Porsche 924 white

[Roobarb]

This time next year Rodders, this time next year... maybe!

Sweet car. Good to see it and thanks for sharing the great pics

[mercedade]

Love this thread, so glad to see it back!

[inconsistant]

 

 

This

 

 

Great

 

Damn

 

Looks

 

good

 

 

Sweet

 

Love

 

 

Thanks for the kind comments, I'm genuinely flattered that you're enjoying it and missed it. If some entertainment can come of my often futile but well intentioned attempts at car maintenance then that's a good reason to try a bit harder to keep the thread updated more often. More to follow presently...

[inconsistant]

June 2016

A week after 92forty, I dropped it off at mechanics with a list:

1. Check steering, suspension and brakes (because I realised I'd not had the car properly serviced or checked over since I bought it and I wanted to be confident that those important aspects were sound and if they needed sorting that someone who knew what they were doing would take care of them. And not me.

 

2. Fit track rod ends. I know I could/should really have done them myself but he’s got tracking alignment equipment and the local tyre place wanted £60 to check the tracking etc once I’d done the track rod ends, and he'll fit and align them for that.

 

3. Look into misfire at around 2000rpm

 

I went to pick it up the next morning and he said it wouldn't restart after I left and it backfired a couple of times. It started ok eventually but he said it was really inconsistent (not inconsistant) as it would be OK and other times it would struggle to start. He connected diagnostic equipment and sometimes got weird random spikes other times normal readings. He reckons faulty distributor internals (hall sensor?) and suggested I should find a replacement and he'll fit it and re-do the timing. 

 

He did a compression test to find out more about the poor running and one of the cylinders was well down on compression and it was causing a slight misfire and a flat spot.

 

F*CK!

 

I immediately felt physically sick, thinking that I really had put the head back together wrong and the head gasket had failed again.

Images flashed through my mind that I was going to have to go through all the head gasket grief again.  Before I could actually be sick on him he said he thought maybe valve clearance or tappets or something I can't quite remember had been set wrong on cylinder 3 by the head shop when they rebuilt my head last year. I almost hugged him, but stopped myself just in time. He was oily and I was in work clothes, and I don't yet know him well enough for that sort of thing.

.

He'll sort both jobs once I get a distributor. In the meantime he temporarily adjusted the distributor to TDC +18degs (normally about +TDC+9 and it starts first time every time, hot or cold. It feels a bit flat though, and lacking in perkiness, but it’s only temporary. 

Other stuff: Brakes ok, steering ok, rear shocks need replacing, and front anti roll bar rubbers are perished. I’ll do both of those jobs myself I think. Track rod ends done and tracking aligned made a big difference which I noticed immediately. He charged me £100 for everything, which I though was top value.

 

There was a smaller meet up at Brooklands which, compared to 92forty was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, the turnout was nothing like last year, which I unfortunately missed because I couldn't get my car to start. 

 

 

 

 

Importantly I got the replacement distributor I needed from another owner for £15, and got a diagnosis on my headlight motor, it was felt that my headlights not popping back down was due to damaged teeth on the motor that was making it slip. That was good because I'd tried everything other than a motor swap only ever got them to go down intermittently. I got hold of a replacement headlight motor shortly after that via another owner in the club for £20 incl. postage, which I naturally put in the shed for several months rather than fitting immediately.

[inconsistant]

July 2016

The car went back to the mechanic in early July and he fitted the distributor and adjusted the timing and adjusted the suspect valve clearance on cyl3. 

I got it back and it runs loads better now, it starts more consistently but still needs a couple of cranks to get it going from cold, so I think I need to go over the cold start circuit connections again to sort that. Again. Importantly I feel like it's within my ability to sort that out, it's the bit I know best on the car now. He set the mixture to 3% which I thought was a bit high (2% ideal I think) but he said he thinks they run better at 3%. I said I'd take his word for it, but I might drop it down to 2% after a while to see if there's much difference.

The best bit is that there's no flat spot at 2000rpm which transforms driving the car. It's much, much more drivable and there's less gear changing trying to anticipate and avoid the flat spot. It now pulls cleanly from 30mph/1500rpm in 5th and is much more flexible. I'd forgotten just how Torquay the engine is low down which makes it really easy to drive in a relaxed/lazy fashion.

 

Having got these problems sorted I spent most of the rest of the summer just driving it, enjoying it, and not doing any of the jobs that I should have been doing while it was warm and light. I'll leave those for winter and despise myself for being so laid back.

 

 

I did the 'will it fit?' challenge with my bike. PLACE BETS NOW!!!

 

 

OK I cheated, it's a folding bike, but even so I'm impressed it fits in the boot.

 

 

You can tell it's summer because the spoiler puddle is pure rainwater rather than a soup of leaves and twigs and moss and birdshit from off our roof.

