With the engine almost done, I'm starting some planning for the engine bay. Its a challenge but we've all seen worse.

One of the two heat shields is saturated with oil and is just too far gone.  You can see here I'm in the process of fabricating another. Two layers of aluminum and an inner layer of screen wire & paper towels, made it similar to the original and should do the job.

Notice that I have anchored the new shield a bit better than was original.

Clutches are so expensive and many have been damaged by a leaking heater valve. Here, I am relocating the valve to a place where it cannot do any damage. Porsche did this too (in later model years), although to a different area. Also note that I am prepping for a from-the-top engine install. The rags are to prevent things from falling into the clutch housing a sort of disaster-avoidance idea.  

Last thing to do before the engine goes in is to tighten the Flywheel crank bolts. A standard flywheel lock won't work until the bellhousing is in place.  This simple flywheel locking tool will hold. Notice the cart, perfect for the job and only 15$.

I've removed a number of little things to be out of my way, head light, radiator, hood, front suspension etc. A lot of these things I removed for other reasons that were not needed for the top-side engine install. Still doing this is the downside (I suppose) for the from-the-top engine install. Its only a slightly better way (opinion) than lowering the car over the engine. 

Notice how the belt cover is installed - I was optimistic.

And by the way, this was all a one-man operation. The lift and balance bar cost 180$. It is heavy, collapsible and a good buy considering rental comes in at 30$ per day.

Just lining things up a bit. Will have to work through the starter mounting area to connect the clutch to flywheel. Note: this area (shown) is the most difficult one to work in as it is crowded with sensors, wiring & plumbing. Access is improved somewhat by removal of the brake booster. Reinstalling it will be the last step.

Ready to do the injector reseal, oil pump priming, re-install the front suspension, bleed the brakes/clutch and a hundred other little details.

03.30.03 Update:  I found that one must have the intake removed to mount the brake booster (Duh!). Took care of that only to find that my 7 year old battery was totally dead. Replaced that. When I finally turned the key the engine fired right up and settled down to a smooth idle. Great! I had immediate oil pressure in the 4 to 5 bar range.  That's the good news. 

The bad news is that I had 2 problems; [1] I had a belt whine associated with the balance belt (easily corrected) and [2] I have a significant oil leak.  I began trying to find exactly where that is coming from; it seemed to be coming from behind the water pump. So, after the appropriate swearing, I pulled the water pump off. As you can imagine, this is a painful thing to do, requiring removal of the radiator, fans, all the belts and hoses. 

I could find only minor traces of an oil leak (in the vicinity of the water pump mounting bolts - and there was just too much oil to be coming from from around one bolt, so I kept looking. 

Without a replacement water pump gasket my options were becoming limited. Feeling stupid for not going through with that crazy idea of having a template of the water pump gasket available for download (in order to make a hand cut version of the gasket). I settled on a check-and-see sort of approach to be sure I had the leak under control before re-assembling everything. With the water pump bolts thoroughly gooped with sealant and the pump back in place (no radiator, no water, no gasket, no balance belt, no belt cover (front or rear), I reset the timing belt and set up for a 20 second engine running test to confirm that the oil leak was in deed corrected.

It still leaks... dang! The upside is that with all of the other gear off, I can see the source of the leak is not the water pump at all, but the oil pump - in the area of the lower balance shaft. The oil pump will have to come back out.  So, lower the rack, loosen up the pan and let it drop the inch or so that I need to get the oil pump clear. Sure enough, there is a slight irregularity where the block meets the main bearing ladder frame. How did I miss that? I'l have to come up with a way to seal that.  Then I'l make another check-and-see test to be sure it is holding before I re-assemble. In the the mean time, I need to order a new water pump gasket. 

This is the path of the oil leak (see small arrow). Notice the brown semi-circle just above the crank, I think this brown material is epoxy provided by the factory (or somebody) to build up the surface and seal a leak from the pump output passage. This area should have either been machined better or fitted with a gasket. If my new coating of epoxy doesn't hold, I'll be making a gasket for this area. Hopefully, I'm within a couple of hours of having the engine done. I can almost do the belts with my eyes closed.

The epoxy is to holding fine, so everything goes back together, I re-primed the oil pump and got the engine re-started. Right away it was obvious though that I didn't have oil pressure. I reviewed the re-assembly and realized that I had made the classic mistake of not centering the power steering pulley. 

Above (left) you can see how the crankshaft extends through the camshaft drive gear. But when you first place the gear on the crank it seldom will settle into this position (without first running in the crankbolt to seat the gear). My problem occurred when I tried to seat both the balance gear and mount the PS pulley at once. I slipped them together on the crankshaft and "ran-in" the bolt. It looked OK but what I didn't notice was that the PS pulley had gotten cocked (not centered) & and all of the bolt pressure was then placed on the forward edge of the crankshaft (instead of on the face of the camshaft drive gear). This prevented the pressure from being applied to the oil pump drive sleeve, which resulted in no oil pressure (some have reported intermittent oil pressure with this problem). When this happens a half-moon shaped indentation is made around the hole of the PS pulley. Sometimes this indentation is severe & and requires a new pulley. On a running engine, you'll know this is the problem because the pulley will wobble.  With this problem corrected, I had oil pressure and was finally able to bring the engine up to temp.

If you're experiencing oil pressure problems - it only takes a minute to look for "the wobble" - and its an easy fix too! 

One other note about filling the engine with water/antifreeze. I've read many times that people have trouble doing this. I think the basic problem is that air can get trapped and prevent the thermostat from sensing water temp.  Here is my solution: first, fill the water bottle normally (just poor in coolant), loosen the bleed screw, and while holding a rag to seal around an air gun, pressurize the system until the water squirts out of the bleeder port.   This takes only a short burst of air. The rag will leak enough to prevent over-pressuring the system and this quickly moves water through the engine, forcing out the air. This worked perfectly, try it. Yea, I know, I need to replace that old bottle.

After 3 months, the old 944 was back on the road. The exhaust sounds good, the idle is smooth. The brakes and clutch are perfect, the headlights are re-aimed and the front steering has been aligned (well mostly). The mileage for the first 10,000 miles has been about 27. I have a number of old-car squeaks and getting in and out of the car is a hassle (for an old guy) but as an overall commuter, it handles very well in traffic and is really fun to drive.