myrmidon

Hi Folks,

I have owned a number of Porsches for the past 12 years, but now I am very excited to have my first air cooled. The specific model that I have always wanted is the Carrera 3.2.

I was also always interested in a less common color, and did not want a black/white/guard’s red car, so when I stumbled onto this one owner, (fairly) low mileage Moss Green Metallic (original paint) with the even more unusual Cadbury Brown interior, my heart jumped.


1. The Details
Year: 1986
Style: Coupe
Mileage: 54,000
Exterior Color: Moss Green Metallic (original paint)
Interior Color: Cadbury Brown (unsure whether it is ‘Leather’ or ‘Leatherette’, hopefully CoA will say)
Previous Owners: 1


2. The Plan
My intent is to keep this car 100% original. At the moment it is mostly there, but there are a few things that I need to sort out (refer to the below). This will never be a concours car, but it is in great condition and will be a wonderful ‘drivers’ car. (which I think is the best outcome anyhow)


3. The Current “Projects” List
Based on the above, here is what I have chalked up for the near future. If this post is getting boring, feel free to TL;DR it.


3.1 CoA
I have read the varying comments on the ‘value’ of the CoA, however, my car doesn’t have the option codes listed on the hood sticker or in the warranty manual - it only has C02 (catalytic converter) and nothing else. Therefore I am hoping that the CoA will list the options that this car shipped with.


3.2 Audio
The only glaring non-original feature right now are the upgraded radio and speakers. I assume that the PO tried to keep it ‘in the family’ so to speak, because both the upgraded head unit and speakers are still Blaupunkt (the current head unit is a CD front loader (BPV 650). As far as I know the correct radio for an ’86 is the Blaupunkt Monterey (SQR22/23), I am waiting for the CoA to confirm. (or is this the ONLY US option for 1986?)

I am holding my breath to see what the harness looks like when I pull the aftermarket radio, hopefully the installers were not too ‘aggressive’. I have found the original radio connector dangling out from under the dash, so I intend to ‘restore’ the harness back to original condition (including rewiring the console-mounted ‘fader’ as well). I have a pretty good idea of how the harness was wired, but would love to ‘see’ it if anyone has ever taken a pic after pulling their radio.

The speakers are a different story. By eyeballing it appears that the replacement speakers are larger than the OEM ones, so I doubt I will be able to re-fit the original speaker covers. I will still measure this and do more research.


3.3 Junk in the Frunk
My came with ‘most’ of the stuff up front, but a few things are missing. Here is what I have compiled thus far:
- Collapsible Spare Wheel (OK)
- Jack (OK)
- Toolkit (Missing) (I see that one can still purchase ‘new’ toolkits for ’87-89. What differences are there between that and what would be in a 1986 toolkit?) (I also see that the new toolkits don’t come with the tow hook or the plastic gloves (with ‘Owafix’ printed on them), and I see those go for silly money on Ebay)
- Clear Plastic Bag to put wheel into (OK)
- Compressor (OK) (I have the white ‘Autobahn’ one, is that correct for 1986 or should it be the black ‘compressor in a plastic box’ model?)
- Tire Pressure Gauge (Missing) (Is this something that came as standard with the cars?)
- Am I missing anything?


3.4 Steering Wheel Bushing
I missed this when I first drove the car, but noticed today that my steering wheel wobbles (more up-and-down than left-to-right) and a quick browse of the forums informed me that this is not as unusual/alarming than I anticipated, and it seems I need to add the new bushing to the shopping list (I intend to get the ‘Mitch Leland’ one)


3.5 H4 Headlights
OK, so I will keep the car original, but the one thing that needs to be ‘fixed’ are those awful US-spec ‘sugar scoops’. They make the car look like an unhappy chameleon. I will carefully remove them and store them safely so that the car can easily be reverted back in the future, but for now I want to go H4. As far as I know the ‘period correct’ H4 lights have the Chrome rings with the body color painted trim rings over that, however, all the rest of the trim on my car is black, so I am potentially leaning towards black rings (instead of Chrome). Not sure at this point.

I originally also wanted to swap out the unsightly US bumper guards for the narrower Euro ones, but I believe that will leave 'holes' so I parked that plan for now.


3.6 Valve Caps
My car has steel valve caps on the front wheels, and black plastic valve caps on the rear wheels, which surely means that 2 are original and 2 aren’t. So my question is, what did the cars come with from the factory?


3.7 Clean Engine Bay
I need to do more research on this, because I have all the original ‘stickers’ and I don’t want to damage them. What an efficient (yet safe) way to clean a 911 engine bay? Should I slasher the engine with degreaser and simply hose it off?


3.8 Clean/Protect Interior
The interior of the car is in good condition, but I need to research for the best/recommended products to clean and preserve the seats, as well as clean/preserve the plastic bits and the dashboard.


3.9 Diagnose/Fix Suspension ‘Clonk’
When I drive over bumps, I can hear a bit of a ‘clonk’ sound from the left rear of the car. I assume that it is not a case of ‘they are like that’, but rather that something is wrong, so I will need to investigate this further.


