A couple of weeks ago I found myself a new project.

It's a strange kind of Volkswagen that has a transmission at the back of the car, but the engine is water cooled and sits at the

front, and someone at some point put Porsche badges in it. They also swapped the engine for one from the 944 and then took the S

sticker from a 911 SC and put that on the hatch lid.

Put it all together and what do you have?

It's a 1988 Porsche 924S (the S stands for Sweet... or perhaps Sucker. Time will tell)

I had not heard of a 924S before I found this advertisement, although i'm admittedly not a Porsche aficionado. The idea behind

this car was to give the 924 a final send off. They took a 944 drivetrain and shoehorned it into the 924 body, with only a couple

mechanical changes. This final year model was rated at 160 hp and tipped the scales at around 2650 lbs. This example weights

significantly less by virtue of the many missing trim pieces that have been discarded over the years as this precision machine

continuously hones itself in the razor sharp secretary hauler it was born to be.

Despite the impressive pedigree and robust drive train, this car was picked up for a bargain. This is mostly due to a fundamental

engineering misunderstanding by the German Engineers working at Porsche in 1988. There is a well documented flaw wherein the car

doesn't like to keep water in the water cooling system and keeps trying to convert itself to air cooled status in an effort to

capture some of the 911 magic. To avoid this you must change the "water pump" every 3 years using special Porsche SKU# FU-QUR-WALLET.

The previous owner, having paid for this service twice in his 8 year ownership already, had decided the third time was not going to

happen and so listed the car for sale.

Being an enterprisingly lazy and resourceful enthusiast, I decided that I was more than capable of attempting to tackle the fabled

"Front of Engine Service" that Porsche was willing to charge several thousands of dollars for, and that it would only cost me several

thousand dollars in parts and weekends of time. I was able to sell this idea to the previous owner who agreed to sell it to me for

merely his original asking price minus about 1/10th of what it would cost for the repair. What a deal!

So a bargain was struck and I drove my new pop-up headlight equipped, water-cooled, wrong-engine'd Volkswagorsche home.

Note the weight reduction trim delete.

Two days later, after several floggings at speeds that would make a Renault 5 owner slightly sweaty and uncomfortable... the water

pump started to leak.

I decided wisely to immediately and completely ignore it for several more days while I giggled and smirked at all the quirky

VW/Audi/Porsche oddities like a collapsable space saver tire that is larger than a normal space saver rear tire, and requires

carrying around an air pump, so the spare tire well is larger than that on a full size truck.

Eventually I decided to park the car and order all of the parts necessary for a Timing Belt job, a Water pump replacement, and a lot

of 'While i'm in there" oil seals, hoses and other bits of engineering voodoo that Porsche felt were necessary.

That brings us up to now. The car sits ready for work as parts get overnighted from Germany, if I have to. When it's done it will

decimate all*

*All Vintage French cars

The goal with this car is fairly reasonable. I'd like to enter some TSD rally in the coming year, and it wouldn't need much to be a

fun and capable TSD car. Other than maintenance, it will receive some safety gear, aux lighting and a bucket full of spare parts to

try and deal with breakdowns (which will never, ever occur.)

Thanks for reading.

[End part 1]

[Begin part 2]

the Lazy Porsche Owner's guide to Timing belt replacement

[B]Step 1[/B]
Remove battery from battery tray. Replace with a drink.

[B]Step 2[/B]
Remove airbox. While doing this, observe that the previous owner may have not fully understood how to clean re-useable air filters:

[B]Step 2a[/B]
Wonder about the cost of a new MAF...

[B]Step 3[/B]
Remove airbox, radiator hoses and 63 lbs of accumulated road filth.

Be sure to use the special Callaway/Porsche hood support tool found in the trunk.

[B]Step 4[/B]
Support the car on jack stands and get under it.

[B]Step 4a[/B]
Reel in horror at the accumulation of oil.

[B]Step 4b[/B]

Note the further strategic weight savings employed by the previous owner/operator/mechanic/idiot/pilot

[B]Step 5 [/B]

Remove timing covers, distributor cap and rotor.

Discover where the oil is coming from.

Curse the engineers that insist that balance shafts are needed.

Lock engine at TDC

[B]Step 6[/B]

Find obscure technical reference catalog on Amazon, order it.

[B]Step 7 [/B]

Order every part you can see in step 5, using Catalog for accuracy.

