My 964 ownership goes back to 2001, when I bought a '93 Turbo 3.6.

Despite that car's qualities I found my needs changed and bought a C4 for a new found passion, the track. This two year old thread details my initial ownership experience https://rennlist.com/forums/964-foru...s-learned.html

The C4 saw a lot of track use after that and the Turbo 3.6 languished in the corner of the garage. In the end I decided to sell it. It went to the UK and had a glass out bare metal respray https://rennlist.com/forums/964-foru...6-refresh.html

With the sale proceeds in my hot hands I decided to be very deliberate on my next car choices. I bought a Cayenne for long distance family trips (great decision) and a Cayman R for track duties.

It should have stopped there but I still had to decide on the future of the C4. For a number of reasons still not entirely clear to myself I couldn't bring myself to sell it. I think it's a mixture of being underwater on the investment (full engine rebuilds don't add much value in NZ), the fun I had had with it, a need to 'play' with my cars, and that the R is too perfect.

In the end I sold the R for the same price paid for it, a testament to how sought after those cars are, and rightfully so.

With the C4 my sole sports car, and money in my pocket it was time to give it some love, which it needed.

A few pics

"Herman the German" was starting to show some gearbox wear. It was becoming almost impossible to shift from 2nd to 3rd gear at higher rpm without graunching gears. I could have shifted slower on the track but it just wasn't in my nature when chasing or being chased.

The plan was to take the car off the road for a few weeks, fix the box, complete a 20,000 km service, fix bonnet dents from the previous owner overfilling the frunk and driver door damage from an over extension somewhere in its past.

Already aware that each dollar spent was 'gone' I didn't intend to 'invest' much e.g. The door and bonnet would be the extent of any new paint.

I posted my intentions on our NZ thread (possibly the biggest thread on Rennlist at 30,000 + posts) and received a fateful call from a fellow Rennlister saying I had well over estimated the cost of a respray and should do the whole car. Thinking of the end result with the Turbo 3.6 I said ok.

Despite the potential cost of any more amateur hour stuff ups I was determined to do as much on the car as I could. I decided to drop the engine and box in my garage, farm out the gear box repair, then prepare the car as much as I could for the respray. Along the way I would learn how my car works and sort out the items that mechanics see but can't justify sorting out, because we owners don't appreciate big bills.

First up was dropping the engine and gearbox myself. A shop books 5 hours to drop an engine and box, I took a lot longer! First up Is accumulating tools. I already had 4 Esco stands and a couple of low profile jacks! but needed to buy the following to do the job: AC Jack - a fantastic piece of kit. ATV Jack 32mm spanner 36mm spanner Hex sockets

I made a plate to hold the torque tube when the transmission is disconnected and a wooden support for the engine case to fit on top of the ATV Jack. I also made planks to fit under the front wheels, which raise it and allow the rear of the car to be lifted without the front bumper hitting the ground. Before I had even started work I had spent more than a mechanic would charge to drop and refit the engine and box. Goodbye cheap option.

The instructions to drop the engine and box were in Adrian Streather's book, supplemented by the factory workshop manual. Some steps were easier than others. There were a few moments where I had to look at the steps a few times to get it right.

The biggest obstacle was the driveshaft bolts, where four hex heads were badly mauled. The reason is that the CV rubber joint cover makes it difficult to get the tool squarely in the head. Use a power tool on an angle and you will maul the heads. In the end I had to cut the bolt heads off. I then pulled the assembly apart and unscrewed the bolts with pliers in the gap available. I ordered all new bolts. No mechanic will get their hands on these joints in my ownership.

When working on the driveshaft I noticed that an inner CV joint boot was torn and CV grease leaking. I ordered kits to do four CV joints as I figure one is likely the start.

The only other casualty of the engine drop was a hard clutch line that loops under the transmission. It appears to have seen a few hits in its life and an attempt to make it straight ended up cracking the line. The part took two weeks to source. It doesn't appear on PET with an associated image or part position. In the end I took a punt on a part number with nothing next to it and got lucky.

The actual engine drop was 'relatively' smooth. It helped having some helpers who could think through problems like how to get the rear to 94cm to allow the engine and box to be wheeled out. That's where the AC Jack comes in very handy with its long reach and lifting capacity. Note that when the engine is out of its mount you have few options to lift the body as the lifting points are limited.

With the engine and box out it was time to separate the two. That was relatively easy. I then made a platform to keep the box upright during its transport to the repairer. Two relatively strong people can lift the box easily. Don't let it tip as oil comes out. Don't ask me how I know.

The repairer opened the box and a list of required parts came back:

2nd, 3rd and 4th synchros.
3rd gear set
3/4th gear guide sleeve.
Complete diff lock assembly

Subsequently I was told that the dog gear on 4th was also stuffed. Oh joy.

I got online and started pricing them up. Wow those items are expensive. I obtained all but the guide sleeve from Rose Passion. They were 2/3rds the price of other suppliers. However they couldn't source the guide sleeve. Neither could anyone else I contacted. It was on back order everywhere from Germany. In the end the mechanic sourced one from scargo (sp) when returning from Rennsport. I also sourced a used one from Cogscogs. Be aware that used guide sleeves should be a matched set.

One piece of good news is that the planetary gear weld was holding up.

With the box on its way to being sorted I turned my attention to the body. My original intention was to do just the door and bonnet but as mentioned above I was easily convinced to do a respray as I had the time to do it right and the car was partially apart from the engine drop so labour costs would be lower.

Be aware that the best respray is a glass out bare metal respray and anything else is a compromise. You just have to decide what level of compromise you will make.

In the end I realised that I could live with a full glass out respray with a gun finish over the existing paint. I had to be convinced over the front and rear glass, but as the windscreen had been replaced recently I knew it wasn't urethaned in (the factory did that with some) and the rear screen is apparently very tough. Long story short I took out the rear quarter Windows and the body guy took out the front and rear screens.

I also took off all lights, both bumpers, dissembled the rear bumper into three pieces, removed the door cards and side sills, and door sill covers. The body guy did the mirrors, door handles, washer nozzles, sunroof and wiper bases.

Just like Men's health, what you don't know about your body can't hurt you! I hate rust and was reticent to pull windows etc out and find something I didn't want to know about.

In the end we found no rust anywhere apart from the drivers sill, under the cover. Just a couple of spots to deal with and surface rust around the sill inspection plate. All easily dealt with. The hyper extended door took more work but the body guy did a great job.

The rear bumper had a split where the previous owner had hit something, plus there was a melted area at the exhaust outlet area. Off to the plastic repair man who said it needed epoxy and mat as traditional plastic repair wouldn't work on the material.

