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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2016 12:06 pm 
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Location: Bolton U.K.
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Had my AFM rebuilt by ATP at Stoke great job. A lot cheaper than an exchange unit.


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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 3:14 pm 
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I keep hoping to remove the 'Almost' rolling from the name of this thread, but she keeps going back to those axle stands no matter how many times I tell her it's not a healthy relationship!

That AFM looks very nice endoman! I'm hoping mine re-tracked will see me through until I get round to playing with a MAF - It's looking like that's a long way off yet though!

Right after the AFM fun in my last post here a bolt decided to fall into the timing and balance belt housing. Amazingly it made a mess of the balance belt and belt casing but didn't cause any major damage... All my luck on this car used up right there!

I posted pics before in my 'panic' thread, but here's where the bolt got lodged in the belts:

Image

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The bolt used to hold the bottom of the belt cover to the block, and the silver line at the end of the bolt is some of the ally block. It appears that the last person to have the belt covers off (*cough*PorscheMode*cough*) either overtorqued the bolt or left it in regardless of not being able to torque it up as the thread was stripped... either way it fell out 1000 miles later! For now I have left the bolt out with the intention of looking at some helicoil when I do a front end service.

Actually getting the new belts fitted took a while due to waiting for parts and a holiday... As there was supposedly a recent belts change and new water pump I hoped to find the tensioners/idlers in good condition, so waited for the new belts to arrive before locking up the engine and taking the old ones off - of course I found all the idlers in terrible condition, sounding worse than old skateboard wheels and with over 1mm of play... So new idlers and tensioners ordered too! I found Mister-Auto far cheaper than anywhere else for the parts, and the only place I could find Gates belts. Delivery takes about a week.

Everything went together nicely, except that I bought the timing belt idler for the old style water pump and the old idler was for the new style... And I don't know which water pump I have. I've left the old idler on for now as it's easy to change later when I have a replacement.

Supposedly the belts and pump were replaced just prior to me buying the car... The pump looks shiney enough and feels good, turns smoothly.... I'm hoping that it's ok!

There was a surprising difference in tooth profile between the conti balance belt I took out (right) and new gates belt (left):

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Unfortunately the old belt felt overly tight (could only twist about 100 degrees) when I pulled it off, so while new belts has cured the belt whine, I can't comment on the difference between belts.

I also found I did need a thin spanner for tensioning the belts, so cut one out of some ali sheet - not pretty but did the job well! Far better than £25 and wait for delivery.

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All working again! The engine sounds far better with new belts and pulleys. I'm assuming it's placebo, but seems to be driving better as well.

After 3 whole days of being a daily I'm heading home in it and have been warned there's a police speed camera sitting on the road into Wellesbourne, so, predictably, the speedo dies a mile outside Wellesbourne! It's very hard to judge speed, especially whilst looking out for the police camera! I must have crawled the rest of the way home.....

Easiest check first - Nearside wheel off to check the cable is still poking through the hubcap. At least, it's easy until one of the old and decrepit ally wheel nut disintegrates in the 6-sided socket. I knew they were in poor condition and was going to buy a new set to go on with the Cookies when I finally get them finished... Had to bring that forward a little, 20 new black ally wheel nuts ordered. Those things aren't cheap!

Cable was still in place on the dust cap, so now to go digging from the other end. Slightly sporadic images here as I've managed to break my phone and the backup one I have likes either running out of juice or taking blurry photos...

I took the long way round with a detour into cleaning the contacts in the switchgear as it's always been a little buggy. Headlamp birghtness changes depending on the position of the lever etc :lol:

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Headlamp switch so I could remember how to put it back together...
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Nicely cleaned up. Added a touch of silicon grease before reassembling, but that photo came out blurred!
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And after that detour, got round to getting the gauges out and found the culprit for the speedo: one broken cable
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It broke about 5cm into the front stub axle, looks like some water got in there. As tempting as it is to just replace the inner, looks like the outer has leaked so should probably replace it too (plus I couldn't find a place that sold just the inner).

