doing the timing and i found
 

some things that concern me. first, the belt has tiny cracks on the front edge of the back side. this is disappointing as the belt only has about 11K miles on it.

second, there is coolant seeping from one of the head studs.

third, the timing belt roller has a little play in its bearing, not much, just a little.

i think this means that i will be first, replacing the belt, second removing the cylinder head, and third replacing rollers. correct me if i am wrong. unfortunately, i have no money for this, as i am not getting many hours at work. pictures below:<BR><BR>http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1172521055.jpg
<BR> http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1172521082.jpg<BR> http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1172521104.jpg

Time for a head gasket.

And face it, you either have money and no time or time and no money.

So, if you have the time, spend the $100 and do the head gasket before it becomes even more expensive.

If you need to borrow the money, I know a couple of knee breakers.

:)

The roller shown is not critical. It does not tension the belt.

The leaking stud is from the head gasket as mentioned above. As long as you keep coolant in it you should be OK -- for a while.

Keep an eye on the timing belt. If it shows more aging then replace it. A new temporarily tensioned timing belt is far better than an aged questionable timing belt.

well, i guess we are getting a fat tax return. the wife is not going to be happy.

If you do the work yourself, you are probably looking at less than $800 to do everything. Headgasket, belts, waterpump, rollers...etc.

Naylor, How long ago did you change the head and what type of head gasket (stock turbo, race... ) did you use? Did NAPA check all the tolerences for the $70 cleanup?

John_AZ

the cylinder head i removed was on my '83. the shop i bought the car from did the head work on my current car. they used a wide fire gasket. napa checks everything for the $70.

my wife was surprisingly nonchalant. she said that we have the tax return coming, the car has been good, and that these things just happen. i couldn't believe it. she also said that if i was going to do the work, to go get whatever i needed and that was that.

THEN, my buddy is going to chile for two weeks and is going to let me use his TDI volkswagen while he is away, starting saturday. i think i can get it all done before he is back.

Nice! now get to it! and dont forget to start a project thread with pictures! :)

one more thing:

i talked to garrity at motor sport here in slc. he said he's only seen the coolant leak from the stud one other time on a 944. he said that the stud had broken. he said the only other time he has seen it was when the nut had broken.

i think i'll just ask him to give me a list of problems he has seen only once and start fixing them before they break on my car.

have you cleaned around the stud to see if it reappears or could it be residue from bleeding the system?

this stud is in the middle of the head. i don't think the coolant could have gotten there from bleeding the system. however, cleaning around it is an excellent idea. i think i will try that before tearing it all down.

i have to fix another coolant leak before messing with it, anyway. so the car is parked until i can do that.

nope, i am hosed. i just cleaned it off, and i could see bubbling around the top of the nut when i had the car running.

AND i noticed fuel in the BOV vacuum line, again. time to replace the dampener and regulator. it just gets worse.