Porsche 924 white

[inconsistant]

If this starts tomorrow, I think we may be at DEFCON WIN!

 

 

Oops, I forgot to say... after 3 or 4 goes it started again this morning.

 

 

[Felly Magic]

The man from Del Monte he say YES!!!!!

[garethj]

Which branch of Mr Clutch did you use? Just so I know where to address the envelopes of soggy dog shit...

It was a local garage that specialises in 924s and 944s, they've always got 3 or 4 for sale.  Good job I didn't spend a lot of money on getting all that work done.

 

Oh

[inconsistant]

Name and shame!

[Jim Bell]

Great news!

 

It was an epic hunt.

[inconsistant]

It started again yesterday evening, so I'm coming round to the idea that it's actually finally fixed.

I went for a little cheeky drive around our road, which is a small loop of about 1/4 mile, (because no MOT is obvs a private road) and enjoyed it so much I turned around and went around the other way for a couple of laps.

 

Mechanic is coming next weds to sort the idle, mixture and tuning type stuff, and then it's MOT time. That's going to be fun because the sills have deteriorated while I've been distracted with the HGF and now have holes in them. I'll try to get some pictures of them, that should get everyone a bit hot under the collar.

[Noel Tidybeard]

about funkin time an all

[forddeliveryboy]

and then it's MOT time. That's going to be fun because the sills have deteriorated while I've been distracted with the HGF and now have holes in them.

 

 

Pure autoshiting, the Forth Bridge painting crew have nothing on us.

[inconsistant]

Time for an MOT update special.

 

Tuesday the week before last it was booked in for an 8.30am MOT just around the corner. About 1/4 mile drive at the very most. I'd checked every morning and every evening for a week, and it started each time. However, on the couple of days running up to the mot, to took 3-4 goes to get it to start, along with a bit of perseverance. 

 

I didn't imagine for one moment that it would pass, I assumed it would at least fail on emissions (the mechanic was coming on the Weds morning to sort timing, idle, mixture etc) I just wanted to see what they made of the sills.

I got all the bits to make up a new TTS wire, but decided not to do it until after the MOT, just in case something went wrong and I couldn't start it!

But I needn't have worried, because on the morning of the MOT it didn't start anyway. So I quickly went from being early and having time to take it for a spin to warm it up and charge the battery, to having a flat battery from repeated attempts to start, and jump starting it in a panic from the Versatile Forty then getting round to the garage just in time to miss my appointment.

 

Fortunately they did it 30 mins later. It failed on corroded sills, as I expected. Didn't fail on emissions though, which was quite a surprise. And by 'didn't fail' I mean it just barely scraped through.

 

 

 

Sills:

 

 

 

 

And then the fun started when I went to drive it home. It wouldn't start again. Engine was hot, fan was running, it turned over but wouldn't fire up. Asked garage bloke for a jump start, but it still wouldn't start off his booster pack. He had a quick look and no spark, apparently. The (brand new) coil was very hot, almost too hot to touch. He reckoned it was faulty. I had the old coil in the boot, so I swapped it back over. Still wouldn't start, even with a booster pack on it. Still no spark. Phoned breakdown service, waited an hour. After I waited an hour I got a call to say their truck had broken down, and they'll be another hour.

 

 

 

Finally got home with the car about 1.30pm, ended up having to take the day off work.  

 

The mechanic came the next day as planned to tune the car and sort timing/idle/mixture etc, but instead tried (and failed) to get it started in the time he had. He said there was no spark. This is a bit of a mystery. He didn't have time to get to the bottom of the problem, but he did have a jolly good poke around the sills, and reckoned he could do a decent job of them, would be about £400 but he couldn't do anything for a couple of weeks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry the pix are a bit abstract, it's difficult to get far enough back to see the rust in context, so probably not as bad, and holes are smaller than they look. Although having said that I can get 4 fingers into a couple of them giggity.

 

In 'shut the stable door after the horse has bolted' style I also picked up a second hand fitted waterproof cover:

 

 

I made and fitted a permanent Thermo Time Switch lead to replace the temporary bodge I did, and I used proper connectors and heatshrink and crimpers and everything.

 

 

 

 

 

I also fitted a new battery. A posh Exide one.

