Project "Nine Hundred and Fourty Four"

[Ray Singh]

After a few years away from the delight of burnt fuel and jump start cables, my wife bought me a Porsche 944 for my 40th Birthday. If thats not mid life crisis, then what is?
I have owned various Porsche before and this is my first n/a 944..

She is a square dash 1985.5 (so last of the square dash 944s). Clocks show 59k miles, but i am sure that is more likely 159k as the tach only has 5 digits. The car is black with black Porsche script interior and white carpets.

I collected the car yesterday from a seller on here. He was great and has been very honest and helpful. Apart from the windscreen wipers stopping on the way back, it got home effortlessly. Turned out to be a loose fuse.

Lots of little jobs to do already - but thats what classic cars are all about - isnt it?

Got the run about from Adrian Flux on the day of purchase - Be wary!!

Anyway, pictures:





More details to follow. But i already need front driving light lenses and rear light lenses. Anyone got spares?

[stevietuck]

I have always loved/wanted one of these you lucky git!
And as for it being bought for you as a gift... You even luckier git!
Bookmarked.

[Deleted]

Lovely.
That new project feeling

[munky]

Wife... Bought... You... A... Car... (A Porsche too!)
Has she got a sister? Jk

Looks like a great start for a project! Please keep posting!

[Carlosfandango.]

Lovely looking one. Fair play in fairness to your better half.
Enjoy!

CFD

[Ray Singh]

Some more pictures this evening.

[Ray Singh]

Chapter 1 - In rust we, trust?

I finally cleared my garage and got the car inside to start building some confidence in the car. I gave the wife and kids one half of the double garage and the Porsche has taken over the other half. I bought £100 of used parts via TIPEC forum to replace a few nigles. This included the smashed front driving lights. I found a used set via ebay for £82.
So i started taking the front of the car apart to get to the fixings for the driving lights.

I found this....



The front trim panel is only held on using what looks like gripfill!



Digging a little deeper, I managed to get to the driving lights...



No wonder they didnt work....

On the bench


So rusty that the back end connector just fell apart. Some signs of someone using silicone bathroom sealant to botch these up...

and the pair...



Lots of different screws, including self tappers and fixing holes with broken screws.

A little more poking around and I saw a rust pile on the floor, this used to be the horn. Pictures tomorrow after i stop crying.

[stevietuck]

Wow they are rusty!!!
Bet your glad to get them off the car?

[raymondmarble]

Fantastic! Everybody has the oval dash, but the original square dash is by far my favourite. The upsidedown revcounter and the 3 wee gauges in the centre. Just beautiful and really suit the car.
And isn't exploring a new car and discovering all the rusty bits half the fun?? Happy restoring!

[Ray Singh]

Mar 6, 2016 9:04:28 GMT stevietuck said:

Wow they are rusty!!!
Bet your glad to get them off the car?

Thanks stevietuck - I was glad to get them off the car, but to be honest, they pretty much fell off, once i undid the screws.

New (used) lights purchased and hammerited to prevent corrosion and installed today - all working.

Mar 6, 2016 9:39:31 GMT raymondmarble said:

Fantastic! Everybody has the oval dash, but the original square dash is by far my favourite. The upsidedown revcounter and the 3 wee gauges in the centre. Just beautiful and really suit the car.
And isn't exploring a new car and discovering all the rusty bits half the fun?? Happy restoring!

Raymondmarble - you kept me going in my dark hours - thanks for the kind words.

My glorious wife had another surprise for me today. We visited the Haynes musuem near Yeovil today. We had a great day. Pictures to follow. When we got back i had some time for the 944.
One of the rear light clusters had a crack in the indicator, an advisory on the MOT. So i found a replacement. Old one out:



It took a bit of persuasion (translates to sitting in the boot and kicking the old one out). Black silicone ordered ready to fit the new unit. Some krust applied to some minor corrosion near the tail light.

I also found time to clean the boot area - I quite like the stripped out look. Decisions decissions. Do i put the old carpet back in?



I wanted to put the front light trims back on, but found that the screws had all snapped in the fittings.


One question for the RR community.....How do i get these old screws out???

[kustomkriss]

mine did the same so i drilled holes a little to the side on the fastening lug and used self tapers

[Ray Singh]

I hammered the broken screws through the holes and used a larger self tapper to get one side trim sorted. Thanks KustomKriss. Just the other side to do, but the metal plate on the indicator side is missing. Time to try and make one from sheet metal. Until i get that sorted and whilst waiting for my Butyl tape for rear light cluster sealing, i thought that I would try to sort the sunroof.

In my car it has been mastic'd shut - yeah cheers! I have bought new seals and want to get the sunroof working again - for the summer.
I have had oval dash cars previously and the sunroof mech on this car looks very different. There is a button near the gearstick for sun roof operation, but I can see that where the arms are supposed to be are blanking plates - is this correct?

Pictures:

[kustomkriss]

looks like you gona need new arms maybe everything

[spandelly]

Nope that does not look right. It looks like the arms have been either removed or they have been fully retracted and got stuck. It's quite common for the gear to strip. Take the cover plates off and the panel on the passenger side in the boot and you should find the sunroof mechanism in there. You can manually wind it and see if the arms come out. Good luck with the build it seems like a pretty solid one you have there

[Ray Singh]

My new Aluminium pressed number plates (supposed to be legal, but don't have a postcode or BS mark on the front)arrived. Installed the rear without too much effort.


