Well, it ran and drove when I bought it. A Porsche 924s tale...

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I'll need to read through your thread again...

Suspicious-looking capacitor that I'd like to get to the bottom of, literally, but it seems that one of the screws holding the bottom panel on may have been cross-threaded - the threaded metal insert just spins in the plastic and doesn't loosen. Anybody have any thoughts on how to get it out (I see a drill in my future)? May be time to ship this off to a professional...

Four ideas

Dremel a slot in the insert/plastic and hold it still with a small screwdriver while removing the screw.

Carefully hit it with a small, sharp chisel to do the same.

Use wicking glue and very careful application to glue the insert to the plastic.

Dremel the head off the screw and leave the body of the screw in the insert.

Decided to punt on the DME so I sent it on vacation to Florida to have it tested professionally. Tired of tracing wires in the cold. At least I'll know what the problem isn't if it tests good and I can go back to troubleshooting when it warms up...

My DME is back from its Florida vacation a couple of days earlier than expected.

Plugged it in and the car fired right up! Drove around the neighborhood a bit to get some heat in the engine, then changed the oil - it was due, and the oil smelled kind of "gassy" thanks to all of that extended cranking. Got done just as the rain started to roll in.

It was more than I wanted to spend to have somebody else fix the DME, but I don't have the test equipment, or the detailed technical information to have done it myself in under a week like they did. And there's a warranty. The Specialized ECU Repair folks were quick and the communication with them was excellent in terms of regular status updates.

Nice to have a running car again!

A friend surprised me with a cool book he found at an estate sale. Unfortunately, it only covers models through the mid-60s, so no transaxle-car content.

I love it when old books like that pop up. A coworker who is ~65 gave me something similar a while back, and his comment at the time was something to the effect of "I wonder how people will exchange this kind of information when you're my age". That would be about 30 years from now. I really hope we're all still passing that stuff around by then. Very cool!

Tempted fate and drove the car to work. Made it home under its own power. Calling it a win for today.

I know I'm not supposed to drive the Porsche in the dead of winter when there's salt on the roads, but the wife and kid were off in separate directions in both dailies, and a friend asked me to play a gig in Boston, so what's a guy to do?

~20 degrees when I headed home. Car started with no issues and drove great. Only hiccups were that the lock cylinder for the hatch froze up so I had to load my sax from the front (didn't want to try to force it and likely snap the key) and the rear-window defroster doesn't work, so rearward visibility was limited until the car heated up. The heater in the Porsche works great, but I miss the heated seats and steering wheel in my RAV4...

If it is any consolation, I was told by a 924/944 guru that I wanted a 944 because they don't rust.  A 924s is a narrow body 944.  The 924 I lust after is the '80 (IIRC), the last year for a Porsche transmission.  The last year of Porsche transmissions had a five speed, not a four speed, and first gear was down and to the left like Dog intended.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

The '80 has a "conventional" 5-spd. The '79 had the dog-leg box - I've got one of those transmissions available to anybody that wants to come pick it up. It came out of the '79 I bought and evenually scrapped (see the first post in this topic).

Had so much fun with the fuel system at the back of the car, I thought I'd tackle the lines under-hood. These have a tendency to crack, and mine were no exception. There are three lines to look at, 2 that run the length of the car (supply and return) and a short line from the fuel supply diaphragm to the fuel rail.

The feed line looked to have been replaced by a previous owner (Gates hoses did not come from the Porsche factory). 

The short hose to the rail is readily available, but the feed and return lines are not. They're hard lines that run from the tank to just under the brake booster, where they're crimped to rubber line for the rest of the trip.

944online.com sells a kit - a new short line and new Aeroquip lines to replace the cracked rubber lines with compression fittings on one end. You need to cut the solid line beneath the crimp, then slide the compression fitting on and tighten it up. They include a tubing cutter as well... Yeah...

Short line went on no problem.

Access was a little tricky for the other line behind the brake booster

Got the tubing cutter in there - needed a long wrench tighten the knob on the cutter on every revolution as I couldn't get my hand to grip and turn given the angle I was working at, but I did get it cut

Fit the compression fitting over the line, thought I tightened it correctly, and was greeted with a geyser of fuel. By then, it was getting late, and my hand hurt from being in an unnatural position for a long time, so I walked away for a bit (including a week-long trip to SoCal to look at colleges for the kid).

Back at it today with a fresh perspective and a less sore hand...

Success! My 17mm clawfoot wrench really saved the day as I could get at one side of the fitting from above using a ratchet and a few extensions and get to the other side of the fitting with a regular wrench.

Done in time to pack up for a gig...

Off topic but is that a bari sax?  The only common size I didn't have to buy the kids.