While working around the door area the body man found a piece of accident damage. It's a 2cm crease where the body tub starts. It appears that the car has hit something low, like a kerb. If that's as bad as it gets after 25 years I will accept that gladly.

Before the body went, I inspected the carpet. There were two obviously sad pieces 1. The driver sill area where feet had been dragged across it, and my repair of the resultant hole looked bad and 2. The area next to the throttle.

I tracked down a source of the original Sliverknit, bought 3m2 (it is 1.5m wide) and will get those pieces redone. I possibly have enough to do the transmission tunnel and other sill as well, plus the door cards. Apparently a full carpet replacement takes 7m2. This rabbit hole is getting deeper by the day :(

John Your car looks great. I just received a ducktail for my 1994 C4 Widebody coupe and need to find a grill for it. Do you know what year grill you have on the engine lid? Thanks

Looks like a lot of fun man!!! Keep the pics coming!

You're in luck. I documented it https://rennlist.com/forums/964-foru...o-a-964-a.html

Doubling back. Before the car went to the body shop, I tackled the front control arms. At a track day, a mechanic said he thought that they were on their way out. They looked OK, but there would never be a better time to do this. It was labour intensive but I got them sorted. BTW the grease supplied is exactly the same as Copper grease I already had.

With the body and box being sorted, I moved to the engine. It was fully rebuilt recently so I only intended to do the valve adjust and look at sources of oil leaks.

The engine drop process highlighted that the crank reference sensor plug was melted/fused so I bought a replacement.

The oil leaks look to be coming from each end of the crankcase, the 964 version of a bad curry. I am going to take off the clutch and flywheel then replace the RMS. On the other end I have a leaking nose bearing. I researched options and am going to try the Tom Amon sleeve fix

The valve covers came off for the valve adjust. One of the top ones showed evidence of corrosion. A talented Rennlister has put the dimensions on Solidworks and we will fit his billet design. The lower covers look fine.

When I adjusted the valves I used the Kirk tool. Relatively easy when I got into the rhythm of the process. As I first had to check the crank was at TDC by lifting the distributor caps I had a chance to look at the caps and rotors. They looked well used so I'm replacing them.

I also saw that the rear oil breather pipe was hard and decided it was worth replacing that while access was so easy.

Finally, I have been monitoring a 2cm crack in the face of the alternator fan hub. My mechanic said it was likely coming from the back of the fan so I ordered a replacement.

This is getting expensive :(

The while you are in there disease is starting to take hold. The engine tin, while fine, is off for powder coating. I'll likely do the intake runners as well. The engine carrier is getting a Rennline reinforcement kit fitted and I'm replacing the transmission mount. I'm also fitting speed bleeders to the diff locks and clutch slave cylinder. Finally, the heat exchanger hoses are being replaced.

With the replacements come the need for specials tools. I pre measured the tension so I can replicate it on reassembly. It was at 35kgs.

So this is what the 'light' refurb looks like now

Replace control arm bushes
Replace rear spring plates
Replace all spark plugs
Replace oil
Replace distributor caps and rotors
Replace alternator fan
Replace Rear Main seal
Place sleeve on nose bearing
Replace rear reflector
Replace lenses on rear indicators
Replace side indicator plastics
Replace rear licence light fittings
Repair cracks in rear bumper, shark fin, and side sill plastics
Replace CV boot and regrease CV joint
Replace two hard clutch lines
Fit speed bleeders to clutch slave cylinder and diff locks
Replace all body seals except window seals
Replace felt window scrapers
Replace all black door and window trim
Replace front portion of carpet
Repair cracks in door pocket screw areas
Replace inner door handles
Replace door sill covers and carpet trim trip
Replace Porsche bonnet emblem
Adjust valve clearance
Replace fuel filter
Re-anodise Gemballa aluminium pedals
Refurb rear shocks
Replace gearbox diff clutch pack
Replace synchros in 2nd, 3rd and 4th gears
Replace third gear set
Replace 3rd/4th gear guide sleeve
Replace dog gear on 4th gear set
Fit reinforcement kits to both door checks
Repair damage from hyper extended driver door
Repair bumps from bonnet closing on over filled frunk
Replace crank ref sensor
Replace or refurb upper valve covers
Gut catalytic converter
Powder coat engine tin
Powder coat intake runners
Replace oil breather pipe
Fit exhaust cut out
Fit PDAS light
Layup carbon fibre over front splitter
Replace distributor belt
New front frunk struts
Replace rear decals
Replace engine decals
Plus replace hot air hoses in engine.
Respray car in L908 Grand Prix Whiten

Car on its way to the painter

Time to change the rear indicator lens. Replacement bought from Design 911.

Changed the rotors and distributor caps. More a while you are in there job than a necessity. Plenty of labelling to reduce the likelihood of getting a couple of wires crossed.

First piece of carpet replacement. This piece is next to the throttle pedal. I was careful to get the correct nap orientation as otherwise the feet will rough it up. Ados F2 contact adhesive. It was an easy job.

Somethings are just easier to do with the engine out, replacing the oil breather hose was an easy choice as it was hardened and apparently prone to leak.

In two minds about the emblem. Simple fact is that the new ones are shinier and the stallion shape has changed. I may refit the old one.

Meanwhile the gearbox rebuild is progressing. A slight hiccup when the dog gear on 4th was found to be skewed. Nowadays it can be sourced separately. Sorry, not sure how they fixed it to the gear, before you ask.

The parts flow continues. Some expensive door and window trim. Not necessary, but I really want this car to pop and these will set the new GPW paint off.

Btw the reason I have a VW catalogue is the my body guy recognised the window felt scraper as a VW part, albeit shorter, than used in his Ghia. A huge saving buying in that part.

Next up is fitting the nose bearing collar. A 3:1 torque multiplier will help getting that bolt off.

Carpet shows real difference in daylight. I cut out a strip of carpet which fits the driver sill area and will go to an upholsterer. I'm hoping we can reuse the vinyl insert.

Both door pockets were cracked at the screw fixing point. A simple fix with epoxy, mat and plastic cards

I had new door handles which were at one stage destined for my now sold Turbo 3.6. It's relatively easy to fit them if you remove the circlip and twist the holder far enough to remove the handle.

Moving on to the alternator. Carefully noting the shim positions. The fan has a damaged blade and cracked hub but I'm not sure it's past its best. I do have a new one if removal shows more corrosion in behind. I did replace the air duct.

Banal but necessary, carpet cleaning. The 25 year old Sliverknit is holding up well. Psychologically, cleaning is a major event as opposed to replacing, as it acknowledges that this is a light refurb, not a full on restoration.

Rennline engine carrier reinforcement kit has arrived.

