Porsche 924 Restoration

[domdomt]

HI there, so I've just bought a Porsche 924.. It's no 911, or 944 but as I'm only 20 it's impossible for me to get insured on one of those. So I decided to buy a 924. Certainly not in the best condition, but drivable. I've got a lot to do on it, so I thought I'd share it! The body work is not too bad, the usual paint fade, but that can easily solved with some t-cut. The interior also needs some work, but luckily the previous owner had the dashboard changed and had the electrics redone which was excellent news.

It had a terrible oil leak which now I've got the engine out, it seems to be due to a rear crankshaft oil seal. Understandable having done 130k.. I then decided to check the end play of the crankshaft. It seems to be right on the limit of 0,25mm so naturally I started looking around at main bearing kits. Problem number 1. They're extinct. Does anyone have an idea of where to get a set?

Hope you can give me some pointers, thank you

[domdomt]

thegoose said:

A lot of these still racing and having the engines rebuilt so they must get the parts from somewhere, try looking for the race series website (Porsche Racing Drivers Association?).

There was also a thread on here (do a search) started by a guy who bought a similar car to this, but looked worse actually, he put up lots of info and photos on how he restored the paintwork - it turned out you can polish a turd as it started to look great after all the elbow grease he put in to it.

Good luck with it, you'll appreciate it all the more for putting in all the blood sweat and tears.

Thanks! I did a google, had a look through the for sale forum and contacted the man, he apparently has one of the last available sets in the UK for the car.

I cleaned up the engine last night, got it nice and black again and inspected the crank shaft. Luckily there's no excessive wear, so I thankfully can get away with getting the crank reground.

[domdomt]

964Jim said:

Looks like a great project but please don't use T-Cut to restore the paint, especially if you're doing it by hand. T-Cut is really abrasive and you'll end up with varied depths of paint and run the risk of going through it to the primer or bare metal. If you're planning on doing it by hand I'd recommend trying something like Auto Finesse Tripple first, it will take a bit of elbow grease but definately worth it. Best option though would be to use a dual action polisher with a good pad and polish combination to give the required levels of cut. Where are you based? If you're close enough I can come and do a test so you can see the varying results.

Hi Jim, I'm based in Bucks, Iver to be precise. A friend of mine also suggested 'mopping' with a product called G10 body compound?

[domdomt]

GC8 said:

For anyone else looking and presuming that the limited supply of bearings will have been used; ;you can have your original bearings relined.

Its a specialised job so there aren't many places that do it, but it can be done and is every day for all manner of vehicles and engines whose original parts are NLA.

Hi there, do you know/can recommend anyone that can do this?

[domdomt]

Thanks for all your help, this week this project has turned a massive corner.. I've decided to do away with the original 2.0l Audi engine, and I've bought a 1.8t from a 1997 Audi A6, so in my mind I'm not really ruining the car too much, Audi for Audi really. I just have to wait for it to arrive then I can begin to work out how it's going to fit, I've heard that it's a good fit, the mounts need fabricating and if the bell housing isn't a direct fit, which I imagine it's not, then I'll have to fabricate some sort of converter plate or something. We shall see.

[domdomt]

GC8 said:

Not a simple conversion. I had someone try to do it to my 924S a few years ago without success. In the end I bought a 944 Turbo engine and ECUs because the longitudinal Passat engine that I had had similar output to the 924S and would then have need a lot of money spent developing it (although the head was ideal, everything else wasn't).

Join the TIPEC forum, as someone there has already done this successfully.

What do you mean 'develop' it? I'm fairly lucky actually as my Dad is good with these kind of things too. I'm up for a challenge! I've requested the original engine ECU and as I work for Audi already I'm able to de-immobilize it and remove the things I don't quite need from the ECU software, such as the after cat lambda sensor and what not.

[domdomt]

So my 1.8t arrived yesterday, luckily they had thrown in the original ECU and some other bits and pieces. Stripped it all down today, this transplant is going to much harder than I originally thought, but it's definitely doable. The mounts need modifying, the flywheel needs to be redrilled. The only success I've actually had is sort of matching the bell housing. One bolt has lined up in the required position, so some more need to be drilled. The first job for me however though is to make some sort of sump as at the moment it is catching on the crossmember.