I also took the opportunity to clean up the cluster surround and gauge pods. A little plastRX plastic polish on the gauge windows made a world of difference - and I realised that they had never been mounted properly - they can push back about 2cm more than they had been - again looks far better! I'll get pics up once the car is back together :)

As I'm sad and have been keeping track of everything, these new parts bring me right up to £1k spent on the 944 in the 9 months since purchase in December. Considering that includes a £150 car cover and £120 on the Cookies, not too bad I reckon! (Doesn't include tools though, and my tool collection has been multiplying!)

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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 10:27 am 
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In a moment of madness I've decided to do the North Coast 500 in the 944 in October, so making a bit of a push now to get it up to scratch! The car rewarded me by deciding not to start (for the first time) on Saturday morning! :roll:

Assume the position:
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Fitting the new speedo cable went well - the first difficult bit was pulling the old cable out of the hub as there is about 15cm of the speedo cable outer inside a hub held by a rubber sleeve. I kept thinking I was going to break something, but you do just have to yank it out, I used a pair of slide pliers and a screwdriver to lever them against part of the hub to get enough force. After that the cable pulled out through the cabin easily. New cable was fed through under the dash, then took a bit of upside down time in the passenger footwell to feed back through the firewall. I smeared a little grease on the end of the cable and pushed it back into the hub relatively easily. The biggest mistake I made was with pushing the speedo gauge back into position - it wouldn't go in and after a bit of wiggling and coercion I managed to bend the speedo cable as it exits the flange on the gauge. This has resulted in a clicking as I drive along, so pretty sure I've bent the inner. I need to take the inner out and see if I can straighten it... oops.

After that I had a 10 mile round trip to the shops, and the next morning the engine would turn over but not fire, no fuel or spark! Search started with the DME relay (all good) and ended with the Crank Reference Pulse Sender showing an open circuit instead of ~1Kohm (Many thanks to Clarks-Garage here). I could only find bosch sensors for well north of £100 so ended up ordering this from GSF for £35 after a 45% discount... fingers crossed, should arrive today or thursday....

Once I'd accepted that the engine was dead for the time being I spent the long weekend on smaller jobs.

First up - temperature control. This has never worked, the bowden cable that goes from the slider in the cabin to the valve at the back of the engine had bent at the slider end, so that moving the slider to cold just bent the cable instead of sliding it through the sheath, resulting in the slider springing back to hot. My first attempt at fixing was to straighten the cable, it was the first job I did after buying the car and it lasted about two actuations before bending again. Since then I disconnected it in the engine bay and have had to go in under the bonnet if I wanted to change the temperature!
I figured I'd have one more attempt before sourcing a new bowden cable, it was just a job I was dreading because working inside the centre console is nasty. This time I disconnected both ends of the wire, straightened the interior end and pulled it out of the sheathing to reverse the cable. After a bit of faff I had the cable inner reversed and reattached at both ends, and the straightened end bent back to shape. Lots of cursing went into reconnecting each end, but it seems to be behaving itself now, surviving 20-odd actuations I tested it with. After that I felt I was pushing my luck, but hopefully I can select the cabin temperature from within the car now! Such luxury :lol:

Second job, also HVAC related is that the blower would make a horrendous squealing noise whenever I took a right hand corner - not something I want to put up with through Scotland! The blower us under the plastic cover, centre back of the engine bay and the hardest part of this job proved to be getting the cover off! It's held in place by a plastic push fitting at the front, then a very sticky gasket all round! After using a screwdriver to separate it from the gasket it was a case of wiggling it out between the blower motor and the windscreen support - took ages and felt like it was going to break, but came out in one piece. The motor itself is held in by one screw and also took some wiggling to get out.

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Spinning it by hand and pushing the impellor (the right word escapes me at the moment) into the motor gave the nasty squealing I'd been hearing. The motor didn't look dismantlable, so I resorted to soaking some spray grease around the shaft at the back.

