1982 Porsche 924 N/A Alpine White

[pauloliver]

So I collected another project (to add to the T3 Doka and the Commer PB) but at least this one is actually roadworthy and rot free!
I bought this off eBay, anticipating it would be in the same condition as described but upon collection I found it wasn't. Undeterred I went head anyway and bought it.

Mechanically the car seems sound but the interior is nasty and the paintwork has been poorly sprayed in areas (at a glance it looks fine though). It came with a wedge of receipts and service history, and runs very nicely so I guess that's a fairly good start.

The first day I got it (the photos hide the skankyness of the paint!)





The plan is to use this as my daily driver and just go through it with a fine tooth comb. Theres plenty of little jobs to do! I'm on a rather tight budget, I have just finished Uni and my bank account isn't healthy looking! Luckily I can fix rather alot of the problems using spares from other projects I have had in the past or by just simply making stuff myself, saving me lots of money hopefully!

The first tinkering jobs have been to give it a service (it had already been done recently but I wanted to start a fresh), clean up some earth terminals, sort out the speakers (only one worked so I fitted some spares), wire in a baby sized sub for some tunez, spray the wiper arms, delete the rear wiper and generally just tidy the car up a little

Wiper plug made from a turned down old bike top cap



Some paint on the wiper arms



8" sub wedged into an old speaker box, just need to fit the top cloth cover back on somehow



Then out came the polisher, the paint was very rough feeling and stained in places. A load of T cut later and she looks loads brighter. I'm going to respray some areas before I do a proper full polish







So that is where I am at currently, there are plenty of jobs to be done on it! It's really good fun to drive.

Next jobs:
Service the brakes
Fix electric windows
Fix rear demister
Fix intermittent wiper issue
Straighten front valance
Respray front panel, headlights, bumper and valance
Rewire the headunit (it has been bodged)

[jimmy]

I was bidding against you on ebay for this.......

Looks a straight car, and for what you paid for it, an absolute BARGAIN!!!!!

Look forward to seeing what you do with it fella!

[pauloliver]

Yeah I was pretty pleased with the price although it didn't have any tax included, the interior is falling apart and 2 of the tyres need replacing soon which made a little less of a bargain! Regardless I am happy with it!

Long term plans are a 1.8t to be dropped in, seems to be the perfect replacement in my eyes

[Felix]

Looks great!

Worth joining up with the 924 Club too, someone has just about finished a 1.8t conversion on there!

Electric windows are probably just the switches, they pop apart easily, then clean them up.
Rear demister could be the rear hatch struts, they have to carry the current for it. Should be a wire clipped on each side.
Intermittent wiper could be relay or dodgy contacts on the stalk, again easy to clean up.

Have fun with it!

[pauloliver]

I'm already a member but the forum is pretty slow moving. Are you FelixP?

I'll check both those things, thanks! I know one of the switches is kaput, it fell apart and half the pieces were missing!

[ChasR]

What a great runaround! It looks like you shall have fun. None of the issues should be too troublesome .

[pauloliver]

Cheers, it has been pretty easy to fix so far!

So the car now has remote central locking, and the alarm is nearly all in (just the sensors to plug in now). I also did some other fixes to the car including a new sunroof lever clip, cleaned out the wiper switch, removed the blocks from my seat to lower it and also greased up the rails

Old scraped wing mirror casings with falling apart mirrors (stuck on stuff)



Tidy wing mirrors! And proper glass





Slightly cleaner interior



Thermometer screen in radio balance slot (Probe is in the front valance)



Radio mess....



Soldered, heatshrinked and tied up



Still got a million other jobs but it finally feels like the car is coming together now, the little annoying problems are disappearing slowly and it feels better each time

[ChasR]

It's these little jobs IMO that make all of the difference (from a HU doing strange things (speakers coming on and off, HUs coming on with the headlamps (I kid you not!) and these silly things.

Well done for tackling the 'annoying' issues, and I reckon you chose the best colour .

[pauloliver]

I love the alpine white, really suits this shape I think. Even with the niggles I am enjoying the car, maybe because it feels good fixing those problems!

After sitting under a tree for a week the paint had lots of nasty staining, so I gave it a machine polish and added some wax sealer. Fingers crossed it stays white now :roll:







I really need a new front valance... this one is terrible! Front panel and headlight covers also need a respray at some point as they are heavily stone chipped and rusting.

[Mr Ben]

Good to see another 924 on here, looks like a great base too!

What are your future plans?

[pauloliver]

Plan is to sort out the bodywork and interior and keep it looking standard. The engine will get swapped to a 1.8T next summer once I have acquired all the parts. Seems to be the perfect engine for this car I think!

