Porsche 924 white

[dome]

Excellent updates, I do love these things and hanker after an early basic 924 after loving my square dash 944s.

I was looking at one of those SGS trolley jacks recently, is it still going strong?

[DaveDorson]

I'd love another Toofer.   Great car

[inconsistant]

23 hours ago, dome said:

Excellent updates, I do love these things and hanker after an early basic 924 after loving my square dash 944s.

I was looking at one of those SGS trolley jacks recently, is it still going strong?

Jack still good, wish I’d bought it ages ago. 

Someone in the 924oc is selling a lovely metallic green very early 924, its 1977 R reg I think, probably one of the first batch to arrive in the UK. He’s only advertised it on the club forum so far. Can pm you details if interested?

[dome]

1 hour ago, inconsistant said:

Jack still good, wish I’d bought it ages ago. 

Someone in the 924oc is selling a lovely metallic green very early 924, its 1977 R reg I think, probably one of the first batch to arrive in the UK. He’s only advertised it on the club forum so far. Can pm you details if interested?

Good to know re the jack, think I'll treat myself.

Re the 924-If I hadn't just bought the Kangoo I might've been tempted! I fear the days of cheap ones are in the past now.

[inconsistant]

JANUARY 2020

Now I appear to have a properly functioning and useable car, I feel more enthusiastic about doing the more minor things that need attention. So first job of the new year is to sort that persistent leaking rear hatch, as it’s really making the car feel horrible and damp and not nice to be in and it making a damp mess of the boot carpet, which I've taken out. It was the left side that was leaking but now it seems to be both sides, in the rear corners. 

I covered the rubber boot seal with talc and then sprayed the car with the hose pipe sprinkler to see if I could see exactly where it was coming in

 

So I need to tighten the hatch pins that are fitted to the hatch so they pull the hatch tighter onto the rubber seal around the body. Sounds easy. The hatch pins have a locking nut so it should be easy to loosen that, turn the pin half a turn, lock and test.

Unfortunately there’s no way to turn the pins unless they’re brand new because only then are they loose enough to be turned by hand. Given that water drains through the hatch lock and they get gunked up with muck in no time there’s no chance of adjusting them when they’ve been on a couple of years.

Anyway, I thought I’d give it a try and did a liberal squirt of plusgas everywhere and left it a day or two before trying. It didn’t want to budge, as expected. I tried pliers and mole grips on the bottom bit of the thread, but no luck.

The next plan was to remove the block that the pin sits in, and try to loosen it enough to adjust it. There are two shallow screws that are well known for rounding off and causing problems, probably because the hatch pins and lock also act as drainage holes so they attract a lot of dirty rain water. Opinion was that the screw heads are torx t30 but my t30 didn’t fit, it just span round not gripping the splines at all.

So I had a closer look and the heads have 12 points not 6. It turns out that this head is called ‘triple square’ or XZN, so I’ve splashed out £10 on a decent snap-on 6mm XZN socket for my socket set because I want to be able to get these in and out without mashing them.

The XZN socket arrived by the following weekend and is awesome, a really positive fit on heads. I undid not just the ones I had soaked in plusgas but the screws on the other side that I hadn’t even put anything on, they came off first go too. £10 well spent, and I’ve learned about an exciting screw head format that I didn’t know about.

 

With the left hatch pin and holder off the car I tried again to get it to move so I could adjust it, but it was stuck tight so I clamped the conical pin in the vice with some wood to protect it, and clamped mole grips on to the square rubbery block and then turned it, but the rubbery block split and made a mess of itself.

I remounted it in the vice and had another go, and finally felt it turning. And then I felt it sheering in half. Bugger. 

So I had to order a pair of new hatch pins, about £30. The hatch pin bracket was only held on with one screw not two on one side so I was a XZN screw short. I called the local Porsche OPC (dealership parts dept) and thought it would be a good idea to order a full set of 4 so I could replace them all and keep the current ones for spares.

£18 for 4 stubby M6 screws!!!

So by the following weekend they had arrived I found they were Torx and not XZN. Oh hurrah.

The following weekend the rain stopped for the afternoon and I swapped the hatch pins and securing screws and adjusted it so the hatch shut as tightly as possible. I got into the boot while a chum sprinkled the rear hatch with water from the hosepipe and… it still leaks in both corners. Nothing like as much, but still enough to be a problem.

So it looks like a new hatch seal is needed. Original ones are £60, but you can get cheap generic ones for about half that, which is what I did 5 years ago and it obvs hasn’t lasted well. This is the cheap generic one, the hollow bit is supposed to be round but has squashed to the point it's now just a decorative seal.