In reply to porschenut :

Yup, it's a bari. I play with a saxophone ensemble (called the Saxyderms). I can (and have) fit 2 baris in the back of the 924s - can't do that with a Miata .

Been using the car as a regular car the last couple of months as we're in the midst of the HS baseball season and the kid has been using my regular daily to haul his gear and his teammates all over town.

Since I'm spending more time in the car, I started to notice some fuzziness from the rear speakers (I replaced the fronts a while ago). The "right" way to replace the rears is to remove the interior panel next to the rear seats, and the "right" way to do that, according to the factory, is to remove the rear window first. Since I'm not doing that, I removed the trim screws and just sort of bent back the panel to expose the speaker.

Picked-up a cheap right-angle ratcheting screwdriver at Harbor Freight to get the back screws out, and voila:

Now, Bluetooth speakers are one thing, but a Bluetooth speaker cone doesn't produce much sound...

Picked-up some value-priced replacements from Crutchfield

and went to install.

See those gray spacers?

Well, they like to pop out and drop inside the door panel, so I had to make some replacements:

...and the install is just the reverse of removal :-)

Still being used as a regular car, driving it to work, getting groceries, etc. Polished and waxed the original parts of the paint and now the whole car is pretty shiny (there had been some paint work after a minor accident according to the records I have - those parts were already shiny). AC works well-ish enough to survive driving it in 90-degree weather. Seems to run better when I'm playing music from when this was an aspirational car for a recent college graduate in the late 80s, but I could just be imagining that part. Still amused at how today's economy cars tower over it. Getting 20-ish MPG, which is on par with what it was rated at new. A 6th gear would help...

It has developed a few issues that will likely require some serious-ish work in the not too distant future:

1. Intermittent overheating: Doesn't like to sit in traffic. At least one cooling fan comes on, though, so I'm not entirely sure what's wrong. Seems to run cooler with the AC on, which I find counter intuitive, but I think the AC forces the second fan on, which may be all it needs. Planning on a coolant flush at some point and I've got a couple of new radiator hoses to throw at it. Timing belt was done right before I bought it, but it doesn't look like the PO touched the water pump. With luck, flushing the system will help.
2. Bearing noise at idle, in neutral, when I let out the clutch. Need to get under the car to pinpoint the noise better, but could be torque tube, throwout bearing, or transmission input shaft. All would require the transaxle to come out, and the whole rear suspension to drop if I have to pull the torque tube. May wait until I can fit the car in the garage to address the issue (and just turn the stereo up for now).
3. Alignment is still off - measured-out ok in my driveway with the toe plates I have, but need to take it to a real shop to make sure everything is square. I'm sure I tweaked something when I had the front subframe out to do the engine mounts.
4. Suspension/body squeaks - Need to get back underneath the car and likely re-torque everything.
5. Balky shifter when hot - I replaced the shift linkage at the transmission. Got nice short throws. Gear lever doesn't like to move when hot. Need to check condition of the shifter cables themselves, or could be the transmission, although that does have pretty fresh fluid in it.

Still gets approving looks when I'm out in it, so that's a plus. Kind of bummed not to see more folks out driving fun cars on a regular basis...

She looks great all shined up!

My 2.0 car is getting about 24 mpg, somehow I hoped for a little better given the wedge shape. I would have expected your more modern injection system to get you better gas mileage. 

What are the revs at on the highway in yours? I think mine might have a different transmission, but it's 3000ish rpm at 75 mph. At least with the 2.0 I don't think it could pull a lot more gear than that. Sure beats the 318is that turns closer to 3700 rpm at that speed.

AC runs both fans, temp switch only runs one, at least on mine. They are single speed fans. How hot does yours get? Mine is at the 3rd bar before the fan even kicks on, and I think our cooling systems are the same. Apparently this is normal, though it makes me very uncomfortable and the fan doesn't do a great job actually pulling the temperature back down. One of these days I'll get around to putting the lower temp switch in that's been sitting on my bench for a month. Hoping your issue is just with the fan. 

Hopefully that bearing noise doesn't get any worse, none of those jobs sound particularly fun. 

In reply to gearheadE30 :

I'm turning just under 3,200 RPM at 70 MPH, and it's the "big" 2.5 liter engine, so I'm not surprised by the MPG. My alignment is also severely not ideal, which I'm sure doesn't help, either.

Without the AC on, I was getting close to pegging the gauge when sitting in traffic, but the car didn't seem to suffer any ill effects. Never smelled any coolant, still running well. I'm not discounting sensor, or gauge issues, either. The needle normally sits well below the mid-point of the temp gauge when it's not trying to give me a heart attack...