 

 

 

[inconsistant]

August 2016

Over the summer I've not done much anything to the 924, just enjoyed using it. This included taking it to the local car show. And it really was local, about half a mile up the road. Some friends who live down the road are a bit into interesting cars and were taking 5 of theirs so I joined in a convoy of 2 80's Colman Milne Granada based limos, a Mitsuoka Viewt (Micra-Jag), a Dodge Diplomat and a Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham originally believed to be owned by John Lydon. The 924 felt quite conventional in that company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[inconsistant]

Classic car show photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wasn't surprised to find I was the only 924 in the village, but was a bit surprised to find I made up 50% of all the Porsches in the show, which must have totalled a few hundred cars. I get the feeling Porsche people generally like to hang around with other Porsche people and don't tend to go to village classic car shows and stand in a field paying compliments to owners of a wide range of other interestingly run of the mill old cars while drinking local beer and listening to a live rock n roll band. 

Anyway there was some interesting stuff there, for a local car show that's only been going for 2 years. 

 

 

 

I also took a couple of my old bikes with me. Both from the early 80s, the black one is a Strida folding bike with a kevlar belt instead of a chain, hub brakes and the freewheel on the front cog. The Beige beauty, as you all know,  is an Itera plastic bike originally designed in collaboration with Volvo.

The 924 and the bikes generated a fair bit of interest. It's great standing back and pretending not to be the owner and hearing what people say as they walk past. Youngsters & teens mostly don't know what the car is (or what it shares an engine block with) but they do think it's cool apparently.  I've heard that enough times now that it should be official. Generally though I think the 924 is viewed by the great classic car show going public as somewhere between 'interesting' and 'meh'. That's fine with me.

[inconsistant]

September 2016

Because I couldn't get the car running last summer (2015) after the hgf faff I couldn't get it MOTd in June when it was due, it took until September to get it back on the road. Unfortunately it now has it's MOT in the same week as our other car. Fortunately it passed with only a replacement horn needed which I bought for £20 in the local Motorworld and the mechanic fitted. It had been pathetic since I bought the car and was on my list of jobs to eventually get around to looking at when it packed up completely. I had a look and a wiggle but couldn't see what was up with it...

 

 

Until I realised that this wasn't the horn but the siren for the built in alarm. I found the horns in the end behind the front bumper inside the wing, and they looked like they were in a rusty old state:

 

 

The mechanic also apparently needed to convince the pedantic MOTer that there wasn't a rear seatbelt missing and that I had only fitted a rear belt to one side. Eventually the mechanic gave up the argument and presented it for re-test with the rear seat folded and the luggage blind pulled over, apparently they cant test what they can't see, and they couldn't see the rear seat. Or something like that.

 

 

And that was September, still nice weather so I carried on using it instead of preparing it for being outside over winter.

[inconsistant]

October 2016

A group of us went to Goodwood Motor Circuit to join the annual Club Carrera UK charity track day and paddock meet, for charity. 

 

 

 

 

We arrived in a four 924 convoy and parked up. This was my first ever visit to Goodwood and I was immediately struck by the atmosphere of the place (and the delicious bacon baps). Goodwood has reinstated much of its period charm and character making it a wonderful place to spend a day browsing at the lovely posh metal in the paddock and playing 'would you?'...

 

 

YES!

 

 

YES!

 

 

YES!

 

 

YES!

 

 

YES!

 

 

YES! YES! YES!

 

We then got surprisingly close to the cars on the track:

 

 

 

At midday we lined up on the start/finish straight for official photographs and the drive back to the paddock the long way, around the circuit. With clear track ahead the parade lap reached 70-80mph in places with much raucous hooning evident.  Altogether a thoroughly enjoyable event, and charming venue. I'm not sure I could do many 'Porsche only' events, I get a bit bored, and the owners can be a bit fanatical. It's always nice though to talk to a 928 owner about their car they bought 10 yrs ago for £500 and have spent a labour of love getting it running nicely. In general the front engine Porsches do seem to attract a different sort of owner, I think. It's interesting seeing the 924 becoming accepted as a legitimate old Porsche and how it sits awkwardly next to owners who's cars cost sometimes 100 times what I paid for mine. I like the tension.

 

 

 

 

The car ran well, this was the first decent trip I'd done since getting the misfire sorted. It felt smooth and relaxing to drive and was fun on the parade lap around the track. It was a bit hesitant when it started at midday, and then it wouldn't restart once I parked it after the parade lap, I was pumping the accelerator and the assembled chaps noted I had flames from the exhaust pipe when it backfired a couple of times. As exciting as it was, I think I’d prefer reliability over flames. 

 

I left it an hour while we watched some more  track day action and had a coffee to warm up and then it started fine. I’m assuming I have a hot start problem for definite then. I’ve got a fuel pressure test kits so I’ll have a go at learning how to connect that up and use it at some point. 

[inconsistant]

The car was looking nice and clean, which doesn’t happen as often as it should so I took some photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The journey home from Goodwood was fun, along the back roads around Chichester, through pretty villages then up the A3 and along a sweeping stretch of the A25 through Surrey in torrential rain as darkness fell. It reminded me that the Porsche 924 really is a capable and surefooted car for all occasions and hides its 30 years well. And that my battery tray still leaked into my passenger footwell, which I'd quietly forgotten about through the dry summer. It needed bunging up and quick otherwise winter would be a constant battle to keep the inside dry and free of damp. Also sunroof needed sealing.