Also apparently the genuine ones have a little flange, yes that’s flange, along the side to seal it against the body. Also also genuine ones come as a solid loop and are not cut from a reel. So I’m going to do what I probably should have done last time and get a proper, expensive Porsche one. So that will be another week before I can attempt to cure the leak, and all the while it’s pissing with rain.

====

As well as the boot not sealing properly the lock has been really stiff for ages, The boot will open with the key but the lock won’t reset again to close the latches so I have to fiddle with the lock in the boot to get the locks to close again. It does the same with the remote boot release, bit it avoids the lock stiffness and the fear of snapping the key in the lock, which is also really difficult to use properly because of the black rubber rear spoiler being in the way. I’ve been using the remote release for ages instead of getting around to fixing this problem.

While I was sorting out the hatch pins I decided to take the latches out and give them a clean and a lube. All sorted, opening and closing nicely and relocated so it all worked ok but whileI was checking they worked ok the boot lock went all limp and useless and the key just span in the lock without doing anything.. I thought for a moment I’d snapped the key in the lock but it turned out an internal metal part had disintegrated.

I contacted Woolies Workshop who hade a used boot lock for about £15 delivered, so when that arrived the following weekend I took it apart to understand how it worked so I could make a working lock using the bits from this one and the barrel from the one on the car.

I was very pleased with my self that I managed to not mess that up or break anything and the boot lock now works superbly, opening with the key easily and it  closes with a reassuring thunk.

 

====

The fuel pump has been a bit grumbly on and off for the last few hundred miles, so I'd like to swap it for a new one, as that was one of the jobs on my list to sort the juddering. I ordered a pump and the s shaped hose from tank to pump as they often need replacing at the same time. The fixing bobbins are the same ones that fix the airbox and coolant overflow bottle down and mine have all split so I had to buy 8 of them at £5 each. I also picked up a new badge gasket for £5 as mine needs replacing then i can properly fix the badge to the badge panel on the front.

Still need to fit the fuel pump, I’m waiting for a day when it isn’t raining and the drive is dry, because I'm very much a fair weather mechanic.. Or for the old one to finally stop working, in which case I'll do it in the wet. It's been an expensive few months, a few hundred to fix the headlight and clean out the fuel lines, £300 on tyres, and I don't want to add up what I've spent on this lot and on sorting the hatch leaks. Hopefully it will all be worth it as I've got a nicely running car that's in tip top shape. Well, as tip top as it's been since I've owned it.

[inconsistant]

FEBRUARY 2020

I fitted the replacement OEM boot seal, it did indeed come as a continuous loop and with flange, yes flange, so had to find a way of disconnecting the wire to the rear wash wipe to get the seal around it.

I pulled off the old seal and cleaned up the metal edge before fitting the new one.

I carefully pulled off the left hand side boot carpet to see if there were any clues behind and found a connector which I disconnected, measured to find out it was just small enough to fit through the hole in the bodywork hidden by the grommet in the top corner and taped a bike brake cable to the connector then pulled it through. unclipped struts, fitted seal, poked the connector back through and re-connected everything, new seal sorted.

It was a bit baggy so it took some shuffling around to get it to fit properly. I hope it rains so I can see if it leaks.

Ooh look, Storm Ciara…

On the list of things to do to sort the poor running was to clean the injectors, and I hadn’t done that yet. Even though It's now running OK I'd like to go through the list anyway just to be sure. After some research it seems that these k jetronic ones squirt the whole time rather than pulsing like modern electronic injectors, so the best way to clean them is to run some injector cleaner through a tank of fuel, or to just dump them and buy new ones. At £40 ish quid each I’m going with the injector cleaner. I do have an old set in the shed so I might have a go at swapping them over next just to see if they do anything. I was recommended ‘Petrol Magic’ to clean the injectors, by a car mechanic friend who just recently sorted out a problem on his 80s Merc using the stuff. Will see what happens but if it’s anything like Ice Magic I imagine it will solidify on top of the petrol in the tank and look like dirty snow on a mountain.

OK I’ve just read the Safety Data Sheet, I now understand it’s nothing like Ice Magic. Will tip it in the tank and see what it does.

====

Since the new hatch seal has now been on for a couple of weeks and has so far braved Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis I thought I’d take a look to see how full/empty the boot was with storm water.

Good news, the seal was completely dry, or though there was some localised flooding in the spoiler area. I know about the drain holes, it just that since the car lives outdoors they're pretty much useless, and only work if cleaned out daily.

It's good to see all that water on the other side of the glass and none making it's way in.

There was still a little trickle of water coming in somewhere near the rear light cluster, but I couldn’t work out where so that will need further investigation. It might even just be dripping in because I’ve got the hatch open in the rain.