Unwelcome news. The transmission rebuild has hit a hitch in that I now need the other diff clutch pack replaced. Not overly expensive but one part is on a 13 day back order. The leisurely engine/transmission reinstall will have to happen after work at night, which will slow things down.

92833272800 4 EUR 58 EUR 231
99920143500 1 EUR 106 EUR 106
92833272605 1 EUR 12 EUR 12
92833272606 1 EUR 16 EUR 16
92833272607 1 EUR 16 EUR 16
92833272608 1 EUR 16 EUR 16
92833272609 1 EUR 29 EUR 29
92833272610 1 EUR 87 EUR 87
Freight 1 EUR 95 EUR 95
Total EUR 608

It'll all be worth it when you're done though!

Part of the fun of a refurb is shopping. Yesterday I visited a tool seller and came away with a couple of 3/4" impact sockets to do the wheel nuts and pulley. A digital caliper, a small plastic mallet and some PB Blaster. The latter was a surprise as I had never seen it for sale in New Zealand and it's talked about in almost every US thread on removing difficult bolts etc.

The other visit was to fibreglass (fiberglass) shop. My Techart splitter has more splits than intended. I love talking to tradies that share their tips. All going well it will be brought back to usable condition with a carbon fibre lay up for the visual part. The only issue may be if this is truly an ABS part as not much adheres to it.

I hope so. This is the oldest and least powerful Porsche I have owned, plus is getting up there on spend, but it still puts a smile on my dial. No logic at all in that except I like it.

More parts have arrived. A now surplus 3/4 guide sleeve (managed to find a new one even though they are on back order from Germany) and a transmission gasket set.

A local Rennlister (Racoguy) welded the Rennline engine carrier reinforcement. Very happy with the quality of the kit and fitting. It's off to powder coating next.

Another day and more progress. I fitted the Tom Amon nose bearing sleeve. The car was leaking oil underneath the pulley and this kit should fix that

Decided to tackle the clutch and flywheel tonight. Clutch is fine, however I'm not so sure about the RMS. Should the flywheel edge be oily if the RMS is leaking?

An executive decision has been made: the RMS won't be replaced. The rear of the flywheel was dry and no obvious leaks from the RMS. Instead I will deal to the oil pressure sender as that's more likely the source of the oil. A slight problem putting the flywheel and clutch back on. The bolts I ordered in both cases are the wrong ones.

Rather than buy a new set of pedals I have sent the Gemballa set off to be reanodised

Thanks to Racoguy for fitting the Rennline engine carrier reinforcement kit and getting it powder coated, along with some engine tin.

Flywheel fitted with new bolts torqued to 66ft/lbs (90Nm) and clutch pressure plate torqued to 17ft/lbs (23 Nm). The latter was fun as the torque wrench for this low level was 1/4" and the 6mm hex socket was 3/8". I had to source a female 1/4" to male 3/8". As you can see I used the clutch guide tool.

I've always wanted to play with Carbon Fibre (Fiber) and the Techart splitter gave me my opportunity. The front edges had multiple cracks and the middle section was almost completely severed. The process is quite involved.

1. Masking tape holds the cracked sections together while epoxy and fibreglass mat is applied.
2. Car bog is then used to recreate the correct curve on the cracked sections
3. Black pigment is mixed with epoxy and covers the whole area. This is important as the under layer can show through with Carbon Fibre.
4. While the epoxy is tacky (not wet), the carbon fibre is laid over the form. This is far more difficult than it looks. The carbon fibre fabric moves on its weave and the minute it hits the epoxy that's it. If you try to pull the material back off the tacky epoxy then it will disrupt the weave and show in the final piece.
5. A layer of clear epoxy is laid over the carbon fibre.
6. When dry, the epoxy is sanded with 1200, 1500 and 2000 grit paper.
7. The final coat is put on. This could be a lacquer but I used another layer of resin. The problem with using resin is that the dry time is > 8 hours and every piece of dust that hits it will show. The upside is that you know it will be resin compatible and not need recoating.

This is a lot of work, but worth it as I like the Techart splitter and my budget is under pressure. The only downside is that any hit will damage my hard work and that's almost certain to happen. If it's a small hit then I can sand back the resin and apply another coat.

This is quite a project. Those pedals are gonna look great after they are anodized. I've been thinking of powder coating my pedals. They're currently silver, would like to see them black or even red.

Yes, it is becoming that way. In places I have succumbed to 'while I'm in there' syndrome but in others I have tried to renew rather than replace, particularly where I can learn a new skill.

Nothing more than a clean for the wheels. Just reminding me that I will have a car at the end of this. As the weeks and then months drag on it's sometimes hard to remember that.

Pedals are back from the anodizer. A noticeable loss in mass but I'd be surprised if I could break them.

Replacement carpet piece is made up. The upholsterer left the unbound areas larger than the old piece just in case there are adjustments. He managed to reuse the vinyl pad and this is OEM Sliverknit so should last well.

I also picked up the engine carrier. It's as good in the metal as the photo suggests.

Sourced a new pulley bolt. Thanks Porsche for making it in 18mm, a size socket I didn't have. This is the first time I have used my 3:1 torque multiplier. Set the torque wrench at 83Nm to get 235Nm after allowing for a 6% loss in the action. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. My teenage son couldn't hold the reaction bar so I put a pipe on it and wedged it under a table.

Despite planning to fit billet valve covers (a fellow Rennlister design) I sent the OEM ones away for powder coating

Next up is powder coating the fan and shroud. A fellow Rennlister (Racoguy) has made me a fan puller.

Nice work!

Love seeing the progress and the parts becoming new again.

The engine work is coming to an end. Today I replaced the oil sensor O ring and Breather plate gasket. Along with the breather hose I hope this will fix whatever is leaking at the back of the motor. This is so easy with the engine out.

I was going to use Wurth flange sealant but chickened out when I saw how easily a mistake could get into the engine oil prior to the filter. It's just not worth the risk ( no pun intended ). All M6 bolts were torqued to 7ft/lbs.

Today was the turn of the fan. As mentioned above a fellow Rennlister (Racoguy) made up a fan puller. It worked brilliantly. The fan bearing is slightly rough. I will fit my new fan but powder coat the old one and the shroud. I will also look at refurbishing the alternator bearings etc.

Good progress. Any chance of the part number of the breather hose?

964 207 327 00

Had to replace mine the other day, they get very crispy at the base! I did the gaskets and thought they were still weeping but it was that hose.

Keep the updates coming btw, great work :)

I suspect that's the case here as well. The hose was rock hard compared to the new pliable one, whereas the gasket and O ring were replaced only 2 years ago and looked OK.

Thanks for the part number as well as all the other part numbers as I will be doing something similar.

Glad to help. I found that info elsewhere so paying it forward.

The valve covers are back from the powder coaters.

