Junky Ol' Porsche 944

I figure if I make a build thread, and actually post about what I have done/am doing, it will encourage me to move faster and get a less junky 944.

The background overview is a couple years ago I bought a cheap salvage title 944, which had sort of predictable issues. Anyhow, the plane is to turn the heap into something semi-reliable and fun to drive.

This weekend, I spent a fair amount of time hacking out an aftermarket remote start or alarm or something (I'm thinking remote start, because it ended up attached to some aftermarket power door locks). I'm really not totally sure what it was, and I only noticed it because I decided to take the cheezy pedal covers off that the car came with.

This fell out of the dash while I pulled off the covers:

Some investigation lead to looking at a bunch of dubious splices and a dubious way of including a diode:

With a little effort, I got it sorta cleaned up, and hopefully still working:

Wiring messes are no fun... but you have a ride worthy of the hassle! More pics and information would be great.

Ugh, yeah I had the same cheap alarm in my 924. Luckily it wasn't hard to pull out while I was doing the MegaSquirt conversion.

Always feels good to make progress though! Good job, what's next on the list?

More pics in the daylight!

yes. more pics. you currently have 200% more pics of crappy wiring than you have pics of the car. lets see it!

Don't sell me short, I have 300% more pictures of crappy wiring than the car itself.

But you're right, I should show some pictures of the car in happier days, or at least better light

and

and visiting in laws during the last move

One of those segues nicely into a little sub-project that is on hold until the weather warms up a bit (got 4" of snow over the weekend, both late and odd) - the fender replacement:

Thats what I'm talkin about. always loved the shape of these cars. Purist porche owners be damned, these are my favorite and I don't care where the engine is or how it's cooled or what the sticker price was. this body is one of the most attractive porsches ever made, IMO someday I'll get me a 968.

Keep at it man! you got a cool car right here.

on a side note. . . I think the pedal covers are the same as my audi

It's been a while since I paid attention to the Porsche, between work and sealing leaks in the truck

On the 944 front:

I have an oil leak somewhere toward the back of the motor, so I figured scrubbing things might give me a bit of a clue where to look

I also removed bits and pieces from the front suspension to prepare for a ball joint rebuild kit I'm expecting any day now.

While I was under there, I noticed one of the steering rack boots had come loose and filled my rack with sand.

I figured I should take the thing apart to clean and repack the grease, but I've only gotten it this far apart:

Any suggestions on how to take this further apart? I sort of think removing the pinion is the key, but it seems to take more than a firm tug and I'm reluctant to just beat on it... Twisting the rack and jiggling doesn't seem to cut the mustard either.

Well, I didn't hear any advice to the contrary, and this thread over at Pelican seems to indicate that some special VW/Audi tool is needed to disassemble further.

So I cleaned out gobs of grease as best I could, then sprayed some degreaser in the works and cycled the rack a couple times, swabbing grease as I went. I've cleared out all the accessible grease, and cleaned out the degreaser with some brake cleaner. Now I'm waiting for the VOCs to dissipate and then I'll pack it full of grease. Hopefully whatever cleaner residue in there is less harmful to the long term health of the rack than sand.

The bad boot got the soapy hot water and scrubbing treatment. It seems to me like there should be a clamp to hold the driver's side boot to the rack, but my parts diagram says no, so I'm stuck thinking a little on how to improve the boot's willingness to stay put.

Looks good, a lot of progress since you got it! I picked up an '83 not long ago and also had/have a mess of aftermarket wiring for some ancient alarm and stereo system, so I feel your pain.

It took a while, but I finally got my shipment of parts. I'm the proud owner of a Rennbay ball joint rebuild kit, some front brake freshening pieces and some rubber bits.

To celebrate, I took off a front strut and took some pictures

This is a torn boot:

I'm going to try to get all this stuff installed Friday.