 

I decided now the hatch was (probably) watertight that I would clean out the deep bins behind the rear wheel arches on either side of the boot, since they act as drainage and a lot of dirty water has been filtering through over the years. They were dirty when I bought the car, and it’s a job I often thought would make the car look nice and clean, but never got around to doing, and I’m glad I did because it looks really super duper down there now. Muc-Off bike cleaner, a toothbrush and a washing up brush did the job nicely. Should also be easier to see if there are any further drips too.

I also cleaned out the drainage tubes from the hatch locks and the fuel filler cap overflow with a bike brake cable, which was blocked so again it felt good to have bothered to do something so minor.

And that's the thread up to date again. Hurrah. I promise not to fall behind again. Promise.

====

I’m going to sell it. Probably not until Easter as there are a few jobs that I’d like to do/finish off first that I’ve bought the bits for, and some bodywork tidying up that I’d like to do to make it look nicer, so I can hopefully get more for it.

It was the perfect car for what I wanted when I bought it, I’ve learned loads along the way and because the car’s not a perfect example I haven’t felt as much pressure or had to worry about messing things up, but I’m now at the point where I’ve probably got it to about as good as it can be. The previous owner,  GarethJ from on here,  bought it as an MOT failure and did sterling work to save it from certain fate as a parts car, and I've tried to make sure everything I do makes it a better car than before I did the job. Learning how to do car mechanics on it made me want to do everything well and properly and and not cut corners or do cheap quick fixes. So I can keep fixing and replacing things and trying to rectify previous owner (before GarethJ) bodges but the car will never be worth much more than it is now unless I spend serious money on a respray & full restoration to make it into the top condition car it could be, but I’ll never see that money back and although I think it's a great car, I don't love it like some people dote on their cars so I’m reluctant to do that unless it makes financial sense, which it doesn't.

I’m not sure how much it's worth, it looks good after a clean and polish in photos, and the front looks great since the respray but it’s definitely a 10 foot car. As you can see from this thread it’s had a shed load of stuff done to it in my time with it, and lots of money spent replacing stuff, and is definitely a way better car than when I bought it. The going rate for this sort of condition seems to be around £3000 but I suppose it’s not a great time to be selling an old car so will have to wait and see if the market picks up by Easter.

Anyway, I'm picking up its replacement tomorrow so that will focus my attention on getting it sorted and sold!

Collection thread will commence in the morning after a good night's sleep and crumpets for breakfast.

 

[Sir Snipes]

I remember fighting with those XZNs on something years ago, might have been rear toe adjusters on Mercedes C-class. I never found out the name so I just called them "multi splines" lol. Found a drive set on the Snap-On van eventually.

[inconsistant]

I think they were popular on 80s German stuff. Also heard them call multispline and triple square heads. 

[brownnova]

Awaits for sale ad... doubt I’ll be able to afford it without selling a car or three, but I’d love another 924. Always regret selling mine as an MoT failure about 7 years ago.

Should’ve just coughed up and got the welding done!!  Still one of my all time top two sellers regrets selling that car. 

[inconsistant]

When I got this one I was dead against getting a red one, but white cars are so boring, and with our other cars being grey then black I quite fancy a bright red car, just to have something with a bit of colour. Is that old one of yours still running?

[Roobarb]

Noooo. Sorry to hear your thinking of letting the twofer go. 
If it didn’t cost $2k to ship and then be wrong hand drive, I’d be there with the £££ in my hand now. 
Are you sure it’s a good decision?

[inconsistant]

So, we are in unprecedented times and it's up for sale, (a bit half heartedly, have only advertised it on here!) so I'm fully expecting this might be hanging around until times are more precedented and 'all this' has blown over. It's insured until September but the tax runs out at the end of April so after that I'll tax it monthly and see if my chum can find room in his storage to get it out of the weather for the next few months until it finds a buyer, and I'll use it regularly to keep things running nicely. Or maybe I'm being too pessimistic and just need to get the adverts up and stop worrying about it. Although I'm not sure how to go about selling car with social distancing. Any ideas appreciated!

Anyway, it's looking as wonderful as it ever has and is running as nicely as it ever has. 

I've been trying to sort all the little bits that might help sell it. I've also dug out a few bits from the loft that will go with the car, an almost crack free spare dashboard (new dashboards are being remanufactured for £900): 

A full additional Brown Pascha interior:

A decent passenger wing:

A Blaupunkt Melbourne stereo.

Hopefully all these will make it a more attractive purchase. This initial idea is that if I get the asking price of £3000 these will all be included. I reckon the interior and dash are worth about £200 each, the wing £100 and the stereo is a nice bonus.

