Living with a Porsche 944

There are a lot of bolts on the front of a 944 engine. A lot. And the ones on this filthy 2.5 16v motor seem to have been there, undisturbed, for a very long time - along with the muck. There was even a spiders nest! However, I can say that there doesn't seem to be any front engine oil leakage - the culprits being the rear balance shaft seals. Requiring that all the belts and gears, along with everything else on the front of the motor, be removed first. My local Porsche indy budget 8.5 hours to do this - it's a big effort and one that I'm glad I'm not doing with the engine in the car. After removing the front plastic belt cover the main crankshaft bolt was next on the list. One broken breaker bar later, only the intervention of the impact wrench could shift it - not before buying another, longer, breaker bar failed to budge the bolt from the depths... Lesson learned: Go to the impact wrench first. With those two items out of the way I worked through...

Removing the bellhousing from the Porsche 944 engine is not as complicated as it may seem - such as in this situation with my replacement engine. When I removed the original engine I detached it from the bellhousing in the car and removed the clutch pressure plate bolts through the starter motor hole - see my other post for details . In this case I decided to remove the clutch fork pivot shaft bolt. Begin by removing the four 17mm bellhousing bolts - you'll find that the bellhousing doesn't detach completely from the engine. It'll feel like its hooking on something. That something is the clutch fork pivot shaft inside the bellhousing. The bellhousing will be loose enough to rotate - turn it 180 degrees and peek through the access port which is now on top - this is what you'll see: If the engine is still in car you'll be looking at this from underneath. The pivot shaft needs to be extracted from the clutch fork. It's held in place by a small bolt on the...

After reading numerous posts, the Porsche workshop manual and Clarks Garage step-by-step engine removal guide - I felt confident enough to tackle the job. But I wanted to remove the engine from the top.  As I discovered, it was pretty straight forward even for a novice! Result. I wanted to avoid removing the cross member and disturb the front suspension to do something I was convinced could be done easier from the top. Posts such as this one convinced me to give it a go at least. And I'm glad I did. In summary I was able to remove the engine from the top without needing to remove the bonnet/hood; torque tube; transaxle; bellhousing; clutch; clutch slave cylinder; cross member; front suspension; and radiator. Contrary to many so called internet experts opinions and many confusing threads this was painless and without dread. All that was necessary to remove was the starter; power steering pump and alternator (I figured to make the bottom of the engine narrower); intak...