In my search for a driver (gave my 17 year old daughter my e30, finally got the wife's e28 sorted) I stumbled across a 1983 944. Straight body, nice interior, BBS one piece, 5 speed, tons of spare parts, at a price I could not resist....so much for my quest for a inexpensive transportation module (but that's no fun!)
BUT
It has one issue that keeps it from running. The owners son (who I found it thru; tech where I work-not a Porsche tech 
) was starting to fix a "minor" oil leak at the cam tower. Pulled all the obvious bolts out, realized timing belt had to come off, and since he just replaced it; decided to have a few beers instead. Then bought Mom a new car; and it has been sitting in the driveway ever since.
So I am waiting for my friend w the trailer to wake up to retrieve it since in my wisdom I already bought it, and spent some time googling how to repair it. Numerous websites show how, and does seem pretty straightforward, but there is a definite lack of 944 parts in my neck of the woods-and I have only the cam tower base gasket (came w car). I am hesitant to attempt to do it right (at this time-there is a 944 in the local PNP that I plan on taking apart first for experience) on a car that I have no idea how/if it runs, drives, etc.
So my plan is to throw the bolts back in and see what happens. That way even if it leaks, I can see if it is a runner/driver before spending more money that I dont really have on a bunch of seals for what could be a junk engine. Or car.
Any feedback? I know it is not the "right" way, but hate to spend a hundred bucks on seals (that I would have to order anyway)to find the car is not a runner. Or has no gears. Or some other catastrophic issue. All electrical works, hear the fuel pump come on, has only been sitting since summer, he insists it should run fine.....
And yes, I know, LSjuan....but not today. My daughter wants her e30, and I do not want to drive the old Dodge pickup without a heater unless I absolutely have to.
944s are so cheap you might as well just find a running car IMO. A later one at that. Unless you are looking only to pay like 3 figures.
get a tube of this instead of gaskets:
and slam it back together... i suppose you'll still need a couple of seals where the spinny bits pass from the outside of the engine to the inside, but those are cheap..
I did not think about easy-cheese gaskets...good call. Dont need to take apart any spinny bits so should be fine there
and kanaric-yes, the low side of 3 figures is what I paid, I will easily recoup my investment selling spare parts that came with it....
actually writing craigslist ads for the extra parts now
Timing belt came off while running?
Isn't this an interference engine?
vdubinsd wrote:
I did not think about easy-cheese gaskets...good call. Dont need to take apart any spinny bits so should be fine there
and kanaric-yes, the low side of 3 figures is what I paid, I will easily recoup my investment selling spare parts that came with it....
actually writing craigslist ads for the extra parts now
Ya as a parts car if it's low 3 figures you can for sure make money if you wanted. That is kind of a steal.
No, he replaced timing belt/water pump/rollers as preventative maintenance, then a few months later it started leaking at the cam tower. Since timing belt job took him weeks to complete, he did not want to take belt off again....and he broke his 6mm taking it apart...just buy a new car.
When we started talking about it he was saying what a pain in the ass the "valve cover gasket" was to change.
When it was just talk, I was interested. When I saw it, I could not hand the cash over fast enough..Now my driveway will have me looking like a mid-level cocaine dealer from 1987.
Simple fix. How long has it sat before you got it. If it is a couple of years the timing belt should be replaced anyway. I would put a new belt in it and replace the cam tower gasket. Also I bet it was not the cam tower gasket if the leak was at the back of the head it is almost always the cork gasket at the back of the cam tower.
This is an easy fix. Don't use the gasket in a can as it will get in the oiling system and cause you all kinds of problems. Do it rite or you will be doing it again.
if it is an 83 it was the only 944 na motor that came with forged internals. Is it a manual rack car? These are also desirable. Will it ever be as "nice" as a later 944? No. But it is the lightest and stripped down to its raw basic form it is probably one of the best 944s. It is a classic case of less is more. My 87 924s is virchally an identical car. I even have a 83 short block with a 89 head and cam. That I had decked to bring the compression up to close to the 89 spec. 83 pistons are lower compression. Your 83 could be made in to a fun weekend corner carver that has a bit more of that raw Porsche feeling that makes these cars really great. The later cars are great as well. Faster and more refined but with that you loose some of that intangible raw Porsche feeling.
pm me with any questions or if you need parts. I have developed an extensive network over the years to keep my car on the road.