 

------------------------

 

That was all 2 weeks ago, so yesterday morning he came back as planned, with the whole morning booked out to diagnose the problem. It started first time.

 

Conclusion: My car hates me, and/or is haunted.

 

I tried it again when I got home from work, and it started for me too. It can't just be the battery, because it wouldn't start for the mechanic last time even with a booster pack on it. 

 

The mechanic is going to sort the welding out in the next couple of days, so I made a start on removing interior trim, seats and carpet to save a few quids. It was too dark to get photos. 

[Skizzer]

I think 'like' is the correct response.  I feel your pain, anyway.  

[danthecapriman]

Strange that the issue now seems very intermittent.

Your new wire and plug looks very professional though, top job.

[inconsistant]

Ta. Just in case it's useful to anyone...

 

Wire:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/twin-core-15a-figure-8-cable-priced-per-metre-xs72p

 

Heatshrink:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111611758821?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

Thermo time switch connector:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121125798230?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

Waterproof 2 part connector:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221815720927?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

The wire was probably a bit too thick for the 2 part connectors, so I'd probably go for smaller wire or bigger connectors next time.

[Bobthebeard]

Good luck with the sills. If someone offers to repair them for £400 give him the job plus lots of tea/biscuits/beer.

Be ready with the sympathy and hanky also once he starts to weep into the tea....

If they look rusty they will be RUSTY.

Slight bubbling on sill...... Poked and...

.

Hmmmm....

If they look ok they are probably rusting.

If they look rusty they are probably fooked.

If they look fooked they are.

Sorry... As you were.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Your warm up regulator could be fucked.

 

K Jetronic really is hateful.

[jonathan_dyane]

I'm not sure you can blame poor old K jet on a lost spark...

[Tamworthbay]

My mate has just finished welding up his sills on his 924 it was bought with ten months not and looked sound until we took the carpet out. Some gentle screwdriving and three weeks worth of welding was found. Both sills, many floor patches let in, wing repairs, bulkhead and rear arch liner. Crustier than a crusty thing. Luckily it only cost £300 to start with.

[alf892]

Get that welder on it quick.......do not pause to think 'what if this and that bit is also rotten'.........it will be and thinking about it is not going to help.

 

Do overtime........rent the wife out.......sell a kidney.

 

Get it fixed quickly and smile

[mercedade]

How's this little beauty looking these days? This was one of the most inspiring threads in recent months, and I was reminded of it when I was thinking of the jobs outside of my comfort zone I've always avoided over the years.

[inconsistant]

^^^Thanks for the nudge/compliment! Oops, nearly 2 months without updating, sorry folks!

 

So the Thermo Time Switch Connector I bought ended up being a bit of a pain in the bum, because the TTS threads up into the rear coolant flange and sits parallel/close to the back of the head, and the TTS connector has to clip onto the TTS in the right position, so depending on where it tightens up to on it's thread, there either is room for the extra clippy bit to fit, or there isn't. For me there wasn't.

 

 

See how the new (black) one has the protruding extra clippy bit?
Unfortunately I'd made up the wire with the crimpers before I realised otherwise I'd have just used the old connector. I had to butcher it by removing one of the black pointy corners to get it to fit on because it fouled the back of the head:

 

 

On the plus side, it's really securely wedged on against the head. The downside is that it now needs two hands to remove it, one to push at the release wire and one to pull it downwards off of the TTS... and there's only just enough room down there for one hand.
So on balance then, I probably wouldn't recommend.

[inconsistant]

Fred the mechanic was due to sort the welding out, so I made a start on removing interior trim, seats and carpet to save myself a few quids, and because I said I would. I've done Head Gasket, I don't even need to think twice about removing some seats and carpets.

Passenger side first... 4 bolts to remove seat, then undid seatbelt sill fixing, pulled up door sill trim, and carefully lifted carpets trying to avoid too much damage to sound deadening underneath. Bit damp under the sound deadening, especially passenger footwell, so I put a load of newspaper down to try to dry it out.

 

 

 

(I think/hope the wire is the handbrake switch cable for left hand drive)

 

 

 

 

[inconsistant]

Drivers side... pretty much the same, but with the handbrake to work around.