 

 

 

 

 

Driving back from Goodwood as darkness fell also reminded me that I really needed to sort out my dashboard illuminations some time soon, what with deep dark winter approaching.

 

 

 

The lovely autumnal mildness, (along with seeing how shite my car looked alongside all the loveliness at Goodwood) spurred me into addressing some issues, and I had a burst of a several weekends doing all the jobs in a panic that I should have done in the summer. I couldn’t believe my luck with the weather, three or four dry weekends on the trot mean I got plenty done. The annual gaffer taping of the sunroof happened first, an easy (but temporary) win. I've even honed my technique so I cut it to half width so there's less sticky gunk to clean up in the spring when it comes off. Said like a true shitter.

 

[inconsistant]

More October 2016

Having got the sills repaired last year I'd like them to last a little while so I thought I'd better squirt some wax into them. I was recommended Dynax S50 so I got some of that and a spare lance, which was a good thing as the 924 has long sills and the Dynax s50 lances are short. I gaffer taped the two lances together which worked fine. I accessed the sills via the vent in the door slam panel and the bungs in the side of the sill under the carpet. I think these are two parallel cavities, so I did both directions and pumped gunk as thoroughly as I could into all obvious orifices giggety.

 

 

 

 

 

While I was in the mood I had a go at the paint that had jet washed itself off of the door and onto the drive last time I washed it, just before Goodwood. It roughly matched the poorly applied =PORSCHE= sill graphics which had been stuck over the poorly applied respray at some point. I did a terrible job but at least the bare metal was protected from the elements by comedy paint of varying thicknesses. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over a weekend I flapwheeled some of the rubbish paint off of the lower drivers door, Kurusted, acid etch primered and then some L90E alpine white. When it came to doing the top coat (Sunday evening in fading light, obviously) I noticed the aerosol button was knackered so I grabbed the first nozzle off another can I could find, a clean one from the other unused Dynax S50 can, but I didn't check whether it had the fine insert… it didn't, so paint came out like the end of a squirty cream can, splatted onto the door and immediately ran downwards. It looks terrible, Like the topping on a lemon meringue pie but with extra gravity

 so I’ll definitely be sorting this in the spring, I've got a taste for wire brushing and painting now so looking forward to tidying the car up.

The combination of the paint bits I've done and the terrible tart up respray that it's suffered at some point in it's past mean it literally can't be any worse no matter what I do, so I've got nothing to lose.

 

 

 

 

I've got the annual trip up to the NEC classic show in a couple of weeks so I finally got our local friendly independent tyre co. to replace other stuck aluminium dust cap in the front right wheel from earlier in the year.

[inconsistant]

November 2016

An unbelievably dry warm autumn means a chance to address the leaking battery tray. The battery tray on the 924 is above the passenger footwell (and the fusebox), and there's no scuttle panel so rain from the roof and windscreen drains into the battery tray and through a hole in the firewall and down the engine bay onto the road. works fine except leaves and shit get caught and the battery tray lies in nature tree gunk unless regularly cleaned out. If you get even a small hole the water drains into the car as it's easier and because nature hates old cars.

 

Over a few weekends I used a cordless drill & wire brush attachment thingy to remove all the battery tray surface rust to bare metal, then filled the hole (smaller than a 1p) with metal epoxy (because can't weld), then brushed on red oxide primer x2 coats, then did two or three coats of Hammerite White which I hope should sort the leak through the winter until I can get some alpine white on it. The Hammerite was taking hours and hours to go touch dry, it doesn't like to dry quickly when it's outside and it's damp and Novembery. I’m going off Hammerite. Once I’ve used up what I’ve got in the shed I’ll look for something better. A few folk have recommended POR15, I think I’ll give that a try next. Did the battery tray over 2-3 weekends so the car was out of action for a while because no battery which meant not much use in November.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I noticed that the boot lock was a bit stiff & legendary Porsche ergonomics put the boot hatch spoiler too close to the lock to get decent grip on the key to twist it so I normally use the remote release to open the boot, but as the battery was out I had to use the key. A good tactical squirt with WD40 and it has got a bit easier to open. Hope it lasts. Bet it doesn’t…

 

Since I bought the car my lights have been reluctant to pop down all the way. I finally replaced headlight motor with one I got back in the summer, we reckoned mine had missing teeth which was stopping them going down properly. I’d done just about everything I could to get them to pop up and down and the best I’d managed was intermittent or temporarily working. A new motor was the only thing left to do. It was an easy job, 3 bolts to undo, disconnect the wires and pop the new one on. There was at least 30 mins of daylight left and it was a genuine 10 minute job if ever there was one. Except not for me! (clue: note position of spanner in the photo below).

 

 

 

Unfortunately after I took the old motor off I watched the spanner glide slowly but purposefully from its perch on the suspension top mount bracket down the curve of the inner wing and disappear into the gap between it and the washer bottle. I spent 20 mins poking all sorts of things down there to fish it out before deciding to undo the top washer bottle mounting bolt to get a better view. I loosened the top nut, pulled the bottle away from the wheelarch and it slid further down and out of view. I borrowed a spanner from the neighbour, and completed the job in just under 90 minutes, by which time it was pitch dark.

