pump because I have no money to buy one and I'm DYING to drive it around. Its like torture seeing it sitting there and I can't go down to the beach with the roof off....*tear*

the wheels really do look kind of like sewer lids. lol :D

I'd say go buy or borrow a cheap infared thermometer (I think I paid less than $20) and see if it's REALLY overheating. It's very common for the electrical system to get screwy. When the guage on mine was pegged on the hot, it was actually only 180 degrees. I have replaced everything but the guage on mine, and I still get erratic temp readings, but it stays around 170 max.

Sounds like you'll need to find the procedure for testing/replacing the thermofan switch on Clarks Garage. If you decide to replace the switch and the thermostat, you can order them from a VW Rabbit if you want a lower temp system. Mine both work together at 160 degrees instead of 180+ stock.

If your fans aren't kicking on, turn them on with the AC control like you did before and monitor the temp. If it really is getting hot, you can try bleeding the air bubbles first, then test or change the thermostat before going into the waterpump route.

First off welcome SmileWavy

Sounds to me like the h2o pump is probably shot and the coolant seaped out and the car was parked.

To confirm this fill with coolant and bleed the cooling sysem per www.clarks-garage.com

Bleeding the system is important. After this you should be able to figure out where the coolant is going.

Good luck! keep us posted

Welcome to the board!
If you determine it is indeed the pump, I have a couple in inventory, I could pass one along for well below list :) If you plan on doing the belts yourself and need to borrow the factory tensioning tool, drop me a line, I frequently loan mine out.

Good luck with her!!
-Nick

400 dollars for a 944 reminds me of SolReavers' sig:

There may be nothing quite as expensive as a cheap Porsche.

That said, you've got a heck of a deal if the body is relatively rust free.

I'd be willing to bet this thing hasn't had a proper timing belt change in...a long time. If clarks-garage doesn't give you a ping of death when you try to load pages from them, look there to find out all the goodies you are about to get to pay for. Belts, rollers, and water pump--with an honest mechanic--will probably drop you $1600 or more depending on where you live.

Which may prove a significant investment on an engine that may be shot (for $400, there must be something teribad wrong.). But you still have to buy that calibration tool if you don't have access to one already.

Other than overheating, how does she run? Have you checked the plugs yet? Any of them look like they've been steam cleaned? Any of them blacker than crude? How does the gas smell; is it gone bad/water in the tank etc?

I'm sure you know enough about cars to know that blue smoke=bad but a little more info on how she purrs--or if she coughs like a Vegas slotjockey chainsmoker--would be good.

Well the body is 100% rust free. CA car since new...Timing belt was done about 15k ago but who knows what kind of guy did it.

I plan on doing all the work myself...I would like to check the thermostat but that friggen snap ring is like impossible to get out without the pump off the car...I was recently laid off so I have no money for parts/specialty tools but my new job starts tomorrow so I'll be getting money soon...

Her engine actually sounds good and theres no smoke of any color blue, black or white. Haven't checked the plugs yet...stilll....ack. I had lent my spark plug socket to my friend and i just got it back tonight.

And I've been running her now and then and now the bad gas has been used up. Gonna fill her with fresh 91 chevron and some techron fuel system cleanie stuff...

I filled up the coolant resevoir with regular water and since she's been running, it hasn't disappeared...

I ran her for awhile and then pulled the lower radiator hose off...the water in the bottom hose was still cold and i wiggled the thermostat a bit and the water in the block was scorching hot, i think its actually stuck closed. I hope. lol. I just can't get the damn thing out, and yeah I definitely need to bleed the system, though I can't seem to find any phosphate free kind, is it really that bad to put regular coolant in?

it would be better for me to just do all the belts and the pump, but i want to at least drive to a mc donald's or SOMETHING haha. oh well....gotta wait for $$