944 Nightmare! PICS!
 

I bought this 86 944 two years ago... after I graduated high school. The car was in excellent shape but hadn't been run in awhile. It didn’t start so I got it at a steal. I found that the dme was fine (I interchanged it) but the fuel injectors were clogged causing a no start situation. I cleaned them out and it worked.

I drove the car for 3 months but the clutch was slipping, terribly, and couldn’t be driven far before it would just slip and the car would not move. I REPLACED EVERYTHING, clutch, master, and slave cylinder. Took all day. I adjusted the clutch pedal and it felt beautiful. I later realized that the clutch was fine... it was the slave cylinder. Real shame. So that day I decided to take it on its longest drive ever... to Waterbury which was 15 minutes away. The car felt great.

I get to the parking lot in the mall and gently pull into a parking space to turn around. As I was "coasting" into the space, the car dies. A plastic timing belt pulley exploded, shredding both belts and detonating the motor. Sad day. At the time the motor was in or around 1000 rpm.

Towed it back to my town and tore into the motor. The number 4 cylinders’ (closest to the firewall) piston had hit the intake valve, bending it, and lightly scoring the top of the piston. The cylinder walls were in PERFECT CONDITION which surprised me until I later learned of the coating on them. The bottom end was fine. I could turn the crank by hand, forward and backward. I mic'ed the lifters all DEAD even top and bottom and let them soak completely submerged in 5w-30 for weeks. The camshaft spun very easily by hand. And looked good.

I scrounged and saved and bought the parts. New and rebuilt turbo head, new valves, valve guides, double valve springs, etc etc the works. New timing belt kit with pulleys, cleaned everything and assembled.

Bleed out all of the old fuel from the tank to the rail and replaced with high test. All new turbo gasket kit from the head up. And checked the ignition and firing order.

Put fresh coolant, hand blended to -35 degrees. Filled the motor, the radiator, and the reservoir all separately to ensure the least air pockets as possible. 10w40 motor oil with a new filter were added

Fallowed the torque spec sequence on the head and cam tower. And timed the motor. Just to be safe before firing the motor, I turned it by hand for 2 cam rotations. No lock up at all. Everything checked and rechecked I started the motor.


Has no power, wont idle, and a little smoke (fuel). Cylinder #1 (closest to the nose of the car) had a far cooler exhaust pipe. A glowing hot catalytic converter confirmed my suspicions of a fuel delivery problem. Cylinders 1 and 2 spark plugs (new ngk's) were dark with oil or fuel and cylinders 3 and 4 were clear. Switching the plugs showed no improvement. After letting it run for all together +/- an hour, I thought it would be a good idea to replace the ignition to rule out spark. (I notice the plugs misfiring). In comes the new Bosche cap and rotor. After struggling with a mangled rotor bolt I replaced it. I got msd wires but they unfortunately didn’t fit due to the type of the cap, so I reused the old ones till the correct set comes in. I start it.

A cumulonimbus cloud of white smoke starts pouring out the exhaust (first time ever) I made sure the pistons were SPOTLESS and had never smoked like this before. So just to ease my mind I checked compression again on the new setup. Cyl. 1: good / Cyl 2: good / Cyl 3: good / Cyl 4: zero..... Null, 0, not a drop of compression. There are no ticks no nocks, just a squeal of backfire but only when cyl 1 spark plug is connected. I even checked the valves (before motor assembly, by disassembling the entire head, taking them out and mic the diameter, then I oiled them and rebuilt the head. All seated nicely. Timing marks are STILL DEAD ON same with the balance shafts.

I’m pretty comfortable with cars. I can diag, and understand them. I AM COMPLETELY FLOORED. I have no idea what is going on (I think I have a clue but I dare not think it). I’m crying out to you fellow pelican parts forum members. Help me please!

Losing my sanity,
Sphinx-


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White smoke is likely water in a combustion chamber causing water vapor to come out the rear. With no compression on 4, you might still have a head gasket problem, at least. Sorry.

White smoke is certainly a water leak into the exhaust side of the equation. You can bet it cleaned the crap out of the parts in that cylinder! LOL

I always re-torque heads after firing a engine over for the first time. I let it warm up a little and then re-torque. This can fix those little sneaky leaks.

If it still smokes white after a re-torque then the head might be warped or the gasket is cock-eyed.

