Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hey folks!

Some of you may have seen a few pre-purchase questions I posted over the last few months. Thanks for the tips so far

After a few weekends of touring the country I've found a solid enough car and have bitten the bullet! I managed to talk my big brother (fulltime Maserati mechanic) to come and look at it with me, so I'm fairly sure it's not a total lemon (he says, hopefully!).

I saw a few awful cars on my travels, including one in Camberley which not only had nasty looking self tapping screws through the sills and dreaded side-skirts, but the rear cubby hole in the boot was literally full of water! It had enough to keep a gold fish alive!!

...anyway, thanks for a nice old boy in Hampshire, I'm now the owner of a Zermatt Silver '87 Turbo with 124k miles on the clock.

My current niggle list is:

- The belts apparently "sound a bit tight, like a whinning Lancia Integrale" says mechanic brother (they've been on for about 1000miles since October 2012). What's a normal sound? I think I'll drop in to our local specialist for advice on this: http://www.porschegarage.co.uk - AMB Nottingham

- It hunts at idle when cold. It doesn't stall but it's very close. It's better when warmed up. Is there an electric idle controller somewhere that is something I can clean? I know VR6 and 1.8 16v Golf units are better off just replaced...

- It would benefit from 4 new tyres. Any tips for specific ones to consider? circa £110 each max. I'm looking at the top brands on mytyres and blackcircles. It has 4 x Avon ZZ3s on it at the moment (205/55ZR16 front and 225/50ZR16 rear). From what I've read, it's a bit overkill to buy Z rated tyres since the high quality brands are made to the same spec anyway. Thoughts?

- The steering wheel alignment is a bit off. Hopefully just a minor bit of tinkering with track rod ends required. It has wheel alignment 4 years ago and is fine at high speed.

- At low speed there is a very subtle "thunk" in the steering. Possibly a worn bush? Hopefully nothing more sinister. No sign of a wishbone job in the receipts, unfortunately. Fingers crossed this comment doesn't come back to haunt me!

- There is a faint squeal from one of the brakes. I presume the dreaded corrosion is setting in although the calipers were stripped and cleaned a few years ago (less than 10k miles ago). Hopefully a clean is all that's required. It'll want new disks and pads in 1-2 years I guess, judging by the slight lip on the front disks. They work a treat but I don't want undue friction to result in the disks getting cooked on the motorway.

- the gear change is nice and old fashioned but lumpier than I'd like! I've ordered a front shifter and rear linkage from JM Garage: http://www.jmgarage.co.uk/CMS/index.php ... t-part-one

Items tinkered with on Monday:

- The sunroof deflector has one broken hinge. A second hand one has been ordered off eBay today!
- The tailgate had a rattle. I've adjusted the pins and the rattle is gone
- The luggage cover roller was stuck but now it's fine...
- The rear passenger side speaker doesn't work....

...this post is getting a bit long so I'll start myself a maintenance thread in the appropriate area

Right, I supposed I'd better do some proper work!!!



Chris

I can perhaps help with the Tyres!
I have used Toyo Proxes on my Turbo since 2007 but will probably change to Barum Bravarius 2 next time as I have had to change them due to age not life! (dont use it as much as I would like to)
Kept a note of this earlier recommendation for future ref. (Don't think Jon at JMG will mind me reiterating it)

"Want my recommendation for a 944? Barum Bravarius 2. Barum are part of continental and this tyre has been made as their market offering in the same way Toyo entered the performance market years ago with their Proxy tyres, as such, at the moment the price is great and the performance is awesome. Bet in a year or two they will be priced much higher. A soft compound, so will probably not last 50,000 miles, but the average Porsche often needs tyres because of age rather than wear, and soft tyres are sticky tyres."

Steering wise ? just had mine serviced and it was suffering from a similar sounding defect which turned out to be a fault in the Steering Rack (it had a new Steering Shaft fitted in 2010) hope yours is not the same problem

Brake squeal could be the type of pads, mine had Pagid Greens and they squealed, just had new Disks and new Pagid Blacks fitted, been advised they should be quieter.

HTH
Clive

Thanks for the tip! That's some very reasonable priced tyres.

Time for me to do some more reading The reference from JMG is great - cheers. I certainly wouldn't have thought to look at Barum tyres before.

Rears for £96.50 all in
http://www.mytyres.co.uk/cgi-bin/rshop. ... hrzeugart=

Fronts for £75 all in
http://www.mytyres.co.uk/cgi-bin/rshop. ... hrzeugart=

Hello! Great choice of 1st time porsche.. I have just done the same!

Hi and welcome Chris Have you posted pictures yet?

Hey both!

Aw man, this car is so much fun. Yes it has its niggles but so far it's looking to have been fairly well kept ...so far no major disasters other than a sheered bolt on the gear selector rod and a bit of a fuel mix issue.

This evening I've been fiddling with getting the fuel level sender out of the tank to see if it reads the right resistance at full and reserve. Annoyingly it's looking like the sender is fine (according to clark's resistance info) so it's probably the cabling or the gauge itself. Shorting connectors 1 and 3 seem to back this up as it never reads full. Oh well, I was hoping for a quick fix... http://www.clarks-garage.com/shop-manual/elect-13.htm

...I had no idea when I decided I wanted a 944 that they were so well documented with websites like http://www.clarks-garage.com/ - and it's great to know there are real people out there to chat to online too

OK, here are some photos! Pinched from the seller's advert - I haven't had a chance to go and do a photo shoot yet as I've beeen too busy driving all over the place in the few weekends I've owned it

It's (apparently) Zermatt Silver, has ABS, an LSD and Air Con. I really like how clean and unmarked the interior is, even if it's not the big bolster sports seats. Full electric is amazing, especially when doing serious miles. A quick flick of a switch and I have a ton of leg room, or flick it straight back to get ready for quick clutch action on the twisties. ...as you can probably tell I'm not used to this level of luxury in old 80s and 90s VWs!!

I've started logging my tinkering. What's the protocol with starting a maintenance thread? Where's the best place to start the thread?

Hello and welcome, looking good in the piccies, you could just start a new topic in the 944 area of the forum to keep us updated on your work

Hi Chris, nice car and its on the best colour, zermatt silver

Thanks!

I know it's silly, but one of the things that drew me to the car was the name of the colour! I really love the town of Zermatt as it's a well known base for climbing some notable 4000m+ peaks in Switzerland and is somewhere I've visited a few times.. The best bit for me is that it's silver but looks golden in the sun, just like the rocks in the Valais area of the alps where Zermatt is. I can only assume that's what inspired the person who named the colour.

Nerdy, I know!!

PS: last year I drove from Nottingham to Zermatt but in a hideous Toyota Prius (not mine!) in order to climb a mountain. Perhaps I'll have to take my little porker to Zermatt for a roadtrip, to do it properly!