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Accidentally got a partially disassembled 924S Special Edition
This is my first post here, so I'll keep it short for now. Earlier this week I was in a bar in a small town in the Rockies with no cell service and ended up buying my first Porsche from a guy in the Midwest. I'm back home now and the car is on a trailer heading my way. I have no idea what is wrong with it, but there are definitely things wrong with it. The cam tower has been removed and the cam is sitting on the floorboards of the car with some surface rust. The distributor and timing belt seem to still be in place. I'm sure some things are missing (possibly parts of the cam tower and the valve cover). I also have no idea why the engine was partially disassembled, but I'm assuming the valves impacted the pistons and possibly worse. I'm hoping the rest of the car's mechanicals are basically OK, but that might not be the case.
I'm not sure what my plan is, but I'll probably start with poking at the valves to see if they move. Since the cam is out, I can probably safely try to turn the engine over to see if any exploded parts are inside without risking creating new ones.
I'll update this as I go along, but if anyone has some ideas on how to attack this, let me know. Worst case, I'll be looking for a new motor in a few weeks. :9
These are basically all of the pics of it that I've seen so far:
Got the car in today. Overall she looks pretty good.
There isn't any rust in any significant place. Some of the locks have been murdered and I had to take the steering wheel and ignition off to be able to turn the wheels to get it into the garage, but this wasn't that difficult.
The distributor is not here--only the cap. And the cam tower housing is missing. The cam, followers, timing gear, etc. all seem to be here.
Does anyone know where I can find a distributor? I've looked high and low and haven't seen one for sale yet.
I can find a whole cam tower, sometimes with the distributor, for not too much, but they are always part # 944 105 250 6R. The PET says my car has a 944 105 250 07. Since mine is missing, I can't actually check that.
Do I need to pull the head to check the valves, or can I just give them a pokey-poke somehow?
Looking more at these parts diagrams, it seems like there isn't really a distributor as such, the rotor plugs into the "connecting piece" which presumably connects into the camshaft based on its name, though this isn't shown in the diagram. I need to check the random parts bag, but I probably have these pieces...
Talk about waking up and wondering what the &%$#! you did last night...
But it could have been much worse.
Cool project!
I think I'd pull the head just 'cause...
Then you'd have a good idea where you stand, before spending any money.
Yeah, could have been a LOT worse. I'm not feeling too bad about this one.
Was thinking about turning over the crank by hand. Need to drain the coolant before I turn the crank or remove the head, so now off to figure out where the best jacking point is.
I'm going to start a new thread for technical discussions and updates on getting this thing started for the "first" time.
Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your new 924!! Honestly it doesn't look that bad. I would definitely send the head to a machine shop to be inspected and have the valves replaced if they're bent or lapped if they're good. I bought a 944 similar to this a few years back. I paid $1000 for the car and had about $2500 in the car on top of that and it was a fantastic car once I was done. I just bought a used head with known good valves and sent that to the machine shop. They lapped the valves and pressured tested the head and it came back perfect. I replaced the balance shaft seals, crank seal, and cam tower seals, new head gasket, nuts and washers, new water pump, belts, tensioner, idler pullies, fluids, filters, rebuilt the power steering pump, etc. The basics to get the car back on the road and reliable. Was a fun journey and I think your car will come out nicely.
Decal package, mud flaps, special interior fabrics, sport suspension, and sometimes no A/C, P/S, P/W depending on market and how it was ordered. It loses a very small amount of weight and has a better suspension setup, power is the same as the others.
Looking more at these parts diagrams, it seems like there isn't really a distributor as such, the rotor plugs into the "connecting piece" which presumably connects into the camshaft based on its name, though this isn't shown in the diagram. I need to check the random parts bag, but I probably have these pieces...
That's correct, no separate distributor. The cap attaches to the top cover over the timing belt.
If the cam housing is missing, and you buy a replacement, it may come with the cam already in it. Just verify the cam is set to the timing mark and the engine is at TDC before you install the cam housing, or it may depress a valve into the top of a piston.
While the housing is off, check that all the valves look equally closed. Even if the cam belt is intact, you may be looking at someone's failed timing belt replacement.
Decal package, mud flaps, special interior fabrics, sport suspension, and sometimes no A/C, P/S, P/W depending on market and how it was ordered. It loses a very small amount of weight and has a better suspension setup, power is the same as the others.
That's correct, no separate distributor. The cap attaches to the top cover over the timing belt.
If the cam housing is missing, and you buy a replacement, it may come with the cam already in it. Just verify the cam is set to the timing mark and the engine is at TDC before you install the cam housing, or it may depress a valve into the top of a piston.
While the housing is off, check that all the valves look equally closed. Even if the cam belt is intact, you may be looking at someone's failed timing belt replacement.
Awesome, thanks! One more thing to scratch off the list.
In the PET, the cam housing for all 85-88 924S's has the part number: 944 105 250 07. All I can find on ebay are cam housings (with or without cam) with part number: 944 105 250 6R. I'm assuming these are functionally the same. Is this correct? 944s for the same years and a bit earlier list the housing ending in 07 so I assume it was a superseding part that didn't affect function.
Looking at the valves, they all look centered and equally closed. I want to get a little more comfort that this thing isn't going to explode the first time I turn it over, so I'm not just going to get a cam housing, slap it on, and go. Probably not anyway... I'm at least going to turn the engine over by hand and see what it feels like, and _might_ pull the head.
Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your new 924!! Honestly it doesn't look that bad. I would definitely send the head to a machine shop to be inspected and have the valves replaced if they're bent or lapped if they're good. I bought a 944 similar to this a few years back. I paid $1000 for the car and had about $2500 in the car on top of that and it was a fantastic car once I was done. I just bought a used head with known good valves and sent that to the machine shop. They lapped the valves and pressured tested the head and it came back perfect. I replaced the balance shaft seals, crank seal, and cam tower seals, new head gasket, nuts and washers, new water pump, belts, tensioner, idler pullies, fluids, filters, rebuilt the power steering pump, etc. The basics to get the car back on the road and reliable. Was a fun journey and I think your car will come out nicely.
I'm probably looking at doing at least half of that. I'm really excited to get it running. Thanks for the encouragement.
I got the car jacked up after figuring out the magic technique to do this without breaking the car and noticed another missing part, probably don't need it though:
Got the skid plate off, which someone previously tried to jack on (is this a factory part?):
Everything seems intact:
Drained the coolant, which actually was perfectly clear, but the container was pre-dirtied:
Got the upper radiator hose out of the way to give me access to the crank bolt so I could turn the engine over, then spent some time trying to figure out how to remove the sparkplugs. Someone on the internet suggested the factory tool which I found in the trunk. This was a brilliant idea:
The plugs don't look great:
After all of this, I got my ratchet on the crank and turned. It was extremely easy to move and didn't make any sounds, so it's not seized and there are no broken parts inside. Now pondering next steps...
10-28-2023, 08:49 PM
Accidentally got a partially disassembled 924S Special Edition
