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.

Weekend update
 

I spent some more time on the 931 over the weekend and progress was marginal. After running the engine earlier in the week with some Sea Foam in the crankcase, my first task was to change the oil and filter. Of course the plug on the pan didn't want to come off but there's a oil temp sensor nearby (aftermarket I believe) and that came out easily. The oil from the pan was definitely sluggy. After filling the case back up, I pulled the intake boot and confirmed that the AFM plate moved by hand, jumped the fuel pumps and started it up. The AFM plate moves well with throttle inputs so I think that's in order. After warming up I did a compression check. Lowest was 105 and highest 123 so that's not within specs but a least there is compression. While pulling the plugs for that, I noticed #1, #2 and #3 plugs were pretty dry. I suspect those injectors are running lean. #4 looked about right. So I think the next step in get this engine to run well is have the injectors cleaned. Next I moved to bleeding brakes but I found that the clutch master cylinder is leaking badly so until I replace that, the slave cylinder and clutch hose, there's no point trying to bleed brakes. Finally I moved to the windows and hatch glass with a heat gun and razor to get the window tint off. The hatch is problematic with the defroster lines but I'm carefully scraping around those and I'll have to get the remainder with a steamer later. The cam does sound better after getting some fresh oil so I'll wait before I adjust valves.

Gummy injectors
 

Last night I pulled the injectors and they were pretty gummed up. I got a bottle of Techron and put that in about 1/3 tank of fuel. I was able to get some of that residue in the neck of the injectors of with a soft toothbrush. Then I did the procedure described above with the injectors in the water bottles. Two were not doing very well but eventually, after running about a gallon of fuel, three of the four had decent spray patterns. I soaked the one with poor flow over night in fuel with Techron so maybe that will help. I'm going to have to get new copper seals so I might have to add a new injector to that order. I'll try them all again tonight to see if the soak helped. I also confirmed that the one injector was the problem by moving it from one hose to another and the poor flow followed it.

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Clutch hydraulics madness
 

This weekend was all about changing out the master, slave and high pressure hose. I had all three out and the new parts in fairly easily. However, when it came time to bleed, I just couldn't get the air out of the master cylinder with the Power Bleeder. I borrowed my buddy's bleeder that sucks the fluid but that didn't make any difference. I gave up after about three hours of trying everything I could thing of. This morning I decided to give it another try and I found fluid dripping from the frame rail in the same spot it was with the original master cylinder. So the re-built cylinder is no good. I picked up another at the auto parts store and swoped them out. I also let the rear of the car down with jack stands only on the front. I had to run another quart through with the Power Bleeder but finally did get pressure on the peddle. I adjusted the push rod on the master cylinder a bit longer and the peddle feels good. Confirmed the slave cylinder was pushing the fork by looking through the inspection hole. After that I mover to the brakes and bled the left rear. When I moved to the right front, there's no fluid moving through the bleeder. Same with the left front. So both front calipers may need re-build. I've had sticky calipers before that would "wake up" after a drive from heat from the pads. So I'll put that issue on the back burner for now. Next will be to install the replacement fuel injectors and get the motor running again. Perhaps then I can take the car for it's first test drive (carefully).

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On the road
 

Good progress today. I got the two new injectors installed along with the two good original mid week. I was having really difficulty starting the car however.
It just wouldn't fire up using starter fluid, jumping the fuel pump circuit, etc. So I put the battery on a charger for a couple days and this morning it started right up. It does seem to be running better. Good idle and much more responsive to throttle input. So I decided to get it out on my road (which is rural) to test the clutch, transmission and brakes. The clutch is working great! Engaging at the right spot. The shifter seems a little sloppy but not too bad. All the gears are engaging nicely with no issues. I was cautious with the brakes, pumping and trying to get the front calipers to un-stick. Eventually the passenger side front brakes did start working. So I put the car back into the garage after a wash (hadn't even done that since bring it home). And bled the fronts. I'm still not getting any fluid out of the drivers side so that will need to be addressed. Also, I'm getting some whinning from the high pressure pump. I'm not sure if that's from the screen on the in-tank pump getting clogged or maybe when the battery starts getting pulled down. I know the alternator isn't charging the battery and I'm having to constantly re-charge. The noise typically doesn't begin till after several minutes of running the motor. I think I'll take the alternator to a re-build service locally that does outstanding work at a really good price. If the pump noise continues, then I'll drain the fuel tank and check the screen.

