Scott at Team Harco

There are a few other threads of a similar nature here. I find myself frequently drawn in. I've done this myself on several occasions. This just happens to be the latest.

My first 944 (Herbie) was purchased for the princely sum of $1000 in 2000. I spent most of that first year rebuilding everything. Herbie served me well for about ten years. Alas poor Herbie got rear-ended a few years ago and was taken off the road. Many parts found their way to my girlfriend/ now wife's car (Penelope) which we bought for her in 2007. Many more parts will be used when I get around to building my ultra-light RallyCross car.

Unfortunately, I finished off (killed) the engine in Penelope last November at a RallyCross. Instead of looking for a replacement engine, I went looking for a car. A 1986 944 popped up on the local Craigslist and it looked promising. At a price right between what we paid for our first two 944s, we now had another one.

Here's the picture from the CL ad.

Scott at Team Harco

After the Thanksgiving holiday, we arranged to pick the car up and bring it home.

Here are shots of it on the trailer.

Fuchs wheels! Their value is probably close to what I paid for the car! Can you say - "score"! Close observers may notice that one front wheel is mounted in back and vice versa. These are 7" and 8" staggered wheels from a 911 after all.

Reasonably new Bilstein shocks at the rear and a fairly new exhaust system round out the immediately visible positives. The car is solid, sound and almost totally stock and complete. It even had the original tire inflation and tool kits!

The previous owner kept good records. Early service was performed at reputable businesses or dealerships. But I could see there was no timing belt service for more than 10 years. The only driving this car would get before that got addressed would be on and off the trailer.

Scott at Team Harco

Most of the negatives were disclosed or discussed with the previous owner before money changed hands.

• The nose is a bit pushed in, the clear coat is pealing off the hood (very minor in my mind).
• The odo stopped working at 141,000 miles. There were receipts for at least two service repairs for this!
• The front struts were mush. Discovered at my first visit to see the car when I pushed down on the corners.
• The internal hood release was hanging by the cable.
• No records of recent oil change, timing/ balance shaft belt service or waterpump.
• The tires were shot. (But they are on Fuchs - still a big win!)
• The rear hatch won't open.
• Other minor cosmetic/ convenience issues: visor clips broken, hood seal between engine and HVAC/battery/fuse box was trash, hood struts, hood insulating foam crumbling and falling everywhere in engine compartment.

All fixable. Much of it at no cost due to a bunch of new parts on hand, and many other good parts on the two donor cars.

The first thing I fixed was the hood seal. Two minute job: pulled the old one off and threw it in the trash - then pulled the better one off of Penelope and installed it on Nico. The car is looking better already!

Next: get the old oil out. I left the plug out for a few days while draining the cooling system and getting ready for the waterpump and timing belts. The waterpump came from Penelope. It is the older style version, but it is known to be recently purchased versus the questionable one from the car (or the cost of a new replacement). Belts were new from the stash of parts kept on-hand for just such occasion.

All went well and with a sump full of 10W-30 synthetic, it was time to see if things went back together correctly.

Dan87951

Nice score! She definitely has potential! Any cool options?

mel_t_vin

Scott, nice adoption!

I realize you're in MI, and it gets awfully cold up there, but that lightweight, Zn-challenged, 10w-30 is not doing your cam, lilfters, or bearings any favors during the summer, especially if Nico is going to spend any time on the track or in the dirt.

Scott at Team Harco

Hey Dan. Hope things are going well. I've noticed you are back and posting somewhat frequently here. Or maybe it's because I am here more frequently than I was for a while...

Nothing special on this one. All the usual stuff: A/C, sun roof, leather seats, etc. All the stuff I could do without. Edit: no rear wiper.

If you ever get in the neighborhood or want to stop out during one of our RallyCrosses - please do. It would be good to see you again.

Scott at Team Harco

Good call Allen. I realized after looking at some other threads that 10W-30 might be a little light for the warmer months. Nico is going to be babied for a while. The car is too solid and unmolested for anything other than DD duty for now.

Once I get things sorted out - I'll pay more attention to the proper oil. I've seen 15W-50 seems to be popular choice. Will probably look into that for the next summer change.

Thanks for the heads up.

Dan87951

Things are going well. I haven't seem too many of the guys on here that I remember. Where did they all go? Three years ago I bought a British car and was hanging out over there so wasn't on rennlist much. It's good to be back though.

Definitely, if I'm ever out your way I'll shoot you a PM. Hope all is well Scott and looking forward to the build thread. It's nice to see these cars being cared for instead of being sold for parts.

mel_t_vin

Sound good, Scott.

15w-50 [what I've run for 18 years] and 20w-50 formulations should have higher levels of P and Zn than the more fuel efficient -20 and -30 oils.

Keep the shiny side up...

Scott at Team Harco

Looks as though I skipped posting some of the "before" shots. These were taken last year after getting the car home and looking things over. Keep these as reference as things are repaired and cleaned.

Scott at Team Harco

Then poor Nico got relegated to the outdoors for the winter.

Scott at Team Harco

After the oil and filter, waterpump, timing and balance shaft belts - it was time to start on the extensive list of known problems. At the same time, I expect to find other things to be addressed.

The front struts were shot. I pulled the Konis off of Penelope and installed on Nico. (You might notice the little adjuster blade in the photo). This is the third car they have been on. I bought them originally for Herbie about 15 years ago. They've been through a lot and never let us down in any of our activites.

I took the throttle response cam from Penelope as well.

The car came with a K&N air filter already (hard to miss the advert), so I just cleaned it a little and gave it a little more of that special red oil.

The front wheel bearings were really sloppy. Looking at the tires (photo not included) it is clear that all of the slop here and the worn dampers were taking a toll.

The rear brake pads were a little thin so I pulled the performance pads off Penelope. Should be a big improvement.

Moving to the interior: the broken visor clips were replaced by new ones from Ian's 944online. The hood release pocket was swapped out with parts from Penelope (purchased a few years ago from one of the usual vendors).

Scott at Team Harco

The seller indicated that the odo was broken. I'm not sure what he was doing - but there were two receipts for odo gear repair in the collection of paperwork. The odo was stopped at 141,000 miles. I decided to just swap out the instrument cluster from Penelope which is/was at 150,383. Should be pretty close to what's really on the car. It may be even slightly higher.

The dash has some cracks, but is better than most I've seen at this age.

After getting the car running and checking the gauges, I discovered warning lights were illuminated. The brake fluid, brake pad, low oil pressure and, of course, the achtung lights were on. After swapping the cluster the lights were still lit. However, I didn't notice the brake pad light was no longer lit. Only yesterday did I discover this is due to the fact that I must have removed it from Penelope at some point.

Anyway, I could find no problem with the brake fluid level and even swapped the little sender from Penelope. No difference. Both wires seem to be grounded, so further investigation is needed.

I threw away the old oil pressure sending unit and installed a new (Uro brand) unit that I had on the shelf. It brought the pressure reading off the pegged-high setting but did not extinguish the warning light.

I'm still investigating why these lights are on when there are no obvious faults with the systems they are warning about.

Scott at Team Harco

I took the hood off so it would be easy to clean the crumbling foam from the underside. It also allowed for ease of access to everything there. No worry about bumping the hockey stick prop either. I don't know why I've never done this before - it's so much better with it out of the way.

Anyway, here are a few shots of the engine bay after some work and some clean-up. Should compare favorably against the before shots.

Note the new battery (also from Penelope) and especially for Dan - the shot of half of our "fleet".

cruise98

I always like the save stories. Thanks for posting. It looks like it is cleaning up nicely. Good job.