My third 924 is a 931 restore thread
 

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Here we go again... This one was found local. It had popped up on Craigslist several times and then went away. I've looked at it and it's salvageable but that needs to happen soon. Non-runner. Door seals leaking. Moldy interior. But a complete car with shop manuals. Probably a two owner car. It's a '82 with option codes 423, 425, 461, 650. Paint is LM9Y black.

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The saga begins
 

Well I bought the 931 today. Before I dropped the cash, I pushed it a bit in 5th gear and the belts turned so I know the crank is free. It's got one area on the drivers rear fender that's been fixed and some of the paint is coming off, a small bit of rust and some bubbles. Other than that the body looks good. The interior is a bit of a mess. The passenger floor board was wet and I figured out that was coming from the battery tray. You could see wet leaf fragments where it was dripping and that carpet was getting green slime. There's some mildew on the seats. The PO had an aftermarket air dam put on the front fascia so that's probably coming off. Some crude wiring for radio shack speakers in the rear and an alarm horn in the battery tray (those all go straight in the trash). I also noted after market boost and temp gauges in a pod mounted to the center speaker grill. After unloading the car garage, first priority was to get the carpet dried out, vacuum, clean up the mildew and just get it where your not afraid to sit in it. I pulled the battery and found the rust hole (typical body filler fix gone bad). Next will be to follow the first start procedure I read on this forum after replacing the timing belt. This is going to take some time.

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Seat extraction
 

Got the seats out yesterday evening. The drivers was most troublesome with the rails being bound up by rust and crud. Liberal PB Baster fixed that. Then I peeled up the floor pan carpeting. The under layment was wet. Especially the passenger side. So I peeled all that out and tossed it. The pans don't appear corroded however. I left the carpet bunched up and box fan blowing all night. Everything nice and dry this morning. I also jumped in the engine compartment, pulled the air filter and housing. I was thinking that would be enough to get the timing belt cover off. I was wrong. Pulled the coolant hose to thermostat, took the alternator belt off and loosened up the snorkel where it joins the ???. Anyway, I wrestled out the cover and the belt looks okay and I found the camshaft gear timing mark. What's the mark look like on the crankshaft pulley? I want to confirm that it's timed correctly before ordering parts. My preliminary list includes...

timing belt
belt tensioner
alternator belt
fuel filter
water pump
oil filter
air filter
ignition wires
thermostat
radiator hose kit
distributor cap, rotor and plugs (which I already have, common to 914)

With those parts, some luck with the fuel pump and relay, I should be able to get this joker started. I'm also going to soak the cylinders with WD 40 before I start cranking.

One concern I'm having though, there's been zero coolant in this engine so far. I'm hoping that the water pump or a hose failed and it got shut down before damage occurred. I guess worst case would be cracked head or block. That would suck.

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Good news
 

Sorting through the paperwork that came with this one. 924 Turbo shop manual, 924 Climers manual, some insurance certificates and a dealer pre-delivery form. All indications are this was a one owner car! Delivered 12/29/81 at Vaughn Motor Co. in Murfressboro TN. Nice Christmas present. Last service stamp is 6/14/83 at 15,005 miles. Unfortunately no invoice present but getting just these documents is huge.

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More good news
 

It's been a very productive weekend. I'm happy to report that I was able to get the engine on this 931 started. I spun the crank a couple of times by hand with the plugs out. Those came out looking okay. A bit toasty but no rust. The crank spun freely with no odd noises or resistance. I had a pretty new plug set from a 914 and put those in. I had been charging the battery that came with the car for a couple days and tried to turn it over with that - but no dice. I was able to check the headlights, tail lights and blower motors though. All good. I grabbed a new battery I've be using on a winch and got that hooked up. Turn the key and it's cranking good. Oil pressure light goes out. Put the plug wires on and give it a good shot of starting fluid. It catches, idles for a bit and then sputters out. I did that a couple more times and the idle gets a little better each time. Then I get a can of spray Sea Foam and start give good bursts of that into the AFM. It just gets better and better. I sprayed some into the vacuum line off the brake booster also. And I found why there was no engine coolant - the water pump is weeping bad so it's toast. But after coming up a bit in temp the radiator fans kick in big time and water in circulating. I'm very pleased with the fact there appears to be nothing major wrong with this engine at this time.

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Hi from the owner of your last 924! I've seen this car on the local Craigslist for years and wished I had the garage space to adopt her. Glad to see someone giving it a go!

Sent you a PM Brandon. Glad that green car is still doing well!

Another step forward
 

This evening I got some more fresh fuel into the car, pulled the supply line off the CIS unit and started cranking to bleed fuel. It didn't look too bad, some color. After bleeding about a gallon, I put the fuel lines back on and started it up. Idle came up pretty good and I sprayed the last 1/3 can of Sea Foam into the AFM. It settled right down to 850 RPM for about five minutes. Then, oddly, it started to idle at 1200 RPM when the cooling fans kicked in. So I looked at the gauges and it's got a little boost going on. Apparently the turbo just decided to wake up. Rev'ed it up and boost is coming up nicely and I can hear that little turbo wining. Sweet! I also started scrapping off what I thought would be one layer of window tint. Nope, try three layers. The bottom layer is going to be very difficult to remove off those defroster lines on the rear hatch. And I started treating all the window seals, door seals, exterior mirror surrounds, etc with armour-all. All that rubber needs gobs of silicone to soften up.

