Engine Running Hot

During my trip to the Nurburgring at the beginning of May I had a worrying temperature guage reading for pretty much the whole trip.On my return I decided to check the cooling system to find the fault.I drained the coolant as per the instruction at the excellent Clark's Garage website before removing the hoses to get access to the thermostat.The thermostat is quite tricky to remove due to the position inside the water pump.A good set of circlip pliers are needed to remove the clip which holds it.I bought this set from Amazon: Draper Pliers
but they turned out to be wrong for the job, the jaws didn't open wide enough to get the nose into the holes of the circlip so I went to Halfords and picked up a set of these:
Halfords Pliers
They did the job well and the thermostat was out within ten minutes. I wanted to check the temperature rating on the 'stat and it was stamped 80 degrees however I was not happy with it being stamped 'Calorstat Made in France' so I ordered a new one from Porsche.
Looking at them side by side you can see a big difference in the parts.Porsche part is on the right.

Installation was simple however I noticed that there was some play between the new thermostat and the circlip.Some advice from PCGB forum confirmed the need for a shim.Turns out there are updated water pumps (which mine is) which have a larger gap and require the shim.
I replaced the coolant and bled the system, started her up and ran at idle until the guage started climbing.
At midway between the 80 and 100 marks the fan switched on and the gauge went down to just below the 80 degree mark.

Success!!!! No more driving with the heaters on full and the windows down

Porsche 944 Front Brake Disc Installation

First take the front wheel off.

Remove the  brake pads:

1&2 Take the clips off the end of the retaining pins
3. Remove the spring then remove the retaining pins
4. Remove the spring plate from the back of the pads
You can now remove the pads from the caliper

Remove the Caliper:
Looking at the caliper from above you should see two large bolts (19mm)
The top one is marked in the photo, the bottom one is directly beneath

These bolts have more than likely had some thread lock applied, mine did.I had to apply a lot of heat to them before they would budge.
Once the caliper is removed, hang it from a piece of wire so there is no weight on the brake pipes.

Hub and Bearing removal:

Pry the hub cap off using a mallet and chisel (or large flat tipped screwdriver)
You will now be able to see the bearing collar. There is a hex bolt which need to be loosened in order to remove the collar and in turn the bearing and finally the disc.

Loosen the hex bolt but do not undo it all the way. Unscrew the collar and remove the wheel bearing and seal.

Remove the disc from the hub:

There are 5 bolts which hold the disc onto the hub.Undo these and split the hub from the disc.

 

Attach the new disc and bolt onto the hub

Reverse the instructions to reassemble.

Brake Discs

I will be changing the front discs this weekend, first part of some maintenance before the ring trip in April.

944 Fluid filling capacities

Filling capacity chart from the 944 owners manual.

Oil Leak

During my weekly dipstick checks, I noticed that the oil level was slowly reducing.I checked underneath and found quite a bit of residue.It looks like a small leak which may have been happening for some time.I degreased as much as I could then pressure washed the bottom of the engine to clean it up for a better look.I think the leak is emanating from the crankshaft seal.The belts are due a re-tension so this job can be done at the same time as I believe the belts need removed to replace the front engine seals.

Update

The leak was indeed caused by the front engine seal.There was also some balance shaft seals on the way out so they were replaced as well.

Parts list:

999.113.281.40 - Oil seal : Balance

928.105.139.02 - Spacer sleeve

999.113.351.40 - Oil seal : Crank

999.707.283.40 - O ring

944 Oval Dash Instrument Cluster Lights

The instrument lights on the oval dash 944 are known for being dim.Mine were bad so I followed this guide to remove the cluster and check out the reflectors.
Cluster Removal
The reflectors looked like they had seen better days

                                     

I removed the silver reflective paint with nail varnish remover and replaced it with tin foil as per this guide

Instrument Lights
The bulbs in the cluster had a greasy/dusty film on them so I cleaned them as well.

The result is a much brighter instrument cluster and for an hours work, well worth doing