++++

So what else has happened? Well, after getting it nice and clean, and with the hesitation at 1500rpm finally sorted, and having not really driven it more than locally for months and months, I thought a nice run along to the Porsche 924 Owners Club 'season Opener' gathering at the Ace Cafe first weekend of March would be just the thing. I really enjoyed driving it properly again.  

It’s superb on the motorway, much more torquey and urgent than the red one I’ve just bought, and it sounds nice and sporty. The steering is really solid and surefooted, the gear change is nicer than the red one, and everything feels nice and light and easy to use. It pulls strongly from 1500rpm in 5th up to the legal limit, and probably beyond, I wouldn’t know. It was a nice warmish day, and driving with the sunroof open and the windows down felt great. As others have said on here and the for sale thread, it's a really comfortable, capable car, the 924. The only thing was there was still a lot of popping on the over run and when free wheeling downhill in gear. And sometimes when changing gear. 

I got the mobile mechanic to come and have a look a couple of weeks ago, and pretty much straight away he found an air leak from a split on the underside of the rubber from the AAV to the 5th injector. Fortunately I had two spare hoses in the shed so he fitted the best one, made some other adjustments to air metering head/idle and mixture, and now it’s running really smoothly and idling without needing to blip the accelerator to keep the revs up at idle. He pretty much knew what it was before he'd got the bonnet up just for the sound it was making. Oh to be able to easily diagnose problems like that!

++++

There are 4 switches behind the gear knob on the centre console, and the third from the left has always been a bit of a puzzle as I've never been able to work out what it does, despite the manual and 924oc members saying it's something to do with the driving lights, but not all cars of every year have it. Well, while hoovering and tidying the interior I discovered the ashtray comes out and I can now see why I couldn't work out what it does. It does nothing.

I spent the best part of an afternoon fixing the passenger electric window switch, because the passenger switch works from the drivers door switch but not the passenger door switch. I removed and dismantled the switches, cleaned all the brown gunk off the contacts and put them back exactly as described, and  I made it worse as now the passenger window doesn’t go down from either switch. I think I'll leave that job, it is clearly beyond my ability.

I had a go at replacing the oil pressure gauge too but without luck. So I will be supplying a spare oil pressure gauge and a full central dial unit with a set of gauges with the car, along with an oil pressure sender, and hopefully someone else will have better luck than me.

I had better success fitting the speaker damp barriers to behind the door speakers, and then fitted the speakers flush by setting them between the door and the door card where they were meant to go all along, so the the speaker covers go on nice and flush.

With the MOT advisory for tyres sorted, there was an advisory for rust on the rear sills so I jacked the back up and took the rear wheels off to have a look and couldn't find anything other than a bit of surface rust on either the outer or the inner rear sills or wheel arches.

 

It doesn't look pretty but it was all surface rust. I gave it a good prod and a poke and nothing fell off or disappeared through it. I wire brushed the whole lot back and blobbed on a load of jenolite. I'll get further better photos when I get a chance but, as suspected, it's not serious otherwise I assume it would have failed.

So that's it for the last month and a bit. Still here, still for sale, not expecting to wave goodbye to it any time soon!

 

 

 

 

[inconsistant]

Time for an update, as I’ve been beavering away doing some Covid jobs. Am working from home through these times, but work kindly gave us 2 days extra hols on Tues and Weds after bank hols as a thank you for the last couple of months and dealing with the upheaval and that, so I thought I’d spend the time tinkering. I've got a few spare parts that I'd intended to fit before I got rid of it so I thought I'd get on with those jobs. 

The plan was to swap the fuel pump over with the one I bought in January but hadn’t fitted yet. What actually happened was that removing the 3 split rubber bobbins that hold the fule pump (that’s a typo but I’m leaving it in as I like it) bracket to the body was such an arse of a job that I only managed to replace those, so the fuel pump will have to wait. The current one works OK, but it has been rumbly from time to time over the last year or two. Once I got the bracket off and removed the left over bits of bobbin, I treated it with rust converter and gave it a spray of satin black paint to keep it nice, fitted the new bobbins and put it all back together. 

 

++++

I bought 8 rubber bobbins in total, because I noticed a while ago that all 5 under the coolant bottle and the airbox/fuel distributor had sheered, so while I was bobbin jobbin’ I did those too. Less bother than the ones under the car but still tricky to get to so I had to move the expansion bottle and disconnect a couple of hoses to get enough room to swing a spanner.

 

All replaced, looking lovely and everything vibration damped to perfection.