Change
The
Timing
Belt
Now

Great progress can't wait to see as you make it better

Agreed. It's been ordered.

And two steps back
 

That's the way it is with these neglected cars.

I had a fuel leak start a couple of days ago and tonight I got a closer look. It's leaking at the bottom of the tank below the in-tank pump. I'm not sure if it's because corrosion, a small crack or pin hole. It does look like that area has taken a hit or two. Anyway, I'm going to let the remained of gas leak into the catch pan, then get that area all cleaned up. Right now I'm thinking either JB Weld or fiberglass, maybe both.

Then I moved into the engine compartment and removed a water injection module off the drivers side inner fender. I had previously found the remains of the water injection tank in the right side bottom of the rear trunk (completely shattered). I'll take my time tracing back the wiring harness on the system so I don't rip into something OEM. I also started to pull the AOS for cleaning but on closer inspection noticed it was a Purolator so that's been changed at some point. The hose leading to the air filter was dry also so I left that alone for now.

To finish off the evening I removed that silly air damn and I'm glad I did. The upper portion covering the side markers (those have been removed) had metal stays along the tops and were starting to corrode. That's just a bad trap for road junk, salt and moisture so I chucked it.

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Nice find, I am looking at one today after work. This one has been extensively modded and hacked a bit, but this one has been on CL for a year and missing parts.

More than likely I will part out all of the goodies on it.

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Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a 924 or 944 with a chop top :eek:

Crappy tank
 

I identified about 5 pin holes in the bottom "sump" of the fuel tank. Internal corrosion. Pulled the internal pump and it's toast. It's been repair once with soldered leads and one broken. I sprayed a can of brake cleaner in the opening of the tank one blast at a time, followed by shop towels in there to soak up the junk. Then I sanded the bottom surface, cleaned well and applied a thick coat of JB Weld. This is a temporary fix for testing in the garage. I figure that sometime in the future I'll have to drop the transmission for a clutch job and I'll drop the tank at that time. I also scraped out up all the body filler in the battery tray. I'll have to drop the AC unit to do a proper sheet metal patch so I'll put that on the back burner for now as I don't like leaving those AC lines open.

More progress and new parts
 

Excellent weather this morning for working in the garage. I got a nice package of new parts and I'm ready to get the water pump and timing belt changed. I noted that the combo bracket that holds the coolant reservoir and AOS was corroded so I pulled that, wire brushed to clean metal, primed and painted with enamel. I did the same to the coolant cross-over pipe. The chassis under the bracket was dirty but no rust. I love working on a galvanized car! Getting that water pump on was a struggle with the coolant pipes and that turbo oil supply pipe. Tight fit for sure. Of course I had the crank at TDC and noted that the timing mark on the cam was at 9 o'clock, odd. So I put my own mark on the back of the sprocket at the pointer. Bottom line, the car is running okay so the timing must be right. Anyway, I got the timing belt on and installed a new tensioner pulley. So I fabricated a spanner with a bar that I drilled two 1/8" holes, a couple of trimmed off nails and welded them to the back. Worked great! Then I started putting everything back together but left the timing belt cover off for now. I want to keep an eye on things till I get the engine sorted. I also welded up a crack in the cover, stripped and painted it also.

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Rusty fel tank band aid
 

Here's what I ended up doing on the leaky fuel tank sump. Two nights ago I spread JB Weld thickly over the lower portion where the pin hole were. Then today after the JB Weld cured, I first trimmed of the drips and then coated the whole sump with fiberglass. That should hold things together until I drop the tank and coat the inside. I finished re-installing the last of the coolant hoses, air filter box and changed the fuel filter after pumping through a few ounces fuel through the open line. That looked clean and I was using a gas can with the fuel line to the external pump dropped in it. Tomorrow I'm getting a new internal pump (ouch $$$) and should have the fuel system completed tomorrow night. Lastly, I cleaned the interior for the second time. Shampooed the carpets, cleaned the vinyl and put the seats back in after paying close attention the the seat rails. Those were pretty corroded and needed wire brushing and heavy PB Blaster application.

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Progress
 

Progress on the fuel delivery last night. I installed the in-tank pump and external pump. Mostly trouble free. You've really got to crank down on banjo fitting though. I did the jumper on the fuel pump circuit to help get pressure and that does help a lot. So with a clean filter, new pumps and somewhat clean tank; I should be getting good fuel delivery (baring CIS and injectors).

I've noted several things during testing though...

The engine seems pretty sluggish when bliping the throttle from idle. Especially when first started. Higher revs after it warms up, it's more responsive. I suppose that could be any several factors including vacuum leaks, clogged injectors, CIS issues.

Also, after the engine reaches operating temp, there's some clatter from the valves or cam shaft. I've ordered a valve cover gasket kit and I plan on getting in to re-torque the bearing caps and adjusting the valves. Are the head bolts accessible to re-torque as well? Any other procedures I should do while in there? Tips greatly appreciated.

Then, unless I find major issues in the cam housing, I'm going to do a compression check. If I find this engine is needing re-build, well that might have to wait awhile.

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Cool project ! always dug the 924 turbos, underappreciated Porsche.

Thanks! I think the 931 is interesting and different. The CIS is a whole new world to me though. The Audi engine has potential but I'm not going to enhance this one. My goal at this time is just to get it running as best as possible with OEM specs.