I am beginning my own head swap - let me know what you find out ...thanks!

where is lame ass? I have a spare head u can try: pick it up or just pay $45 for shipping, and a new head gasket i have that was out of the package that would be good for a test like this. btw: whats "good" on the compression?
read the old gasket, also are you getting bubbles in the coolant res while its running?
doesnt sound too crazy, car was running, bent some valves, should be running again soon

-Lame Ass is a small town called Southbury in between Waterbury and Danbury on I-84 in Connecticut

-keep in mind the head has been freshly decked, also has 2mm larger valves and a port and polish... as you can tell from the pictures. The compression is as fallows (psi):
Cyl. 1: 145 / Cyl. 2: 145 Cyl. 3: 140 Cyl. 4: 0, not even a needle jump. i mean the needle on the tester DOESNT MOVE AT ALL from zero. thats whats really botherin me

I did not run the car long enough to check the reservoir, so that i do not know.

I'm going to perform a leak down test on the #4 cyl. re-torque the head allowing the 30 minuets in between the final 2 torque settings. and install the msd wires. try again. if by some act of god a valve is sticking or is bent, re-torquing the head and trying again isnt going to change that situation. keep the suggestions coming!

A bent valve isn't going to cause coolant to come out the back...

If it was just a blown HG, you would expect *some*pressure reading while cranking, would'nt you? I think a valve must be open.
Just my CDN$.02

True... but a complete zero on the compression tester might

Hmmm... The white smoke won't be coming from #4. If there's no compression there's no explosion; there's no combustion there so there's no white smoke there. I'll bet the HG between 3 and 4 is bad, though. Question is why? I agree that a valve on 4 is open. Also - why? This is interesting, and I think you may find two separate problems. One the HG and one the valves on 4.

I'm with Slam. You have to have an explosion to get the white smoke. You have two issues. I'm going to toss out some brain matter and talk out loud here.

1.\ A valve is being slightly hung open, never fully closing?
2.\ Left over burr from the machining maybe?
3.\ A valve seat is crooked?
4.\ A bent valve was accidentally reused by mistake in the new head?
5.\ Push rod ok on that cylinder. Not crooked or keeping the valve open?
6.\ Head gasket is slightly creased between two cylinders?
7.\ Head needs re-torqued after a warm up?

OK I'm empty for the moment

I think the above seven options pretty much cover it, although the gasket material between the cylinders isn't what usually causes head gasket leaks - it's the rings around the cylinders themselves on the head gasket.

You're not far from where I live (except I actually LIKE New England ;) ).

Err yea I meant that maybe something creased the rings. :D


8.\ Dirt particle or other foreign object is smashed under the head and keeping it from sealing?



Ideas are still coming to me..... :confused:

Sphinx - did you send the head to a machine shop for remachining? I just want to make sure that we can rule out a warped/cracked head.

Yes the head has been completely decked, milled, new valves. new valve giudes, new valve seals, New spring keepers, double springs off a turbo, port and polish, 3 angle valve job, 2mm larger valves, (no magnafluxing shuda woulda coulda). i have Easter break off from school on wed of next week (the 8th) im going to do whatever it takes to diag and fix then. keep the suggestions coming

HEY Sphinx what did you pay $$ for all that head work up there in "Lame Ass"?
Just curious as I am begining my own "head Swap"

Pressure test to about 15lbs while car is off of course... If the pressure drops I would confirm the leak in the head gasket..

Its all guess-work without a leakdown test and cooling system pressure check. Do those and let us know, with that information we should be more than able to help.

How can you run a leak down test on a cylinder with no compression? Likewise, if you have no compression, no amount of re-torquing will solve that problem. I also think it is safe to assume the head came back from the shop with no problems. That leaves us with improper torquing causing the head to warp, bad or damaged head gasket, or some other problem with installation. I tend to doubt these are the problems.

Stand back and look at the situation, you had no compression in #4 when you started. After doing all of the head work you still have no compression in #4.

Conclusions:
A) the head was not the problem (never true in a 944)
B) the bent valve caused additional problems such as a crack in the combustion chamber that wasn't discovered (I would think a crack here would have been seen)
C) the piston was cracked by the valve

Anyway the head has to come off and you need to examine every surface for any defect.

Would "By installing the leakdown adapter and listening for where the air goes?" be considered rude as an answer to this?

Its guesswork until we know where the air is going. You can be almost 100% sure the head will need to come off to fix the issue, but all too often people pull the head first without knowing where the issue is, then if the problem is not obvious you can be left at a loss for explaining the issue.

Cracked piston or cylinder should not cause 0 compression, short of a valve jammed wide open you should have _some_ compression, the needle should at least come up a bit. For all we know the #4 rod snapped and the piston isn't even moving in the bore. Leakdown test would show perfect compression here, then you could check that the piston is moving when you turn the engine over using a wooden dowel or skewer.