No dash cracks? Nice.
Guess how much my bone-stock engine rebuild cost on my 87 944S?
Just guess.
I'll give you a hint - it has 5 figures.
No dash cracks? Nice.
Guess how much my bone-stock engine rebuild cost on my 87 944S?
Just guess.
I'll give you a hint - it has 5 figures.
Nice find. A guards Red full respray will go a long way to making the car a collector's item. Please please please spend the extra $$$ for OEM porsche paint though. Nothing else can match it in my experience.
Mister Fister wrote: No dash cracks? Nice. Guess how much my bone-stock engine rebuild cost on my 87 944S? Just guess. I'll give you a hint - it has 5 figures.
There are some cracks, but nothing terrible. The black car has a nice overlay that I'll probably use. Or I may pull the dash, fill the cracks, and flock it black. TBD, I'm just starting and will have time to figure out what direction I want to go with things.
As to engine, I'm not doing a rebuild. I'm going to do the bearings, timing, water pump, and other wear items (plugs, wires, etc) on the running engine out of the black car. Then drive it until/if it blows up. Then if that happens I'll either go find a junkyard 944, or just swap something different in. Certainly not going to spend 5 digits doing anything to the engine, or 4 digits if I can help it, lol. This is posted on GRM and not Rennlist forums for a reason 
golfduke wrote: Nice find. A guards Red full respray will go a long way to making the car a collector's item. Please please please spend the extra $$$ for OEM porsche paint though. Nothing else can match it in my experience.
I'll be honest....I really don't care in the least about it being a collector's item (especially on a sub-$1k car). I buy cars to drive and make them the way I like them. I'm doing the 924 so I have something fun and reasonably vintage (but still somewhat modern) to take road trips in, maybe a track day here or there, etc. I'm not a vintage car purist at all - though I respect those that are -but I like to take an old car and make it better in ways it wasn't from the factory (TBD what ways those will be with this car). Definitely not going to be the guy who spends $$$ for this-or-that NLA part just so the car is original, haha...
As to color and paint, I will likely disappoint you, lol.... I very well may stick with the Guards Red, or I may not. That's a ways down the road either way but I'm more partial to darker colors in general, so we'll see what I want to do when the time comes. As to the chances of "spending extra $$$" (with three dollar signs)....that will depend on what the extra cost is. My cars sit in a driveway with kids bikes running into them and trees overhead and I do not at all enjoy detailing - so for paint I will do whatever looks reasonably good, not what is "the best" since I don't want to have to get bent if it gets dinged or chipped or whatever. I'm that guy that will rip down a gravel road that I find off in the country someplace, just because it's fun, and WILL chip up the rocker panel paint
Remember, my Porsche friends are these guys (though I am not building a rally car with this...)
Today I got a chance to wash the RED car (it was pretty filthy) and take a look at basic functions to see what works and what doesn't. I also charged up the battery so I could start the car. The P/O told me that there was a knocking sound, and he's right. I'm almost certain it's a spun rod bearing, because it makes an awful racket when the car is started. So, not a big deal since I expected that when I bought the car, but I was also kind of hoping that maybe there was some other problem that would be easy to fix. No such luck.
With that determined, got down to a few things. First, neither the hood nor the hatch would stay up on their own due to worn-out hydraulic supports. Luckily, the P/O of the BLACK car had just replaced all of these on that car. Since I'm going to be working on the RED car, I switched all of the new stuff over onto the red car so I can stop using lumber to hold things open. While I was at it, I also greased and adjusted the landings for teh rear hatch since one side was sticking and making it difficult to open. With that done, it opens easily via key, AND via the electric hatch release, which works perfectly.
The hatch seals on the red car were in terrible shape, but again the P/O of the BLACK car had replaced this seal this year. So I swapped them to put the good rubber on the red car. There are some other seals and rubber pieces that will get the same treatment, since the black car lived indoors for some time and the red car was outside.
Also tested the sunroof. It will open but will not close via the switch. That confirms the motor works, so I suspect that one of the two relays on the motor is bad (one is for opening, one for closing). Will fiddle with that later. I'm also more excited than I should be that this car has the OEM vinyl storage "bag" to put the sunroof in when it is taken off the car for open-air cruising. :)
also has the wind deflector, which was missing from the black car
Tested all the lights. Looks like they all work except one side marker light, but as the P/O noted the pop-up front headlights don't actually come up via switch (can be raised manually with little difficulty). This may be a relay issue, but there are some great troubleshooting guides on figuring out this problem, which I'll use when I get around to it.