And I see you are in NV. If the car has been out there all its life it should be rust free.
One of the things you have to understand and even embrace is the "while you are there" mentality with these cars. Yes it will cost you a little more up fount in repairs and maintenance but it makes these cars very reliable. Also this being an early car most parts are basic VW the later cars were more Porsche specific parts.
Dean-thanks for the post(s). Parts receipts for belt are dated 9-13; have not physically looked at the belt-hoping it is ok as the car has traveled less than 1k miles since replacement. His repair attempts were started (and finished) at the beginning of summer 2014, so has not been immobile for too long-but summer heat, then snow can take their toll pretty quickly.
Really tempted to simply reinstall the bolts and start it-I know and work with the seller (he is a dealer tech and I am the dispatcher) so I would be the last guy he wants to screw over, especially for the few dollars I paid. Then evaluate the rest of it-I had about 15 minutes to check it over; and there are a lot of unknowns at this point. But looked long enough to know that I will never be taking a loss....
Power steering? Not sure, it is a sunroof and a/c car-probably has it. If not, better for me. Less is more in my book. At one point in my life I had to choose between an clean E38 740i and a rusty/beat up/noisy E21 323i as my daily, and I picked the E21 with no regrets. And 10 year later I still would.
Did not see any rust anywhere, and appears to have been very well maintained (nice green coolant, clean oil, Hakkapeliitta studded tires-not cheapos). One repaint over original (love my paint depth gauge-no bondo) with zero overspray on moldings-that HAD to be expensive. Paint still has nice gloss. Driver seat bolster has tear, dash is cracked/covered-otherwise very clean inside. Does have some water intrusion inside here and there, but I bet a sunroof seal and cleaning 10,000 leaves out of the cowl will help.
Oil leak was in front of #1 cylinder, if not the cam tower I would guess front cam seal. Read all about the rear cam seal, but not it (might be leaking now from sitting...)
Looking forward to getting it home so I can start playing with it. And totally understand the do it right/all thing, but just want to take it around the block before I start ordering/replacing parts.
And having more VW parts than Porsche sounds good to me; I have experience w this vintage VW and lots of misc parts!
Oh, another local GRMer 
<waves from Carson City>
'83 will have a cracked dash that's just normal with early 944s and 924s.
I agree, I'd also put it together to the point that you can get it running first before doing anything else, then take it apart again.
No harm in that gust mind the torque spec and sequence. The worst thing that can happen is you leak a bit more oil. Also a compression test would not be a bad thing once you have it up to temp.
Got it home, checked closer...think I done did good.
One of the studded tires is falling apart, but came with 6 good non-snows. One side has 8 in rim in front and 7 in back. Nice one, Mr Schwab. Boxes full of misc parts, some useful. Even the power antenna works. No power steering. Slight corrosion under battery, otherwise rust free. Cowl drains plugged, small ecosystem starting below windshield. Cleaned out, cleared drains, and will treat rust once it dries out completely. Found out is second owner car, bought at Porsche dealer in 1995 by current owner.
Then I dropped my 6mm socket into the cam tower..and its wedged under the cam. Going to try to find a smaller and stronger magnet to fish it out, otherwise she is coming apart. Argh.
So, good and bad. Mostly good.
Nice score! FYI, '83s have a bit of '83 only stuff that actually makes them a lot simpler (and better in some ways). That's the only year that came with forged internals in the engine, a manual sunroof, and manual steering. The latter two I'd like to eventually do to my '84.
If you eventually want to do some parts swapping to get the best of both worlds (early and late), I'd suggest a late DME and AFM (preferably the '87-up because it has the correct socket for an aftermarket chip), late exhaust manifolds (slightly better flow and a lot lighter, though try to stick with '87-up as the '85.5-'86 manifolds were prone to cracking), and a late cam. You can also swap the '85.5-'86 aluminum control arms, but I don't personally think that swap is worth it.
No need to start motor remove plugs
Reassemble cam cover, rotate motor by hand to check for any valves crashing.
Do a compression test on motor to check for valve damage.
Shake head and lowball.
Profit!
You can get chips for the early ones as well.
seriously just bring it back to stock good working order. Drive it and enjoy.
swapping to later a arms makes ball joints a sob. I purposefully kept the early stamped steel ones as they use basic VW ball joints. Available just about everywhere. And they are cheap. I never figured out the reason why people like the alu ones.
