924Board.org

The Fife · Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 241 Location: San Antonio, Texas

The car runs again! From the PO, it's been closer to 2 years or a hair more since the 1st timing belt failure so I guess it's been sitting a little longer than I thought. It turns out the engine ground was giving me trouble with the starter. After cleaning that up some I was able to crank some more and finally fuel made its way back into the engine, and it works! The car idles around 1,000 rpm, not as smooth as I'd like (need new gas). Oil pressure is really high; right around 4. Is this normal? I'm getting some smoke off the exhaust manifold, probably from some oil dripping off when I took the camshaft assy and head off. I don't think it's a leak since all gaskets are new and I torqued down the exhaust like it was supposed to be... better double check that.

Sleykin · Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2004 9:01 am Post subject:

Good on ya!! Yes the oil pressure runs about 5 bar cold idle and will drop to about 2 on a fully warmed up engine. Should stay between 4 and 5 on the highway.
Smoke is normal after major surgery ... it should burn off after a good drive. You will likely get some steam/smoke out the exhaust for a short time too. After sitting that long the O2 sensor is probably hosed by now. That might account for some of the rough idle.
_________________
Glenn Neff
Medford, OR
87' 924S

The Fife · Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 241 Location: San Antonio, Texas

That's about what mine dropped to after it got warm. Actually it dropped to 0 for a little while.

I drove over to the O'Rileys about a mile and a half from here to pick up some new wiper blades. Coming back I'm on a pretty major road for maybe a half mile and it's evening, so I turn on the lights. I'm sitting there at the light to take the left hand turn off the busy street when I look at the oil gauge and it says 0! I shut off the engine (light was red anyway) and think ok... what am I going to do here. I decide that once it turns green I'll pull into the gas station on the corner and check things out. I put it back in 1st and no go. Engine spins up, shifter is loose, and there are people behind me. I throw on the hazards and pull up the boot. The shifter isn't connected anymore - where'd the clip go! No matter, I reconnect and pull into the gas station quick. Everything seems normal... oil level is perfect and nothing unplugged. I get back in, the needle works again. Great, so I turn the lights back on and pull out into the street. Needle at 0! So I repeat everything. Wait a couple of minutes, start, and have oil pressure again. Then I put 2 and 2 together. Turn on the lights, gauge drops to 0. Breathe huge sigh of relief!

Question - How much noise should the belts be making after a day or two?

I've already started picking up on problems... half the panel lighting works. The fuel gauge light, left-hand side speedometer light, and right-hand side tach light are all I have. Speedometer bounces around. Oil gauge is pretty bouncy but maybe this has to do with RPM. The car vibrates pretty strongly below 1,000rpm. Passenger side cooling fan doesn't come on. Missing a clip to hold the shifter together. Dome and engine lights out. Exhaust pipe needs to be re-welded to the cat, and it smells like it's running a little rich (will the O2 sensor help this out? I'm used to adjusting carbs). Shocks are bad. The hose coming out of the canister behind the pass. side headlight has a split in it (this one doesn't draw a vacuum?). Power antenna is broken off at the mast. The lighting ones are pretty easy to solve, at least and I'm sure I could find somewhere to reweld the exhaust for cheap. The power steering may have a leak. An oil that's lighter than engine oil has a really small drip, looks like it's coming from around the steering rack. It's tan, not brown like engine oil.

Sleykin · Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2004 1:39 pm Post subject:

I had the exact same symptoms a few weeks ago on the guages and dash lights. You lost a ground to the lights and with the lights off the guaged grounds through the lights. With the lights on there is 12V where ground should be and no ground for the lights. Check the 2 brown wires that go to the heater control lights. The come together at the light inside a rubber boot and it was a right bytch to find. That is the first place the ground goes and it jumps from there to the rest of the lights, guage and clock.
Good luck killing all the ground gremlins you have

_________________
Glenn Neff
Medford, OR
87' 924S

Sleykin · Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2004 1:44 pm Post subject:

Oh yeah ... O2 sensor will help the rich condition too as long as the throttle position switch and the temp sensor is working right. It has to be in closed loop mode before the O2 sensor imput is used.
The belts make a scary sound even when they are right. Sounds almost like a SBC running cam gears. But I have only listend to 4 of these motors for comparison ... they all made a nasty whine sound at idle.
_________________
Glenn Neff
Medford, OR
87' 924S

edh · Joined: 19 Nov 2003 Posts: 240 Location: Derby, UK

sounds like the motor mount needs replacing - the dash lighting might just need new bulbs

good luck with everything

Ed
_________________
current - '90 944S2, '00 986S,
ex - '90 944 turbo '86 924S, '88 924S

The Fife · Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 241 Location: San Antonio, Texas

Sleykin · Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2004 10:37 am Post subject:

I just pulled my clock out and installed a voltmeter in its place. I think I have the bulb holder here if you want it. The clock would only run when it was above 60* outside and I have a clock on the radio so...
_________________
Glenn Neff
Medford, OR
87' 924S

The Fife · Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 241 Location: San Antonio, Texas

That would be nice. But how does the voltmeter light work? I thought there was actually a spare set of wires in ther for the voltage meter light.