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This seems to have fixed it in the short term - hopefully the fix lasts a while as I don't want to be pulling it all out again! Also removed a ton of leaves and dust from the heat exchanger under the blower while I was at it, always feels good.

Next up - the passengers door drain holes seem to be blocked when the door is closed. After it rains it dumps water all over your foot upon opening. Also the drivers door card has a habit of getting a little soggy when it rains. Time for both door cards to come off. After pulling a fair of grime out of the bottom of the doors with a little screwdriver I resorted to putting the hose into the door (hot day, so will dry quickly after) and getting a stiff paint brush to clean out the drain holes. Most of the dirt was washed through them, and from having only one or two drains per door, all four in each door were cleared pretty quickly! Hopefully problem solved. Now I need to re-do the sealing layer on the drivers door (I did the passengers a while back and doorcard has been bone dry since).

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Final job I got started on was replacing the clutch master cylinder. The pedal is tedious to disconnect, but I'm getting used to the footwell (see first pic...), and after a decent spray of 'shock and unlock' the master cylinder came away from the firewall without issue. This is where I found that the hose into the master cylinder was completely seized in place. After hose spanners, standard spanners and eventually mole grips failed to make an impact I left the old hose attached and resigned myself to buying a new one. Cheapest I found was £60 from OPC but will enquire about having one made up before biting that particular bullet! At least the other end of the hose isn't seized. Any suggestions on sourcing this would be welcome! It's the flexi hose from the master cylinder to the copper line, P/N 478 721 189.

In between doing these jobs I was working on the remaining three cookies - all are now sitting with three coats of primer, although I suspect I may go back with filler on a couple of small marks. Tempted not to bother as they're tiny but I know future me will kick myself!

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Last but not least, porsche received a present in the post on Monday, a Bilstein B6 for each corner :) I want to do a before and after drive when fitting, so waiting for the car to be running before fitting them, they can just sit around looking pretty until then. I am a bit disappointed that the rear shocks are green though, I was expecting yellow!

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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 4:25 pm 
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Hopefully people are still finding this interesting...

New crank pulse sender arrived and went in smoothly (old one took a lot of wiggling to get out but wasn't seized)

Old left/New right
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Engine started first time and promptly made a horrible noise and was shut straight off again. On closer inspection the new sensor is about 1mm longer than the old one and had a few collisions with the flywheel:

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I've cut a spacer from some 1.4mm plastic and am running with that until I find a more elegant solution. Sensor works despite damage but I doubt it's done it any good so should probably keep a spare handy for peace of mind!

In line with general improvements, I ordered some LED H4 bulbs. I've had a little experience with LED headlight bulbs and the previous ones haven't given good beam patterns, so when I found these that have the LEDs concentrated into the filament locations and the correct H4 light guide (and for a decent price) I figured I'd give them a go.

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Fitment - loads of space!:
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Beam before (not the best testing surface, granted!)
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Beam After:
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Driving lights now look very yellow!

From a night drive yesterday I can say these bulbs give SO MUCH MORE light than the old filaments, the dipped beam pattern looks good from behind the wheel and I didn't get flashed by anyone, so far so good!

The big job for the weekend was getting the dampers fitted. For the fronts I followed the process from a guide I'd found somewhere online to take them off without upsetting the geometry, essentially jack the car up, wheels off, ARB off, compress springs, top nut off the damper, push the assembly down and feed it out under the wing. In general it went pretty smoothly...

Jack car up and spring compressors on:
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The part I did struggle with was the top nut - many people advise getting a garage with an air gun to loosen it. It requires a very swan neck 22mm ring spanner and a 7mm allen key (I hate 7mm allen keys, they have to be awkward!). I didn't have the ring spanner or anything larger than a 1/4 inch drive 7mm hex key, so a quick trip to halfords solved that, however the swan neck on the wrench was still far too shallow to get a good purchase on the nut. While I don't have an electric or air impact driver, I do have the type you hit with a hammer, and much to my surprise, paired with a 22mm impact socket and large lump hammer it loosened the bolts very easily!

