New Garage Addition 1983 944

Looks great...well done...   just in time for winter storage

Gordon 

Storage is in my garage so that I can work on the interior bits that have bugged me since I purchased the car.  So it will still get love this winter.  LOL

It made it home today.  Paint is off color, but the rot is gone and it is solid and ready for me to sit the outer rocker shells.  

With the 944 in my garage and no panel bond yet I decided to work on what should have been an easy job.  Fixing the drivers door handle.  It has always been iffy to get in from the outside of the car.  Not much feel to it and needling more pressure than should be necessary.  So I took it apart on Thursday 

Lubed everything up with WD-40 and cleaned everything I could reach with a rag or two.

It took a couple of attempts,  and at one point I thought I mucked it up as the first two times I reassembled it the door wouldn't open at all.  After a good night's rest it is back together and working properly.

Next is to remove a rear side window and get the interior glued back in properly.  1 side at a time

Continuing with the "while the car is here" theme and what has annoyed me since I bought it, but never came up with good solution.  I started working on the headliner around the sunroof.  The car doesn't leak or anything, but it really looks bad if I decide to take the sunroof panel out.

I got out my spray "Gorilla Glue" and paper clips to see if we can put it back together in a reasonable way.  Starting with a small section as a test area.

I'll post what happens tomorrow after I remove the clips.  If it is good we move on to the next section.

The headliner didn't work so well.  At least not well enough for me to show an end result.  I will keep working in that later.  For now I mocked up the drivers side outer rocker panel.  

Fitment down the side is not bad.  where it wraps around the front fender, that is a different story 

Not sure how to fix that part.  

Ideas or suggestions are encouraged.

Not sure how nice you want it to be..... I'd imagine you could build a fiberglass section into it and repaint it. 
 

but I'd try some black duct, electrical or gaff tape and see if you can make a decent looking little cover over the hole. 
might not see it from 6'. 

Wow, it has been almost 2 years since I have updated this thread. 

During that time my wife and I bought our first house, I lost my job and started contracting so life has gotten in the way.  However, I do now have an update.  After putting the car away and doing small niggly little things and then have the charging issue crop up and give me a headache. I have gotten, I believe, the charging issue corrected.  It looks like it was something inside the multi gauge.  After speaking with Dean from the forums and poking around the car I found a spare gauge in one of my boxes of spare parts. It is probably from an early 911/914 or something but the connections are right.  I plugged it in, turned the key and all the lights lit up as they should.  With the original gauge the battery light would not come on until I revved the car past 2500 rpms. 

I also took time to reattach the driver’s seat properly as it was not secure.  The rivets that were holding the plate on to the cross beam let go and the seat kind of flopped around under acceleration, very unnerving to say the least.  So, with 4 or 5 extra rivets the seat no longer moves around.  Success.  I will post pictures and link to the first drive around town video when I get home.  Just had to update this thread because I will be soon taking the car to get plated here in Ontario. 

Gotta follow along so I have something to harass you about on race nights. "Hey, Mike, is that 944 still giving you fits?" (Mike pirouettes into a hay bale in embarrassment, DM moves up one position)

924s and 944s are a real blind spot in my already limited Porch knowledge. They always seemed pretty cool for what they were. I have considered picking one up at different times, as purchase price can obviously be pretty reasonable, but imagined that even if the car was cheap, it was still made out of expensive Porsche parts.

Anyway, it's nice to see them getting some love. It seems like the people who disparaged them expected them to be comparable to or a replacement for a 911. Different car to do a different job, I guess.

DarkMonohue said:

Gotta follow along so I have something to harass you about on race nights. "Hey, Mike, is that 944 still giving you fits?" (Mike pirouettes into a hay bale in embarrassment, DM moves up one position)

Well Dark, it may be a good distraction to me.  I am just happy that the 944 is running under it's own power again.  And running well I may add.  I am not a fan of the accellerator though.  It isn't linear like the 924, so I may be swapping that out in the near future.  We will see.  As promised here are a couple of pictures and a link to the short hop in the 944.

944 First drive

As I have been going through everything with this car to get it ready for the mechanic to safety check the car I notices a small anomaly.  All the lights work, but when I turn the headlights on the passenger rear signal light stops working.  It works without the headlights on, so it is odd.  I have gone through all the grounds, cleaned all the connections on the tailight assembly and the connectors going into it.  If there is one thing this car is good at, it is throwing weird electrical gremlins at me. 

Link to video of working and non-working

Also has anyone used Holley Retrobright headlights on their project cars?  I am really considering this as an upgrade for my car.  I like seeing at night.

RetroBright Link

Check all the bulbs. You might get lucky like the 4Runner thread that began a couple days ago.

edit: this one

Somebody may have placed mono bulbs where they were supposed to use two filament bulbs. 

Had a little time today after the F1 race to give the 944 some more attention. 

I swapped the bulbs from left to right to make sure it wasn't a bulb issue.  Both are single filament bulbs.  After the bulb swap the same situation was occurring,  so not bulb related.  I then started tracing wires, because thus car likes to throw working fits.  I found the following "Wires to nowhere" 

So I got rid of them because they did nothing and were connected to nothing.  Tested thevlights and same thing.  

next I decided to go over the ground on the twilight again.  And sanded the ground connector,  spayed the connector cleaner on the clip on connector, and crimped it a it more and EUREKA, all lights working g as needed. 

So off to the gas station for lawnmower gas and victory drive.  

Look at those haunches.