 

 

Feeling peed off and pathetic I left it until the next day to test the headlights properly. They were slightly misaligned so they don’t go up or down fully, just made the car look either sleepy or drugged up.

 

 

 

Easily sorted, no more lost spanners and Hurrah! my headlights now pop up and down with 100% reliability, a surprisingly rewarding job! The motor johnny went back on, I kept it off for the many times I had to manually finish off (giggety) the lights. The spanner is still there, retrieving it has been added to the to-do list.

 

 

Oil is hovering around the min mark, so it's gone max to min in 1000 miles. Is this within normal oil use I wonder? I need to change oil & filter so won't fill it up, just add a bit for the journey to NEC next weekend.

[Craig the Princess]

Really enjoying those updates, cracking read. Also a lovely car, still regret not going for a very different £200 auto 924 in Liverpool about 5 years ago.

[inconsistant]

More November 2016

The weekend before my trip up to Birmingham NEC for the classic cars show and because it hadn't been used for 3 weeks while I did the battery tray I thought I'd give it a quick run to check all was ok. It wouldn't pull away. It started, revved, and did all the right things up to the point it was supposed to move. Instead I smelled clutch.

 

I suspected handbrake was stuck on from not being used. Bloody car, never grateful. Always something minor that has huge consequences. After a couple of evenings during the week of googling, thread posting and drum bashing it was freed up.

 

 

 

Thing is, this was the first time I’d ever jacked up the rear of the car and it would have been nice not to have to do it with a deadline, in the dark, after work, so I was a bit nervous about doing it wrong and ruining something, especially as I'd been advised to use the gearbox to jack it up and I reckoned gearboxes were expensive, not structural and a bother to mend/replace. I didn’t wreck anything though, which was great. I removed the wheels and tapped around the drums with a wood mallet and finally on about the third go around each side freed up. Took it for a run and did some heavy braking and all ok. Mental note not to park for several weeks with the handbrake on.

 

In other stupid news I was about to leave for Birmingham on the Friday evening and checked the tyres, and for some reason noticed they have a rotation direction indicator on them, and the front left and rear right were on backwards. I couldn't work out how to quickly swap them over without including a third wheel and loads of time, which I didn't have, so I left them as they were and I spent the whole journey worried that this was going to end in disaster, even though they've been on the car for 18 months like that. I wish I was more relaxed about things that don't matter.

 

 

Other than the irrational feeling of impending disaster, the drive up to NEC was thankfully uneventful and involved enjoying the lovely warm heating and singing loudly to my compilation tapes I made in the 80s and 90s and now keep in the car for lonely sing-alongs. I also noticed that the car smelled a bit fumey inside too. I was parked overnight on an angled drive with the nose downhill and that night there was lots of heavy rain. In the morning there was much wet on boot carpet in a line front to back roughly level with the drain hole through the spoiler so I suspected the hatch might be letting water in near the left side hatch pin. Oh well, at least the long journeys help dry the interior out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The drive home was enjoyable and uneventful, and I'm still convinced that the motorway (except of course the M25 in Friday rush hour on the way to 92forty) is the natural environment for the 924, it seems to thrive eating up the miles in warmth, comfort and relative economy that disguises its age so well. How many other 30yr old cars would you head off in the dark up a motorway on a Friday night and be fairly confident of a trouble-free run? Although I do recall thinking differently last year when it wouldn't start, but selective memory can only be a good thing when running an old car. 

 

The following weekend was wet so I checked and the left side back corner of the boot seal was wet on inside of seal so water must be seeping in. I've tightened the left hatch pin as there was a bit of play. It's funny the other hatch pin was finger tight after I undid the lock nut, but the left one that I actually wanted to adjust was stuck solid, I couldn't even get it to turn with molegrips clamped on. Was a bit scared of snapping it so used plenty of plusgas and on about the third day it moved so I wound it up one and a half turns so I'll see if it keeps the rain out or if it still fills up like a water butt.

 

 

[spike60]

If it's shipping a bit of water through the rear hatch I'd make sure the 2 drains in the edge of the rubber spoiler against the glass are clear. I just bought a 944 and they were choked so water pooled on the hatch and the carpet was wet on one side.

[inconsistant]

On to another apparently simple job, replacing the rear shocks. The mechanic said the rears were a bit rusty when he looked over the car in the late summer, so I thought I'd have a go at replacing them. Easy... Jack up rear (which I’ve done before so one less thing to worry about) and remove 4 bolts. Replace shocks, refit and tighten 4 bolts. Repeat other side. General consensus amongst people who had dome the job was that it should take about 2 hours including breaks and tidying tools away afterwards. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately I set off confidently. With the confidence of someone who had changed a head gasket. That didn't last long. I suspect these were the original shocks and therefore with the passing of time had become one with the car. They liked being on the car and saw their future being with the car, on the car, part of the car. They both really strongly objected to any alternative plan I had for them. After 2 hours and about half a can of plusgas and some innovative sexual swearing I had struggled, but managed, to get both top bolts out. It was dark so I gave up.