Brakes and wipers
 

Today I pulled the drivers front brake caliper to get it working. I dis-assembled the floating caliper from the bracket and put it in a vise. Squeezing on the piston forced fluid out the brake hose hole and the bleeder. Confident the piston was free, I put it back together and installed it on the hub. I noticed that while the brake hose was off, there was no brake fluid leaking out the loose end. I could see crud inside the hose so I got a thin wound guitar string and ran it up the hose. That did the trick! Fluid started dripping out and I got the hose back on the caliper. After bleeding I started the car up and went down the drive pumping the brakes to get those pistons moving better. I'm having fuel delivery issues again and I'll bet the fuel filter is clogging from junk in the tank. So I parked the car in the garage and decided to look at the windshield wipers. Those were non-functional when I got the car. So I pulled the wiper arms off and pulled the wiper motor after disconnecting the linkage. Bench testing the wiper motor and it comes to life with 12V applied to the connector blades. So I cleaned and lubricated the linkage, put the motor back in and wiper arms on. So I've got working wipers! Next I tried the windshield washer pump. It's wirling so I pulled the pick up tube out of the reservoir and put it in a glass of water. That tube is bubbling so I swop it to the other tube and the pump is drawing the water in and the nozzles actually have a nice spray. This is my fourth 924/944 and I don't know that I got the washers working on any of the others. These small victories make for a good day in my garage :)

This evening I'm searching for any info on Scobey Rogers III. Note the sticker that's on the air filter cover. If I can locate this mechanic, maybe I can get some service info on the car.

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Battery tray renovation
 

I decided to repair the battery tray. It's letting water in even when I was the car. To do the metal work I needed to drop the air conditioner unit under the dash. So I pulled the glove box and trim piece under. That's when I found an after market alarm unit. I've read some horror stories about pulling those and not be able to start the car so although I cut a few wires, I'm keeping the unit and harness so if there's problems I can put it back in. There's a red and a green wire that run up the steering column so those are of concern. Then I dropped the AC unit down a few inches - just enough to get a body saw in to cut out the rust hole and not damage the unit. I then outlined the area to be cut out and went to work. I prepared the edges with a wire brush. Some of that metal was pretty thin but I've got a lot of experience dealing with that on my 914. Then I cut a patch out of 20g. cold rolled sheet metal and clamped it in. I use a flux core wire mig welder and tack the patch in. The key is to just weld small segments so the metal has time to cool. Otherwise you'll be burning through. After getting the patch welded in I noticed more problems around the battery clamp bolt. I cut another piece, drilled a hole through it and welded it in to strengthen that area. There's corrosion under that bolt bracket so after wire brushing the whole area and digging some seam sealer out along the edges, I prepare the tray with metal prep. That will stop the corrosion. Then I spread a thick coat of fiberglass, lay in the fabric and coat again. I already had a large piece of sheet metal slid in-between the AC unit and the work area to protect from welding slag and pushed in some shop towels to catch the fiberglass drips. The fiberglass set up really well and filled in all the depressions. I think this will be an good fix for quite some time as this car will probably not get exposed to rain or snow much, if ever.

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Coming along nicely! I'm a huge fan of your car and wish you the best of luck in restoring it!

Thank you SmileWavy

Subscribed

Still waiting on funds from a 914 parts car sale to apply to this project. I do have some fresh gear oil and decided to change that out. Of course the plugs are frozen so I took a wire brush to those areas and I'm soaking the plugs with PB Blaster. I cleaned the part number to see if this one has limited slip.

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Moving sideways
 

Well I never did get that transmission fill plug out. I think I'll wait till I've driven it a good bit and everything is nice and warm before I try again.

