924Board.org

[Lizard]

on doing the oil cooler seals on an 86 944, (early style housing) does anyone know any methods of lining up the oil cooler housing w/o the factory Porsche tool? and if not does anyone know of a source to rent one?
I did the timing belt on one for a PCA member and that went fine, but he wanted to do the oil cooler seals, I let him know I hadnt dont them or read up on it, but he wanted to try anyways, well got it all back together with the new seals but it leaked oil into the coolant (no coolant into the oil), and now he has found out that he may need the tool,
we havent pulled the exhaust or anything else as we could get the housing off with element inside off w/o any issues just 6 ackward bolts. ad could hold it back up and into place with the piston in place but it doesnt seem to be sealing.
Any assistance/suggestions would be greatly appreiciated.
TIA
_________________
3 928s,

[gohim]

Are you sure that you have a problem with the oil cooler seals, and it isn't a small amount of oil that was lost when the procedure was preformed, or residual from a head gasket repair, or leaking oil from a blown head gasket?

You have to be careful when you remove the oil cooler housing for obvious reasons.

There are at least two different oil cooler housings (early and late). And, there are two different tools available (early and late). You should have the Factory TBs to see which housing version you have, and figure out if you got the right parts to reseal, or which of the parts that got you will need to reseal the oil cooler housing that you have. Otherwise, as you found out, the housing is going to leak.

If you do have a leak from the oil supply to the coolant, and it isn't a head gasket problem, my guess is that you used the wrong combination of seals between the housing and the oil cooler itself and the "stack" was the wrong height. According to the Factory Service Manual, and the TBs, you need to determine which oil cooler housing you have before you place the seals in the housing with the oil cooler, and dry assemble to make sure that the "stack" of parts inside of the cooler housing is the right height so the seals will work correctly when the parts are reassembled to the engine block.

Working on a 944 engine without reading the Factory Service Manuals and the TBs is playing Russian Roulette with the engine.

No, there isn't any substitute for the proper oil cooler housing alignment tool. They are cheap anyway (about $15-$20 max) so you probably won't find a commercial place to rent you one. The oil cooler alignment tool is used to realign the oil pressure relief valve bore in the oil cooler housing to the hole in the engine block. Without the tool, if the holes are not lined up when the oil cooler housing is reinstalled, the oil pressure relief valve could "hang" in it bore.

Borrowing one from someone who would have to ship it to and from does not make any sense either, since it would be cheaper to purchase. If you don't get the oil cooler housing aligned properly, the problem won't be a leak, it will be no oil pressure, or low oil pressure. This is a condition that will ruin the engine. It does not make sense to try to skip a stupid $15 tool that is necessary to avoid the situation.

Porsche recommends replacing any three piece oil pressure relief valve that you come across when servicing an engine with the updated one piece design. A new one piece oil pressure relief valve goes for around $300. I don't know if I would trust a used one (what happened to the engine it came out of?), and if a one piece oil pressure relief valve comes apart, Porsche recommends that you buy a new one (they claim that reassembling a one piece properly is too difficult).

Porsche recommends dropping the oil pan to inspect the bearings if there has been "mixing" of the motor oil and coolant due to oil cooler seal failure or a blown head gasket.

[Lizard]

Thank you for that detailed responce Gohim.
_________________
3 928s,