 

 

 

 

The following weekend I picked up where I’d left off and tried to tempt the bottom bolts out but there was a continued struggle. I tried everything... my normal hammer, big hammer, bigger hammer, VBH, FOGBH and several other assorted implements of mechanical warfare. I won in the end, but to be honest it could have gone either way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bottom collars inside the shock had well and truly rusted themselves onto the bolts stopping them from sliding out. Even with the nuts removed they were stuck fast. I was keen to try to remove the bolts without damaging the threads, because I wouldn't be able to get new ones delivered for a couple of weeks and needed to use the car during that time.

 

 

I miraculously seemed to manage to get the bolts out intact... I was whacking so hard the final hit saw the bolt fly across under the car and hit the front door a few feet beyond. For once it hadn’t got dark,  but we did have to go out to a Christmas pantomine, so I'll finish the job the next Saturday. OH YES I WILL!!!!

 

I took the bolts to work to clean up and re-cut the threads as they were really rusty.

 

 

 

In the end it was a complete waste of time as I'd been hammering the M12 nut (which I'd put on the end of the bolt to protect the thread) so hard I'd turned it into an M13 nut and it wouldn't tighten onto the bolts. I got some M12 nuts from work only to find out ('learn!') that there are two different thread pitches on metric nuts, and these were the other one. New set of nuts and bolts ordered, plans for using the car cancelled, everything then refitted the next weekend fairly bother free.

 

 

Estimated time to complete: 2 hours

Actual time to complete: 3 weekends

[inconsistant]

I stumbled across the Pilots Hub café at Redhill Aerodrome in the summer and immediately thought it would make a fine venue for car people to meet up. Their 'MTOW (Max Take-Off Weight)' breakfast further convinced me and a plan was hatched for December 2016. It proved popular and we gathered 15 924s, obviously tempted by a heady mix of a fry up, the waft of aviation fuel and reasonable company.

 

 

 

 

 

I noticed there were two different types of windscreen washers on the cars. Some were like this:

 

 

others, including mine, are like this:

 

 

 

Turns out these are heated windscreen washer nozzles, which were standard on the later cars. `Not sure if mine work or not, I've never felt the need to wash the windscreen in freezing temperatures. Here's the underneath:

 

 

 

Exciting times indeed. In other ‘boring beyond belief’ news I got a pair of wiper arm caps, but I didn’t put them on yet because I didn’t want to get too over excited.

 

 

 

 

 

And that was the end of 2016. Next, 2017.

[inconsistant]

January 2017

 

Brooklands: It was cold, drizzly and cold but a great way to start the year if, like me, you hadn't drunk the evening before.Due to some confusing family miscommunications I managed to convince both my dad (6ft+) and my teenage nephew (6ft+) to come along with me. Even thought the 924 has child sized back seats they did both fit in but it was amusing seeing so many knees in the air at odd angles.

 

 

Proof we arrived at about 2:20, proof we stayed at about 7.30:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also made a round trip trip to Oxford and Bracknell to relieve a couple of owners of some body panels and a sun visor clip. Wings are like hen’s teeth so this one being very cheap was perfect for my plans to sort my front wing/valance rust. Thing is this is an even rarer early wing without a side repeater hole and therefore very sought after so a shame to make a hole. I’ll hold on to it and see what comes up between now and eventually fixing it, maybe a front wing section would be enough and I can let someone else restore an early turbo or whatever which this one. Also managed to get a front bumper from the valance seller.

 

 

 

Usually I would get a part and not fit it for ages but unusually the sun visor clip went on straight away and it was a relief to no longer suffer from a floppy passenger sun flap. I'm looking forward to get that Gulf themed bumper on but it will have to wait until I can be bothered to deal with the inevitable bother. The plan is to fit it so I don't have to have the car off the road while I get my bumper resprayed, same with the valance. I'm not sure about the wing, I'll have to see whether it's best to repair mine and just have this on temporarily or if mine is beyond saving and I get this one sprayed white. My wing has rust along the valance joint, a dent at the front of the wheel arch that has been pulled out but had left a crease, and a bit of rust along the bottom behind the wheel. I'll sort all that out in the warmer weather but it's good to have the panels ready and waiting.

[inconsistant]

February 2017

 

Been looking for some specific speakers (JBL GTO 6429) that are supposed to sound good and be the perfect fit in the 924 doors, and I just missed some that were up for sale on the club forum for £50 boxed and unused. Since mine sound like someone vibrating a bit of bog roll over a comb I decided to have another hunt around the internets and would you believe it, on the Amazon Warehouse site they had a pair, brand new but opened box and returned unwanted for £20, post free. I think that was a bit of a bargain. Hurrah!

 

 

 

That’s another job for when it's more summery. Ive got replacement brown/cream Pascha door cards to fit as mine are a bit frayed along the bottoms and also a passenger electric window button that's not working and needs some investigation, so I think I'll do a 3 in 1 cluster fuck fix job.

