New belts, rollers and tensioners - and colourful pulleys!

It seems like the end is insight now with the front end rebuilt and refreshed!

After resealing the balance shafts the next task was to fit the new rollers and belts. Firstly all the new rollers were easily bolted up and torqued down. I sourced most of the parts from GSF.

First order of the day was to refit the crankshaft gear - I bagan by heating it on the oven to make it expand so it would slip over the crankshaft easier:

Be sure to fit the splined insert correctly or the washer and gear won't sit flush with the oil pump, then gently tap the key back into the recess on the crankshaft. I smoothed mine of with a small file to remove the burs.

Remove the gear from the oven and slide to onto the crankshaft - a little lube helps this fitting process too.

With the crankshaft gear fitted the rest goes on fairly straightforward.

I'd had the tensioner media blasted and refreshed with some high temp paint - looks a darn sight better than the rusty thing it was before! It works well too.

Before...

...after media blasting and a spray of paint.

The nervous bit was ensuring the camshaft gear and flywheel remained at Top Dead Centre whilst attaching the new cambelt - there mustn't be any slack between the camshaft and crankshaft gears.

It took a couple of attempts but it's not a difficult task by any means. With it on I released the tensioner to tighten the cambelt and it was done!

At this point I wondered again about refitting the balance shaft belt - I've read so many conflicting reports about balance shaft deletes. Leaving it stock means the engine should run smoother; leaving it off means the motor will produce more power due to the lack of parasitic loss not having to spin the balance shafts. I decided in favor of smoothness until I need to remove the bottom end when I can check the condition of the oil pick up pipe - which without balance shafts might break due to higher vibration. The end result being a disaster...So stock it remains this end.

With that taken care of it was time to test fit some more powder coated bits before dropping the engine back in...

The main pulley got blasted and spray painted (this pulley can't be powder coated as it has a rubber damper insert which would melt in the furnace):

...and so did the engine side alternator pulley - but in yellow!

Sunny!

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Living with a Porsche 944

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