I had initial visions of a high gloss red finish, however the powder coater suggested a matt finish given the state of the castings.

The finished work isn't going to suit a show engine, but is fine for what I want. The biggest concern is one of the upper valve covers where bead blasting revealed a bigger hole than expected. I still plan to fit billet covers, but will use JB Weld to rebuild the corroded areas for possible future use.

Meanwhile the gearbox saga is hopefully coming to an end. One of the shims (2.5mm) for the front diff clutch pack was incorrectly supplied, but that wasn't the size I required in the end. Phew. It took a 1.7mm shim, so in future any work will require a bigger shim to compensate for worn discs but that is in the future. As they range from 1.5mm to 2.5mm in 0.2mm increments that means I have 1.9mm, 2.1mm & 2.3mm in my spares box. If you were a gambler, I'd just order the two smallest shims for a new install as logically the discs will be at their largest and require the smaller shims. BTW The parts have varying manufacture dates from 1998 onwards. I'd say there's either little need out there for these parts or there are a lot of worn boxes out there.

Just the rear diff clutch pack to be assembled and that's it with the box. I shudder to add up the cost. The C4 system may be renowned for its durability but there's a $$$ surprise waiting for any pre 1993 box owners needing work on the clutch packs.

The fan shroud is back from the powder coaters. Satin Black.

It's very close to the installation phase of this build, but not until the rear shocks have been refurbished. I have RUF Bilsteins and while they are 90's technology I like them so it's worth making them as new.

Nice!

First paint pics
 

External parts are ready for their top coat and the body is coming along. Maybe another week or so until the reassembly starts :)

She's going to be nice and clean when you're done! :cool:

That's the plan. Plus there will be a lot of new parts in the suspension system, including the same spring plates you fitted.

The last hurdle has been jumped with the gearbox. The mechanic felt the bolts were stretching when reinstalling the diff so he had to wait until new ones arrived for the final push. Ready for install!

Success is a quiet fan
I found the fan scraped unless the mounting flange on the shroud was as original so I scraped the powder coating off that. A new decal helps to lift the look.

Fan and intake installed. New fan, powdercoated shroud and engine carrier (Rennline reinforcement kit), new decal. I decided not to go with powder coated or even polished intake runners.

I need the new CNC Billet valve covers to close it up. I also need to research how all of the engine tin fits. I have a lot of bolts in two different sizes.

Picked up the gearbox today. Unfortunately I can't fit it to the engine as I omitted to order one of the needle bearings in the clutch fork :(

On a side note the mechanic said there was evidence of prior work on the differential. If only our cars could relate their story!

I am very naive on the methods to clean engine parts, cases, etc. how did you exactly get that gearbox so clean?

Yes, I have the same question. What's the best solvent / method to clean the gearbox. Mine is off my car and separated from my engine. But I need to clean it and would love it to look like the one in the photo above.

I degreased it before giving it to the mechanic and it was an average job. Apparently he used generic degreaser, steam and manual scrubbing to get it looking like this.

Ricardo, can you please post pics of your transmission from all angles? The mechanic wasn't sure where one external support went and my photos don't show it.

Epiphany! High Tech drive thru engine tranny wash, like the cash wash... Bring your parts, prep for dry areas, place in various size tubs like airport security check conveyor, get steamed, degreased, sonic wash, bead blasted, soda washed, repeat, pick up the crumbs that are left on other end? Waste disposal permits might be issue?

Here you go:

Thanks Ricardo. This is the piece I can't place. The mechanic couldn't either

New transmission mount fitted. The old one doesn't look that bad but there are cracks in the rubber. Now the mission is to find the correct torque values for the mount to the transmission and mount to transmission holder.

Other peripheral parts I knew were correctly placed on the transmission. Cable ties, second only to duct tape.

Transmission filled with 1 US gallon of Swepco 201. Drain plug and fill plug torqued to 30Nm.

I think its the engine guard bracket. See page 10-11 of part 1 of the manual

Thanks Warwick. I wonder if Dan misplaced that from another job? I'll check tonight.

Hopefully CCS will source my clutch fork bush (needle bearing) today so I can fit the clutch fork and mate the box to the engine.

More action on the rear shocks as well. While they aren't leaking, the shop said that the bump stops have taken a pounding. They will advise on the refurb required when they have fully checked the parts.

John, did you find a torque setting for the M10 long bolt from the mount to the longitudinal? It is the same size as the 3 mount to casing bolts so when i fitted mine i used the same value, 23nm from memory

I can't find any reference for the fasteners holding the mount to the transmission or the large bolt through the mount itself.

FWIW M12 Transmission mount to body is 46Nm (the cross bar mounted to the transmission mount?) and M10 Stabiliser to stabiliser mount (engine carrier?) is also 46Nm.

Very frustrating....

Yes it is. I could find all other settings except the one you (we?) are looking for

Did you use Loctite? It's a shear load so the real issue is the nuts backing off.

No I didn't. There was none under the original nut and from memory it didn't take much to release it in the first place. Might be worth a call to a expert to confirm ? I might need to get under the car again to check

I think Loctite may be overdoing this so I'll torque to 46Nm and put it on my annual list for spanner checks.

does the head have a class marking on it? e.g. 8.8

I will check tonight while I fit the clutch fork and transmission to engine (part arrived) :)

Engine and gearbox are reunited. It took some doing as I had to align the two exactly to get it to slide together. Clutch fork fitted as well. I used the Porsche manual instructions and had no issues

Nice!

First paint pics have come through. IMHO it's outstanding

Wow! Forgive my ignorance, could you clarify the major steps done from bare metal to these pics? How many coats of prime, paint, clear? Color sand at what stage? So, no buffing yet? Congrats!

Sorry, but I don't have much detail. A fellow Rennlister selected this painter for me and I just accept the result. I do know that it's Glasurit, primed not bare metal and that finish is 'gun'. No buffing or colour sanding will be done. The original intention was a light refurb for daily driver use. I've over achieved judging by this result. It will be hard taking it to the track.

Getting the smaller jobs done now while I wait on the body. The breather hose is a notorious leak spot. My mechanic suggested I use gasket cement at the clamping point to make it less likely to leak.

Engine tin and engine Carrier etc are fitted

Looking Aces....love that color...can't wait to see the finished car

First painted parts leave the shop. Body is tomorrow.

Broke open the wallet for a pad keeper

Why? The engine is out. Replace the whole sound pad.

I've done that as well. When the engine was rebuilt two years ago the old one was too far gone and taken out. I told them not to bother replacing it. Now I'm sorting that out :)

Rear RUF Bilsteins refurbished. A fellow Rennlister was surprised at the top cap construction. Thankfully I know they fit so no worries about compatibility. Bump stops replaced, valves done and oil changed.