Yesterday I pulled the alternator and dropped it off this morning at Alternator Starter Exchange. They put it on the test bench and yes, it's toast. So they estimate $150 to rebuild.

Sub'd. Have always been curious about 931's, looking forward to the rest of your journey with this one

Looking better
 

I picked up the re-built starter today and it looks great! $125 plus tax, sweet! I put it in the 931 tonight and there's a definite improvement. With a little starter fluid and jumping the fuel pumps, the car started first try. I ran it for about 20 minutes and the fuel pump isn't making noise anymore. Hot re-start was perfect. Tomorrow morning I'll try a stone cold start without starter fluid. It's hard to believe that not having enough voltage would make such a difference. Before I was reading 12V at the battery terminals when running, now I've got 14.3V. Next up is vacuum hose replacement. I've got a complete set of silicon hoses on order from this company...

Silicone Hose Kits

I also built a CIS pressure tool using the instructions and materials list I found here...

VWVortex.com - DIY Fuel Pressure Tester

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Vacuum hose replacement begins
 

A couple of days ago I received the complete vacuum hose replacement kit from High Performance Store. Well, it's not quite complete. The kit has three sizes of silicone hoses. The smallest is compatible with all the small vacuum hoses and wiper fluid hoses. The medium size I haven't found a use for yet and the larger size is a good replacement for brake booster hose, etc. There's an instruction sheet that spells out what size is good for what hose and it claims that the fit is so snug that hose clamps aren't needed except for coolant hose applications. And they do fit tight. I went with silver just to help in identifying routing and leaks in the future. I started by removing the turbo snorkel and disconnecting the two multi-plugs. That gave me pretty good access to several hoses. I then replaced the small hose from the snorkel to the "y". Then I went to the brake booster hose. I trace the path and identify where these hoses are connected, pull one out after loosening or cutting crimped clamps and then take the original to my bench and cut the new segment to exact lengths. The only connection I used a clamp on was the "y" on the booster hose that has a flaired end. That was really tough to wiggle the larger hose on and I felt it needed a clamp to be sure. I discovered that the larger hose is not big enough to replace all the elbows. There's two elbows on the vacuum limiter, another on the aux. air regulator, another on the snorkel and yet another on the intake manifold. Those will have to be ordered. For testing purposes, I simply wrapped all those elbows with electrical tape and put everything back together. No change in the cold start problem. I also noticed that the large hose to the AOS is badly cracked and will need to be replaced. So I didn't get everything changed out but the car still runs so at least I didn't go backwards. I'll order the elbows and the AOS hose and next time I go in, I'll be able to replace more leaking hoses. That will probably mean pulling out the warm up valve and aux. air regulator to get to everything.

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New shoes
 

My anniversary present from my lovely wife was a set of new tires for the 931. I went with 195 x 50 R15 Hankook RS-3s. The tires that were on it were 215 x 65 R15 and completely shot. There's considerable overall diameter difference on the new tires and I did that on purpose. The smaller diameter lowers the car and shorter sidewalls give a stiffer ride. It looks a little odd and most guys prefer the larger tire but this will work well if I autocross the car. Another benefit is more torque and less sprung weight.

I immediately took the car for a test run and you can definitely tell the difference in ride height. Now I can feel the slop in the suspension which will need new bushings, strut inserts, springs and rear shocks. I also noted jerkiness in the steering well under hard braking so that's tie rod ends. And, the ring on the steering well is loose on one of the spokes so I'll need to replace that as well.

This weekend I'm going to drain and flush the fuel tank as the internal pump was complaining again after driving a few minutes. I'll bet there's rust clogging the screen.

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Going in deep
 

Mid week I decided to drain the fuel tank. So I pulled the hose off the external pump and drained off most of the fuel into a catch pan. Then I pulled out the internal pump and there's some rust flakes on the screen. I then cleaned the two catch pans and flushed about a gallon of fuel through the tank. You can see what came out in the first photo. Another gallon through the tank and I'm still getting rust but much less. So I buttoned everything back up and put in some fresh fuel. Now the external pump is whining and cold start is not happening even with starter fluid. The motor will catch for a moment but is definitely fuel starved. So I'm thinking that external pump is toast. This rusty tank is killing me! I've got to either replace it with a good tank or do a proper seal coat.

