blueskies

Thanks. It's dark blue. From what I can see on the firewall, the original color was a little lighter shade of blue. It needs a good cleaning inside before any interior pics.

crushingday

The exhaust from the factory had 2 pipes, so yours is aftermarket. Thanks for the pics! The color looks like petrol blue, paint code 376, (a favorite around here) , but seems to be a slightly darker repaint. Check under the rear carpet cargo area to see original color.

crushingday

website that shows colors/examples http://www.landsharkoz.com/colourstart.htm

Mikebte

Welcome, congrats on your 928. I have come to enjoy the large amount of information on the forums. Rennslist has made owning my 80, 928 fun and I'm sure you will find this.

How has the 1st inspection come along? Dose it have aluminum ball joints, stock fuel lines and countless amounts of factory rubber?

Photos look good, I like the color.

As for your oil leak, I had the same. I cleaned all the oil off and replaced lots of rubber lines. Leak never returned. Think it was the transmission line when moving in gear. Really no telling, the oil under my car was 10+ years old. Previous owner was never into maintaining the car or cleaning it.

Wisconsin Joe

First off, welcome.

You have found the most knowledgeable and friendliest place on earth for these cars.
The knowledge base on here is complete. While nobody knows everything (well, maybe one or two do), someone will have an answer for any question you might have.

Second, read the "New Visitor" sticky. Lots and lots of valuable info.

Oil leaks can be a pain in the wazoo. The easiest way (in the long run) is to simply pull the motor and do all the gaskets at one time. It's easier to get to everything with the engine out and on a stand.
Realistically, you will do one or two things at a time until you've gone through the whole thing and then will ask yourself "why didn't I just pull the damned thing and do it all at once?"

The electrics can be intimidating. And these were one of the most complex cars when they were new.

But it's 40 years later. You want complex? I've heard a horror story about a BMW throwing codes saying the trans was bad. New trans. Same codes. Turns out it was a bad alternator causing some electrical glitches generating wonky codes.
Or, recently I had a "no crank" on my 05 Cayenne. Then it started throwing dash warnings about brake proportioning, air suspension and ignition lock faults.
It turned out that I had gotten some water in the driver side footwell and that had corroded some communication wires between the different modules. You think that a $90k+ (when new) car would have better wiring than "crimp the conductors together and wrap it with Gorilla tape."

On a 928 there are a lot of electrical things, but they are all separate. Nothing is integrated. A good DVM and wiring diagrams and you can sort almost anything out.
Seats & windows are likely switch related. That's what it usually is. Gauges are usually the connectors in the pod, or the circuit "board" plastic.

Nice looking car. Keep in mind that Porsche understood winter and rust. The steel is double side galvanized. Rust is not usually a big issue. The other help is that a lot of people didn't want to drive these cars in the snow, so they would get parked for the "salty season."

And post pics of the interior. We don't care if it's dirty. We just want to see it.

Edit to add:

Oh yeah, I forgot:
You have an 80, so Rob or one of the others can run the VIN for you. Post it in the "VIN Check" thread and they will tell you what options it originally came with (no color or interior info though).

docmirror

Welcome. Sounds like you're doing it right, one system at a time. Clean all your grounds(search for the links) might clear up several unrelated issues. Once you get that done, maybe take the central electrics panel out, and clean it carefully with De-ox-it. After that, see what's not working, and just work through them.

As for the oil leaks, I agree with the engine removal. You'll also find some under-hood electrics that need refurb, so working in the engine bay is easier to solve those little issues.

Flog on, we're here to help.

hlee96

Pulling the engine is actually not as hard as it sounds! Putting it back in is another matter. I had never worked on cars before joining this forum, and I learned how to pull the engine solely from reading here and WSM.

However, you will find yourself trying to do EVERYTHING that are much easier to do while the engine is out (basically everything inside the engine bay) and the engine may never be back in

My '78 petrol blue has been on the lift for 2 years and my oldest son says, "The car has been up there FOREVER!".

Shawn Stanford

Ditto, but it was more than 'some' water. My footwell was literally full of water. But, yeah, crimp them and put on some gorilla tape. What kind of bullstein is that? But, the point is that we got it fixed, showing that it can be done, and these forums help make it happen!

Blue: Nice car! Early car with no rub strips, no sunroof, and 15-inch wheels? That's a nice combination for us OB-lovers.

