Dsalillas

This morning I'm all stoked about meeting up with some of the local listers and working on our cars at Sean's house. I pull up and park in the driveway while keith(Cruise98) is working on Joe's(Bigbass37) car. Appearantly the shop that mounted and balanced his tires put the 245's on front and 225's in the back. How retarded is that? This was done at a well established tire company. Anyway, after the tires get put back the right way, I get in my car to move it out of the way so keith can test drive the car. When I turn the key the car doesn't start. It just has a high pitch whine or spinning sound. At first we thought, god forbid, the T-belt broke. Kinda ironic at the t-belt tensioning session. After removing the cover we saw that belt was fine. Whewww.. so I thought. We checked the compression and I got nothing on the 2 cylinders we tested.

Keith believes that the cam tensioner failed, this is on an S2. If it is, I'm hoping that it didn't do any damage to the head since the car wasn't running when it happened. We didn't have time to pull the valve cover off but as soon as I get it towed to my house , I'll check. Thanks Sean for babysitting my car till then.

If anybody has any other diagnosis for this problem please chime in before I undergo the task of pulling the head this week. Looks like I'll have a full garage with non-running 944's for a while.

TIA,
Drew

BTW - I learned today, how to change a crank seal and tension the belt, Thanks Keith

SoCal Driver

If you had not cranked it then you may have escaped joining the Order of the Bend Valve.

Me thinks you just became a member.

With 172 posts you should have picked up on the chain tensioner concerns for the S models.

tifosiman

Whoa, way to beat on someone while they are down.



Dsalillas, good luck man. I'll keep my fingers crossed that there are no bent valves.........

nine51

yeah, ditto..... i've seen bent and broken stuff in a motor of mine before. not fun to look at.
good luck
jay

RedlineMan

Hey;

Well... it didn't fail just sitting there. That doesn't make sense, eh? It is entirely common for valve drive components to fail on deceleration or engine shut off. If things like belts or chains are loose, the differential in inertia between a light camshaft and a heavy crankshaft makes a perfect scenario for things to jump off gears.

It's a RARE ocassion when something doesn't get whacked. It is helpful to assume you're screwed right off the top. This way you won't be so dissappointed when you find you are. Who knows... you might luck out! Hope so for your sake!!

Dsalillas

Actually SoCal Driver I'm fully aware of the tensioner issues since I have an 88 S in my garage. I lurk on this forum daily since apr. of 02 but don't feel the need to post on every thread, hence the 172. I've only had this car for three weeks and driven maybe 8 times. The tensioner was going to be addressed after I had checked the belts.

Jfrahm

You might as well pull the cam cover, it only takes 20 minutes. If the tensioner isn't your problem you can at least check it then.

If the tensioner is broken off the head one of the valve cover bolts might seem loose (the most central one I believe.) as it threads into the tensioner.

Good luck, sorry to hear about the problem.
-Joel

Sean M.

hey Drew, I'm sorry that you have to deal with this problem (whatever it turns out to be), but at least you can rest easy that it happened in a safe place. Your car is tucked away in the garage next to mine (which thanks to Keith is now running great!).

I don't care what anyone says...you were obviously taking the prudent steps to maintain your car. We were only minutes away from checking your belts. It was bizarre timing that this happened at a tech session, to say the least.

cruise98

Drew:

Sorry we did not get a chance to pull the valve cover and check the tensioner and chain. It took the rest of the afternoon to finish Sean's car, and I did not want loose hardware rattling around while it was on the tow truck. I would like to see it when you get the cover off. Maybe I can help some. I will try to get my tow eye to Sean's today.

The tire shop rotating Joe's tires is a perfect example of why most of us do our own work. Another is the water pump and seals on Sean's car before he bought it. We had to do it again because it was not done correctly and had massive oil leaks. Flat rate is curse for these cars in my opinion.

Dal Heger

IF it is the tensioner, you most likely broke the mounting points in the head, the tensioner itself is gone, the spark plug hole wall is broken off, and there will most likely be teeth sheared off the cams. In addition to that, you might also have induced some stresses in the head that will lead to cracks down the road (go ahead, ask me how I know).

The chain tensioner is MUCH more important than the timing belt on these cars. If a timing belt slips or breaks it's only gonna mash valves and pistons, all easily replaced and pretty cheaply too. If the chain tensioner fails, it most likely will also take out the head ($$$$$$$$$). Fortunately, Porsche does rebuild heads for these cars. Unfortunately, it might be the old style head and they won't even take it for a core, basically they tell you to scrap it. I have a nice big paperweight, or door holder.......

Dal.

Peckster

A high pitched whine doesn't sound like an engine turning over. It's probably a bad starter solenoid, the starter is just spinning and not engaging the flywheel.

joseph mitro

when my chain tensioner broke, the engine actually cranked the first time then would not start the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time...

i don't think it sounds like the chain tensioner

dmsog

...the solenoid can never be responsible for the problem described. More than likely the starter drive.

Doug

bigbass37

I was really concerned about your car and had hopes it was something minor. Guess it wasn't! Let us know when you get it up and running again. Since you only bought it a few weeks ago is there anything you could have done to check out the car that would have alerted you of the possibility it might have a problem? It might help some other lister here to hear your advice.

Good luck and hope to see you again soon.

Joe

SoCal Driver

Only 8 times? I would never have driven it without pulling the valve cover and inspecting the tensioner even if I had to do it in the PO's front lawn.

And you have another 'S'???

You only have yourself to blame.

Just maybe you can get away with just replacing a few valves and lapping them in.

Maybe.