More paint pics

John,

Clearly not your first rodeo... You seem to have a source for every service and part you need. Seem to know how to turn a wrench too... Been doing all this stuff a while, I presume.

Hey, you mentioned clutch pack replacement, were you referring to clutch pack in torque transfer box where the planetary gear resides? Do you have intentions to ever source a planetary gear to replace your repaired version?

In pic of flywheel sensor, what was fused?

Finding parts and services is an iterative process. When I find someone with a similar approach to cars I ask them who they use and it goes from there.

As for wrenching I have a limited amount of experience. If it wasn't for forums, online parts stores and cheaper tools then I would have no hope. I work at my own (slow) pace and it just seems to work out.

There was a thought of replacing the planetary gear, but the weld is in such good condition after hard driving that I left well enough alone. It's evidently up to the Job. I read somewhere that the weld is stronger than the surrounding metal so I'm good with the status quo.

The crank ref sensor plug is sort of fused in the female socket. When I have the engine back in my garage I will work out what to do. I have a later version sensor in my parts box. It just needs a bit of work to connect to the loom.

The rear bumper bolts etc must be at the mechanics so I can't go much further. New licence plate lights match the near perfect paint.

Oh joy, I just went through the bumper assembly fun few months ago... Going to rivet the top edge center section as originally done?

Yes, I bought a riveter just for this project so it will be used as much as possible.

if you want to fit/remove the plastic bumper after the ally part then just use self tapping screws down from the top through into the ally part. You have to make small access holes in the ally heat shield above.

I found this better for lining everything up and being able to remove the plastic for paint etc.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...cf74a1b2ad.jpg

Also you might want to use rivnuts instead of the spire clips as the paint will not be damaged and then rust back.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...fd8f7c6800.jpg

you can make "female" brackets for the rear wing bumper fixings using a cut down set of new plates from OPc, they are not expensive. then bolts through..


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...55759d9194.jpg

Thanks for the suggestions. I like the idea of lining things up. Not sure how often I will have the bumper off after this, but you never know.

The engine and gearbox refit is the priority now so I made a hard decision. I waited as long as I could but the CNC shop couldn't meet the timeline for the billet covers so I've reinstalled the original valve covers with some flange sealant to help. Powder coating the lower ones is a bit pointless for show on a 964 as it's all hidden by heat shield but it should help with corrosion protection. Four stainless fasteners to be sourced to finish the heat shield fastening. Otherwise this engine and box are ready to reunite with the body.

As a side note. The thing I will definitely do next time is a full engine oil drain before dropping the engine. That pipe on the side of the engine has leaked oil through every bag I have used over the last 4 months.

An interesting evening in the garage. Biggest 'own goal' bar the 'tissue' incident of 2013.

In early 2013, I bought an odd ball lot of 964 stuff for $40. Pressure switch (dud), a hydraulic 'bomb' (fitted early on as the original failed), primary muffler, and a cat.

For some reason, probably because it was in great condition, I asked my mechanic to fit the cat to the car. I assumed all along that the car had one (this was before I started wrenching on the car).

My attempts to gut that cat since the refurb started were very frustrating (it's the worst job you can imagine - don't do it) so I decided to rummage under the house and get out the original one for the weekend start. This is what I saw.

For 2 1/2 years I have run a power sapping Cat while the original Porsche Cat Bypass sat in storage under the house. I should have known better as this is a Singapore car running open loop.

Anyway, hello 10hp and not a cent spent :)

I'm learning to test fit parts to make sure nothing needs to be ordered as it smooths the process e.g. I need 5 new fasteners for the cat bypass etc. I also bought an o2 sensor insert as I need that for the wide band sensor I'll fit to tune the AFR on the Specialist Components ECU.

So far this has been a great read. That paint! WOW.
Can't wait to see the rest of it put back together.

What are your plans for the interior? Doing any refurbishing in there?

Thanks

I already have a Mod 07 wheel and a set of bucket seats. I'll just sort the carpet and leave it there for the moment.

Sneak peek at the new CNC billet covers. I'm going with the bead blast finish. It looks very Germanic. I love them.

The day before the car finally comes back to my garage. Assuming we can get it up the driveway

The car is back in my garage. It's all on now

Happy days :thumbsup:

With the valve covers, I found my leaks were actually coming down along the fasteners and dripping from the nuts, not along the outside of the gasket...

Engine and box go in tomorrow so it's now or never for the engine pad and keeper. Very tidy but I'm not sure whether I'll notice any real difference.

Showing off my new spring plates. I feel for those of you in salted road environments. New Zealand is very kind on cars.

Sorted the crank ref sensor where the plug had fused.

A big day

Good work John
It's a wonderful accomplishment
Good to take yr time on assemble , one can get anxious :)

Thanks Enso, there's still a lot of work to do, but engine in is a major milestone.

A frustrating day, but you expect those with a refurb. The side sills went on easily. All new parts and having done this a few times before helped.

However the front end posed more problems:

1. The left hand headlight screw isn't holding - I may have to fit a captive nut.

2. The brake duct is interfering with the fitting of the indicators

3. The carbon fibre (Fiber) lay up over the Techart splitter needs to smoothed so it fits the curve.

On the positive side, the new rubber and carbon fibre is popping against the new paint.

A Rennlister sent me a PM asking to pass on some hints for an engine/box drop and refit. So I'll post it here.

I believe this job is within the scope of anyone with enough space, the right tools and attitude. That said I'm the first to admit that it is a false sense of economy to do yourself if it's a one off as the cost of ten hours of labour is far less than the cost of the tools needed. For me it was partly bucket list material and the fact I had lots of other work to do on the engine etc.

Safety - our cars weigh > 1,300kg. The engine is ~ 250kg and the transmission is ~ 70kg. You cannot man handle the weights you will work with. The more stable the gear, the better the quality and the wider the performance envelope the better.

My tools of choice are Esco stands and an AC jack. I feel safe working under the car with the stands and the AC Jack can reach deep under the car if needed.

AC jack and Esco stand. Next to the AC Jack is a 'race' jack. It has the same weight capacity but an inferior reach and height. The race jack is useful to lift small loads and to help with the transmission. Please note that I use jack pads where possible as they lift the jack stand clear of the sills etc.

Along with the jacks and stands I made a series of boards. I also bought an ATV lift and made a plywood engine case stand

Take two 2 X 6 boards and place under a front wheel. Put a chock in front of the wheel. Repeat for the other side. This lifts the front of the car by 4 inches. You are doing this to give you room to jack the front of the car up if needed (you don't have to lift the front of the car to drop the engine/box)

Place a small folded newspaper or similar on the AC Jack pad. Place the pad under the engine case join (ridge), about two thirds of the way up. Jack the car up. How high? Well I did this with the bumper removed and needed 37 inches (94cm) clearance from the bottom of the rear indicator frame. You should get this right first time as the moment you disconnect the engine mounts you have few options to lift the car higher. When the car is the right height, place the Esco stands under the rear jack points.

