Mark944na86

There are other options than buying the special tool. Actually, your S2 has an autotensioner, which means that (strictly speaking) you don't need any special tensioning tool at all... the autotensioner should set the belt to the correct tension.

It's good to do a few sanity checks to make sure the autotensioner has done it's job correctly, but when I checked my belt with a gauge after letting the autotensioner do its thing, it was so close, that I didn't feel the need to tweak it further. So, while perhaps not ideal, it's certainly reasonable to proceed this way.

Read the factory workshop manual on the procedure if you are uncertain how the autotensioner works.

Scott at Team Harco

Not to worry. This car has gone to a good home.

I expect to have the head off by the end of the year and a plan in place to fix the problem. At this point I have not found the root cause of the dead #2 cylinder.

Here is a shot of Shawn saying goodbye to his car...


Thanks Shawn. I'll update as progress is made.

shawn84&92

I am curious about the dead cylinder.
I thought valve spring, have you gotten that far yet?
Good luck with it.

If you don't know him, Scott is a first class guy, it was great dealing with him.

Scott at Team Harco

I have the intake manifold and fuel rail off. I still have to get the cams out and pull the head. So far, I have not discovered the problem. It will take one or two more days of serious work to get there. I'll get there...

Scott at Team Harco

Update: I got the head off today. Took a little longer than I had hoped to get to this point - but at least I know what the problem is.

Everything was ready for the head to come out on New Years Day....except the header pipe flange bolts. A lot of work went into getting to that point, I just couldn't get to that last bit. I had hoped the header pipes could be pulled away from the studs on the head enough to lift the head off. No dice. They're too tight to the frame rail.

So today I fired up the torpedo heater and got the garage up to about 45 degrees from the 15 ambient. The flange bolts came out with little resistance. The hard part was getting my fat hands and the wrench up top to hold the bolts while turning the nuts from below. Got everything out without serious loss of blood and surprisingly little swearing.

It took a few tries to finally get the head to lift off the studs. I think the threaded ends were finding edges to bite into and giving the impression there was still something left that needed to be undone. No - it lifted off and I slid it out and found a place to set it. I took a look at the top of piston #2 hoping I would not be looking through a hole into the crankcase.

No. No hole. The piston looked good. A little cleaner than the others as it has not been fostering any combustion for a little while. So this is good. At least the problem has been isolated to the head.

I flipped the head over and saw a slight opening of the rearward intake valve on #2. Pushing down on the tappet for that valve revealed little resistance to open the valve. It is clear that at least one of the springs is likely broken. There is not enough tension to keep the valve closed, but it is also not loose enough to have been hit by the piston. This is probably one of the best scenarios possible.

Will call my engine shop tomorrow. Not sure if they are honoring MLK day. As I have the day off - it will be a perfect opportunity to spend some time going over the rebuild strategy with the boss.

Now that I know what's wrong, I'll be ording parts from Paragon (etc.) and cleaning up a few other issues while the head gets a thorough going through.

So it's great news and the rest should fall into place nicely now that the hard work is out of the way. I'll post a few pics soon.

Dean924s

You should be good to go!!!! Congrats on saving another one!!!!

black944 turbo

I WAS CORRECT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great news, this is exactly what happened to my friends car and what I stated it sounded like all along. BTW, this could have been fixed with the head on, however you did it the better way (to freshen everything else at the same time). Good luck,

sydneyman

very cool!

944S2NUT

Clean looking car, nice!

Scott at Team Harco

It is clean. It's a solid car and well worth saving.

Thanks to Shawn for his patience to stick with me until I could make the trip to collect the car. He's got a lot of cool cars he's working on. I know how things can get with too many projects. This was a project I was willing to take on with a certain priority. It still has a long way to go, but the biggest issue has been diagnosed and the head is at the shop at this moment.

There's a lot of clean up of the engine bay and some work to be done to get the accessory drive belts driven the way they were designed to be driven.

In the meantime, here are a few shots...

These are just after getting the car to its new home in Michigan.

Scott at Team Harco

Here are some shots of the engine bay, the piston bores and one of finger pressure opening the #2b intake valve...

Scott at Team Harco

Went by the engine shop yesterday to drop off the new valve springs and valve stem seals. Got most of the parts of the broken springs for my collection.

The larger spring broke into at least three pieces and the smaller one into at least two pieces. Here is what we found without taking too much time...

black944 turbo

Good luck with the rebuild, I was wanting to buy this car as well. I pm'd him and he never got back to me.

I am very glad someone is fixing it up and returning it to the road.

Cochezz

I tought these motors were an open deck design?

Looking at those pics that in not the case with this one?

Mike C.

I believe the head gasket is still in place which covers the most of the open deck area. Good luck with the rebuild. It looks like you got a fine deal.