 

[inconsistant]

I got distracted by the handbrake because the bit underneath it with a button on top that had a wire not quite going up to it looked like it ought to be doing something useful, like making my handbrake warning light work.

 

 

 

As well as a dislodged wire it looked a bit mangled and worse for wear.

 

 

 

I took it off and had a go at straightening it up and reassembling it.

 

 

Funny how I never really noticed I didn't have a handbrake warning light. I could get used to having one now.

 

 

Unfortunately I couldn't get it to work reliably, it kept getting mashed up. It's a really fiddly little thing to have to put up with a big heavy handbrake banging down on it all the time. The black button on the top is worn/deformed to the extent that it won't move freely through the hole is sits in and gets caught when going up and down. This twists the spring and makes it dislodge from the bottom fixing, and the wire pulls off because it's trapped between the spring and the inner sill. I'm going to either need a new unit or a good working used one I think. Will abandon this and come back to it later.

[inconsistant]

More pix of the drivers side:

 

 

 

Yes, that's daylight from the bottom corner.

 

And this takes us up to the end of August, and another month of not having it running. Fred the mechanic came to pick up the 924 to sort the welding out. Even though I've not been using it on the road it does seem weird looking out and not seeing it on the drive. And hopefully it will only be gone for a few days.

 

And anyway, It's only about 99.9% gone, I do have a little something left on the drive to look out at:

 

[Tamworthbay]

It's marking it's territory

[inconsistant]

So the excessively corroded, haunted coupe of desire went away for a jolly good tickling along both sills, £450 estimate, told definitely no more than £500. I asked if he could take some photos as he went along, if he had time. Which he did, because he did:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While this was being done I made good use of the passenger seat, which interestingly seems to bring down my lap times in both Grid Autosport and GT6. And complimented the the lounge deco alarmingly well.

 

[inconsistant]

I was called the next Saturday to say it was ready for collection, picked it up, and it looks and feels solid enough. He used the outer sills I'd got from Karl to make sections and rebuild areas. Turned out to be more work than they had anticipated (who would have guessed!) because they hadn't expected to have to grind away masses of filler before they could find the remains of the sills.

 

Someone at some point had done a quick 'weld and wob' job on it at some point. But lots more wob than weld.

Fred rebuilt the front and rear drivers side jacking points, the rear one just pulled off with a tug, and previously the front one had apparently been spot welded back on last time someone messed about under there.

 

Driver side:

 

 

The welding is quite obvious on the sills, which is a shame, but is probably something I can tidy up. I can relax knowing that there are no burned bits of interior though!

Passenger side:

 

 

In terms of priorities I'm more interested now in trying to keep the rust at bay where I can rather than waiting and then tidying it up.

For someone new to this steel vs the environment game, its hard to know what to do for the best. Last autumn I did a lot of research and reading up on forums about the best way to treat the underbits to prevent rust, and also what products are best to use, but unfortunately the internet, being an arguement, provides so much information and so many conflicting opinions that I ends up not knowing what to do for the best and ended up not doing anything, at which point omghgf and I worked on that instead. From Fred the mechanics recommendation I'm gonna pump the sills with waxoyl and wire brush the underbits and wheelarches and spray with Schultz, although I'd rather keep the arches white to match body colour.

Anyway I got to drive it home and it felt good. I went the long way home. The long, long way home. Temp was good, steady at a quarter.

 

Fred has also done the timing, idle and mixture an it's purring like a kitty. It's still not too happy starting, taking 2 or 3 goes to fire up, and spluttering into life rather than starting cleanly, but as soon as it does start it runs smoothly.

He was struggling to get it running consistently, and wasn't getting good sparkles, until he swapped the (new) Beru sparkle plugs out and put the old Bosch ones back in that I'd left in the boot, then it ran fine with good sparkles. Bit of a mystery why that was.

 

Something I noticed, and I remember it doing this before hgf work, when in 4th or 5th and at 2000 revs, if you floor it, like you might if you were gathering speed to join a motorway, it sort of hesitates until the revs pick up. If you go the same at 2500 revs or higher it doesn't do it.
I'm sure I could drive around the issue but would be nice to know what is causing it.