 

++++

Finally fitted the aerial that I got ages ago, it's a proper OEM Hirschmann one, and not a rubbish £6.95 one off eBay like I fitted last time. This one is black too, not chrome. 924s were fitted with black ones originally apparently. It looks cool, but doesn't make much difference to the ineffectiveness of the radio. I think the radio doesn't work properly, Not a problem as the aux cable works and gives good choon from my iPod.

++++

I haven't taken the battery out since the winter so I removed that to check the battery tray for holes. These are a known 924 weak point, as the windscreen drains through the battery tea into the engine bay, and if the battery tray rusts through it allows water to drip onto the fuses box which is under the dash in the passengers foot well. 

There was some surface rust but nothing to worry about. I gave it a wire brushing, treated it to a coat of rust converter to keep the evil brown stuff at bay, gave it a wipe and a clean and later refitted the battery. the black patches are previous rust converter. Looks worse than it is!

++++

So today I dropped off some emergency supplies of dull retired persons breakfast cereal at my parents which gave a good excuse to take it for a run through the country lanes between her and there, and then a hoof back along the M25. I can report that it looks nice and clean and goes very nicely indeed. Wondering if I might end up keeping it...

[Asimo]

Keep it, it's lovely.

I don't fancy it all. No, not one bit. It wouldn't really suit me perfectly. No it wouldn't.

[brownnova]

Jeepers... your for sale thread had me sitting on my hands enough, these latest photos are lovely... 

Its a good job you’re the other side of the country and Wales is still in lockdown or I’d be in big trouble with Mrs_bn, and even more trouble with Junior_bn as I’d have to sell the MX5 if I bought this!

Its looking lovely, really nice! 

[ETCHY]

It's lovely with the best interior Porsche ever did.

Keep it, IMO you'll regret letting that one go.

[inconsistant]

On 5/30/2020 at 2:08 PM, ETCHY said:

Keep it, IMO you'll regret letting that one go.

 

Now SOLD!

[brownnova]

On here or is it being released into the wild?

[supermellowman]

I’m really chuffed for you. Had this been an auto I would not have hesitated to get in touch. No doubt a bittersweet sale in view of the personal journey you’ve undertaken with it over these past few years. I thoroughly enjoyed all the infrequent but very comprehensive updates ?

[inconsistant]

On 5/31/2020 at 10:12 PM, brownnova said:

On here or is it being released into the wild?

I’m not telling, I’ll let the new owner reveal all.

[Vince70]

I go on a site called WatchJRGo on YouTube and he’s now done about 5 videos about a 944 he bought that’s been sitting in a field for years and what’s he’s had to do to get it running again.

Its well worth a watch for anyone who’s into 944s and it really proves they don’t make them like that anymore.

 

[Angrydicky]

I was surprised to see this very Porsche on Sunday, on the A140 near Long Stratton, heading towards Norwich.

Still looked good!

[HMC]

I tried to buy it (around the first lockdown IIRC) but was a bit late and it had already sold. They look so 80s in white.

[inconsistant]

38 minutes ago, Angrydicky said:

I was surprised to see this very Porsche on Sunday, on the A140 near Long Stratton, heading towards Norwich.

Still looked good!

Oh thats brilliant! Are you sure it was this one? Did it still have the AS sticker?!

If so then I’m so glad its going, was genuinely gutted it didn't work out for Broadsword and was concerned it might get stripped out and sold for spares, after all the effort I put in over the years. 

[inconsistant]

25 minutes ago, HMC said:

I tried to buy it (around the first lockdown IIRC) but was a bit late and it had already sold. They look so 80s in white.

Sorry about that! From memory I had no interest for 2-3 months (understandable, it was the first lockdown) then 3 enquiries within hours of each other. 

[Angrydicky]

9 hours ago, inconsistant said:

Oh thats brilliant! Are you sure it was this one? Did it still have the AS sticker?!

If so then I’m so glad its going, was genuinely gutted it didn't work out for Broadsword and was concerned it might get stripped out and sold for spares, after all the effort I put in over the years. 

Yeah 100%. B366 NRY with the funky font number plates you fitted. It was coming the other way while I was driving so couldn't get a picture unfortunately, but it looked in good condition.  Didn't see the AS sticker but I guess it was on the back so I probably wouldn't have anyway!

 

[JimH]

Dearheart finally got round to knitting me a new pair. 

 

[inconsistant]

B366NRY up for sale on Car and Classic...

https://www.carandclassic.com/car/C1485369

[dome]

That does seem cheap for a 924 these days, I wonder how ell the welding has been done?

I need to update my thread, it's been a bit of 2 steps forward, 1 step back getting it useable. At least it's solid!