After reading up on the procedure, I decided to drop the trans-axle today to get that fuel tank out. So first comes off the rear exhaust pipe and muffler. I found one bolt missing on the front to rear pipe flange. No big deal. Then I started removing the inner CV axle screws. That all went well and I figured as long as I'm doing that, I might as well re-pack the CV joints and get fresh boots. So I'm taking the outer CV screws out and I found one broken off on the drivers side and another breaks there as I'm loosening. Again, no big deal. But when I get the axles out on the garage floor I noticed that the passenger side axle is smaller than the drivers side. Someone has replaced that axle with a NA 924 axle at some point. Crap! Now I've got to get a complete passenger side 931 drive axle with CV joints. The two plastic covers come of and I'm able to loosen the spline coupler and slide it to the rear without drama. The protective cover on the rear linkage is hardened and rips up as I'm getting that bolt out. Then the circlip on the shifter breaks as I'm getting the shift rod off. That's a really odd design to have the shift rod pass through the trans case but nothing surprises me anymore regarding Porsche engineering. After getting that rod clear and jack under the transmission, I figure out that the torque tube doesn't separate from the front bell on the trans. There's four bolts left (two at the top are missing but I'm glad) and after those come off the trans starts to drop and after a couple of jiggles, slides out nicely. I guess I've popped my cherry on 924/944 transmission extraction. If getting the fuel tank out is half as much fun as this, I just can't wait!

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Oh the humanity!
 

Got home from work and finished dropping the tank. It's bad my friends...
I removed the exhaust heat shield then went to work getting the rear interior trim off to access the fill neck and vapor hoses. Then I removed the fuel level sender wires. I also removed the high pressure fuel pump and bench tested it. It appears to be fine, strongly squirting out the fuel inside when I applied 12V. I did observe some very fine rust particles when I tapped the inlet on a shop towel on my bench. Then I'm under the car ready to drop the tank and dreading whatever creatures are residing on top of it. The driver side strap was already free of the slip fitting under the trunk. So I take loose the passenger side strap and start wiggling the tank down. A mouse nest and some seeds fall off the top but thankfully no brown recluse spiders (at least none alive). So with the tank on the garage floor, I pulled the fuel level sender and there's some real funk on the bottom of that. Taking my phone to that opening for the last three photos. Straight down, to the left side and higher up the right side. You can see the rust is REALLY bad. Only the very top sides and top of the tank look somewhat okay. If I were to clean and metal prep this tank for POR 15, I don't think there would be enough thickness left for it to be structural. I don't understand why Porsche would have a car with a galvanized body/chassis and put a non-galvanized metal tank in it. It just doesn't make sense.

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Step by step
 

Last several evenings I've been cleaning the exhaust and transmission. The exhaust pipe and muffler look really good after taking a wire brush to them. I got some high temp black paint and painted the muffler. I also took the trans mounts, muffler hanger bracket and rear shield of the transmission. I spent several hours wire brushing, scraping and spraying with brake cleaner to get those parts looking good. Today I dug in and got the fill and drain plugs out. I had to drill, cut and use a chisel to finally get those to spin out. Tomorrow I'm going over to the 944 Orphanage to get a replacement CV axle. I've also got a fuel tank and fuel level sender coming from Ideola.

