I’ve had the car for a few weeks now and have had time to assess everything and also address some of the initial issues.
First up was getting the car smogged and registered which has proven challenging. The car failed smog miserably with incredibly high NOX. I was convinced the catalytic was toast due to the high levels, it really wasn’t doing anything.
I’ll come back to this topic below in the shop findings.
Before buying the car I knew that it would need a timing belt immediately as there were no records of it being done so I ordered up the belts and rollers and delivered them with the car to my local shop for installation. I also had them check things over and inspect the brakes as they weren’t as grabby as I would expect on a Porsche. I also asked them to take a peak at the catalytic to see its condition.
ISSUES DISCOVERED BY THE SHOP:
- The timing belt had been changed at some point in the past 10 years but the balance shaft roller was installed incorrectly and wasn’t doing anything. That explains why the engine vibrated. New belts and rollers are installed and the engine is significantly smoother.
- The front pads were glazed over and they heat cycled them which helped. I’ll likely change them out soon along with the front rotors since they still aren’t great.
- A previous shop or owner rigged a rubber hose hose connecting the brake reservoir to the clutch connection, I’m still a bit shocked at this one. Pictures are below. My shop installed the correct hose and fittings so at least it’s repaired correctly now.
- It looked like a child had installed the valve cover in the past using copious amounts of red RTV that was all over the place.
It not only looked awful but it was leaking and allowing oil into the spark plug wells. Needless to say this turned into a bigger project as scraping the sealant off also removed paint on the cover so my shop blasted it and painted it. They also removed a bunch of sealant that oozed into the engine. The repainted cover and a new gasket were installed along with new plugs, I’ve included some before and after pics below.
- The catalytic was also inspected and they discovered that someone had cut it open, gutted it and welded a straight pipe into it! I can’t say I’m surprised considering how badly it failed smog. This also turned out to be a bit more challenging to address as Porsche and the OEM’s no longer make catalytics for these cars so I had to go with an aftermarket solution. I ended up getting a magnaflow california compliant catalytic which was installed by a local muffler shop. With bated breath, I took it back to get smogged and this time it passed with flying colors, Zero NOX!
I’ll post up some of the good findings by the shop in my next post.