Most of the rest of the interior of the red car is pretty decent, if pretty dirty. It has the center armrest storage bin thing (black car didn't), dash has a few cracks but nothing terrible, seats are in good shape except for a 3" split seam on the driver's seatback. Back seats are in good shape as well. There are a few detail pieces that I will probably swap over from the black car, but overall pretty happy with what's inside. I did find a ton of wires running all over the car that were clearly for some previous owner's big sound system lol....the car currently has no radio head unit in, but that's not an issue.
I cleaned out the boot area. All the spare/tools/etc are there and in decent shape. It cleaned up nicely. So nice not having to deal with rust....
Also I have two cars worth of tools and jacks and stuff to choose from..
Power windows both work (though driver's switch for the passenger side doesn't seem to work). Wipers work too. The red car doesn't have the rear hatch wiper (just a plug), so I may or may not switch the one over from the black car - if that one even works.
I didn't look too much around the engine bay other than to notice that the red car's high-pressure fuel lines appear to be in good shape (a notorious issue for these cars). Everything else under the hood looks fine at a glance, but of course the engine is no good so there is that, lol.
Also a quick look around the body again and everything looks straight, including the repaired panel. Paint sucks, but no dents, dings, or botched repairs so that's a plus..
ok, that's it for now....can't neglect my other projects :)
you had me looking for 944's again.
luckily S2's apparently are non-existant, I've had an S already and turbo's ask too much. So my non-exitant project funds are safe.
Also, no 928's on craigslist in my area (or area's surrounding) phew.
Sunroof Operation, Troubleshooting, and Repair
Electric Window Troubleshooting
New hatch and sunroof seals are available from Only944.com.
Good luck!
Stefan (Not Bruce) wrote: Sunroof Operation, Troubleshooting, and Repair Electric Window Troubleshooting New hatch and sunroof seals are available from Only944.com. Good luck!
oh yeah, I've spent plenty of time on Clark's garage in the last few weeks, among others :)
Like the e30, there seem to be quite a few excellent, comprehensive resources for 924/944 information, so that's a plus.
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/cto/5813595133.html
wife was not amused...
Mad_Ratel wrote: http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/cto/5813595133.html wife was not amused...
I like how it says condition: "Good" lol...
pre galvanized body too I think. (I can see some rust bubbles on the metal fenders?)
Mad_Ratel wrote: pre galvanized body too I think. (I can see some rust bubbles on the metal fenders?)
Unless it was an early 79 or late 78, it should be galvanized.
That said, a lot of time has passed since then and it doesn't appear to have been all that great for that shark :/
Not to derail this thread but 928 fenders are aluminum I believe.
Nevermind, I see the rust on the rear ones 
I think they are aluminum too. Bad thing about it is the 928 twin disc clutch can be changed without removing the engine or trans it's a clutch pack but not cheap. Sorry about getting off topic cool p[roject with the 24's we're looking for one now. When you go to drop the engine you are going out the bottom right? I've seen more than too many lost causes from people trying to yank them out.
Yes, will be going out the bottom as I've read many places is the easy way to do things. Not really an issue since I want to pull all the suspension out and check/refresh it anyhow.
Once it is out of the black car (as well as various mostly interior parts I want), I want to get that car out of here as quickly as possible (If anyone wants it as a Challenge or LeMons chassis, it will be sold as a rolling shell with the rear transaxle, btw....)
Did a few little things this evening:
First, tried a new relay in the sunroof motor, and now it works fine (opens and closes).
Then swapped about a half-dozen small panels, sunvisors, and other minor things out of the black car into the red car. Though the red car is in much better overall condition, it clearly lived its life out in the sun, while the black car looks as if it lived indoors for more time. So most of the interior plastic parts, door cards, etc show sun damage (small cracks, peeling, etc) on the red car, but the same parts in the black car are in good shape....so switcheroo. Like with the e30, I'm always pleasantly suprised that on 30-year-old German cars, the original plastic trim clips and stuff like that always come out fine, and never crack or break. By comparison, the same clips on my Subaru or Honda would break when they were only a few years old.
old door card from the red car. The ones from the black car are much nicer
headliner front "bar" where the sunvisors mount
One exception is the end caps to the wind fairing, which appeared to be in good shape, but practically crumbled when I moved them. So will have to track down some replacements since the black car's fairing is missing
Oh, also confirmed that both power mirrors are fully functional (took me a while to figure out where the left-to-right switch and the toggle adjuster were located!). That said, the passenger mirror is.."non-mirrored" these days so will have to find a replacement...