With the car on stands, assuming you have disconnected all of the items (directions in the Porsche workshop manual or Adrian's book) you are ready to drop the engine/box.

I placed the ATV Jack under the engine with the ridge in the routered slot. I made two mistakes here:

1. My ATV Jack had insufficient reach so the car wasn't high enough (I had to raise the body after the engine mounts were disconnected, which isn't easy) and

2. I didn't think to fix the plywood to the jack, which allows the motor to move, not much but you want the motor to stay centered.

Assuming the engine weight is taken by the ATV lift you can slowly lower the engine. Use the AC Jack or race Jack to support the weight of the transmission. Roll the two out the back of the car. A C2 box would be easier than a C4 as there is less to disconnect and the box is shorter and lighter.

As you put the front wheels on the planks you should have enough room to lift the front of the car, if desired, by putting a plank under the front or rear ridge of the tub (not the middle as you would be lifting on a less supported frunk floor) and lift it on to front stands. This is child's play with the AC Jack. If you didn't use the planks there is no way a Jack will get under the tub.

When you are ready to refit the engine and box, you just roll the engine and box in on the ATV lift and lift it into place. If your lift doesn't enough height you will have have some fun. We lifted the front of the car to bring the car closer to the Jack height.

Otherwise the only special tools I had to buy were the 32 and 36mm spanners and a set of hex sockets. I also made a torque tube holder.

Back to the build. New Rennline sill plates, carpet retainer and screws (need to mention the later as they were $)

It looks to be flying together, I'll weld that cat tomorrow so that you can get him running and driving this coming week.

Thanks John. I am chasing down those last two spare pipes. I think they are both normally connected to the air filter housing. The large one looks like the connector to the charcoal canister under the left rear wing. Once those are done, I'll fit the heater fan and SC air filter. Then I'll sort out the heater hoses and starter connections. Moving my way forward. There's a bit of fettling required on the splitters but they look damn good. I also need to source a captive but for the headlight screw. Small things but getting there.

Pipe homes are found:

1. The large one connects the gas/petrol vent to the air intake.

2. The thin one connects to the vacuum reservoir attached to the air intake.

I installed a Specialist Components system which has a simple intake. There is no intake connection to the tank vent and I can't recall the instructions mentioning the vacuum reservoir either.

The impact of the small vacuum line is significant as the reservoir supplies vacuum to the resonance flap that gives our cars a kick above 5,500 rpm. The attached chart has a race engine dyno plot for flap and no flap which shows the impact. Between the cat bypass and this find I'm hoping for > 30 hp before I take it to the dyno :rockon:

This is my (limited) knowledge of the resonance flap.

There are two horizontal plenums in the intake, one above the other.

Below 5,500 rpm the lower plenum is closed by the resonance flap. This gives better low rpm power.

At 5,500 rpm a solenoid trips (the noise 964 owners should hear on initial start-up where the DME cycles the valve), releasing the vacuum held in the reservoir to operate the flap valve.

This allows air to flow in both plenums. I think this is a forerunner to the 993 varioram system where changing the intake length changes the torque/power output. Obviously the 964 is a bit cruder because it's on/off.

My issue is that I have no vacuum reservoir hooked up so the flap doesn't move. I will remove the reservoir from the air intake and mount it securely so it can be hooked up again.

A lot of progress tonight. Anti roll bar in, bottom panels on, cat bypass (with new O2 sensor bung), cup pipe and secondary exhaust on. Rear reflector on. Heater pipes in, finished off by putting the car on its wheels with 20 new shiny lug nuts. Now to let things settle before the final torquing of mounts, arb etc

FYI pics of the jacking points I use

Camera playing tricks on us, jack stand can't be leaning that much in second to last pic?

Wow John, Just wow. Looks absolutely gorgeous!

Yes, a trick of the camera. Those stands are solid and straight.

Yes and even more so in the daylight. The front shocks have settled to the height they were before

The rears not so much. I think they need a drive

Oh man, is that car turning out great!

You should delete that rear wiper. ;)

I can't wait to fit a duck tail on mine.

Thanks, I stop and stare at it for the last 5 minutes of each day's work.

As for the rear wiper, I've done that before. However it has it's uses in what will be my daily driver so it's staying this time.

I'm glad you let me talk you in to going all white down the sides, total winner in my opinion. :thumbsup:

As soon as I get the bumper on we'll have the complete look, but I agree, so far it visually lowers the car and adds an interesting angle on the lower sill without making it too bottom heavy.

That is a beautiful car.

Thanks, the rear bumper and rear indicators go on tonight. That will almost complete the exterior.

The bumper is a lot more difficult than I expected. Lots of parts. I will finish that tomorrow. However I did the rear lights.

I m using a product from Design 911 that allows you to replace the lens plastic only. It looks like the lens manufacturer is selling one of the parts that they use to make the whole indicator. It takes a deep breath but I had no problems

I removed everything from the indicator, then put the body in the oven for 20 minutes at 100C (weakens the glue)

I then used a screwdriver to pry the old lens off.
Following that I glued the new lens on with what is basically super glue. Placing is easy, just use the old glue trail as a guide. The glue I used set in about 30 seconds but I still left it clamped for 30 minutes to be sure.

Lastly I used a neutral cure silicon to fully seal the join.

I'll post the pic with them in the car tomorrow as it's dark now.

Pics at first light. I need bright sunshine to show the quality of the new lenses.

Looks good!

I used a VHT spray tint on my taillights.

Thanks, in the final sorting I will adjust gaps etc for the best possible look.

Another full on night. Stuffed if I will fit another rear bumper by myself.

Well done mate, very happy for you!
Has really come out perfect.

lol - the whole rear bumper affair is quite probably the most poorly designed part of the car. I hate taking it on/off. Pushing screws through the lipped edge of the fender to secure the bumper make me cringe every time. It's just rust waiting to happen!

I hear you, although I'm happy to say at this car has no corrosion whatsoever. The New Zealand climate is very benign on cars. When I exported my Turbo 3.6 to Leicester, the body shop there said they had never seen a 21 year old car with no corrosion anywhere.

As for the fitting, it may be easier if there is a next time as I won't pull it completely apart, but it will still give me night sweats

Morning light. Can't do a full side on as the sun is glaring through the garage window

What duck tail did you end up using?

Rennspeed from the US.

Excellent! Been looking at those for awhile. Think I'll be pulling the trigger on one.