Another question - what does a roller that's on its way out sould like? Because I can definitely hear *something* coming from the alternator / belt area. It's not the water pump or power steering pump... maybe the alternator bearing? That part has to be fun to find. I hear a whirring, but also sort of a drier rolling sound. I might take the belt cover off and go out there with the MP3 player to try to record the noises. Simple v-belts and timing chains I know well, but this timing and balance shaft belt is new to me.

edit: it does sort of sound like the belt noises from http://www.arnnworx.com/ I'll have to check out the balance shaft belt after it quits raining. Would be nice if that were all that it was. It's a lot harder to get in there now that the car is all back together!

Sleykin · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 8:12 am Post subject:

I used the wires from the clock light for the voltmeter light. Tapped into the voltage source for the oil pressure guage for the voltmeter. Voltmeter only comes on with the ignition on but that's mostly when I am interested in what it has to say.

The normal belt sound has what you described as nearly as I can tell (I am pretty deaf) A section of hose works well to pinpoint noises. It could be you have a bad idler bearing. I replaced all of mine when I did the belts and it still made that "dry bearing" sound. It got quieter after about 500 miles or so but it is still there.
Kind of a tough call from here. I hate to tell you yeah it's fine they all make noise and then hear you dropped a belt cause an idler froze up. You just gotta realize with all those roller skate wheels in there it is going to make the wizzy sound.
I just went out and got the old light socket and it is a pretty standard VDO light socket. Grounds to the clock case but also has the 2 spade connections on it so it can ground either way. All the dashlight wires are the same color and all the grounds are brown so it is pretty easi to pick up the lighting circuit.
_________________
Glenn Neff
Medford, OR
87' 924S

The Fife · Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 241 Location: San Antonio, Texas

I'll look more into it when the rain stops - either tomorrow or tuesday afternoon. As far as I could tell, all the rollers were fine. They all spun freely with no crunching noises. I noticed a gasket of some kind on the rear timing belt cover was barely making contact with the camshaft idler pully but I thought I did something about it... maybe that's it. EDIT: I think I know where I've heard this noise before - turning the A/C pulley while the belts were off. Unless I'm confusing it with my truck, it might've made some dry rolling noise (I know the truck did). Now I want to go back out there and mess around with it, but it's too late in the day for that now. I have a list of things to do to the car going now:

Really important/possibly critical: check out that noise I'm hearing from the engine
Important, not critical: exhaust leak and o2 sensor (is this a standard part? I'm used to rebuilding carbs, not replacing sensors and fuel injectors!)
Annoying, fix soon: put in the radio, fix clock and gauge lighting
Do when I get around to it: fix pinstriping on rear of car, install new decal to get my "s" back
Things that can wait: replace vynol sections of front seats, find someone selling rear wiper assembly, switch, and harnesses

Sleykin · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:29 pm Post subject:

The O2 sensor is a standard bosche part. Check around for prices though ... I found it everywhere from $160 to $60.
_________________
Glenn Neff
Medford, OR
87' 924S

The Fife · Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 241 Location: San Antonio, Texas

Will do!

I think I have the whirring noise isolated. The kind of dry noise I was picking up is the compressor freewheeling. With the belt off it'll spin freely so I guess that's normal. The car sort of hums while running - the balance shaft belt may be a hair too tight, or it could be the fact that I've driven the car for all of 50 miles since bringing it back to life. I've searched here and Rennlist without coming to any definite conclusion on belt noises. Seems like some of them just make a little noise for some reason, and most people chalk it up to new belts. The fact that what I hear is normal - that's peace of mind!

Sleykin · Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 11:10 am Post subject:

Fer sure if it gets quieter with the A/C disconnected you are most likely in good shape. (damn I have worked for the govt too long <LOL>)
To put it in perspective ... my 924S makes more noise at idle (excluding exhaust noise) than either my 78 460 or 69 429. Both BBF's have mild cams and the idle is about as rough on all 3... but then the BBF's idle at around 650. I can't tell the 02 explorer is even running unless I look at the tach.
HTH
_________________
Glenn Neff
Medford, OR
87' 924S

emoore924 · Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 2822

I'm definitely coming late to the party here but I'm hoping you used the proper tensioning tool to tension the belts ...?? It really needs to be done with the tool or your risk certain breakage. I'm wondering if some of the whine is due to an improperly tensioned belt.

Also, are you sure the balance shaft is timed to the motor properly? That might account for some of the low-speed vibration you're experiencing...

Best of luck with the diag...