So after a few week holiday I was itching to get back to work on the Porsche! It welcomed me with a flat battery...

Several parcels arrived whilst I was away, mostly to get the thing working again ready for the MOT, but some bits were to make the car look pretty



The first job was to change the distributer cap and rotor as mine were both a bit iffy, the car seems to be running slightly smoother



Then a Transformers tax disc holder, awwww yeaaaah!



I then proceeded to redo the alternator wiring loom as I had been told this may be the cause of the battery draining. The wiring was all in very good condition but I have rewired and rerouted it anyway, recycling some of the heat shielding and then whacking in some cable sheathing to neaten up the wiring in the engine bay



Then onto the front valance, this was VERY twisted up and bent all over the place, I straightened it out the best I could, welded up the splits, welded in 2 new brackets and gave it a light skim of filler to smooth it out. It isn't quite there yet, but ill revisit it later when I get more paint, for now it looks a heck of alot tidier! And alpine white instead of the dirt engrained white before











I made an adjustable top link with rose joints for the rear gear lever, this has reduced some of the slop at the shifter and made it easier to get into 5th. To my surprise the front shifter has no noticeable wear to it, I need to remove the rear shifter assembly completely at some point and rebuild it.



I removed the bump strips, this revealed that the N/S has had a respray on the lower half, so it looks like I will have to get sanding, sort out a few rust spots and dents, weld up the hole where the aerial is and give the side a respray. At least it looks marginally better as it is compared to the strips which were falling off! The O/S looks fine.





Hope to get the valance back on today, and then I need to grab 2 new tyres.

[pauloliver]

Fitted the valance, front end is looking so much better! Next step is to sort the front panel and headlight covers out and try and touch in the wing where the paint came off

This is how it looked before:

[luckygti]

Nice car and the repairs are all making it look a whole lot better Always thought that the 1.8T engine would be awesome but didn't think it would fit with the engine/gearbox configuration? Sounds like it does though, so I look forward to seeing it. It's gonna fly

[ChasR]

The 1.8T should be quite possible in addition to opening up quite a tuning avenue .

If you need an unworn gear lever you can have mine if you wish. I changed it on my previous car, but it was down to the bottom bush (spherical bush at the bottom of the gear lever) and rear bush.

[pauloliver]

Cheers fellas. The 1.8T conversion has been done, you need a longitudinally mounted 1.8T, then a gearbox from a transversely mounted 1.8T which is cut down to make a bell housing to mate up to the Porsche setup, along with some plates to make it all fit nicely.

1.8T does open up loads of options, even in its standard form or a simple remap it will be far more exciting than what is in there now! I'm going to collect the parts up and do as much work as possible over the winter ready for fitting next summer.

ChasR, that would be well handy, how much do you want?

[Jizmondo Scrotmondo]

I'm seriuosly thinking of a 924 as the next tidy up/daily. You've got one in the best colour too (IMO) It's all the small jobs and tinkering to gradually make the car look and run better are what I enjoy the most. Once the 1.8T is in you can pop a Porsche turbo badge on the boot

[pauloliver]

You really should, I thoroughly recommend it! Get one whilst they are still cheap...

Two new tyres upfront have transformed the car! To go with this am going to overhaul the front suspension, I ordered poly bushes, track rod ends, damper inserts, ball joints and some stone chip for the arches. Once it is done I will have the tracking aligned and the front end should be pretty sorted. It can then have the tracking done and it should feel pretty good upfront!

I removed the skanky old stickers out back ready for sorted the paintwork so I can sort out some scratches and a few rust spots.





The back panel in primer, there was lots of little chips and rust bubbles appearing! Treated them with Kurust as that is all I had to hand and it seems to work in previous experience.



Backs sprayed, colour match is a little off but i'm intending on doing a full case spray next summer anyway so it's not bad enough for me to worry about. Still yet to polish it all up as it needs to harden a touch more first.



I'm wondering about doing the part between the lights where the plate sits in black, I have some vinyl somewhere so I'll give it a try and see how it looks.

[grifterkid]

That is cracking...

Doing the space between the light in black will look superb but why not give it an ultra 80's lick of red to match the light clusters...?! Having said that black would probably look better...

[Felix]

This is looking great! Might copy the black panel on the rear too, they did make those very 80's rear reflectors too. They're quite common on the US models.

[pauloliver]

Ah Felix you have got me thinking about making a fibreglass centre section like those but in black with a numberplate recess... It could bolt in using the plate holes. I spy more work for the car now cheers!