From here, I pushed the control arm etc down then used an axle stand to support it a bit above it's minimum height as I couldn't work out which part was actually stopping it. From here the spring came off easily and the damper came out from the wing:

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I covered the brake assembly with a plastic bag and news paper in case of any oil then used a punch and the lump hammer again to unscrew the strut cap (placed the damper back through the top mount to hold everything in place while hammering for this). I gave the damper a tug and was sprayed head to toe with stinking 30 year old suspension oil. :evil: Thank god I covered the brakes.

After a bit of a cleanup the rest of the damper came out with a lot of oil going everywhere... I was then reminded that I had a 50mm syringe and lots of plastic tubing in my bike tool kit that I use for servicing mountain bike suspension. This made draining the damper and strut very easy (the other side came apart without a drop of oil spilled).

One old damper:
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And empty strut:
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The Bilstein replacements slid in without an issue, I added about 30mm of oil in the housing each side to aid heat transfer and put it all back together. I didn't have a paint pen to hand so marked the new strut caps so I can check that there is no movement:

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I also had new inner ARB bushes to fit while it was off (outers were done a few months back). job was very easy, but it really needed doing!

Old vs new... guess which is which...
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Put the bushes in place loosely while the car was in the air (mole grips to hold it all in place while I get the bolts in). The car went back on the ground with the bolts as loose as possible, then the bolts were torqued up once the suspension was at ride height so as not to improperly pre-load the bushings.

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Rear shocks next - other than requiring a breaker bar to loosen the bolts, I used a jack to take the load of the sprung swingarm off the bolts and the left hand damper came out easily enough:

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A quick play with the old damper revealed it had virtually no compression damping, but very high rebound damping... I imagine it was packing up a bit during use!

New damper went in no problem. Top bolt came out of the right hand damper easily enough, but unfortunately the lower bolt had seized to the bushing insert, so while the nut came off with a lot of effort, turning the insert against the bushing, the bolt would not slide out. After lots of hammering, freeze spray and cursing I gave up for the night and borrowed a puller the next day. The first attempt of pushing the bolt against the housing on the swingarm resulted in bending the shock mount on the swingarm instead of freeing the bolt. Second attempt was a short length of pipe over the bolt head, and a big steel plate over that to ensure the pressure was applied as close to the bolt as possible. Thankfully this eventually got it out mm by mm.

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One rusty bolt!
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New shock went in easily, and rear end done! If it wasn't for the seized bolt all four shocks could have been done comfortably in an afternoon :)

Final bit for the day was another attempt at sealing the pesky rear light! This time with 9mm square profile butyl panel seal. The first attempt was placing it on the light and pushing into place - this resulted in te sealer holding the light about 7mm further from the body than it was supposed to be - total non starter. Second attempt was sealer on the body and formed a little by hand, then the light gently but firmly pushed into place.

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First results with a bottle of water are promising.

Finally the celebration/test drive. The new shocks make a MASSIVE difference. Totally changed the car. It feels confident round corners - no more 'diving', and no more random floaty moments on the steering. The ride feels so much nicer, still comfortable but you can feel the road a lot more. Also the rear end no longer does a massive squat under throttle. Not regretting that £270 in the least! Only down side is that now it's obvious that the car needs a geo as steering is terrible around centre :lol:
The new lights make driving in low light far better, and the light seal finally means I didn't get any hint of fumes in the cabin... and being able to select the havc air temp from the cabin is rather pleasant too! There's still plenty to do, but feeling good at the moment :D

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'97 Mazda MX5 3.0 V6 swap
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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 4:52 am 
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Very nice progress so far, well done.
Any chance for some links of where you got the LED lights and the Bilstein shocks from?


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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:33 am 
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Thanks :) It's all good fun!

The LEDs were from ebay, item number 152039016133. I can verify that they look good, I'll see if they get through an MOT in a few weeks. Can't vouch for their reliability, build quality seemed ok, finish was not amazing, but acceptable.