[inconsistant]

More February 2017

 

There’s this bloke called Karl who races 924s, and he was mega helpful with advice when I was doing my head gasket. Remember I’m pretty new to all this old car fixing and maintenance stuff, and so far have mostly been working on my own with forums for remote advice and support. We'd been talking for a while and I'd suggested I could come and help him and he could show me what to do and teach me some new skills and swearing. His race car got trashed back in the summer so he spent the winter building a new one and I offered to go up and help him so I could learn a bit by working with him. 

 

 

He needed help fitting the engine so I headed up to Bedfordshire and after getting the tools sorted we headed to the nearby 'maintenance and race preparation facility'. It was very well equipped but it was more agricultural than I had expected and less indoors than I had hoped. It was a barn on a neighbouring farm. A barn with no walls. And a peacock who spent the day playing 'guess where I'm going to be next'.

 

 

 

Karl had a new engine for his freshly resprayed, still to be unveiled 2017 race car. It looked fantastic but nowhere near complete. The bent, twisted and cut up remains of the old red and white race car sat alongside the new one, a sober reminder that when things go a bit wrong the 924 is little more than a fragile metal box.

 

The old engine was to be his spare so I got busy swapping ancillaries, bellhousing and other whatnots across to the new engine while Karl removed snapped studs from the exhaust manifold. All went well. We were a couple of hours in and on schedule so we stopped for a bacon and egg interlude back at HQ.

Back at the barn we were soon ready to fit the engine. It was trolleyed under the car, which was gentle lowered onto it. The crane slowly lifted it up to the correct height and we were ready to connect the torque tube to the bellhousing. "I’ve done this on my own before, got an engine out one evening and back in the next" Karl said, and later wished he hadn’t. Great, this should be a straightforward job with two of us then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karl disappeared under the car to tighten the four bolts. Some engine shaking, wobbling and jiggling occurred. Then some swearing and a bit more engine jiggling. The engine moved forwards, the engine moved backwards, up a bit, down a bit, left... right... and then there was a bit more swearing. "No it won't go, I can't get the right angle so lets get the engine out and try again dropping it in from above"

The engine dangled on the crane above the empty engine bay and the car was lifted up to meet it. Shake, jiggle, twist, shake… and curse. We couldn't get the torque tube splines to slide fully into the bellhousing, which I was repeatedly informed should happen without trouble. Karl went back underneath while I wedged myself into the engine bay and did a 'hug and rotate' manouver on the dangling engine while Karl struggled to get more than one of the four bolts in.

The engine came back out, and we adapted the engine crane to give a crucial few more cm of reach. Engine went back in, and more shaking, rotating, pushing twisting and jiggling resulted in two bolts in and a third one in but cross threaded. The engine came back out, the thread in the bellhousing was re-tapped and we decided to fit some threaded stud into the top two hole to help as locators while we got the bottom two bolts in. The engine was positioned back in place and jiggled to locate the studs. It still didn't want to go. More shaking, twisting and pushing resulted in bent studs so the engine was partially removed to retrieve them. We were struggling. We couldn't work out why it wasn't going in. We had run out of swearing, and were short on ideas too. We only had perseverance left. I'm not sure what we did differently the next time but I was back in the engine bay for a 'hug and twist' engine grapple and Karl managed to finally convince the two sides to come together. Hurrah!

 

 

Next the two engine mounts went on and we could finally unchain the crane. The engine was in! We had wasted hours so there was no time to do anything else but take an engine selfie. Despite the problems it was a good day, Karl's racing car now has an engine, and I have seen that no matter how experienced or well equipped you are, relatively straightforward things can still be a challenge for no apparent reason, although struggling in good company is definitely much more fun than struggling alone.

 

 

[inconsistant]

March 2017

 

A get together at the Ace Cafe. 

 

 

 

 

Other than that a quiet, uneventful month with nothing further to report.

 

[inconsistant]

April 2017

 

I changed the oil filter and oil. No thick black carcinogenic flood on drive or over me, I must be getting good at it.

 

A chum (the owner of Johnny Lydons old Cadillac, a Mustang engined Mk2 Jag and many other beauties) and I discovered we shared an interest in Scalextric cars so I gave him a lift to the Orpington Slot Car swap/meet and he noticed a slight hesitation as I gently accelerated after taking my foot off the accelerator. He was right but it's so slight I hadn't really noticed it. He suggested changing the fuel filter if not done recently, and running a bottle of redex through. I didn't know fuel filters needed changing, I did this and ran some redex through a couple of tankfuls but it hasn't made any difference from what I can tell.

 

I took some time off over Easter to make a start on tidying up the front of the car but I got emotionally bullied by my 7 yr old son into finishing the treehouse I started building for him a mere 4 years ago. Trouble with kids today, no patience.

 

 

Oh yeah, it was also our wedding anniversary, so we went to the south coast for the weekend. I jokingly suggested to Mrs Inconsistant that we should go in the white car and to my surprise she agreed, so we did. And I'm pleased to say it didn't ruin the weekend, it behaved itself really well and Mrs Inconsistant very nearly got to have her first drive, except I was enjoying myself too much and she fell asleep. We got half way home and I realised I hadn't got any photos of the car so we pulled over into a lay by on the A22 near Forest Row for a couple of piccies.

