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ideola · Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 15548 Location: Spring Lake MI

Part 2 in the continuing saga of Ideola's misbehaving 924S

I'm also having issues with my power steering pump, and the way it mounts. Once again, it's the stupid heim joint tensioner. I am now about to replace my third one in 5000 miles. And of course, it's always the reverse-thread side that fails, so I can't even use the previously broken pieces to cobble a new one together. In this case, when installed on the bracket the pump can actually slide back and forth by about 6mm on the bolt that goes through the bracket and the top ear of the pump itself. There is a metal bushing that goes into the front of the bracket on the car, but behind that, there is a gap of about 6mm between the front ear of the pump and front engine bracket. I'm guessing there is supposed to be some sort of bushing there, but PET and Clark's Garage are not illustrative of what I think needs to go there. Last night, I managed to squeeze in two large washers that took out most of the play, but I suspect that the pump free sliding back and forth once again was putting extra stress on the heim joint and causing the belt failures as well. Is there a bushing that I'm missing, and if so, anyone know the part number or have an extra?
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erstwhile owner of just about every 924 variant ever made

Paul · Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:10 pm Post subject:

Got a picture?
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White 87 924S "Ghost"
Silver 98 986 3.6l 320 HP "Frank N Stein"
White 01 986 "Christine"
Polar Silver 02 996TT. "Turbo"
Owned and repaired 924s since 1977
Porsche: It's not driving, it's therapy.

ideola · Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 15548 Location: Spring Lake MI

Erggh, no, hands were too filthy last night with motor oil, a/c oil, pb blaster, and ATF to handle the camera, sorry. I can't do any garage work today because I have a performance coming up...I'll see about getting one maybe tomorrow or Monday.
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erstwhile owner of just about every 924 variant ever made

Paul · Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:18 pm Post subject:

A performance eh? Does this involve a gf?

Anyhow are you talking about part 25 on the PET (a sleeve)?
_________________
White 87 924S "Ghost"
Silver 98 986 3.6l 320 HP "Frank N Stein"
White 01 986 "Christine"
Polar Silver 02 996TT. "Turbo"
Owned and repaired 924s since 1977
Porsche: It's not driving, it's therapy.

ideola · Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 15548 Location: Spring Lake MI

Here's what PET depicts:

In the drawing, it appears that there should be a stud on the front of the pump (A), and then a sleeve and bolt on the back. Mine doesn't look like that at all. I also have an extra pump not on the car, and it doesn't have the stud either.

On my car, there is a bracket that has two ears, one in front and one in back. I have a LONG bolt with an allen head that is inserted from the rear of the car toward the front. The bracket on the car at the front doesn't form a complete circle, it has a logitudinal slot in it (front to back, at about the 9:00 position). It has been machined to accept a bushing, or sleeve if you will, that is about 15mm / 1/2" long. The bushing inserts into the front of the bracket, but doesn't "fill" the hole in the bracket because there is a lip that prevents it from going any further into the machined hole in the bracket. I don't see how a configuration such as that depicted in pet could work on the bracket that is in my car because there is not enough room to maneuver the depicted stud and the body of the pump itself into the front hole of the bracket, as the combined length of the pump housing and the stud would be too long to be able to get it into the hole (yeah, I know, that's what she said).

Anyway, I'm confused as to what is supposed to be there, and was hoping somebody might be familiar enough with the mounting to determine if the PO kludged up the bolt and stuff on mine, or if PET is inaccurate (which really seems unlikely).
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erstwhile owner of just about every 924 variant ever made

firemn131 · Joined: 16 Jul 2008 Posts: 57 Location: Lusby, maryland

I had the same problems about a week after I bought the car, I ordered the #25 bushing.Then put on a new belt. this was 6 months ago.
Last week I had no power steering.
I looked under and noticed that the belt was gone and the pump dangling from the hoses. The belt tensioner had broken and the nuts had come off of the studs, bushing gone.

The fix
get 2 bushings, and new adjuster arms and a longer lower attach point bolt. 1. arm for the power steering and the other for the A/C compressor{it was squealing on warm up}. I say new, actually I got all parts at a local yard for $21.

P/S DIAGRAM page 178
https://techinfo.porsche.com/techinfo/pdf/en/catalogues/E_944_88_KATALOG.pdf

Installed the First bushing on the back side of pump, then cut the other in half and installed on the front side. Make sure you file it down even and smooth.
You need to put the pump back on and adjust the tensioner to the correct length.
I connected the tensioner to the pump first. then installed it to the lower attach pointand did the initial belt tension.
I found that when the pump was tightened that the tensioner arm was offset from the lower attach point by about 1/4 inch.
I bought the next size larger bolt and shimmed it out with washers.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE IT MADE!!!!

Great power steering and no compressor squeal.

ideola · Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 15548 Location: Spring Lake MI

Good stuff, thanks for posting! This'll give me something to work on, as soon as I can source a new P/S tensioner (which is hopefully in the works).

Have you had any problems with the bolts in the A/C compressor backing out as I described?
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erstwhile owner of just about every 924 variant ever made

Slam · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:44 am Post subject:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?t=438471

Dan, have you seen this thread?
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'84 944 - kid blew motor
'83 944 - resting comfortably. For 12 years
'87 944 - sideswiped by trucker
'80 924 - gone
'78 924 - gone
'77 924 - rusting comfortably

ideola · Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 15548 Location: Spring Lake MI

Nope, haven't seen it before. I took a quick look...not sure it fully addresses my issue, will have to re-read. I have the spacer that goes on the outside, it's the one on the inside that's different and that was missing on my car. I've ordered 4 of them, as one post I read indicated you need to cut them or something. So I have extras. It's just a matter now of getting garage time with that car...which is hard to do cuz the extra bay is full of suspension parts, and my son is using the S as his daily driver

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erstwhile owner of just about every 924 variant ever made

ideola · Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 15548 Location: Spring Lake MI

To wrap this up, I ordered extra spacers as noted. I took one of them and cut it in half. This needs to be installed on the bolt inside the ears on the mounting bracket. I don't understand why this is not depicted in the repair manual, or why there isn't an off-the-shelf option. I can't see any way the "stock" setup would be long term reliable without a spacer on the inside of the ears. Anyway, problem solved.
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erstwhile owner of just about every 924 variant ever made