[B]Step 8 [/B]

Wonder where your money went.

[B]Step 9[/B]

Where did I put that...

Ah yes, in the battery/drinks tray.

[B](Optional) Step 10[/B]

Get mocked by the M3 owner parked beside you

[B]Step 11
[/B]
Give up for two weeks.

(to be continued)

[End part 2]

[Begin part 3]

The rest of the story:

I received all my parts and preapred to spend a weekend under the car. I truly enjoy working on this car, and I can't pin why. Even

when I was spending 2 hours on a task that should have taken 15 minutes, I never really ran out of patience. I think it's a

combination of wanting to care for something that was somewhat neglected in the past, and wanting to see the job done properly.

I received the last of my parts on Friday, just in time. Always nice to open a box from a 3rd party supplier and find within that

box, a box sealed with OE branded tape:

It was an OE reman waterpump which was what I expected, but I did not expect it to come straight from Porsche in a sealed kit

The kit contained the water pump, new hardware, a thermostat and a selection of fittings and o-rings (more on that later)

So with everything I needed I lifted the car, removed the starter and installed one of the special tools I had ordered:

A flywheel lock tool. It mounts into the starter hole using the bolts and supplied hardware. It made this job so much easier because

I didn't have to worry about moving the engine at all. It was super solidly locked in place. Sidenote, see that orange plug and the

bent metal pan to the right, by the exhaust? That is an aftermarket oil heater that just snugs up to the oil pan. It was a cheap

looking flimsy thing, mounted with a cheap bracket and the way it was installed meant that I couldn't remove the starter as one of

the bolts faced in that direction. This tells me that the starter is probably original, or at least very old. This heater had also

been pushed into the oil pan a few times and had actually cut into the pan a bit. Thankfully the pan is much tougher metal than the

heater, and it's nothing serious. It is also another sign that this car's underbelly has seen some shit. I suspect the previous owner

was fond of rough roads. Fitting given this car's future.With the car in the air I pulled the air box and intake setup, the accessory

belts, the distributor cap and rotor, the timing covers, the alternator and the rad fans. I found a piece of cardboard to protect the

radiator while I worked so that my giant hands didn't bash any fins shut more than they had to.

How it looked when the timing covers were first opened

Nice and slimey:

When I started this project I had two fairly experienced Porsche guys tell me not to bother doing the oil seals unless they were

actually leaking. After opening it up, i'm glad I just ordered them all anyways, as I'm pretty sure every possible seal was leaking.I

proceeded removing the pulleys, starting with the crank, then the balance shafts and idlers. While I was removing the upper balance

shaft pulley I noticed something fairly alarming.

Can you spot it?

Look to where the gloved hand is pointing.

That's a water pump bolt sitting free and ready to fall out. The water pump sits behind the timing cover and is secured to the block

with about a dozen pieces of hardware. These cars are well known for stripping these bolts and studs, so any good mechanic will not

over torque them into the delicate Aluminum block. The factor spec is 6 inch pounds of torque. That isn't much. I suspect the last

mechanic working on it was erring on the side of caution not wanting to strip the threads, but they didn't tighten it enough. When I

reinstalled them I used loctite for good measure. Some will argue that isn't good, as it increases the chance of breaking a bolt off

when removing them, but I used new hardware so i'm not overly concerned. At any rate that bolt being loose was likely the cause of

the water leaks.

What a filthy, ugly mess:

The spring loaded tensioner on this engine is a bit peculiar. It doesn't tension the belt continuously, it is only used to tension

the belt while you're installing a new belt. You route the new timing belt and then you fire the tensioner by releasing the lock

bolts. You check the belt tension and then you lock it back down, and it then becomes essentially a fancy idler pulley. It was also

filthy, like everything under there.

Timing covers removed and upper balance shaft housing reinstalled.

The timing gear off the crank nose. You can see here that the crank nose has been mushroomed a bit by previous work. (also, once

more, filthy!)

Here I have removed the timing gear from the crank nose (this is a view from the bottom) and have started to polish the crank surface

to get the tool marks out, so that I can slide the oil pump drive sleeve off.

The clearances to the drive sleeve are tight enough that the damage caused by whatever monkey put a pair of pliers around this in the

past was preventing me from removing the old sleeve.

The old sleeve needs to go becuse the seals wear a grove into the sleeves over time, as you can see here (old one on left)

without a new sleeve, the new seals will just leak.

