Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hello Folks! Wanted to get more involved with other 944 owners this year and actually do some events/runs so decided to join the forum with the intention of becoming a Member at some point.

My mum has had 2 944 N/A automatics and while i've always liked them, I really made my mind up after stopping in by the Porsche Museum on the way home from my banger rally to Rome last year. I bought my 944 at the end of last July from a bloke in Kidderminster, then drove it back to Aberdeen. There were a few niggles and a clunk which I originally suspected engine mounts turned out to be a clutch. In for a penny in for a pound I thought and put the car in for a clutch and belts also. 99% I always do my own work to cars and have done plenty of belts/clutches, but I was needing a car asap and I figured a clutch job was probably a bit out of my depth as a driveway mechanic with limited room! The car itself was quite cheap however so I wasn't too annoyed. Its a 944 Lux and has 173,000 but a monumentally packed service history. The amount of receipts and stamps is ridiculous. Its had a respray in 2011 and its had a full black leather interior. Its got the toast rack and front lower valence, as well as the 23mm front arb and 14mm rear arb. Its been chipped and has a heaps of stuff i've done to it that might take a bit of time to list. I run about with no carpets because the hatch/sunroof circuit is playing up and I got fed up of removing the carpet to check the rear relays. Plus I love the noise so its just ace.

But anyway in between then and December I have done loads of jobs in order to make this quite a fun little car. I'm a keen mechanic and quite confident to tackle most anything to be honest. In mid December I bought a BMW E34 for £500 odd as i'm using it in a banger rally in August. Decided this was the perfect opportunity to take the Porsche off the road and fettle it over the winter. The plan is to get the car back on the road some point in the first week of March and to do the North Coast 500 in it. Something i've wanted to do for ages

Anyway here is a bit of progress in pictures. Most of the stuff i've done has been mechanical so it hasn't really changed visually. That's soon to change though!

On the way home after I bought it:


Went from Kidderminster to Glasgow to pick up a set of cookies, because its an 85.5 effectively and has the early offset. The twists on it looked awful. Then drove like this back to Aberdeen.


And a few of the car in the week I took it home..





And then I started doing work. I am really OCD about cars and i'll go out of my way to find something that needs doing... and within the next month this all happened...
-Replaced oil cooler housing seals etc. to stop leak.
-Replaced both engine mounts with proper hydraulic ones.
-Oil and filter change with 15w40 semi synth.
-New Plugs
-Coolant change
-New air filter
-New shift bush and gaitor (Absolute pleasure to shift now as opposed to having a floppy gearstick)
-New front discs and pads
-New sunroof seal

And then I just fell in love with it










So its now chipped, and has loads of new bits. I was using it every day, through the snow and the cold, but then after buying a BMW E34 to do a banger rally to Romania next year, I decided to use that as my car and take the Porsche off the road for some much needed fettling. In reality it didnt 'need' much, but there was loads of stuff I wanted to do. So I wrote a list and got going.

- New rear discs and pads. Bleed whole system with new fluid. Bought a gunson eezibleed kit for this. Perhaps this is the tool I need to make me able to tolerate brake bleeding.
- Gearbox/Transaxle oil change. B&Q were selling the exact oil I needed for £1.50 a litre on clearance. So I bought 8 Bottles. So that should be a big improvement.
- All front ARB and hanger bushes, along with making my own ARB stiffener brackets. Surprisingly bought all the bushes from Porsche much cheaper than online.
- Both aux belts
-Remove gauge cluster, fix odometer, fix lazy speedo and LEDs for the gauge cluster to blind me.
- Do the bolt through the shifter mod
- Fix bootlid/sunroof situation. I've narrowed this down to a dodgy power wire only supplying 6v instead of 12v to the relay.
- Momo steering wheel from a mk1 mx5. I think they are the best feeling wheel i've ever used. Ended up swapping the air filter that came on the 944 for one off a mate, so effectively free! Although £60 for a boss.
- Possibly tyres....










And for the most recent update.....
Finally started work on the porsche the other week. I've actually been relatively organised and written up a list of crap that needs done. First two on the list were pull the gauges out to sort my odo not working, as well as freshen up the connections a bit, and replace the ARB bushes. As I suspected the odometer gear had stripped all of its inner teeth due to age so I managed to get a new one from Germany.






Also, the main light ducts for the gauges are basically clear pieces of plastic painted chrome. Over time the paint wear away and the dash is just dim. Used some clear glue to stick some tin foil shiny side in. Did the 'stand in a dark cupboard and shine a torch in the hole' test and it does appear pretty bright. Its got 3 new LED bulbs going into it too which will make things a lot nicer, and hopefully not so tanning-studio-esque. I suppose I'll know once I can bung it back into the car! Also before I can fit the new steering wheel, I wanted to get a new set of stalks as I have narrowed my washer motor low power mishap down to the stalks themselves not giving a good connection. I've bought a new stalk module thing from a bloke on here (who I have incidentally bought quite a lot of parts from actually and is a very nice bloke called Pete) but his stalks decals are pretty worn. The units are rivet sealed so using my new fancy dremel I drilled out the rivets and took everything apart. It is VERY fiddly but it'll be worth it to have a clear set of decals right?




