My summer project

[Cegan09]

I know its not a lotus, but i decided to share anyway. For a few years now i've wanted to get an old car and rip it completely apart and rebuild it. Well i finally have a car to do it on. I found a 1987 Porsche 924s and split the cost with a friend that want to help with the project. My plan is to pull the engine and rebuild it so i get a better idea of how everything works. After that i'll move on to other things like body work and cosmetic stuff on the interior. Body is in ok shape, 2 major spots of rust, but not too bad. Engine still runs, but the transmission is stuck in 3rd. I'm hoping and assuming this is just a linkage problem as i can take the shifter and spin it in a complete circle. The car needs a lot of work, and i know that. It will be a fun project and i'm looking forward to it.

feel free to comment, or tell me that i'm crazy for taking this on.

I have pictures but they are still uploading. I'll post those tomorrow.

[arugnaught]

EXCELENT!!! I totaly agree with what you are doing. I personaly would have picked an older car, late 60's to early 70's. Please keep me posted with pictures.

[RacyTracy]

It's a great idea. That's how I learned about cars also. I bought a '55 Chevy for $75 when I was 15 and took everything apart until I learned how it all worked.

Now in the days of 2000's technology, I can tell you anything about a '55 Chevy.....

[Cegan09]

Got the pictures up, so here's a few







The rest are here. I'll keep adding more as i progress.

I personaly would have picked an older car, late 60's to early 70's.

We tried, the first car we went after was a mustang from around 1965, but it sold before we got to it. After that we were limited by the amount of money we wanted to spend. I'm happy with the car we got though. Its gonna be fun.

I'll keep updates coming as we get things done. I'll start working on taking things off this week so that the engine can be dropped out hopefully this weekend.

[RacyTracy]

EVERY time you take something apart, put the bolts and hardware in a ziplock bag and label it. Don't say 'I'll do it later, I'll remember what they were for'.....you won't.

[codymac]

Just wait until you get the engine out of that thing... it's huuuuuuuuuuge!

(Rebuilt a 924 lump when I was in college.)

[ZAMMY1]

BOY! i'll second the motion on the ziplocks. document,document, document.
putting it back together begins when you are taking it apart.
get a marker pen and mark the baggies immediately.
digital camera helps, costs nothing to take or keep.
get a bunch of baggies, keep each cylinder stuff seperate.
good luck, it's fun.

[shay2nak]

wow. looks like a fun project. Lots of work. Good luck!

[Cegan09]

I appreciate the warnings about labeling everything, and i'll be sure to. My memory isn't good enough for my to just assume i'll know where everything goes later.

Car gets jacked up tonight to take a look at the linkage to the transaxle. While i really like my shifter being able to do complete circles, i'd like it better if it would shift gears.

[sonza68]

Originally Posted by ZAMMY1

BOY! i'll second the motion on the ziplocks. document,document, document.
putting it back together begins when you are taking it apart.
get a marker pen and mark the baggies immediately.
digital camera helps, costs nothing to take or keep.
get a bunch of baggies, keep each cylinder stuff seperate.
good luck, it's fun.

Definately. I made the mistake of only documenting thing partially when stripping my '68 Bronco, and it's coming back to bite me. The only reason it isn't a complete disaster is that the truck is about as simple as they get and I've largely been able to figure things out. Unfortunantly, I am spending much more time figuring it out now than I would have spent labeling it all properly.

[LARRY]

Two words...Armour All.

Have a great time!

[Cegan09]

An update.

So far i have removed:
Hood
Skid plate
Nose panel
Air Box
Battery
Head light motor
Distributor Cap
DME Control Box
Radiator
Boot covering the shift lever

Progress is a little slow as i can only work in the evenings after work and weekends have been busy. I'm enjoying it all though.

Most of my pictures are just of things before i take them apart but here's a funny one i took tonight

The car's winking


I'll keep the updates coming. Hopefully I'm to the point of dropping out the engine within a week or two. And i am labeling all the bolts. I have a set of little drawers that i label to what part i was removing and put the screws and such in that.