[inconsistant]

Interior got a tidy and hoover and the Passenger seat went back in.

 

GET DOWN WITH THE BROWN!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Booked it in for an MOT Saturday morning, mid Sept, obvs because it's taken more than 10 working days to sort it will be a full test rather than a retest, so another £54, but I've given up counting how much it's costing me, for my own sanity but also so that if Mrs Inconsistant asks then I don't have to lie to her about it.

 

So, thinking as pessimistically as possible (because up until now that's been the best way to predict reality) what's going to happen…

 

1. PASS

2. FAIL due to something related to welding work

3. FAIL due to something else unforseen cropping up

 

PLACE BETS NOW!!!!!!

[inconsistant]

Except you obviously don't need to because IT PASSED!!!!

 

Yes, the excessively corroded haunted low slung coupe of desire is no longer excessively corroded or haunted, now just low slung. It's back in action and fully legal. So I picked myself up off the floor at the MOT place and headed home. I had the same feeling I remember from when I passed my driving test... a sudden realisation that instead of just looking at the car and wondering, I could actually get in and go anywhere I wanted. ANYWHERE!!!

 

I decided that the most fitting thing would be to head down to see the Ashford based fellow 924 owner Gary who sorted me with the spare head, as he was having a garage clear out of his excessive collection of 924 parts. So I did, because I could.

 

The quickest route from here is M25, M26, M20. Yeah, like I'm going to head straight onto the motorway in a car that's only done a couple of miles in 8 months. Especially since our bit of M25 from J6 to J5 is a 10 mile stretch where they've done away with the hard shoulder so that you get to breakdown in the slow lane and hope that a super alert operative sat somewhere else in front of a bank of monitors can get a lane closed sign to flash up before you get shunted at speed from behind into the Kent Countryside. 'Smart motorway' my arse.

 

So I went cross country to build up a bit of confidence in the car. When I was comfortable with it I pulled over, gave it a quick check under the bonnet and headed onto the M20 at Wrotham. And then, just as I got up to 70mph...
Nothing untoward happened. Just smooth, quiet cruising at about 3000rpm all the way to Ashford and a nice warm welcome.

 

 

Gary had fanned his unwanted bits and bobs across the lawn, so I managed to get most of the things on my list, and a couple of bonus items too. All are fairly minor bits and bobs and will all help tidy the thing up over time, as and when I can be arsed.

 

 

• Bottom front corner of drivers wing
• Spare set of mats
• Handbrake light switch mechanism (see earlier post)
• Spare windscreen trims top and sides
• Spare wiperz
• Lower headlight rubber strips (mine are splattered with overspray)
• Headlights and black plastic surrounds (coz overspray again)
• Cambelt cover (f'd up the previous one with my ham meriting attempt)
• Centre gauges (mine have a wiring bodge and are not illuminated, so easier to unplug the whole lot and bung in a working set)
• Porsche bonnet badge and rubber gasket (coz YES IT"S A FUCKING PORSCHE M8) 
• Heater fan cover (mine has a melted hole and doesn't fit properly)
• Air intake rubber (mine OK but a spare bound to be useful at some point)

And all for what it would have cost me in postage alone off ebay. Eye are one happy chappy.

 

...And a box of 175 cassettes of mostly 80s music in good condition. Moment of weakness there, but it did mean that I got to listen to Simple Minds live version of Big Sleep on the way home, which is awesome. Also some monumental 80s soft metal compilations. I mean, who doesn't need a copy of 'Precious Metal' in their car at all times? These are too good to chuck out, someone somewhere must want these. Must come up with a way of getting rid of them...

 

 

 

I set off home feeling a bit more confident, but lacking in petrol so I headed along the A20 rather than the M20. I'm impressed that I've managed to make a tank of petrol last since the NEC show last November, the last time I filled up.

Sitting on the petrol station forecourt I was a bit concerned that it might not start again, after all a hot start issue would be the just kind of thing I might expect to develop now, but it started first turn and off I continued. Back onto the M20 after some A road cruising, and home in time for tea.

 

Verdict: 10/10, best day ever!

[beko1987]

I'm very happy that all seems well! It's been great reading all the updates!

[Felly Magic]

Happy days indeed