I finally got my 'free' steering wheel too. I had swapped this for the dodgy carbon air filter that came on the car. Its just a standard momo from an MX5 but I love them so figure it'd be perfect for the Pork. Bought a Momo boss, which although expensive, is awfully well made. Plus seeing as it is attaching my steering wheel to the car, which is probably vital in some way, I thought I should probably make sure I get something decent. I bought a plain black horn button too. Bolted it all together for a looky see and it looked too plain so I hacked up one of these 'porsche drivers collection' stickers that I stole from the coffee table in the Porsche Centre when I was waiting for bushes. Looks quite cool but will probably change it later for something a bit more me. And yes, it is leaning up against a big stash of bits for the car.






Then! We move onto the ARB. This was interesting. I unbolted it from the car and took it into the garage. Turns out my front ARB is 23mm, instead of standard 20mm. I also have a rear 14mm anti roll bar which means I have Porsche 'sports' suspension. Sounds naff but it means I dont need to buy thicker stuff which I was going to do before I found out! The bushes didnt look too worn on the car but once I took it off it was clear that they were quite shagged and squished. I then found out that the centre bushes were actually for a 20mm ARB. 3mm smaller than they should be, but just rammed on and used. You can see how splayed out they are in the photo. I bought all new bushes from Porsche (which were cheaper than online by the way) and painted everything with my favourite brush on black paint. They look excellent and I just need to make stiffener brackets before I can bolt it back to the car. I'll show the brackets once I make them.








Also had time the other day to replace the gearbox oil. Wasn't nearly as dirty as I imagined but fresh oil wont do it any harm! Next update will most likely be finishing the interior, ARB on, new belts on and possibly a couple of handy DIY mods!

Nice work, great looking car. A bonus that it had a recent respray and full black leather interior. That's a good little task list you're working through and not too dissimilar to my own!

Great work fella!

excellent colour combination

great to see another driveway Porsche mechanic making improvements

Have you done many of the european rallies - always fancied doing one.

keep up the good work

Brian

Cheers! Yeah the respray was a bit of a bonus, especially in Sapphire Blue (which was the original colour). I often see faded red and black 944s which look a bit tatty. Just something about Sapph blue that looks ace in the right light. And yeah the interior is practically mint. Needs the same things that every other 944 needs like glovebox arms but its all really silly cosmetic stuff. I had to fix a heap of the wiring and switch issues where stuff just simply didnt work. I'm just neatly working away ticking stuff off. Want everything done before the 10th of March so I can reinsure it and do the North Coast 500. A group of us have organised it and seeing as hotels are super expensive for some reason i'll probably just spend the weekend sleeping in the car haha.



Thanks! To be honest its a colour I have only ever really seen on S2s. Definitely suits the car with all the trimmings though. Luckily I have quite a big driveway for mechanic-ing and can leave stuff on stands if I am stuck half way through a job. Its been a bit difficult this winter because of the crap weather and '-' temperatures but I batter on anyway. The time I spend moaning about the weather is more time I could be doing jobs! I still moan though...

I've only done one so far. Rust2Rome. Which is a 5000 mile round trip to Rome via the French Alps. Start in Edinburgh and end up in Rome 9 days later. Amazing experience and I had an obscene amount of fun. Me and my mate Andrew did it in a £350 Vauxhall Carlton Estate, which we wrapped with poundland wood vinyl to look like a buick roadmaster. Since buying it we racked up almost 6000 miles without a single hitch and it took us all across Europe, getting absolutely thrashed every second of the way. Epic car, epic holiday.





And this year the girlfriend and I are doing Rust2Romania. We both became really good friends with the couple that run Rust2Rome and I didnt fancy going to Rome again (hard life aint it?) and Romania really appealed to me. Slightly less at 3500 miles over 15 days going through Holland, Germany, Italy, Greece and a heap of other countries including Romania obviously. We bought this E34 at the beginning of December and i've been using it as a daily since then. It hasn't skipped a beat in the 1000 odd miles i've done so with a few bits and bobs done im pretty confident it'll be an ace roadtripper. It'll be getting stripped out and painted up when the Porsche it back as the daily.

that wood vinyl wrap is amazing!

