Time to fix up my next daily driver... (IOW, my next project)
 

My daughters each drove a pair of 924's in highschool/college.... One was my old '77 924, the other was an '87 S model I picked up and painted once both of them were driving. Well the oldest graduated, got married and moved away so I decided to keep the '87 around to use as my 80 mile round trip daily driver some day. Well seeing how I sold my old E36 320,000 mile BMW 325i in a weak moment, it is time to tear into the 924S. My list of things to do includes rebuilding the AC compressor, fixing some minor oil leaks, tidying up the interior (again), putting on some larger '99 Boxster wheels, lowering the rear and fixing the smashed up front valance/fenders from when my daughter put it into a ditch a few winters ago.

How it looks starting out after sitting outside for many months (It has been about two years since it has been driven on the road).

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1319568958.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1319569081.jpg



My new to me un-detailed 6&7 x 16" Boxster wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport tires ($300 for the set with tires mounted on Craigslist :eek:) along with an original 15" ratty phone dial.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1319569240.jpg


Tore off the valance and spent an afternoon pounding/bending the hell out of it to straighten it back up. Both lower front fenders were damaged as well. I still had plenty of the paint left that I used to paint it with when we first bought it, so I decided to repaint both fenders as well as the sunroof which had chipping on the edges and the center section of the rear bumper.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1319569512.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1319569570.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1319569632.jpg


So far so good... no runs... no drips... no errors. :)
I also cleaned the wheel wells and gave them a shot of black undercoat and touch up a few small stone chips.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1319569809.jpg

Next I will give it a bath/buffing and will detail out the engine compartment.

I'm curious to see how well you managed to hammer that valence out. I've got one that is going to need the same treatment at some point.

Sub'd.

You are an f'ing rat on crack:)

I doubt I will post pictures, as I used no bondo ;):D..... It is not perfect, but I stripped it to bare metal, epoxy primed it then painted. As a daily driver they tend to get dinged up and being mounted so low, they are pretty un-noticable provided they are reasonably straight. I do not want to worry about bondo cracking should I (or my wife) accidently hit a parking bumper with it. After all, this IS just an old lowly 924S. :)

I'm debating my options up there, as my car will be a cone killer when I finish it....

Mine isn't near that bad, I'm sure a qualified body man can hammer it out. I will have to con my dad or uncle in to doing it.

You can see mine prior to priming it hanging in one of the pictures above. It is back in proper shape, but when viewed closely, you will see many imperfections (that I can live with on a mounted down low front valance on a daily driver).

Car looks nice! Good choice for the wheels, I use the same style on my car.

What type of paint?

Over achiever :D

somehow i think all my own DIY projects would turn out better if i lived next door to you tim.

that is very good!

Nason (a division of Dupont) Fulthane.

My 924S is white as well.

That is the line of the century. So perfect.

If I had a neighbor that also liked working on toys, I doubt I would get as many of my own projects done. :)

At 45, I don't have the energy I used to. If I would have had the knowledge, experience, skills, equipment/tools and a little bit of extra money like I do now, I could have built a bunch more NICE stuff in my 20's.... Funny how life is kind of backwards like that.

I would have killed to have a rich dad who was mechanically inclined and a shop full of tools when I was a teen.

You must be a very patient man to work that lower valence. Curiosity is killing me.....please post photos of the valence. Also curious about how much the Fulthane paint set you back.

Tim,

Thanks for posting the pics of the freshen-up on the 924S.

It took me back, seeing the pic showing the front-side marker with water in it, just like mine used to do.
Should not have sold that car.

Good work.
Les

Great job Tim!!

Any chance of you moving up to mid-Michigan?SmileWavy

I do not recall how much I have been paying for the Fulthane. I have used it first to paint my 951 and bought this white paint a couple years later to paint this 924S when we first brought it home.

It is cheaper than Dupont Imron (which is what I typically use on most aircraft projects) and pretty close in price to the old Dupont Centari acrylic enamel that I used to use for painting cars. I also have used the Fulthane on several motorcycle projects. The local paint supply store only carries Dupont (and Nason) products, so it is typically what brand I use because they are local.

After working on the Boss' Van and doing the engine swap, this is a nice stroll through the park Tim!
Yasin

Spray the valance with shcutz before painting and it will survive the chips better. It will cover your bare metal work too, which I suspect is a lot better than you say.

