1983 Porsche 944 - Time for some restoration
Discussion
I was the proud owner of a 1983 944 30 years ago. This is massively massively interesting to me. Mine was white with black and white pasha interior. It is sorely missed. I will never forget the feeling of driving and owning it at 22 years old - the view from behind the pop up headlights, the balance, the steering feel, the driving position, the gearshift, the leaking sunroof, the electrical problems….. It was tatty at the time, it had been clocked and I paid £5k for it, and it was a very sad day when I sold it auction for £1300 in 2002, too poor to keep it.
Thank you for taking the time to post this and would love to see and read more.
Thank you for taking the time to post this and would love to see and read more.
Bloody hell it's been a while since I've been back on PH so I should probably give an update on the 944. Mostly it's been sat around being a pain after the engine rebuild.
It's been running beautifully but the suspension has always been a pain as the Spax coilovers were missing the standoff for the camber adjustment cam to push against. I sent it into the local garage for an MOT and geometrry setup and yet again they said that they couldn't do anything about the front camber beyond guessing, and the rear adjustment was locked solid. Time to call it a day and do something different I figured.
Off with the coilovers and time to pull the old struts apart. Being an early car it has the bonus of the front struts using inserts that you can strip and rebuilt with new inserts. Time to strip the anciernt 1983 inserts and clean up the housings.
Once the housings were tarted up it just needed something useful to do the suspension work
The car is now sporting adjustable Koni shocks front and rear with standard springs, not ideal but a half decent starting point.
Halfway through this process my Volvo V70 that I bought to be super sensible and reliable decided that the auto box would do what V70 auto boces do and shat itself. As I was stranded where the 944 was and no way to escape I figured I should crack on and pull the rear suspension.
Thinking this would just be a simple case of dropping the rear axle assembly and pulling the torsion bar ends off I thought I'd be done on no time. I really should have known better with my experience of this car refusing to be fixed.
First I pulled the passenger side apart and the bar end came off with a bit of effort but nothing a hefty thumping with a gian lump hammer and a load of bulldog BDX couldn't solve.
Turns out that was the easy side. To get the other side off involved some utter butchery with a hacksaw. I'm not going to share pictures of that because it's far from pretty. Needless to say all of these parts were replaced with new. I wish I could have replaced the torsion bars themselves but as that would involve matching front and back that is a job for another time. As long as things are free and easy to replace later then that'll do for now.
There's a whole load of stuff outside of the car but ignoring that the main thing to focus on is that the car finally got a full alignment and an MOT.
The odometer is flakey at best and sometimes acknowledges miles, despite replacing the tailgate and rear light seals it still inhales exhaust fumes if you are open the driver's window, and sometimes it fails to start unless you tap the crank sensor with your finger (I just put that down to it being needy).
Other than that it's running really well but the driving dynamics have changed wildly. The rear suspension is sat too low (but now by much) and the front suspension feel is non exiistent. IT now drives it's got a mid rear bias rather than the 50/50 these cars are known for. I'm just trying to enjoy it as it is as much as I can because I know to solve that involves pulling it all apart again.
Oh another thing, I fitted much stiffer anti roll bars front anf rear from a much later 944. That and one other change has removed alot of the floppiness from the car. The other change has been to ditch the Teledials with massive sidewall in favour of the original wheels, tyre size matching ones used by the mighty 911 2.7 RS
These were the wheels that came with the car and something I'd been refurbing slowly in the background and despierately wanting to get back on. It's been a hell of a long project but this feels like a significant step, despite the fact that the paint is now falling off the car.
It's been running beautifully but the suspension has always been a pain as the Spax coilovers were missing the standoff for the camber adjustment cam to push against. I sent it into the local garage for an MOT and geometrry setup and yet again they said that they couldn't do anything about the front camber beyond guessing, and the rear adjustment was locked solid. Time to call it a day and do something different I figured.
Off with the coilovers and time to pull the old struts apart. Being an early car it has the bonus of the front struts using inserts that you can strip and rebuilt with new inserts. Time to strip the anciernt 1983 inserts and clean up the housings.
Once the housings were tarted up it just needed something useful to do the suspension work
The car is now sporting adjustable Koni shocks front and rear with standard springs, not ideal but a half decent starting point.
Halfway through this process my Volvo V70 that I bought to be super sensible and reliable decided that the auto box would do what V70 auto boces do and shat itself. As I was stranded where the 944 was and no way to escape I figured I should crack on and pull the rear suspension.
Thinking this would just be a simple case of dropping the rear axle assembly and pulling the torsion bar ends off I thought I'd be done on no time. I really should have known better with my experience of this car refusing to be fixed.
First I pulled the passenger side apart and the bar end came off with a bit of effort but nothing a hefty thumping with a gian lump hammer and a load of bulldog BDX couldn't solve.
Turns out that was the easy side. To get the other side off involved some utter butchery with a hacksaw. I'm not going to share pictures of that because it's far from pretty. Needless to say all of these parts were replaced with new. I wish I could have replaced the torsion bars themselves but as that would involve matching front and back that is a job for another time. As long as things are free and easy to replace later then that'll do for now.
There's a whole load of stuff outside of the car but ignoring that the main thing to focus on is that the car finally got a full alignment and an MOT.
The odometer is flakey at best and sometimes acknowledges miles, despite replacing the tailgate and rear light seals it still inhales exhaust fumes if you are open the driver's window, and sometimes it fails to start unless you tap the crank sensor with your finger (I just put that down to it being needy).
Other than that it's running really well but the driving dynamics have changed wildly. The rear suspension is sat too low (but now by much) and the front suspension feel is non exiistent. IT now drives it's got a mid rear bias rather than the 50/50 these cars are known for. I'm just trying to enjoy it as it is as much as I can because I know to solve that involves pulling it all apart again.
Oh another thing, I fitted much stiffer anti roll bars front anf rear from a much later 944. That and one other change has removed alot of the floppiness from the car. The other change has been to ditch the Teledials with massive sidewall in favour of the original wheels, tyre size matching ones used by the mighty 911 2.7 RS
These were the wheels that came with the car and something I'd been refurbing slowly in the background and despierately wanting to get back on. It's been a hell of a long project but this feels like a significant step, despite the fact that the paint is now falling off the car.
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff