924Board.org

[Greenie]

O.K. , other than my new '87 924s sitting in a garage for 3-4 years it is in great shape. It has 38,000 Original miles.
I took all your advice and invested in some piece of mind and just wanted to run the work and cost by some folks.

In Seattle (don't know if region plays a part):

Had all belts changed (2 internal, 2 external)
Waterpump was clean and good according to mechanic, but he did put on the "update kit) for the belt??
New Plugs, Cap, Rotor....general "tune-up"
Flushed and replaced engine oil, Trans/diff. oil, power steering/clutch oil, Brake oil, antifreeze.
Replaced all (4) shocks with "middle of the road" Boge
Inspected Brakes, clutch etc..... general 30/60/90k service type stuff....

The Breakdown was roughly 50%/50% parts to labor for all this.....

It hurt, but I do feel better driving it now. Anybody know if I overpaid???
He may have been feeding me a line, but he told me this car was in immaculate shape and worth much more than your "typical" '87 924S. What is a "typical" '87 924S worth all stock and original????

Thanks for the help so far, you are all generous with your help and advice....it it much appreciated!!!!!

[gohim]

The only parts you listed were the accessory drive belts, timing and balance shaft belts, fluids, plugs, cap, rotor, and shocks.

There must have been more parts than that, or you got throughly screwed on parts. A set of Boge Turbo Gas shocks and struts is worth about $300. The timing and balance shaft belts cost $50 (generic)-$110 (Genuine Porsche) depending on where you get them from. The plugs are $2 a piece, and the cap and rotor may cost you $50. This comes up to less than $500 for parts.

What about the rest of the "front of engine" service? No water pump, front engine oil seals, rollers or pulleys?

If you paid the mechanic $1050 to replace the belts (without the complete front of engine service), install spark plugs, cap, and rotor, a set of shocks, and an oil change, you got screwed on labor too. Was a front end alignment included since the struts were replaced? How about the upper strut bushing/bearing assemblies? What was the hourly labor rate quoted by the mechanic for the services performed?

Your average 924S has a dented body, bad paint, trashed interior, and is in need of a "front of engine" service, because the owner has not been taking care of it. After all, look at the cost of the "front of engine" service.

[The Fife]

I have no idea what the typical 924S looks like since the only one I've ever seen is in my garage. If you want to see what it looks like when you don't do the front end service, check out

http://photos.yahoo.com/matt_j79@sbcglobal.net

Pictures of the head are in the album on the left. It was like that when I got the car. It looks great and shined up like new, but the previous owner had a roller sieze up on him and wasn't careful when he fixed it... it's a long story from there but yeah, 4 dinged intake valves when I got the car.

[gohim]

Fife,

How many miles are supposed to be on your engine?

The 87 944 engine that I am rebuilding to replace the destroyed engine in my 87 924S is supposed to have had about 100K miles on it when the water pump seized (PO poured stop leak into the coolant when the water pump showed signs of leaking, and seized the water pump, which broke the timing belt, and bent three valves), and it did not look anywhere near as dirty.

The photos seem to show an awful amount of burnt oil buildup. I still would probably leave the carbon untouched (I would be afraid to damage the cylinder walls with the loose debris, myself).

And how come four bent intakes, and no (visibly) bent exhausts? If the engine was still spinning around and bent all the intakes, the exhausts should have gotten bent as well.

[The Fife]

The odometer reads (1)45,000 miles, but it has less than that. The person two owners ago had smaller rims on it and drove it around like that for some reason. For how long, I have no idea. If I knew when he got the car I could estimate - the previous owner said that the odometer was reading 1.1 - 1.2 miles per actual mile (the speedometer was also too fast until the PO switched back to some stock rims some time after he got the car). Maybe Carfax or something would shed some light onto its history.

Anyway, the spark plugs (4 prong Bosch) had a healthy amount of carbon on them as well. When pulling vacuum lines last weekend I noticed that the ones under the intake were in bad shape, a big one was pretty much split in half and had a huge hole torn along one side. Looks like it's been that way for some time, my guess is that has something to do with the carbon buildup. The rest of the engine is remarkably clean except for where a little oil got on it after I pulled the camshaft assembly.

The bent valve story: the previous owner was driving around when a roller froze up. He says he bent the exhaust valves, and they don't have any carbon buildup on them like the intake ones do so that's probably right. Anyway, he takes the head into a machine shop, gets a new water pump from Napa, new rollers, belts, and gaskets. He starts putting it all back together and says he had the timing mark lined up. But when he started up the car it backfired and he said the belt blew immediately.

Fast forward to when I got the car, I start looking at things and mysteriously, the belt is on, timing marks lined up. I'm pretty sure what happened is that he didn't have the timing marks lined up right (that explains the backfire and why the intake valves are all bent exactly the same)... probably because the flywheel turned a little on him during assembly and he didn't notice. After the backfire he allignined the flywheel and camshaft, got another belt and put it on, and of course the car won't start because it has 0 compression and the bent intake valves. So he's done with it.

When I fix the car I'm going to be sure and use a flywheel lock to keep it at TDC.