And, yeah, one thing at a time. I've started at least half a dozen threads describing what a crappy wrench I am - and I'm not kidding, I do suck. But these guys have gotten me through every problem so far, and I don't expect that to change.

I'm not sure where you are, but you absolutely must make it to a Shark gathering. The three biggest are Frenzy outside D.C., Sharktoberfest in Cali, and 3rd Coast in Texas. There's also Sharks in the Mountains in S.C., and a host of smaller gatherings here an there, including Hershey every April.

Welcome, good luck, and stick with it!

Dave928S

Welcome! I think most here have had a 'what have I got myself in to' moment, after buying their 928, and realising there were a few more issues than they first thought.

When I got my 82 I didn't know of this forum, and had serious buyers remorse, after finding major motor problems. I know I would have been able to sort out the issues instantly if I'd been a member of RL then, and could have spared myself the pain of all the uninformed conjecture and worst case panic scenarios put forward by some owners here in Australia. It wasn't that difficult.

You've come to the best place for knowledge, advice, and encouragement. As Shawn said ... Stick with it! Everyone here will help you through what are probably fairly routine issues, which will have been encountered by many others.

blueskies

Thanks everyone for the welcome and helpful responses. I feel better already about this beautiful piece of engineering. I'm still getting to know the car and have as many questions as answers at this point. In response to Mike, I have no idea about the ball joints. Do they come with aluminum ball joints from the factory, and, if so, is that a good thing? I will try to get pics of the interior as well, although I'm sure that most of your interiors are better than this. Regarding Porsche gatherings, I'm in western Canada - Saskatchewan to be more exact - and one does not see many older Porsches here. It would be great is there was someone with an interest in these cars nearby.

The afternoon's project involved trying to get the fuel gauge working. Success - after pulling, disassembling, and cleaning the sending unit in the tank. I would have liked to replace the rubber feed hose, but after looking under the car it seems that the connection of that rubber line to a hard metal line likely takes place somewhere above the fuel tank. That makes me think that the tank has to come out to change the line, which is more than I wanted to do today. Or am I missing something? Tips appreciated.

Landseer

Oil leak on 16V in my experience is from a set of small O rings behind cam gear backing plates and also from a pair of simple cam end covers on rear of heads. Pretty simple repair. I use a silicon gasket on the rear covers.

Oil pan gasket is the other primary leak point. There is a silicon gasket available for that too. Tedious to change as it requires rack and cross member and lower control arm removal.

An important maint item is rubber fuel lines in engine compartment. One feeds up from below on pass side, others are on top of V under air cleaners. Also the 8 short 50mm injector hoses. Must at minimum be high pressure injector hose. Can be very brittle, so be aware.

Car looks great, drive and enjoy.

docmirror

The tank has to come down to do that line. Maybe not all the way out, but certainly down some. A word of caution - the tanks are getting fragile, and are hard to repair. The are also NLA(AFAIK), so be warned. Also, the big thread that holds the big gland nut at the fuel exit can get chewed up easily with gunk in the tank, so removing that large gland nut is a case of concern. Frankly, anything to do with and around the tank is a case of concern.

James Bailey

the hose to the sending unit is the fuel return line.....

blueskies

Thanks for the info and warnings about the return line. It's not leaking and hopefully won't have to come apart again; hoping that the fuel level sending unit continues to work well. It wasn't as dirty inside as I expected. The vertical tube that the float slides next to in the sending unit had a build up of yellow, rough deposits, which may have been enough to stop the float from rising and falling properly. Anyway, it works now.

Regarding the various rubber fuel lines at the engine end - I do want to replace them. Can anyone recommend a source for an all-inclusive kit for this?

Another thing that I'm thinking of doing soon is replacing the timing belt. I read somewhere that the early 928 engines did not have the issue of valves hitting pistons if the timing belt breaks. Can anyone tell me whether the early 1980 models are like that? Does anyone know the approximate cut off date for the change? The manufacture date on this car is 09/79.

GT6ixer

There is no all-in-one fuel line kit as far as I know. Check with Roger at 928sRus. Email or calling is the best way. He knows the required parts on these cars inside and out. I replaced all the rubber lines on my '84 recently and he helped me work up a spreadsheet of what I needed.

The 16V cars like yours and mine are non-interference motors. Particularly the US models. I recall reading that some of the higher compression Euro 16V motors may have issues if the TB breaks or slips. The 32V cars started with the US '85 model and are interference motors.