Finally I was able to remove the sleeve. I installed a new sleeve and seals, and continued to polish the crank nose. I wasn't too

concerned about this being perfect because there is a woodruff key locking the timing gear in place, but I didn't want to put it back

ttogether knowing it was like that, so I polished it out as best I could with what I had on hand.

This is where I had to stop work, as one of the two seals for the crankshaft was hemoraged when it was being installed. Initially I

blamed myself, but realized after that the seal probably caught on one of the tool marks as it was sliding over the crank nose. Part

2 started with resealing the camshaft housing. Removing the cam gear was not terrible, but I was unsure where the oil was coming

from.

The main seal that usually leaks seemed to be dry, but I could see the oily build up. Some of it was no doubt being picked up from

the lower half of the timing cover, and picked up by the belt, but not all of it as there was visible dripping from behind the cam

sprocket cover as well.

When removing any of the timing or balance shaft pulleys, you have to remove these small metal woodruff keys. I found that a pair of

90° needle-nose pliers made the job pretty easy. I can't imagine having done it without them.

Once I had removed the cover I could see where the oil was leaking from. This small hole appears to be where they would feed oil to

the turbo on the turbo versions of this engine. On my S engine it's blocked off on the back of the cover I had just removed but there

obviously wasn't a perfect seal there.

The seal on the back of the cam sprocket housing:

The replacement seal was much taller, had a larger inside diameter and probably more importantly didn't look like someone had just

put a wood screw through it. Chalk another one up to the previous monkey.

Removing seals was quite tricky. I found that a paint can opener worked quite well to get them started.

They were hard on the outside, soft on the inner lip and had a spring wound around them on the inside to keep the soft inner lip

tight against the shaft (that's what she said...)
Behind each of the balance shafts, and the cam gear, there is a spacer that needs to be changed with each service as the seals like

to etch into it, much like the oil pump drive sleeve.

The O-rings for the Camshaft were definitely long gone. Pretty sure they're not supposed to do this when you flex them:

Back to the engine, everything removed expect the water pump. (upper balance housing has already been cleaned and reinstalled)

I cleaned up as much as I could from behind the cam gear cover

A detail I haven't come across before, Porsche likes to use these little mylar washers/seals. They're ridiculously thin and very easy

to lose. They disappear like a contact lense if you drop them.

Don't drop them.

Cam gear cover cleaned and reinstalled with new seals

[Continued]
[End part 3]

[Begin part 4]
Finally I removed the waterpump, the original motivation to do this job. It was filthy. I didn't take as many pics of this, as it was

getting late. There were some scary details unearthed here too, such as the thermostat having no rubber seal around it, and being

able to rattle free in place. It was also the wrong temp.

There is normally a thick rubber seal around the thermostat's upper part, to keep it firmly in the very large mouth of the water

pump.

Coming back together; cam gear, water pump, balance shaft covers installed. Lots of cleaning done.

I didn't document the install of the new thermostat into the water pump but it was actually huge PIA. Easily the worst single part of

the job. Porsche changed the water pump design several times, and eventually just stopped selling non-turbo pumps altogether, isntead

selling an adapter kit for naturally aspirated cars. This isn't a huge deal, it just includes a white plastic elbow that is normally

used to route coolant to the turbo but is just blocked off here. The other difference is the thermostat seal has a slightly different

height (4.5mm vs 7mm) and the difference is taken up with washers, which sounds easy... but the whole thermostat, washer, seal

assembly is held in place by a big nasty snap ring with so much tension in it that it broke 2 sets of snap ring pliers and nearly

murdered a small dog. It was very difficult to install the snap ring and hold the washers and thermostat in the correct positions. I

was legitimately concerned about breaking a finger, but eventually it was done.

Installing the timing belt, pulleys and the tensioner:

I really enjoy taking the time to clean everything before it is put back. I was running short on time so I didn't clean as much as I

wanted, but it's definitely better than when it started:

Every bolt went back in with either loctite or anti-seize depending on application:

One last look at the cleanliness before it hides under covers for years:

Cam gear and lower timing covers installed:

Late into that night, I drove it home. Covered in handprints, with droopy headlights that broke on the way home from the major repair

(always the way...). I was still smiling the whole time.

... and that's it. That's what it's like to do a front of engine service on a 27 year old Porsche.
[end part 4]