The p/o (or the p/o before that) removed the stereo, including all four speakers. Seems like it must have been quite a sound system, because I pulled out about 50 feet worth of amp power wires, grounds, RCA cables, etc that were running to the back of the car. Will do my own audio setup once the car is back on the road...
Finally, I may have to use this fantastic old car-phone I pulled out of a junked 7-series a few years back. It just seems so appropriate for this car...
The near-term plan is to make some room in the other garage bay and get the black car in there so I can start disconnecting stuff in preparation for pulling that engine, which I'll spend this winter refurbishing.
So I started tinkering around with stuff after work today, and suddenly this happened...
And even cleaned up afterwards :)
It would have been a fairly simple job, except:
the black car is gunky as hell. Looks like a combination of PS fluid leak from the reservoir all over everything ont he passenger side, and also some oil filter leak in the same area.
I didn't take off the AC compressor, which ended up making it a VERY tight fit to drop the engine out the bottom of the car. Lesson learned for when I do the red one.
I couldn't break the bolts from the header to the midpipe loose, so had to take the engine out with half the exhaust still attached. Not a big deal since was dropping it out the bottom anyhow, but did make maneuvering it a lot trickier with only about 4 feet of space in front of the car...
My garage is still not big enough, especially with 2 cars in it lol...
Header to midpipe bolts get cut or snapped. Not worth it any other way.
PS system leaks are common due to poor maintenance and incorrect fluid usage (uses ATF, not PS fluid). Replace the reservoir while you've got it apart along with new seals, water pump and belts.
Great progress!
Give me a weekend with that paint and I will have it looking like new again.
Nick (Bo) Comstock wrote: Give me a weekend with that paint and I will have it looking like new again.
I'm with Nick, That paint will buff out.
Stefan (Not Bruce) wrote: Header to midpipe bolts get cut or snapped. Not worth it any other way. PS system leaks are common due to poor maintenance and incorrect fluid usage (uses ATF, not PS fluid). Replace the reservoir while you've got it apart along with new seals, water pump and belts. Great progress!
Yeah, I will cut the bolts off for sure, but access how I had the car on stands and in the garage would have made it a PITA under the car. It's the same reservoir the e30s use for PS, and I've rarely seen one of those that doesn't leak a bit either, lol. But yeah, will deal with it when the time comes. The one in the red car isn't leaking, so I may not have to deal with it at all, really.
I definitely plan to do all the seals on the engine while its out, plus all the belts and water pump (and probably clutch - not sure if this or the red car have the original rubber-center clutch or what). Now that I have the engine out of the black car i can pull any other parts I want and get rid of this shell to give me more space to work.
Any particular things that might be on that car that I should keep as spares (realizing I have limited storage space for big stuff). I mean, things that break often (i.e. window motors or what not)?
Nick (Bo) Comstock wrote: Give me a weekend with that paint and I will have it looking like new again.
On most of the car, I agree. It's not in bad condition, just faded. Unfortunately that left rear quarter is just primer, not faded paint. So it's not gonna buff out 
Just off the top of my head-
golfduke wrote: Just off the top of my head- - driveshaft couplings - rear hatch pins - Hood latch mechanism/assembly inside the car (the plastic parts tend to break often) - torque tube/driveshaft assembly if the splines are good. That way you can rebuild it with new bearings/bushings and have a good spare on hand just in case. - transaxle if its in good shape- Future win would be a 951 trans w/lsd, but use the N/A 5th gear for optimal ratios...
Thx, I don't really know if the transaxle is in good shape or not so may not bother. In either case I am giving the rolling shell (probably with transaxle in it) to my rally Porsche friends with the understanding that if I need a part off it at a later time, they'll hook me up with it. So will save me from having to store things at my place that I may never use. Luckily the rally guys have little use for things like hood pulls (we use pins) or other interior stuff, so I'll probably pull a lot of that.
Yeah, LSD would be nice but since I don't plan to track the car or use it in winter, not really something I'm looking too hard for, especially at the price premium they probably command these days.
Once the engine is out, how difficult is it to pull the torque tube?
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