Buying 951, how does this sound?

[spuggy]

Hi,

I'm looking to upgrade from my '86 N/A, and may have found a two-owner (2nd owner for only 6-7 months) '87 951 with fairly high mileage, >200K. The price is attractive, current owner seems honest, has a reasonable explanation for sale (wants something that will deal with snow better for the winter), and it is stock, unmolested and has original paint (yaay!, no nasty overspray!) with good compression and leak-down test (apparently) and boosts normally.

Also, it's Silver-on-Black. I love Guards Red-on-black, but I'm bored with the "mid-life crisis" comments

Car apparently has a stack of receipts 4" thick, and the original window sticker and all. Cosmetic and other minor defects (like cruise, A/C etc.) don't bother me much at all - I want a daily driver I can improve gradually and incrementally without taking it off the road for more than a couple of days or two at a time. If it's basically sound, I'm probably going to keep it indefinately - there's nothing wrong with my N/A that some more HP wouldn't fix very nicely...

I've always tinkered with vehicles and think I did pretty well with the N/A, but I don't know much about the 951's specifically, never owned a turbo car at all.. All that extra plumbing looks a little mysterious...

I've read the old advice on the board about things to look for, and think I should be able to avoid the major pitfalls/diagnose, but I had a few questions:

Current owner says that he blew the turbo recently (4-5,000 miles ago), had it rebuilt but didn't clean the old oil out of the intercooler, and that's the explanation for the white smoke at WOT.

Does this explanation seem reasonable, if there's no sign of oil/coolant intermixing? If there's not too much oil (e.g. new) from the turbo pipe to the I/C, should I not be too concerned with this and just flush the intercooler if I buy the car?

Belts were apparently done (with the water pump) 30,000 miles ago - which would be a "playing it safe" replacement interval, if I'm not mistaken? Do people tend to change 951 belts sooner than N/A belts? It's certainly time for an adjustment...

Apparently another prospective owner's mechanic turned up a "front crankshaft seal leak", but there's nothing visible externally - so I'm figuring that this should be done ASAP before it gets on the timing belt(s)? Can this be done at the same time as the timing belt, and is it relatively minor once you've got that far, or is it a motor split/yank? (I'm figuring it's do-able in the car, but it seems safest to ask!)

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[nize]

Originally posted by spuggy
Current owner says that he blew the turbo recently (4-5,000 miles ago), had it rebuilt but didn't clean the old oil out of the intercooler, and that's the explanation for the white smoke at WOT.

Does this explanation seem reasonable, if there's no sign of oil/coolant intermixing? If there's not too much oil (e.g. new) from the turbo pipe to the I/C, should I not be too concerned with this and just flush the intercooler if I buy the car?

from what i've read/heard about cylinder leaks, this explanation is not reasonable. white smoke is a sign of coolant leak, black smoke is a sign of oil leak.

if you want to email me or post the vin, i can run a carfax check for you. email is nize2 at msn.com

[spuggy]

Originally posted by nize
from what i've read/heard about cylinder leaks, this explanation is not reasonable. white smoke is a sign of coolant leak, black smoke is a sign of oil leak.

if you want to email me or post the vin, i can run a carfax check for you. email is nize2 at msn.com

Cool, thanks nize! Don't have a VIN yet, and I'll probably go look at it Sunday anyway, N/A likes to stretch its legs now and again and I've not driven a 951.

Now I think about it, I thought black was too much gas, e.g. rich mixture, and blue or grey smoke would be oil burning? (usually from rings/bores/valve guides, naturally).

Most likely cause of coolant leak/white smoke would probably be head gasket then, right? Anyway to tell this apart from something more terrifying, like cracked galleries in an overheated head or something big(ger) $$$$ like that?

Umm. I guess I don't understand how this could be head gasket and still have good leakdown figures - is that possible?

[Lawrence Coppari]

The line from the turbo to the throttle body generally will have a light coat of oil - at least mine has that and others on this list say the same. Mine has had it for 30K miles. You should not have puddles, however.

During hard use, tubos use some oil.

There would initially be white smoke due to evaporating moisture in exhaust once the engine is started. It should disappear once hot. It could be a cracked something or other. That is a concern.

The front seal and balance shaft seals can be replaced with engine in place. Timing and balance shaft belts are not difficult to replace. I do mine every year since mine is a track car. If yours has gone 30K on the belts, I'd change them. They are quite inexpensive.