Jymmybob

Hiya 968 forum, just picked up a 968 in the past couple days after stumbling upon a good deal. Originally I was looking for sub $5k manual cars to practice driving since I bought a 996TT 6 speed over the winter and found I'm not a good enough driver for it. Since I'd rather make my mistakes in a car that costs less than an TT engine and that won't kill me if I mess up, I began the hunt for a simpler beater.

After hunting for a week or two I happened to check the PCA classifieds and saw a 968 ~5 hours away in ok condition so I talked to the guy a few times and it arrived yesterday. It's a 93 black on black 6 speed with ~7000 miles on a rebuilt engine, 190k-ish total miles, with a stock LSD and mild mods. The condition as received was pretty rough with it being stored with a pile of spare parts and garbage inside and being covered with tons of dust and dirt.

The rocker panels are loose, there's some scuffs and dents, and a few electrical gremlins but overall it drives perfectly fine and there's no noticeable rust. The interior is dirty as hell but has remarkably little damage other than reasonable driver's seat wear, cracked dash (decent spare was included), and a currently non-working aftermarket stereo. I'm mostly planning to fix the low hanging fruit as I drive it on nice days and depending on how it goes, maybe begin slightly more serious restoration.

On the the pics, taken after a 5 minute wash and about 10 minutes of wiping down seats and removing garbage












Its younger brother

Boeing 717

Cool man. I'd have a blast cleaning that up.

touareg

Post the VIN and Jeff can you the stats and options that shipped with the car.

Jymmybob

Yup, did that while I was waiting on delivery. Everything matched the option tag and seller info so I'm a happy camper. Tomorrow the cleanup begins and minor parts start getting ordered.

jsheiry

Nice looking addition to the Fam! I like that little splitter detail on the front end. Did that nullify the ability to keep the batwing or do those mount over top the same mounting points?

John

RajDatta

Splitter gets sandwiched between bumper and batwing and is held by the same screws that hold the batwing.

Jymmybob

Likely that. I haven't done much on it other than check fluids, lightly clean, then drive it to my car shop at work. Time permitting I'm going to get it on a lift for a couple days to fix the parking brake, fix some open/cut harnesses then track down the stereo gremlin. I have a pile of parts incoming from ebay and pelican to address the loose rocker panels and parking brake, plus a few other extras.

jeff968

Very nice, good luck

Jymmybob

Thanks, I'll need it.

Also I have a question about the alarm:

The parking lights flash for about a minute every time the the key changes position, towards on, acc, or off. The alarm light is meanwhile flashing and when the car is locked the light double flashes. I've pieced together that it's the alarm saying that one of the monitored areas is not returning a signal and/or grounded. I don't have a manual so I don't know if it's covered in there, but does that sound correct? Also I'm assuming I can bypass the alarm like on 944 S2s or 993s if I can't or don't want to figure it out?

That stupid hazard flashing is so annoying that I can't imagine that's normal for a minor alarm fault but I've been surprised before.

Also I've nabbed a bunch of parking brake parts so that's tomorrow's adventure plus I nabbed a Saratoga glass sunroof so that will go in soon but the arm retracting motor is either dead or has blown a fuse so that's a pain. Finally the stupid Kenwood HU won't come out even with removal keys so now I have to take the center console out to pry the damn DIN sleeve out with the HU. I'm really hoping that it's the cause of the alarm fault because of poor wiring because that's 2 problems solved at once.

Paolo1

Who could treat a car like this like that!

touareg

Hmm, others can correct me, but I don't think the hazards flash when the alarm goes off, just the horn honking.

When you arm the alarm, it should do a slow steady flashing after a short time. I think when you first arm the alarm, it may flash rapidly to indicate it is about to arm. Afterwards, if it rapidly flashes then pauses, rapid, pause that means the alarm is armed, but not fully as one of the trigger points is not grounded.

The ground points are the HU sleeve chassis, the glove box, the rear hatch, doors and the hood.

The hood is a micro switch in the latch up front, the hatch is a reed that contacts the passenger shock, the glove box is the light, the radio is a reed built into the sleeve that touches the radio at all times or connected to the radio, I forget (often gets left disconnected when someone does not know what to do with it)

I think the doors are the push button switches for the lights.

The alarm is more integrated with the car, it is different and located next to the DME.

Going back to the flashing lights, I would guess there is an aftermarket alarm added to flash lights when arm/unarm or something, triggering that and tied in correctly into the system. Unless it is supposed to flash.

Jymmybob

The lights flashing are indicating the alarm is going off (90-16 in the service manual) and the alarm horn is disconnected. What's driving me nuts is that the durametric shows no alarm faults even while it's going off but clearing fault codes stops it. I haven't gotten around to checking each contact point but the arm-disarm procedure doesn't keep the alarm from going off the next time the doors are opened. I get the double flash from the door and alarm lights showing a contact is open but I wouldn't expect that to trigger the alarm.

There's something up with the aftermarket stereo not having power despite other items on the same fuse so I'm hoping there's a wiring issue specific to the stereo that might be giving the open contact there since I'll have it out anyhow. The stupid Kenwood specific keys didn't work so I have to pull that whole console to get the sleeve out which is why I haven't gotten around to touching it yet.

It was really irritating getting it titled, then e-checked, then back to getting it registered because every drive was less than 8 minutes so the signals never stopped flashing for like an hour while I puttered around town looking like an *******.

Jymmybob

I figured I'd use this thread to keep with updates on the restoration process.

First off, toureg was correct that there was an aftermarket alarm but wierdly enough it worked in parallel with the stock system so it threw me off. Today was spent taking it out but luckily the installer was good and only used piggyback saddles that had the outputs on watertight spade connectors and only one wire was cut but that too was cut then fit with watertight connectors on the new and old wiring so it went back to stock without a single splice.

Since last update I've replaced the aftermarket stereo with another similar one, replaced the antenna, all new rocker panel connectors and gaskets, Lindsey Racing short shifter, MOMO ****, new armrest, fixed the parking brake, and replaced minor trim parts.

Goals for tomorrow are troubleshooting the power sunroof and replace it with the glass one, re-glue all the spoiler trim bolt tabs and redo a couple loose hatch wires from a PO taking out the rear wiper and cutting a harness to pull off the hatch. Shouldn't be hard though. After that it's paintless dent removal, paint correction, then repraying the front bumper after a little fiberglass repair and it'll be ready for summer.

Lastly I snagged 993 Targa Speedlines super cheap to replace the shredded CUP 1s and they need a little touchups so I bought a Wurth wheel repair kit that arrived today. Hopefully I can get them fixed up for next week and have tires ready to go. Here's a picture of the car in it's current habitat at work and a picture of the exorcised alarm harness. I almost grabbed some RUF speedlines but $2000+ wheels on a $7000 car seemed out of place and I already have RUF 18s on the 966TT so I settled on these but I really do like that they're from the same era plus I like the way 17s look on 944/968 bodies.

911Syncro

Hello Brother, I just saw this, and I too have a 968 and a 996. But the other way around, I've had the 968 for 11 years and just bought the 996.

More here: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...-2002-c4s.html

Nice work on the 968, I have some chores also to bring some things to a higher state of repair. Good luck with it, these are great cars and mine has served me very well.

--Roland

brooksp85

That's great!