Much nicer - in my opinion


Front was a little harder - there is a bumper bar that weighs a ton - I removed it - some stubbon screws and nots of damaged knuckles later.....

Finally installed the front plate at the right height. The old original plate was too high and sould be seen from the driving seat!


Next, I sorted the wiring for the car stereo and replaced the large knob for the heater control. The original knob just span in the socket and didnt switch the motor between speeds.




The stereo seemed to work when we first drove the car home, but no it was dead. I removed it and saw that all the wires (including power) were jsut twisted together! A soldering iron and lots of effort later and sorted. Issue now was that the sound was better from one speaker than the other - why?
Left speaker:

and now the right speaker:
Hey - where did the tweeter go? Another part to buy :-(.

BTW - jonn There is a CD in the stereo - Do you want it back?

Whilst in the car, I removed the steering wheel and re-installed straight. The view from todays office:


I'm still not happy with how this sits


I might buy another complete front with the additional driving lights in the apron.

Lastly, round the back. One of the tail marker lights wasnt working - I looked into this and wires just twisted together again.....Groan. I have put these back for now as they work - but will get round to sorting this.
Whilst here i opened up the securing mechanism for the tailgate.
Whats wrong here:


Cleaned and greased - still doesnt work. My list for parts is growing fast.

[Volkswrencher]

Funny thing with the CD,
I recently bought a stereo for my 944 too, there was also still a CD inside - and actually not a bad one!
Good progress with your project! I usually like the little projects which could be managed within a day!
The speaker definately has seen better days!

[Ray Singh]

Mar 25, 2016 18:48:26 GMT Volkswrencher said:

Funny thing with the CD,
I recently bought a stereo for my 944 too, there was also still a CD inside - and actually not a bad one!
Good progress with your project! I usually like the little projects which could be managed within a day!
The speaker definately has seen better days!

I'm not sure that everyone would like this CD

[Volkswrencher]

Call me a boring old fart, but I actually liked their unplugged album - that was in the late 90ies...

[Ray Singh]

I had some time to continue with the project today. The weather was bad.

Ive lost some confidence with the car in recent days. Today I got in the car and turned the key - nothing. Nothing at all.
Checked the battery - 1.2V across the terminals. I got scared - Is this something that I have done, whilst messing around with the wiring?


I put my CTec charger onto the battery and it wouldnt even see it as a battery - I bought out the old charger and this kept tripping. Groan.


Left it to charge like this for a while and then put it back on the CTEC - It recognised it this time, but at full charge the voltage is just over 12v. I have a feeling that the battery maybe shot - but will get it checked.

Whilst the battery was out, i took some time to check the tray - It showed some signs of corrosion - I covered in Krust and will hammerite black tomorrow.
Before

After


Next, onto the sunroof - which you might recall was glued shut!
I removed the clamps holding it in place to check what was lurking behind. Got inside the car and pushed it out.
The front

The back


I immeadiatly noticed a broken air diverter tab


There should be two arms to electrically raise and lower the roof.
One

FAIL
and the other side


So at least I will need one new arm - what about the removable roof section?

and the brackets:






Something doesnt look right here?

Another costly day with little acheived and more parts needed - why do we do this?

[Ray Singh]

Right, I had a day off work today. Its Easter holidays and I am off with the kids to supervise them. They are 13 and 10 - they will be alright themselves right?

Off to the garage....

I really want to get the car on the road now as I have taxed it. Sitting is not doing it any good as i noticed that the discs have gone rusty.

We live in a country where it rains all the time, so i wanted to get the sunroof back in and working. You might remember that the previous seller had glued it in place. He told me that it was because it was leaking, so i decided to clear the drain tubes. I used strimmer cord, and threaded it down the four sunroof drain tubes. The front ones seemed clear and exited at the bottom of the windscreen. Water down and YES - clear!
The rear tubes were a pain. Stimmer cord just went in and never came out. One side was because of this:



I strecthed the pipe and heated with a hot air gun and managed to seal it onto the sunroof. I will check this again tomorrow to see if it has fallen off again. You can see that the headlining is thin, like paper, so tore at my touch!

The other side was connected, but the cord didnt exit. Does anyone know where the rear sunroof drain tubes exit? I looked in the wheel arches and nothing was obvious.

Checking the sunroof mech and ancilliries:

So i need a new arm on this side:


This side seems ok:


The mechanism looks to be there:


with the all important part here:


I also need a new deflector up front:


So when the key is in the ignition, with the ignition switched off, I can hear a noise (like relay) clicking on swith press, but nothing happens at the motor. With the igntion in postion 2 - nothing happens. Is this right?

You might recall that this is what my roof looks like:



with the all important brackets where the arms will engage blocked up. What should this area look like - HELP?



I am going to seal it back in place tomorrow and try and use the car. I will order the parts to repair and do this as and when i have time. No point wasting driving time waiting to get everything 100% right (which will never happen).

I will update you soon!