Parts only. Not operable. No title.

[J-Dub]

Love the updates, this car really is in the correct hands now!

[P_Coastal]

Awesome story @jsheradin , looking forward to future updates

[blueline]

Another shout-out for an outstanding job so far!

[DMRK]

Great Story for sure, welcome!
You are surely a car guy and competent mechanic. It sounds like this might be your first Porsche, if so be warned it is addictive and they seem to multiply. Somewhere on a forum many moons ago I read a post that stated Porsche's are like kids, the average owner has two and a half.

[blueline]

Great Story for sure, welcome!
You are surely a car guy and competent mechanic. It sounds like this might be your first Porsche, if so be warned it is addictive and they seem to multiply.

Somewhere on a forum many moons ago I read a post that stated Porsche's are like kids, the average owner has two and a half.

[icb]

Great story!

[michael2e]

Epic!
Welcome to the slippery slope of the 944 world!

[jsheradin]

Aforementioned spring weather arrived so I've been racking up the miles. So far nothing catastrophic has broken and I've been slowly sorting out issues/annoyances as they arise.

First up was 'fixing' the battery tray a bit more presentably. I used some cold-galvanizing paint and brush-able seam sealer.

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I installed a 944 specific seat belt kit which fit significantly better than than the cheap 'Universal European' one I had tossed in for inspection.

The right rear wheel bearing started making noise so I hammered in new ones. Same as the left rear, there was pretty considerable pitting on the outer race. My guess is the lip seals failed and moisture ate away at them while the car sat over the years.

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There was still a significant speed related whine from the rear so I got the trans nice and warmed up before dropping the fluid. It came out worryingly dark but didn't smell burnt. I didn't get things warm the first time I change it months ago so I'm hoping it's just sludge that was left behind. I filled it with some fancy Motul Gear 300 LS but didn't really notice any improvement.

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The CVs made an occasional popping sound, particularly if there were two people in the car, so I decided to take a look. They all had crusty grease and showed a decent bit of grooving. I could probably have just repacked them but I went ahead and rebuilt the axles with some new GKN CVs.

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Whenever sitting in neutral with the clutch out there was a moderately alarming whirr. Given that the clutch chattered a bit and would slip if you abused it enough, I bit the bullet and pulled the drivetrain apart. In addition to finding a mouse house in the shifter foam, the torque tube bearings were indeed shot.

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The flywheel had a couple hotspots but a local machine shop was able to clean it up.

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The transmission selector shaft evidently had a bad seal so I popped in a new one. The shifter was not what you'd call precise so I put the full Only944 shifter kit on. Not sure I'm a fan of the throw reduction but it's certainly a lot snappier.

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[jsheradin]

I spent the better part of an afternoon with a wire brush and pressure washer to get everything cleaned up. Anything steel got a heavy layer of cold-galvanizing satin black.

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The shift linkage retaining bolt didn't come out without a fight so I drilled out the destroyed threads, welded on a nut, and made up a new bolt. Drilling a safety wire hole through the head of a 10.9 bolt was interesting.

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The threaded rod setup worked a treat and the old torque tube bearings popped right out. After a quick clean the new ones went in just as easily. I can barely move my arms now.

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Engine got a new rear main seal and pilot bearing. The markings on the back of the block seem to indicate it's a 1983 engine. Given a bunch of other goofy-ness I've seen, I'm confident this is not the original engine. The clutch slave was weeping a little so I replaced it along with a new soft line.

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While things were somewhat out of the way I popped in a new heater valve so I can *finally* turn off the heat. The original one had some sort of internal seal failure.

I installed a complete Sachs clutch kit; new clutch disk, pressure plate, throw-out, fork needle bearings and shaft, hardware, etc. During re-assembly the torque tube shaft shifted a bit out of place. I apparently went a bit heavy on the grease. I think I pushed it back into the correct position. It's engaged with the pilot and there's a gap between it and the transmission input shaft. If something eats a thrust bearing then I guess I know where I screwed up. Everything seems happy so far.

Unfortunately after just 50 miles or so the clutch master started weeping on my shoe. Pulling it apart showed what I can only assume is moisture damage. A new one was easy enough to install.

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That sums up the past few months. I'll keep bombing the back-roads and fixing issues as they arise. Local autocross will be starting up soon so that should be a good stress test. These rock hard cheap-o tires are pretty fun; even low speed cornering has some drama. I'm not sure if I want to put good rubber on it quite yet.

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[blueline]

Your awesome adventure continues! Impressive.