 

 

 

[inconsistant]

May 2017

 

Nothing 924 related happened in May. We had a minor kitchen fire which I managed to put out with our new fire extinguisher. I'm only mentioning it because it created a load of unplanned cleaning and redecorating that took up time that I was going to use to make a start on tidying up the front of the car.

 

 

 

I'n other 'nothing to do with the car' news, I also went to the annual UK slot Car Festival at Gaydon Motor Museum, which was fun.

 

 

[inconsistant]

June 2017

 

There's a big Porsche event at Beaulieu next weekend so the car finally got a bit of a seeing to. I hoovered the interior, the gaffer tape came off the sunroof seal and all the sticky gunk got cleaned off. I've done it a few times now and have it down to a 30min job. 

 

 

 

 

I washed it but despite my previous experiences I used the jet washer and… yes, more paint came off.

 

 

 

 

Simply Porsche... I hadn’t been to Beaulieu since the early 90s when I was at University, since books and magazines were still the main way of finding stuff out I used the library there for researching my dissertation, which was on this strange bloke called Alec Issigonis who done cars. They had old copies of such fine periodicals as ‘Motor’ and ‘The Autocar’ going back to the release of the Morris Minor in the late 1940s, so I wanted to read up on road tests and motor critics reactions to his cars when they were released. My good friend, fellow design student and car chum Jason, who sadly is no longer with us, came with me and we went down in his Triumph Vitesse. The tenuous connection here is that he and his dad were restoring an NSU Ro80 and a Prinz at the time, I had a go of the Ro80 and it was a wonderful car. I think the Porsche 924 was made in the same factory.

 

 

 

A chum with an early, recently restored 924 in lovely green whizzed down the A3 to meet the usual others at Porsche Portsmouth to convoy the last bit. With every junction we met more Porsches heading in the same direction, until the traffic was pretty much all Porsches and we knew we were getting close. We joined the queue, rolled in and parked up. Needless to say there were many, many 911s and Bosxsters, but also a surprising number of 914s, 944s, and 928s made up the 1000 odd Porsches that has assembled. Our 924s joined a few others and we ended up In an area with several 914s. A good fun day, Porsches, bacon, Chitty Bang Bang and a monorail. I make no apologies for the masses of photos to follow. I couldn’t whittle them down any further.

 

 

[inconsistant]

Beaulieu photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[inconsistant]

More June 2017

 

I had to go in to work on a Saturday and there were absolutely no trains running because Southern Railways are a massive shower of hateful bastards so I drove the 924 to work and back, about 20 miles each way into London. Traffic was fine on the way in as it was early, but on the way home the weather was hot, and there was lots of Saturday South Circular stop start traffic to contend with and I became aware of a loud rumbling/whirring noise from the rear, which I assumed to be the fuel pump. I also noticed the previously cured distinct hesitation at about 2000 revs was back. I braced myself for the impending breakdown for the rest of the 45 mins until home, but I made it back OK. With the car running I stuck my head underneath and the noise is definitely the fuel pump, it’s under the car, rear drivers side corner just in from the rear wheel. I started the car again several hours later to check again but the noise had gone, just back to the usual fuel pump noises.

 

I wasn't really sure what I was looking out for so I took plenty of very similar pictures while I was under there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I'll get another fuel pump anyway (£30-40), but I'll do a fuel pressure test first to try to understand what’s happening with the fuel system in general. Hot start probs, noisy fuel pump and hesitation must be related I would think, I wonder if there’s a fuel supply issue that’s causing the hesitation too? I sort of can’t be bothered to deal with it though. I’ve got plenty to do to the car over the summer but I think my car mojo is waning. I’ve got too many other projects on the go and things to fix, and not enough time, energy or inclination. I've got a hen house to build too, and a weather proof run to construct which will knock out a few weekends over the summer. We've now got 4 ex battery hens. Say hello to Crackers, Beastie, Sophie (Le hen) and The Dude. This is what the hens look like that lay your eggs if you don't buy free range.

 

 

 

 

[inconsistant]

July 2017

 

A year has past since the local classic car show and it’s come around again. Same group of chums, a few different cars, including a nice Zodiac (or whatever it is) estate that he’d had for ages and not used, the J Lydon Cadillac came, so did a Micra and an Angular. There was a blow up pub, which was nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was one of those shows where lots of bored couples sit right in front of or next to their car in deck chairs having a picnic so you can’t get nice photos of the car, and the wooden boards of restoration facts and figures are propped against the car, so you can’t get nice photos. The interiors and dashboards are covered in A4 pages of facts about the particular model of car, so you can’t get nice interior photos either. So I thought I’d be a little bit subversive and do my own boot based spread, along with some ‘post-truth’ facts about the 924. 

 

 

 

[inconsistant]

August 2017

 

The tidying up that I'd planned to do at the start of summer never really happened, for the run of reasons noted. I barely used the car during the month of august, and I’d certainly not done any work on it. But bored with it. My roving eye was checking out MG Maestros and other tat on eBay.