Some 944s came with 7&8 inch rims stock. The 8s should be on the rear though.
The whole early and late afm is not somthing you want to get in to at this point. Unless you are making a race car. There are technical differences between early and late afm. The early ones the signal was processed in the afm and then sent to the DME later cars the raw signal was sent to the DME and the DME processed it. If I remember the wiring and the plug at the afm is different.
The best mod you can make is upgrading the struts and shocks to koni yellows. Totally transformed the car.
Also don't be tempted to up grade the brakes. Stock are excellent. I raced my 924s for years and never wanted more brakes. A simple pad upgrade is all that is needed. I ran coolcarbon or Porterfield pads and they were great. I was easily exceeding the friction of the tires long before the brakes.
like I said. Put it back to stock running condition with the various systems properly serviced and enjoy a great driving experience.
Shameless plug on my part with out actually mentioning my company. But if you need any parts pm me. I can get just about anything. And I also rebuild the intermediate steering shafts as a side business if you ever need one.
dean1484 wrote:
Shameless plug on my part with out actually mentioning my company. But if you need any parts pm me. I can get just about anything. And I also rebuild the intermediate steering shafts as a side business if you ever need one.
Will do.
Got the socket out, put in all the bolts, ran it on the garage-leaked like crazy. Pulled it back apart-all the way this time (just marked t-belt and slid it off) replaced gasket and ran it till the smoke show stopped.
Really straightforward, and top side of the head was spotless. No rattles, no smoke (except billowing clouds from exhaust manifold).
Took it to put some gas in it-made it exactly 4 houses down the street and popped a tire. Snow tires on it date coded 01 Oh my.
So now it sits perched on jack stands in the garage; will mount and balance the summer tires tomorrow.
Besides gas gauge; shifter slop and front struts are done for she's coming along nicely.
And my plan is to keep it stock and enjoy it. I have said that before....I will try. I promise 
(fingers crossed behind back)
My potato pic was so bad I deleted it, and car is still pretty filthy. Will try to snap one after tires are back on tomorrow night....
In reply to vdubinsd:
http://only944.com/partscatalog/only/shifter/
Fix the shifter properly and never again. There's a short shifter available from them as well, works great.
dean1484 wrote:
The whole early and late afm is not somthing you want to get in to at this point. Unless you are making a race car. There are technical differences between early and late afm. The early ones the signal was processed in the afm and then sent to the DME later cars the raw signal was sent to the DME and the DME processed it. If I remember the wiring and the plug at the afm is different.
I agree that it's not something that needs to be done right out of the gate, but it is a totally plug and play mod that will get rid of the idle-dive and weird flat spots that the early DME is prone to have. Both the AFM and the DME plugs are the same, but they do have to changed as a pair. There's a reason they changed them, and the later set up is clearly better when compared side by side.
And yeah, that Only944 shifter is pretty bad ass. The stock unit is cheaper, but once your shifter shaft is slightly worn you'll wear out a stock shifter every 20k miles.
There is debate on early versus late. Many say that the early is better due to the conversion of the signal being done in the AFM and thus does not take processing power away from the DME.
Re better or worse DME's That is Myth and legend. They all suffer from that malitys you describe and what they all need is to be taken apart and run over with a soldering iron. I have cured many a 944 this way and I have not seen a difference in the DME quality from the early and the late ones other than the quality of the box they are in and I would give that to the early ones. The late ones are just stamped steel where as the early ones are a much nicer box.
The Early AFM's did have an issue with the lead that runs to the pick up. The fix for this is to solder in a lead from the arm back to the board (about a 15 min job) What really goes wrong with these is that the surface that the arm rubs against will ware and it needs to be adjusted. Again I have not seen a real difference between early and late ones but I would immagen the early ones probably will fail more often just due to age. The real answer is to convert to a MAF setup. Tehre is one out there and if you compare it to a replacement cost of a AFM it is a very good answer as it openes up the intake and perminantly eliminates the AFM.
This page will help re the 944 AFM. http://www.the944.com/afm.htm
Oh and I have been interested in this little thing. A duel map chip for early 944's. http://www.powerprom.com/adapter.htm
I don't know anyone that has tried it but it looks cool. I think the intent would be to let you run 87 around town and then let you take full advantage of 93 (or more) when on the track.