Lucky you being in the US. The freight costs to NZ were large.

Another view

Really looks good! You're car turned out amazing. Nice work!

Thanks. There are 25 more items on my ‘to do’ list. I hope to complete the ‘light’ refurb by Sunday night.

Nothing on the exterior will be left undone or a compromise, however along the way I’ve made a list of small items needing attention, but have left them alone for now e.g. rear ARB drop links because they are not in immediate need of replacement and can be done in an afternoon at some stage. If I didn’t do that then the timeline would expand, as would the budget.

Just to temper expectations, the interior is more of a tart up than a rebuild. A new radio, repaired door cards and a carpet section replacement.

Finally, I have a shout out for Racoguy who suggested ‘we’ replace the door wire bellows. It took him 3.5 hours to fit the two. Akin to a pig through a python. He had to disassemble the connectors, create an Aluminium guide tube to feed them through, then reassemble them. The final look is perfect though as they set off the bright GPW paint. It’s all in the detail…

Btw this is why I entrusted my C4 to Racoguy aka 80 Vert http://www.vask.org.nz/index.php/topic,27167.0.html

It's a long Blog thread. If nothing else, look at the first and last pages.

Fitted the new door sill carpet, retainer and sill plate. The glue smelled quite good. Then onto the door membrane. I need to research how to fix that. More glue?

Finally a pic of the door wire bellows. Racoguy spent 3.5 hours putting those on. Even taking the connectors off it was like pulling a pig through a python!

Taking that last pic of door mechanics, if I want to properly lubricate the top and bottom hinges, and the middle thingy with a pin, what's the right lube that won't eat the paint?

Good question. I haven't put anything there. I use lithium spray on hinges in the house, but would be more tempted here to use the clutch spline grease I have left over, if I hadn't already had them assembled.

I know what you mean about the door wire bellow. I changed the driver's side one as mine had been cut. What a nightmare of a job, did similar to you but used a plastic tube. Took about 2 hours and had sore fingers for a few days!

Stuttgart we have ignition

Gratuitous duck tail images

Small jobs now but they will take time e.g. A headlight screw that won't hold as the thread on the tab is worn out. Plenty of options on the Net but I'm not sure which way I will go.

I wonder if we could try and put a heli coil in that headlight tab, I have a set at work.

Apparently the best option is to drill the hole out to 7mm and fit a rivet nut.

A slow weekend on the refurb as I had places to go and people to meet. To keep things moving I cleaned the carpets and seats (one is modified to have my 6' 4" frame fit with a helmet without touching the headliner), plus fitted a banner for the upcoming Porsche Festival. The interior is not much changed from before. Mod 07 wheel, Cobra seats, techequipment gear knob and handbrake.

Rivet nut and tool sourced however I have to get the 7mm drill to start this.

Specialist Components ECU in place and the vacuum reservoir has been fitted to a simple L bracket bolted to the stub from the removed air filter. That's 20hp back where it should be.

Looking good John, can I ask, what finish are your RSR seats please?

http://www.cobraseats.com/classic-rsr.asp

Vinyl and fabric (Corduroy style). I bought them locally in NZ so had no real choice. They are holding up quite well, but I would have preferred a better quality fabric at least. Being of Scottish heritage I could try Tartan but the clan one is not my first choice for a car interior. I find them comfortable and good for a 4 point harness.

Success. A practice go first, then drill 7mm hole, a small coating of flange sealant, then bend the tab slightly forward and fit the rivnut. It holds very solidly now.

Great work John :thumbsup:

Thanks Rob. Unfortunately I have hit another snag. The alternator shaft is heating up very quickly on start up. I have a new fan with the double bearing so I suspect it's the bearing on the alternator. I'm going to have to think fast on this as there is a Porsche track festival in 3 weeks.

Update: I have ordered the two bearings in case I can't get a shop to rebuild the alternator in time I.e. I will do it myself.

If you can, double check the sizes of the bearings you have against those you've ordered. I ordered new bearings for mine whilst trying to eliminate a low speed whine only to find that one of the replacement bearings had a larger OD than the one it was replacing. (Can't remember if it was the nose or tail bearing)

I ordered the ones from the Pelican thread: AS-6303-2RS and AS-6201-2RS. They have the same dimensions as the writer posted. We will see. I have no time to pull the alternator now and Xmas in NZ makes it impossible to get things done. For a moment I wondered if the two pulleys were bound and the outer one was turning at the wrong speed, but I think I had the orientation right. At least the engine runs sweetly.

Check the orientation of the spacer just inside the rearmost pulley. If put in the wrong direction it can heat things up quickly back there.
The proper direction is not exactly intuitive by the way- it can appear that it's facing the proper direction when in fact it is not. I did this some time ago and ended up toasting a belt while idling in my garage.

Thanks very much, I have been thinking about a set, but the price of the leather or part leather ones is quite a bit more, hmmmm. But I might just go for those as they look great, which runners did you use?

Thanks for the info and making the effort with the thread, really appreciate it!!

Cheers
Nigel.

Thanks, I checked that as a possibility and can see how that could bind the two pulleys together when they are meant to run at different speeds. I think I have that right.

My latest theory is that it's my new fan. I can push the fan on with just fingers, it's not an interference fit on the shaft.

The shaft and fan are driven directly but the bearing on the shaft may be rubbing rather than driven. I will find a suitable thread lock to test that theory.

No problem. I like sharing, particularly if it shares good info like the headlight fix.

The local seller selected the runners. Sorry I don't know what type/brand they are. They look standard though. Nothing special except the mod that gives me the extra height.

I reinstalled the fan, pulleys and shims etc, paying particular attention to anything that could rub. It seemed to work, then I got the dreaded 'ting ting ting' noise. I couldn't see any rubbing so there was only one option, pull it all back out....groan. The fan is closest to the shroud at the rear and that's where I saw some rubbing.

I had a number of options to fix this as I had a spare shroud, the old fan and new fan bearing. The spare shroud rubbed and the old fan bearing was too solidly in to change quickly. After a bit of research I decided to file the edges of the new aluminium fan blades and fit it to the powder coated shroud. I wouldn't do this if it was the original magnesium fan due to corrosion fears. In any case it worked :)

While I was sorting out the fan rub some new deliveries came: a heater bypass (supplied by Rose Passion) and new fan bearings (ordered from an Australian online seller) The latter were ridiculously inexpensive, but supposedly German quality. If an alternator refurb is basically replacing these, machining the slip rings and fitting new bushes I'm starting to see why it's relatively inexpensive, if you live in a country where a core replacement is viable (not in NZ). At some stage I'll refurb my alternator.