I love the pic with the corrados in the background - my second favorite car behind the 944. I was actually looking for a Corrado when I stumbled across my sad looking scrapyard bound 944. I'm too much of a sucker for an underdog

It cost us £5 to go around the whole car! I didnt know how long it would last as its quite papery. Not that I expected super high quality wrap from poundland but you know! After 2 weeks in the sun it faded so much its actually quite funny comparing photos

Andrew has had a Corrado VR6, and wants another. Craig in the yellow Corrado has 4 or 5. Every engine plus he has a daily with a mk3 golf diesel in it! I've only ever driven the yellow one which was a 16v but its really fun to drive.

Long story short all interior fitted and working. Loads more stuff done in between! Most recently bought a set of Borbet Cup one reps in early offset and painted them ford tibetan gold, the bought a pair of 235/45/17 rainsport 3s for the back. Keeping the near new Pirelli Pzero's at the front. Only had brakes and wheels to do to finish it off and put it back on the road.
Good weekend though. Cover off. New tyres. Brakes bled. Unfortunately hasnt solved the sponginess. Put it down to worn master cylinder, which would explain the white smoke. Just sucking brake fluid through the master into the servo and combusting it. New one on order so fit and rebleed this week then its 100% done!
obviously been leaking a while...

Great work. Alas, I am in the same boat as you. I have a 1985 car and am spending money getting it all up together.

Let me know when you plan the Coast 500 - I want to do this too. I need to get my car up to speed first though......

Keep us updated.

R

Lovely job there ...

Doughville too?? and a Villiers (?) motor hanging up on the wall... Top garage decoration!

G

Cheers! Yeah I've kind of given trying to count the money i've spent on this thing as it would make me ill haha. I'm leaving next Thursday and get back on the Sunday. Hence why the brakes issue is quite urgent



Thank you! The deuville is my dads commuter, and the motor (theres actually 2 on the bench!) is from a Raleigh wisp we are restoring. I have a Buell Ulysses and a C90 Supercub that I commute on Quite nice to see you've got one too looking at your sig!

The Mighty C90!! Is yours standard?? They're worth ridiculous amounts of money.. I bought a rusty old junker with a view to doing a little custom job, so far I've grafted on some MT50 forks and junked everything forward of the saddle. Then I got tied up with the RG500 which has consumed most of my bike time for the last 6 months, as well as too much money ... Your Buell must be a real monster - it must be a scream to ride 'enthusiastically'!

Yeah pretty much. Uprated shocks from a CG125 and some dual sport ish tyres. I have a shed full of spares for it and heaps of NOS honda parts. Perfect daily because if anything goes wrong (which it never does) I just nip into the shed and get whatever I need . Had it for 3 years this month. Paid £500 for it back then completely rust free and its still pretty clean and have done 3000 miles on it. Always toyed with doing a custom or putting a bigger engine in it but I love it that much as standard that I couldn't do that.
The Buell is an absolute animal. Ridiculous power. But I do a lot of bike trips and it just suits me so well. Came with all the luggage, screen, fully adjustable supension, braided lines and huge brakes. Its insane but thats why I like it!

So I posted the full shabang of this in a separate thread but basically did the North Coast 500 without a quiver. Another 1000 or so miles at least since the last post and all is well in the land of Porsche (he says as things immediately start breaking)









So if im honestly i've actually just been driving it... Its been nice. Oh wait thats a crock of s*** isn't it because I always cause problems for myself? Aha! See i've been toying with the idea of refurbishing my door handles for a while now. The original coating had clearly worn away and one absolute genius of a previous owner (who im instantly assuming is the one previous to me due to similar suspicious idiocy) who painted over them, in situ, with the lords favourite hammerite black. They were flaking and looked horrendous. I turned a blind eye to them for the most part. Then a pair of mk2 golf door handles came up for sale new, local and cheap. I bought them and then proceeded to modify them accordingly to fit my car so I could spend time refurbishing mine. Little did I know it would turn into a 5 hour nightmare where everything broke. Fortunately after many many sequential bodges they seem to work, and only need to do so until Tuesday when my order of bits from Porsche gets here... haha! New gaskets, lever arms and a few other various bitties. So heres stage 1 of reburbishment for your viewing pleasure...




Then they got bunged in a parts washer at work for a few hours...




Then home and elbow grease applied...



Then script painted..



To be honest i'm over the moon and seeing them like that has made up for the monumental amount of hate I had for them yesterday. Stage 2 will be when I clean up the lock barrels. They have never worked. All of the gates are jam packed with gunk and none of them move, hence the no worky. The plan is to remove all the gates, then fit them to the new barrels that came with the golf handles. So everything will be new pretty much and actually work. weyhey!

I also forgot to add these from the other day... whoops!

Those door handles are a work of art! I bet you are chuffed with how those came out?

Keep us updated - its threads like yours that keep me motivated on my very own money pit!

Those door handles are indeed a work of art! Really wish I could justify the ~£250 for a set of script handles

Nice to see the enjoying pics along side the spannering ones, looks like a good project!