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The struggle continues
 

Last weekend's trip to the 944 Orphanage was a good trip. I returned with a re-built half axle for only $65 plus tax, two transmission plugs and a window switch. Monday I ordered CV boots for the good axle on the car. Also on that order were bushings for the transmission shift linkage, another fuel filter, exhaust pipe seal and a cir-clip to replace the one that broke when I pulled the shift rod off the shift stick. During the week I dis-assembled that axle, cleaned all the old grease out of the CV joints and painted the shaft. Also during the week I received the replacement fuel tank which has very little rust on inspection. I rinsed that tank out really well and blasted it inside with hot air from a heat gun. With the inside super dry, I installed the tank, fuel pumps, fuel lines and fuel level sender. I had put the drain plug in the transmission and filled with Mobile synthetic gear oil. Today that parts order arrived and I started with replacing the shift linkage bushings. That went trouble free until one of the shift pins sheared off when I was tightening. It's always something that stops progress... So I'll have to order one of those and extract the remains. I replaced the fuel filter and the first one did have a lot of very fine rust particles that came out. I went ahead and put a couple gallons of fuel in the tank to check for leaking hoses and everything was good. I jumped the fuel pump terminals and started cranking to see if I could get the car started. I took a while, but I did get it running after I pumped a can of spray Sea Foam into the fuel distributor. Now the idle is really not happening. I can blip the throttle and keep it running but it will die during idle. So the fine rust particles have probably screwed another component up. Tomorrow I'm taking the 914 autocross and forgetting about this one for a while.

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A drive in the sun
 

I was able to drive this 931 for about 20 minutes today. It's been a long time coming but that was a nice little payoff for some hard work. Here's what I've been doing to get the car back together.

Mid week I extracted the bolt end of the broken shift pin. It actually spun free as soon as I got a drill bit a ways into it. So yesterday I was waiting on parts and started messing around with the passenger side window regulator. I pulled the door panel, lubed up the mechanism and put 12V directly to the motor terminals. The motor came to life! A little sluggish and noisy at first but after running it up and down a couple times, much smoother. Then it was just a matter of getting the window switches to work. The drivers side works great so I used that circuit to test the passenger door and drivers door switches. After adjusting the contact springs a couple times, I was able to get the passenger window to raise and lower from the drivers side switch. The passenger side switch only works going down but I'm content with have both functions on the drivers side.

I got the parts order last night that included a replacement shift pin and an accumulator. I figured with all the rust going through the fuel system it would be best to go ahead and replace the accumulator while the transmission is out. So I got the replacement pin installed and the linkage is working well. Then I replaced the accumulator. Now it's time to get that beast of a tranny back in. I used my floor jack and discovered that you have to balance that joker just right to get the correct angle and position. I also had some blocks to help me get that lined up. Slow and easy is the game and I had installed the coupler already on the trans splines. Once I was able to get the trans mount bolts in loosely, everything started lining up nicely. Got the bell housing bolts in loosely, shoved the shift rod back and coupled that (with a nice new cover). Then I shoved the spline coupler forward to get those matted. If you use a 2x4 on the seat front to push the clutch in, you can spin both splines and it makes that process fairly easy. Finally I tightened down the bell housing and trans mount bolts.

Next was the CV axles and I packed them with CV joint grease before installing. No problems with those and I'm glad I went ahead re-built them earlier to prevent problems later.

Finally I installed the muffler heat shield and muffler/pipe assembly. I put in a new sealing ring in the flange joint, used new bolts and nuts and also ordered the big band clamp that goes around the muffler and support bracket. The whole assembly is much tighter and higher now than it was missing that band clamp.

So I put the rear wheels back on, drop the car off the jacks and start it up. It still needs several shots of ether to get going but once it's warmed up, it's running pretty good. I did do a couple of tweeks to the idle stop and idle adjustment on the throttle body to get that a little better. Then I'm driving off to a couple of nearby rural roads and it's performing well. The aftermarket boost gauge says it peaks out a 15 which is a bit higher than I remember it doing. Meanwhile I'm getting a strong smell of gas in the drivers compartment. I'm attributing that to a loose hose on the fuel tank but... when I get the car back in the garage and I'm putting it back on the skates... I found a fuel leak. The hard fuel line after the fuel filter has been punctured by the window wiper linkage. Crap! Well at least I know where the leak is. I think I can repair that with a compression fitting coupler. I've done that on 924S fuel line to replace the rubber portion and not the whole line which goes all the way to the rear of the car. It's always something!

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