So, how's your evening going? Here's mine:

Driving to work today, and the speedometer starts clicking and vibrating (speed related) and the odometer stopped working. Since I've already replaced the speedometer cable and the internal odometer gears, I thought the issue was deeper in the guts of the unit. I still have the speedo from my '79 which I used for assembly reference. The odo on that one doesn't work, but it's never been apart, so it's a good reference.

Looked to have a bunch of play in this gear shaft, causing the gear to "skip" and not drive the odometer:

Made a couple of shims from a plastic collar stay to take up the slack:

and confirmed with a drill that it's not "skipping" any more, and that the odometer works:

Will throw it back in the car tomorrow and hope for the best. As a side benefit, I think I fixed the odometer that I sorta-kinda messes up when I replaced the odo drive gears a couple of years ago (like, the numbers are aligned now and seem to advance correctly).

Should be a fun morning reassembling the instrument cluster (and cleaning the kitchen table before my wife gets home from her trip)...

Always fun to have to put the car together to go to work..

... But the odometer digits are all lined-up and mileage is advancing properly, so I'll call that a win (well, partial win - speedo is now reading about 10 MPH high, so I'll need to adjust that at some point, or not)

I think I need to find a new place to park...

... or get a cat

Checked under the hood this morning and disturbed a mouse crawling out from under the cowl. We've got a large stand of cherry tomatoes in the corner of our yard that the critters seem to like to eat while lounging on the shock tower...

...also coming up on a decision point on the future of the 924s.

As I've been driving it more regularly, signs of previous neglect are starting to rear their ugly heads:

1. Torque-tube bearings are quite noisy - to replace them requires removal of the transaxle and likely the rear suspension. Then a long threaded rod with metal plates and nuts, and lots of time twisting a wrench to extract the bearings (or spend a bunch of $$ to send it off to get rebuilt). Probably will have to replace a bunch of bushings and mounts while I'm in there.
2. Water pump is weeping - possibly related to the intermittent overheating issue I've been having. P.O. replaced the top end and timing belt prior to my purchase, but he cheaped-out and didn't replace the water pump. So now I basically have to do do all the work of a timing belt job to replace the pump (and probably the thermostat, hoses, etc.)
3. Some rust issues - I have replacement sheet metal, just need to spend the time to fix it (and repaint in sections)
4. Just learned of a door-skin crack issue that my car apparently has. Need to pull the door panel apart and maybe do some welding on the window track. I do have a spare door in silver, but it's from a manual window car. Don't know how swappable they are. I know I'd need to move the electrical guts and lock cylinder from one to another, but I don't know how interchangeable ther are.
5. Alignment, general steering wonkiness - Steering rack is weeping a bit. Can pull and either re-build or replace. Replace costs reasonable $$. For a little more< i could convert to manual steering and eliminate potential future power steering issues. Alignment issue likely from when I dropped the front subframe to do engine mounts and also replaced the control arms and ball joints.

So, my options are: 

1. Sell off the car as-is - Probably lose some money, but will free up capital and space to get something else. Maybe something in less-worse shape
2. Fix the car to be a complete 924s again - Lots of time and a bit of money. Not sure the value will increase too much over not selling it
3. Fix the car to be something else, like an LS-swapped 924s - Lots of time and even more money
4. Turn up the radio and keep driving until something catastrophic happens - That would likely kill resale value, but wouldn't cost me anything..

 Any thoughts from the hive mind?

Is there something else you'd rather be driving that selling the 924 would allow you to get? Everything you listed is the kind of stuff I just assume whatever old car I'm driving is likely to have, so if the 924 replacement is another older car, I'd assume it might also need bearings/seals/rust repair. I wouldn't look at selling the 924 as leaving the to do list behind, just trading one list for another. You've already fixed a lot of things on this car that you won't have to mess with for some time. 

If you enjoy the car but know it isn't a forever keeper and don't immediately need or want to sell, I'd say do the water pump and get the front end aligned, and keep driving it. Those are the two big things on that list that I think might move the needle on resale value anyway. Then post it up on marketplace for an optimistic price, and maybe eventually someone comes along and buys it. In the meantime, you get to drive and enjoy it, maybe fixing things here and there as time allows.

3b. 07k swap. 

In reply to gearheadE30 :

That's really what I'm the fence about - what do I want out of a "fun" car and will this one get me where I want to be?

If I want to start doing track days again, then I'd likely be better off selling it, saving some more money, and getting something newer. If I just want a "practical classic" with sporting intentions to tool around in, then I'll fix some of the stuff that ails the 924s. If I want something practical-ish, but more classic, then I'd sell it and look for a clean-ish MGB-GT, or other old quirky hatchback.

Just in need of a little GRM Forum talk therapy, perhaps...