After spending part of this past weekend in the hospital making sure the b@stards did not succeed in killing my wife after a botched outpatient surgery, I got some more time in on the 924S.

My Boxster wheels did not come with center caps, so I refinished the old ones that were in the stock phone dials. Sanded them holding them over a DA, then sprayed them with semigloss black, then resanded them... Might polish later, might not.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1320158031.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1320158125.jpg


Front end looks much better than it did (do not look too close at the valance)
B4
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1320159042.jpg
After
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1320158277.jpg


Exhaust always sounded bad on this car and had some holes in one of the cobbed up pipes someone had cobbled when installing an aftermarket cat many years ago. I took it all off and made/added some heavy duty flanges and a resonator type store bought glasspack. I cleaned up the old original muffler and y-pipe and re-assembled everything for a sound check..... Sounds pretty decent now.
B4
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1320158546.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1320158596.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1320158680.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1320158709.jpg

Car is looking pretty good for an old 924S but after a quick drive, I am going to have to take my new wheels in for balancing and I need to give the brakes some attention.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1320159007.jpg

Tim,
I hope your wife recovers quickly. The car looks great!!

Thanks Art, she is doing better now (I stayed home with her yesterday and my daughter is staying with her today). She lost alot of blood the night after her surgery and the next morning after she had been re-admitted via a 90mph trip to the ER the night before, her blood pressure dropped to 85/55 and the nurses were pretty panicky as they awaited the surgeon to return to the hospital to take her back into surgery. After surgery they topped her off with 4 units of blood... she weighs 115 lbs. :eek:

Needless to say, we will never go back to that smallish county hospital (especially on a weekend).

Man, that is a very critical situation. Hope she is on the road to recovery an no more 90 MPH trips to the ER!

subscribing... not enough 924's get treated right... so this is excellent stuff
They are fun cars.. If you think about it, people diss the 924, but rave about the Mk1 GTi
If you see the prices the Golf's get , and the amount of effort people put in to them...the 924's deserve at least that much, coz they are RWD, very drivable, very fun, affordable and have more power then the Golf.. even the regular 924's.

The fact that it is galvanized and that we have owned it for many years now, makes it easy for me to want to freshen it up again and use it as my daily driver. It will likely need a clutch some day as it still has the original rubber centered unit. Clutch jobs suck on these cars, but I have changed the one in my 951 which is even tougher job. Compared to modern cars, the 924S is mediocre in the power department, but it will make a very capable daily driver that handles awesome even in snow and has enough power to deal with frustrations encountered on my 80 mile roundtrip drive to work each day.

My first Porsche was a '77 924 that I (and my daughters) put a ton of miles on... Gutless wonder, but it handled nicely and the girls managed to keep it out of the ditches in the winter.

My 951 has been parked for several years now as I repainted it back then in the winter and could not bring myself to drive it on the ****ty salted roads that winter. It may be my next daily driver, but it is pristine and I would like to keep it that way..... Maybe 10 years from now I will say efff it and start daily driving it. :D

The brake return spring broke on my every-other-day driver, a '69 Bug, a week ago. Maybe I'll start another thread on repairing a broken $3.00 spring (as I wait for replacement floor pans to be shipped.)

Good job. It's great to keep cars going and looking good (from a few feet away).

Even if I do look close, the valance still turned out great.

Hey don't click on it if you don't want to see my mundane projects..... I post them here partially just to keep a journal I can I always find when I need to remember when or how I fixed something from any computer or my droid. Another reason is that I know I enjoy seeing other folk's DIY projects on forums and appreciate any input from others who may know a good trick for performing a certain task.

No, no, no. My intent is the opposite of how you took it. This is a great thread and I admire the work you are doing. My "from a few feet away" comment was in reference to your comment about not looking at the valance too close. My comment about my bug was serious. I broke a spring, thought it would be an easy fix, which lead to needing a new pedal cluster, which lead to needing new floor pans, etc. A small job becoming huge.

I love my sleeper 924S, and she is getting ready to get even sleepier..

Sorry, I thought you were attempting to "tread on me". :)

Seriously Tim.

It's nice up here in Michigan so don't be afraid to move closer to me. :D


Your dedication to DIY is awesome. I always enjoy seeing your projects.

Great Work! Those boxter wheels look awesome! It makes the car look much newer.

you need to find an old warbird to restore like a corsair....now that would be an awesome thread!