Anyway, enough words (I am sure someone on this forum is already shouting ‘shut up and drive already’)
:-)

GTgears

Nice color.

Bloose993TT

Rare color. How was it dealing with Velocity Motors?

Spyerx

Damn that is nice. Love the color combo

Door speakers don't look horrible. May be ok size wise.

Pep!RRRR

Great looking car!

Re. Suspension clunk, it's quite likely that some bushing/shock replacement is in order. However, I redid the entire suspension on my '86 Targa and there is still a lot of "clunk" compared to newer cars.

911Dave

Guarantee the suspension clunk is a broken sway bar mount. It's a very common issue on 3.2 Carreras. Easy fix involves welding it back up.

LIRS6

The H4 headlight rings are not as substantial, so I think painting them black would go well with your car's color.

Enjoy it!

myrmidon

All in all it was great. Alex was great to work with and very responsive.

myrmidon

I spent some time this weekend working on the car. The car with fitted with an updated radio with single CD (albeit still a Blaupunkt unit). but I intend to revert back to the original.

The radio looked like this:


Also when I looked under the dash, I could see the original connector dangling there with all of its wires cut off (the white 12v wire for the 'antenna booster' was left as is):





This configuration confirms that this car most likely shipped with the Monterey (because the Monterey has the 'always on' 12v on pin 6, whereas the subsequent Reno has it on pin 5).

Having seen this, I feared the worst for the harness itself, so I pulled the head unit to take a look at what the installers had done. From a power perspective, they had simply cut the wires and taped on the new radio's harness. Here you can see the brown (ground) and yellow (ignition 12v):



Here you can see the red (permanent 12v):



I knew this wouldn't be too bad, because I simply need to remove the pins from the white connector, and reconnect these wires.

Now on to the speaker wires. The installers had left my fader intact (hurray), but even better, they also left the original speaker connectors (massive hurray). They simply taped them up, and exposed some copper about an inch 'upstream' so that they could graft in the new radio's speaker wires (it is a bit hard to see, but the white wires are the new radio's harness, the original connector is taped up to the lower left, and the 2 brown wires are the 2 original speaker wires):



OK, so now that I had seen everything, it was time to fix it. I connected the 3 power wires to the white connector. For the speakers I simply had to tape up the wires (nothing had been but), and I stuck on some labels to easily identify left and right:



The next job was to build an 'adapter harness' so that I can continue to use the new radio with the original harness...

(next post)

myrmidon

...and now onto the 'adapter harness'.

I purchased a 'Receiver Wiring Harness' from Crutchfield (Metra 70-1822) which is perfect for Monterey and Reno cars. It includes both the male end of the power connector, and female 2-pin DIN plugs for the speakers.

I grafted those onto the new radio's harness to build this 'adapter':




Here is the 'car' end of the harness:



And here is the 'radio' end:



This makes it a simple plug-n-play operation to install:






Now as I mentioned before this is only an 'interim' fix until I sort out the original radio.

But that is a story for another post...

sithot

Pretty car. Good luck with it. As for speaker holes, I went through this in the early 90's with an M491 car. Tony Garcia matched the leather and re-did my door panels and rear parcel shelf (speakers). Autobahn Interiors. https://www.autobahninteriors.com

cal44

What a peach. '86 is my favorite 911 coupe. As I helplessly look for another '84-'86 coupe I can afford I can only peer through a computer screen and drool.

Yes, Autos International. A short drive from my casa, I volunteer to take your car to them and return in.....hmmm, a year. Yes, a year. Nice find

archstanton

Cal44,
Not to highjack the thread but, why are you partial to 86's?

Brian

myrmidon

After working on the radio harness, I turned my attention to the steering wheel bushing. Removing the steering wheel went smoothly (or so I thought). After removing the horn pad, I got a friend to hold the steering wheel while I loosened the nut with a 27mm socket and breaker bar.

I used a small piece of 2x4 off-cut and drilled a 1" hole into it so that I had something to hit with a mallet to seat the 'Mitch Leland' steering bushing - this worked really well.

Once it was done, I reinstalled the steering wheel, torqued the nut to 50Nm and when I attempted to resinstall the horn pad I noticed the problem...



When I pulled off the horn pad, 2 of the 3 clips on the steering wheel broke and came off with the cover - I guess this is to be expected with 30-year old plastic.

Anyway off to Pelican Parts to purchase replacements (321-419-779-A-OEM) - I ended up getting 3 because it is probably not long before I break the remaining one



This is what the horn pad looked like after pulling out the broken pieces...



Installation is quick and easy, just needed a 7mm socket...



Then I CAUTIOUSLY installed the horn pad back into place...



With shipping this little 'detour' cost me an unexpected $24.95.

Philip J. Fry

Gorgeous color combo! How difficult was pulling out the aftermarket head unit? I'd also like to retrofit a period correct OEM unit.