The struts I actually bought from Amazon. Most car part sites wanted over £120 per corner, A seller on ebay had a set for £410, then Amazon wanted £88 for the Fronts, £50 for the Rears. Unfortunately I've just checked and they've since gone up to £120 per corner :( Fronts, rears.

The struts needed are 34-000403 for the front and 24-001618 for the back, can confirm they fit perfectly. One of the benefits of having a square dash :lol:

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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 5:47 pm 
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The cookies look great buddy got a set myself and might be tackling the refurb on them undecided though as I really want Fuchs alloys lol


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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Tue May 02, 2017 9:27 am 
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Oops! It's been a while since I've updated this thread... so time to bore you all with a massive update!

Since the last update my girlfriend bought a very projecty house, which took a lot of time, then I bought a less projecty house, which still took a lot of time and now needs a garage built... and the poor Porsche has bounced between driveways and been generally unloved :(

For a little catch up...
Unsurprisingly the North Coast 500 plans fell through to be replaced with a long weekend camping roadtrip around Snowdonia through which the car didn't miss a beat :)
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Unfortunately the motorway haul back home must have been too much for the CV joints, as the next drive was accompanied by a familiar clonk clonk clonk... No re-greasing this time, 4 shiny new GKN joints got fitted:

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The first MOT under my ownership came up in October... main concern was the handbrake doing naff all going forwards but working in reverse, there's another thread somewhere on TIPEC with those woes, but turned out that a PO had put the spreading bars between the brake shoes in the wrong way around :roll: Flipping those around, and with the new shoes I'd already bought for my first fix attempt, the rear wheels would eagerly lock on demand :D. Handbrake and brakes even got a compliment from the MOT guy, who passed it with advisories for slight chafing of a flexi brake line and slight play in a steering column UJ. Pretty happy with that!

Last stop before being parked up (across multiple driveways :( ) for winter was a little 80's photo shoot with a mates Capri and an unexpected 205 GTI:

:bounce: :bounce: ***CAUTION NON PORSCHE CONTENT*** :bounce: :bounce:

Image Image

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okay... picture dump excuses almost over!

Between various housey things over the winter I kept checking forums etc and at some point realised that I had the newer style water pump, but not the metal guard that is supposed to fit between the two sides of the belt, so that was the first job in the spring before getting her back on the road:

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^^ The sharp eye'd will notice that the idler pulley is missing in that shot - replaced that for a new one as well :)

And got round to fitting a new clutch master cylinder - far easier than guides had lead me to believe! Old vs New:

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No more DOT4 dripping into the footwell finally! Really should have done that sooner...

Finally an oil change with one very seized oil filter - makes me wonder if the garage I bought it from actually changed the filter, or if it's been on the car for 16 years... But got it off, and new porsche filter fitted :)

So that brings me more or less up to date, she's re taxed and back on the road, now time to enjoy driving her for a bit!...







... yeah about that. Now that the newness factor has worn off, I'm noticing the flaws a little more, so got some presents through the post:

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oops, no pre-assembly pics....


Those are some lovely bits to sort the front suspension and steering out - the needle bearing on the steering column through the bulkhead is horribly grindy and as above, I have play in the lower UJ in the steering column, so new bearing and 'drive shaft' - as it's called in the PET. deLUX called this one of the worst jobs he found on his 944.... So I'm really looking forward to it! :|

Then there are some bits that should tighten up the front suspension a little more and hopefully reduce the knocking! New genuine bushes for the control arms, new Porsche bushes and bearings for the damper top mounts and moog ball joints... because while I'm there and it will be needing a geo anyway, why not?! And finally new febi wishbones, because mine are rusty and a little dented, and well - at £12.50 a pop on sale how could I not. Will make life far easier when it comes to fitting the bushes too! Fitting with new fixings all round, courtesy of OPC who are pretty reasonable on nuts and bolts, then wanted £8 for one M14 washer :shock: I guess I'll source those elsewhere! It was 17p for the M10 washers...

Overall that's about 400 quids worth of fun!

I had time and nice weather on the bank holiday Monday so got cracking with the suspension - easier job first right?