 

But wait a minute, what's this... August is ending and it looks like car mojo is returning, spurred on by impending mot that it will definitely fail on a rusty inner wing hole. Even if I don't get it MOTd for a few weeks I'd like to have it sorted for October as there are a few events I'd really like to get to with it. Looks like autumn 2017 will be another busy autumn just like autumn 2016!

 

First job on the list, to lube my occasionally squeaky heater bearing. I had a fiddle and managed to get it out surprisingly easily. I'm glad I've got a later model 924, with the early ones the only way to remove the heater motor is by taking out the dashboard. I removed the cowl and undid a couple of bolts and mine came out. Gave the cavity it sits in a good hoovering out too, there were quite a few leaves in there.

 

 

 

 

 

I also had a melted hole in the cowl so that came off and I put the replacement one on. Although I was advised that new heater motors are a shared VW part and available new for £30, so I the old cover went back on until I replace the motor so I don’t melt a hole in that one too. Apparently once the bearings go they draw more current, create more heat in the resistor and melt holes through the cowl.

 

 

I need to take the wing off to get at the inner wing rust hole. I've got that replacement wing, bumper and valance so I'm taking all that off the car at the same time and I'm going to have a go at tidying up the appalling paintwork. The car had had a terrible budget blow over at some point, and all across the bonnet, badge panel and headlight covers the paint has reacted and there are tiny blisters that have turned into dimples of missing paint. Not sure about the bonnet for the moment but I thought I'd make a start with the headlight covers. They came off...

 

 

 

 

That's a combination of the paint problem and patches of paint that jet washed off leaving bare metal, that I brushed over with a touch up pot for 92forty last year. I'm not proud!

 

With the covers off it was suddenly obvious that changing the headlight bulbs was dead easy, so I got the pair from the boot that I bought ages ago meaning to change, and changed them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another job that I've been putting off for ages has been done! I know that’s a lot of photographic coverage for changing a light bulb but remember I’ve never done that before. Everything I’m covering in this thread is generally stuff that’s new to me. I’m still very much a beginner, But I’m learning loads as I go along, mainly by just diving in. When I buy parts and don’t fit them straight away it’s not just laziness, it's also because I don’t know what to do and I need to do some research or get some advice about how to do it and what to avoid. Just thought I’d mention it! Don’t want anyone thinking I know what I’m doing.

 

Anyway, I took the headlight covers to work last week, I thought I'd get the hang of spray painting on some small bits rather than jump straight in and do the bumper or wing. I gave them a sandblast, then quickly gave up on that as it wasn't really doing much to the paint, I think the medium we have is too fine. So I used the flap wheel on our linisher. That was a bit too aggressive and dug in a couple of times but with a bit of care and then some palm sanding I got rid of most of the bad paint. I then did a coat of acid etch primer, and then several coats of filler primer with lots of cutting back to try to get rid of the lumps and bumps. Finally a coat of white primer and I think I'm getting somewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That took about a week of evenings snatching an hour here and there, just need to get a couple of coats of Alpine white and I'll see how they look.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Looks good so far. I love the 924 fact* sheet as well. I started to read it as a serious piece of automotive education, and gradually started to smile. It’s been a long day.

[inconsistant]

So obviously the best plan would be to work through my list one job at a time, but no, I’ve decided the best way to get stuff done is to do nothing for months and then blitz loads of jobs simultaneously. So while I was sorting out the headlight covers, with my free hand I decided to attend to the centre console dials. The winter night time view from the driving seat looks like this:

 

 

 

… not ideal.

 

Also the oil pressure gauge always felt like it was a bit dodgy, when starting the car it jumps backwards and forwards from one side to the other until the car starts and then settles at 2. It’s also got a big frosted patch between the 0 and the 2, which looks like condensation but it’s there all the time so I think the glass is scratched, it's a bit annoying. There's some odd wiring going on too, note the 'previous owner blue wires of doom'.

 

A couple of years ago I got a spare dial unit so I thought I’d take mine of and just plug in the new one and hey presto all would be working. The reality unfortunately was a bit different as mine has a brown surround and the spare one is black. Also mine has holes in the bottom corners that the heater control surround clips into but the spare one hasn’t got them. Also the spare one managed to get a crack on the side while resting in my box of spare bits.

 

My one:

 

 

 

spare one:

 

 

 

When I took mine off it rattled, which I worked out was the 'brake' light bulb. I worked out how to get into it without any broken tabs and pushed the bulb back in. Achieving something without broken tabs appears to be a rare skill required when working with 30 yr old plastic.

 

 

 

I did a straight swap of the complete unit to check what worked before combining the best of the two units to make a complete fully working one.

 

 

I didn't have enough bulbs to replace the missing ones, and then remembered I'd bought a pack of LEDs about a year ago that someone on here recommended. They were an easy swap so I did them for all the dials and lights on the centre unit.

 

 

I'd say that was a success! Now I need to work out now is which cigar lighter to keep... symbol or no symbol?