[Cegan09]

Another update. Pulled the Fuel rail, fuel injectors, and various other wires and sensors off tonight. Pictures below of how the engine bay is currently looking.

My project of the week was the cassette box cover. This is the lid to the storage box that doubles as the arm rest between the seats. Someone leaned on it and shattered it at one point. So i took off the leather and foam, and I'm putting it back together. First step was to realign all the pieces and glue in a thin piece of plywood for support and to hold the pieces together. Then i put a layer of fiberglass on the top side. Added another layer of resin to fill in all the cloth once the first layer was dry.

Now instead of putting the leather back on i decided that i want to try working with Carbon Fiber, just to see how it is to work with. Unfortunately i didn't think one random thing in carbon fiber would look good with my brown interior, so i found another material that is similar, but matches better. Its called Zylon Material. Go here and a picture is down the page a little.

If i put it on and i did a crappy job i just put the leather back on. I'm waiting for the material to arrive, so i have pictures of just the fiberglassed cover.









Sunday is rip as much out as i can day. So hopefully after the weekend I'll be close to dropping the engine.

[t65tampa]

I used to do the same thing with watches and clocks when I was a kid. I started working on a 1988 Porsche 944 this year. I quickly realized it would bury me, so I sold it. Most important thing is to have fun doing it.

Most of the watches I took apart and reassembled never worked that well afterward. I hope you have better luck (and skill) than I did.

[Cegan09]

....when you can have Zylon

Got the material in for the cover I'm fixing. I thought that carbon fiber would stand out a little too much in a brown interior. So i ordered some Zylon material instead. Its a little overkill for what I'm doing, especially since this is claimed to be the strongest man made material you can buy, but i really like how its looking. The pictures make it look a lot more bright and gold than it really is due to the flash. And they're a little out of focus, sorry took em quick.





As for the car itself, the intake manifold is off, and I'm taking the alternator, air conditioner pump, and power steering pump off this week, and hopefully pulling the motor this week as well. Its starting to get fun.

[Cegan09]

Quick update. AC Pump, Alternator, and Power steerign pump are off. Exhaust pipes are off the engine. Engine should be pulled this weekend. Its gonna be interesting. I'll have pictures as i take them

[Andrikos]

Good job.
Just remember the credo:
"Simplify and add lightness"

Therefore, remove everything and only put back what is absolutely necessary to get the car going and stopping.

Good luck!

[Cegan09]

Originally Posted by Andrikos

Therefore, remove everything and only put back what is absolutely necessary to get the car going and stopping.

The plan is to eventually take out as much weight as i can, however my first priority right now is getting it road worthy. Once that is done i'll start removing things that i don't need, like the back seats. Don't know if you've ever seen the back seats in this car, but even Porsche has admitted to them being for emergency seating only.

Anyway, i'm making an attempt at removing the engine this afternoon, update and pictures to follow.

Next summer is the add performance summer, so removing weight, maybe some suspension work, a turbo would be awesome but somethings telling me thats too expensive for me at this point.

[dma550]

I say add an LS1 I always wanted to do that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dsPe40C__A

I brought 3+ 911's back from "the dead" which were much worse than your project; one had an engine fire, one had a flintstone's style floor. I agree with the baggy comment. The first one I did I put fasteners in a box (I was 20) and wound up replacing most of them at incredible expense because they were all somewhat custom/tweaked.

If you get a chance, check out the book "gold plated porsche" where a person documented his restoration of a "everyday" porsche and it cost 75+K due to parts costs!

[goelise]

in the spirit of zip lock bags (which I use) - I also use blue 3M painter's tape and put reminders on them, tape them to the windshield right in the driver's face, examples of whats on these things are before I turn the key:

'Got Oil?'
'Lugnuts torqued down?'
I know these things should be automatic to check before starting but better safe than sorry.

Half the time - things I remember I need to do in the future or parts I need to run out for are written on the 3M tape and stuck where I know I can find it while i'm working on the car - the windshield.