Only one set of spring compressors, so did one side at a time. Top mount first:

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Compress spring, take the nut off the strut top, drop the suspension assembly down, then simply push the bearing/bushing out of the strut top. Now I feel silly though - the old top mounts feel perfect. Not sure what I felt in the bearings last time I felt them when I did the struts, but I was wrong! Rubber felt identical to the new ones. Anyone want a used but good set of top mounts? :roll:

After an annoying mess up with ordering I didn't have the track rod ends, but the existing ones still feel good, so I'm leaving them for now, so next was the new control arms/bushings and ball joints. Everything came off remarkably easily with a little penetrating fluid before hand, didn't even break out the breaker bar!

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old v new

Glad to be swapping out the bushes:
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The new caster block bushing is quite different... I don't see why it wouldn't work though. I ordered these quite a while back and need to see if these were from OPC or RosePassion

Something seems to be missing here....
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Now looking far shinier under there:
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That's most of the pictures I took. I had ordered all new fixings from the OPC - unfortunately many of them had been superseded, which means instead of getting nice yellow zink bling, you get boring grey :( :(

Managed to get both sides done in a long afternoon. Tried to match the castor block positions as closely as possible to keep the geo, but then tried to go for a test drive and quickly turned around - I had lost all self centring, felt like there was some significant toe out, and going past 2/3 lock resulted in the steering running away to full lock. Think I need to sort that a little better with some strings, then get it to a garage for a geo!

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'97 Mazda MX5 3.0 V6 swap
'09 Mazda 3 Sport


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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Mon May 08, 2017 2:08 pm 
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So sorting out the tracking myself didn't go too well. After a first look it was pretty apparent that the offside castor mount was in the wrong place, so slackened that off, moved and re torqued... Only to have one of the bolts spin on me before it was anywhere near it's rated torque :cry: Thread on the bolt was slightly rounded, and thread on the captive nut in the chassis rail mullered. I'm guessing that the thread was partially damaged already and a second torque up was the final straw. I should probably be glad I found it rather than it pulling loose during driving... need to keep telling myself that!

With options considered, an M10x1.5 helicoil kit is winging it's way towards me. Hopefully that will be sorted soon so I can get it geo'd. On that subject, any recommendations on where to go for a geo around Warwickshire? Currently planning on calling Pro-9 in Redditch, Solihull OPC and Cotswald Porsche. With my home-geo'ing skills so far, the closer the better I think :wink:

With the car immobile on jack stands and the sun shining, time to get on with that dreaded steering.

The bit I was expecting to struggle with was the headless shear bolts on the steering column - but it seems that this isn't the first time the steering column has been out and the PO was kind enough to leave the bolt heads on. (note: first good thing I have ever said about a PO of this car... ever!!) I had planned to do exactly the same with the new shear bolts I'd bought, as I can't see it impeding their safety function at all. So those came off nicely. Steering wheel and stalks came off smoothly, then another two 10mm bolts on a flange mounting the steering column surround to the chassis under the dash. This flange sits on a rubber bush which is sadly NLA, as mine was on the knackered side. A bit of wiggling and twisting and the steering column was free internally, held in by the connection to the UJ on the other side of the bulkhead. Careful application of a pry bar fixed this (after removing the 13mm nut and bolt clamping it, naturally), and my grinding steering problem was revealed in all it's rusty glory:


Image Image

Replacement definitely overdue!

I have the replacement needle bearing - the old one popped out of the firewall with a few solid hits from a pry bar and hammer. Spot the difference!

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But the surface the needle bearing runs on is pressed onto the steering column and less easily replaced.

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And is pretty pitted.

My fix here feels a little dirty, but it isn't a bearing that should see particularly high loads so I figured it was worth a shot, and turned out pretty well. I mixed up some JB Weld epoxy and scraped it around the surface with a razor blade. After curing for 24h sanded it back with some 800 then 1200 grit wet and dry and the results were promising.