I haven't been totally inactive - I took apart my popup light bar and replaced some melted/broken plastic bits and less bent eyelid covers. I applied a bit of percussive maintenance the p-side front corner and fiddled a bit and now the lights pop up and retract as smoothly as they probably did before the car took a hit. They aren't quite perfectly in sync on liftoff, though. Any thoughts on making them both start opening and finish closing at the same time? They are close, but just not quite.

Nice work.......Alaska????

Sunny Juneau, Alaska! A project car is a bit frivolous here, because you can only drive about 30 miles before you run out of road, but it's only a couple hours ferry ride between me and sweet Canadian blacktop/the route to the lower 48.

the fact that your in Alaska makes this project seem cooler for some reason. . . not many porsches up in those parts I bet

We had an unusually sunny stretch, so work on the Porsche slowed down so I could enjoy the sun. Last time we had sun for more than a couple days in a row in the summer was maybe two or three years ago, so carpe diem!

The weather turned this weekend, so I've gotten back to work.

Hosed off control arms:

Popped out the old balljoint:

That looks better

Shiny!

Now I just need to epoxy the backing plate, pump them full of grease and put the control arms back on the car (and do an alignment, and figure out why the motor is running rough and get new tires and...)

Makin progress! Post moar pix core so we can live vicariously through you :)

BTW, need any parts? These are available cheap for "get 'em outta my damned garage prices"

http://m148.photobucket.com/albums/fiat22turbo/eBay

In reply to turboswede:

I'm a little interested in those springs and shocks, what can you tell me about them?

I can tell you that the shocks would work great for a 944 rally car ;) They are too tall for my 924 with 944 rear suspension unless I was going dirt rally racing with them.

The springs are a little too short and too stiff unless you're going for a full road race car with little to no suspension travel.

Progress has been slow, because I have been moving from one rental to another. All I've done since I put the new garage together is bleed the brakes. Of course, that means I have functional brakes now, which means I'm a smooth running engine away from being able to stop and go.

I did put together a new workbench, though:

Bonus new (to me) garage shot:

Wow, it has been a while, but I'm back to working on the car.

I've rebuilt all the brake calipers, and didn't take a lot of pictures doing it, fiddled with the headlights and have got them open more smoothly, but they still rub somewhere, had Witchhunter rebuild my fuel injectors and have started scraping undercoating around the worst collision repair

^ I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be smooth and just one piece of metal...

I think I'll scrap some more, coat it with por-15 and cover it up with undercoating, then forget I saw it.

Non-critical part of the car, but definitely the reason it has been so bitchy to get my headlights popping up well, with small panel gaps.

I leakdown tested the Porsche, but I'm not 100% certain that I understand how to use the Harbor Freight gauge.

I set the air pressure such that the needle went to 0, when everything was unconnected.

Then I plugged it in to the TDC cylinder and watched it for a minute or so:

I repeated for each cylinder. I didn't hear any air leaking from the exhaust, intake or radiator. There was a small whistling from the oil fill tube, but I think that is normal. All my cylinders gave similar readings, so assuming I've done the test right, my head gasket and rings look intact.

Obligatory plug picture:

These look a bit carbon-y to my eyes, but I've never trusted my plug color judgement. The gap was a touch wide

Nothing junky about a 944 Its called "patina". great job, keep it up. They are such great cars and fun to work on.

In reply to johnnytorque:

The "junky" is a little tongue in cheek, I bought it from a salvage yard. It also has some annoying crash damage that keeps popping up in new and exciting places. Still, it will live again!

I decided to do something a little easier this morning - get the hatch opening smoothly.

I started by adjusting the sockets so that hatch wouldn't open at all.

After some wiggling, I figured the easiest way was to sit inside the hatch and have my assistant shut the hatch whenever I get it close to working.

Sucess:

It doesn't spring up when I open the key, but it does unlatch and only a light touch is needed to open it. Much better than my earlier 'jiggle and hope' routine

Please continue...