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Not perfect, but a pretty good finish that you can only notice in a couple of places running a fingernail over it.

I pulled the old engine side steering column and UJs out - it was well attached to the steering rack! Lots of penetrating fluid and patience was needed there.

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There was very noticeable play side to side in the old lower UJ, but it felt good rotationally... I hope it was the cause of the slop, otherwise next step is the rack.

Everything went back in smoothly, and although the car isn't moving the steering wheel feels gooood. Solid, smooth, no knocks, no noises... inspires confidence just sitting still, can't wait to try it on the road!

But as it's still off the road, I finally had a look at the fuel sender.

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Ignition on and unplugging the purple wire made the gauge jump around, so error is probably sender side. Out it comes:

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Somehow I have a suspicion this isn't original...

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And looked like someone used it for target practice before fitting it! So many dents... just how?!

Unscrew the nut at the bottom and the assembly pulls out of the tube:

Image Image Image

Nice and simple really. A length of resistance wire which the float slides up and down, contacts that get bridged at the bottom for the reserve fuel light. Plugging it back in and turning the ignition on gave me a fuel gauge that went up and down as I moved the float. Perfect. Looks like something is stopping the float moving with the fuel level...

Image

And the biggest dent lines up with the position in the gauge that the needle always sits at. Looks like that dent blocks the float, simple as! I fixed the dents as much as possible, pushing them out with a long screwdriver, put the whole lot back together, back in the fuel tank........ And the needle slowly rose from empty to exactly where it always sits.

Either I've fixed nothing, or I just happen to have that much fuel in the tank. :-|

Edit: I've also realised that the rear control arm bushes I fitted in the last post aren't the metal reinforced ones which they really should be. I should probably buy the better ones... but I've just fitted new ones... grrrrrr.

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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Mon May 08, 2017 4:00 pm 
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Great thread Gryphon, having just taken on a project myself gives me some things to consider but think you have probably answered most of my concerns. Brilliant pictures. 8)

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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2017 9:43 am 
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Cheers Matt, I'm glad it's helpful! Never sure how many people are reading... but nobody's telling me I'm getting it all wrong so can't be that bad!

Bushings wise, I'm going to get the metal insert ones... not sure I can quite justify £70ea from Porsche. Design 911 do OE quality ones for £40ea that I might go for. I've also realised that they do stock springs for around £40 ea too - only reason I haven't done springs yet is I had only found lowering ones. Now I just need to justify spending another £180 on this!! That would bring me to around £600 in parts for the last month :shock: :cry:

Edit, Rose Passion to the rescue, £53 for the pair of bushes.

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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2017 8:27 pm 
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I may have a spare fuel sensor tube. The internals of mine completely rusted out when the car sat idle for roughly 8 years.

I recently removed the tube when I used the old sensor as a bung for treating the internals of the tank so it's sitting around spare at the moment. You're welcome to it if it helps you out. Where abouts in the country are you?

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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2017 8:33 am 
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Madrob - very kind, thank you! While mine still looks a bit cack, I think I managed to get it pretty round... If it still doesn't work I doubt the issue is with the tube. I have done about 250 miles on that tank so 1/4 tank may be about right? I don't know as I've never had a working fuel gauge... We shall see :)

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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2017 8:11 pm 
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Just to let you know, it's been great following this project !!!
Please keep up the great pictures and simple explanations of what your doing.
I wish I had the hands on skills and knowledge you have


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 Post subject: Re: Almost Rolling 944 Project
PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2017 8:43 am 
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Gryphon if you are struggling for parts give Glenn Monaghan a call on (01162 764488) he is the Parts Manager at Porsche Leicester. It is surprising to be told from some porsche dealerships that parts are no longer available yet some dealerships still hold stock. Speak to Glenn and find out that parts can be cheaper from Porsche than other suppliers and he can source them from other locations. Glenn supplied the parts for the Black 968CS that Chartwells rebuilt a few years ago and came second in the rebuild competition. He has recently told me that certain parts are still available but not on the system?. Definately worth a call :wink:

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