I fitted the heater bypass. Unfortunately it and the new fan shroud rubber don't want to play together. I need to work out a way to seal that as otherwise my cabin ventilation will suck in hot engine gases. I also need to research the mods required to get my '90 model front fans to work properly without having to set the temp to the cold or hot settings. Still it looks good, which is the point. I told my wife it was to compensate for the added kilos of new paint. She wasn't taken in, but it was worth a try.

With the fan sorted, it was time to fill the power steering pump reservoir and reverse out of the garage onto the car pad. I needed to be careful as once I do that I can only get back in the garage under its own power or with a flat bed tow truck (driveway is steep). It went out with no drama and I let it idle.

With both the oem cat bypass and after market primary bypass it's a bit on the noisy side, but I'll cope :)

I drove the car around the block in four short drives, checking for leaks in between runs. There was smoke pouring into the cabin as the various cleaning fluids gassed off but no leaks and by the fourth run it had settled down.

The only issue was stalling as I came up to intersections. I'll check my ECU mods to see if they are still there for the idle gain. Finally I parked the car and started to compile a list of the things to sort out. It's very satisfying to know it runs as the other items are small jobs.

In between fixing the fan and taking the drives I helped a fellow Rennlister take photos of his car. It's a '70 T with a 3.2 motor. The power/weight ratio it has will make it hard to keep up, but aside from the performance envy I'll admit to having unsavoury thoughts about that interior, especially the seats. It's all his design. Not sure where he gets his inspiration. It's the same guy that made the valve covers for my car. 911s were simple then.

You can ignore this. Just storing my ECU idle settings from an old post so I can refer to them later today when I check the ECU.

The ECU settings haven't changed, but I noticed that the throttle position was 99.45% on the parameters. When I checked the idle microswitch it was open. Closing it put the throttle position at 0%. So the problem with idle is the microswitch adjustment not the ECU. I also confirmed that WOT is not engaging. I will adjust the cables to give me WOT and then reset the idle microswitch.

As an interesting note I found out that the ECU has been logging engine operation so I know how long it's been operating and the rev ranges over that period, including the over revs. Just like a modern OE ECU.

John, your mates 70t looks great! Especially love the seats. I'd be worried about getting those carpets dirty rhough!

Wow, this is a great thread!!!! Thanks for sharing!

No problem. There are lots of views but few questions/feedback so good to know it is worth reading to some.

While I was looking through the ECU parameters I saw this page. It shows a switched setting at 5,700 rpm and an off at 5,500 rpm. That will be the resonance flap switch, which based on this graph (motec but still relevant) appears perfect

This is one of my favourite threads John! I just don't post anything because I don't want to interrupt the flow of the thread! but honestly, thanks for all the effort, posting updates, adding detailed photos, brilliant :)

I do have one question, how did you order the Tom Amon nose bearing sleeve? is there a contact email address? need to fit one on mine, also exactly which adhesive/sealant did you use please?

Thanks again, Nigel.

Nigel, cheers for the encouragement.

Here is Tom's page http://www.mobileworkswest.com

There is only one way to order, by phone, which was a lot of fun from New Zealand, but it got here despite having to decipher the accents to get the address right.

I used the JB Weld Tom supplied. It seems to work ok so far.

Throttle situation sorted. There are three movable adjustments in the mechanism and I had moved two so I followed my base rule to check where I have been and I saw two problems.

1. I had to undo the two bolts at the far right of the assembly to get the new carpet section in. I hadn't tightened it up squarely and the front edge was binding on the throttle action.

2. I had too much slack in the adjustment just before the throttle enters the tube.

When I rectified those two I had clear activation of the idle and wot microswitches. I didn't attempt to adjust the screw behind the pedal (second image) as that wasn't touched during the rebuild.

I also checked that I have full throttle movement. I checked this at the four stages: no boards, board in, carpet cover in and everything in. That's just to be sure nothing was interfering with the range.

Sorted :)

Amazing this throttle action is so reliable given the number of joints. Throttle by wire would be so much easier

Now we are getting to the final list of fixes. I wasn't altogether happy with the rear indicators. More specifically the lower edges looked rough. In fact it was the dirty surface behind the indicator showing through the clear part.

I used a bit of wax and grease remover, then a thin layer of touch up paint on the edge. It works but in hindsight I should have asked for that area to be painted.

A longer drive today, refill the gas tank, put another litre of oil in and generally check for leaks etc. The cat and primary bypass mean it's a noisy ride, just like I wanted it to be. Time will tell if I can live with that as a DD. I suspect not.

...

So this is what the 'light' refurb looks like now
Replace front control arm bushes
Replace rear spring plates
Replace transmission mount
Fit transmission mount stiffening insert
Replace all spark plugs
Replace oil
Replace power steering fluid
Replace transmission oil
Replace distributor caps and rotors
Replace alternator fan
Place Tom Amon sleeve on nose bearing
Replace rear reflector
Replace lenses on rear indicators
Replace side indicator plastics
Replace rear licence light fittings
Repair cracks in rear bumper, shark fin, and side sill plastics
Replace all 4 rear CV boots and regrease CV joints
Replace two hard clutch lines
Replace flywheel and pressure plate bolts
Fit new bushes and seal to clutch fork
Replace all body seals except window seals
Replace felt window scrapers
Replace all black door and window trim
Replace front portion of carpet
Repair cracks in door pocket screw areas
Replace inner door handles
Replace door sill covers and carpet trim holders
Replace Porsche bonnet emblem
Adjust valve clearance
Replace fuel filter
Re-anodise Gemballa aluminium pedals
Refurb rear shocks
Replace both gearbox diff clutch packs
Replace synchros in 2nd, 3rd and 4th gears
Replace third gear set
Replace 3rd/4th gear guide sleeve
Replace dog gear on 4th gear set
Fit reinforcement kits to both door checks
Repair damage from hyper extended driver door
Repair bumps from bonnet closing on over filled frunk
Replace crank ref sensor
Refurb all four valve covers
Fit cat bypass
Powder coat engine tin and fan shroud
Replace fan
Replace oil breather pipe
Replace breather plate gasket
Replace oil sender o ring
Fit vacuum reservoir for resonance flap
Layup carbon fibre over front splitter
New front frunk struts
Replace rear decals
Replace engine decals
Replace hot air hoses in engine.
Fit Kevlar heater bypass pipe
Fit rivnut to headlight bowl
Replace pulley bolt
Respray car in L908 Grand Prix White

Looking stellar! Driving vids please! :thumbup:

We have a two weekend Porsche oriented festival of speed in a couple of weeks. I will take plenty of footage then.

I'm now cleaning up my garage and thought I'd share pics of the wear on the gearbox and pass on some tips I've learned.

First up, the gearbox wear you will notice the most, graunching gears.

There were three points of wear on my gear box causing graunching:

1. Worn synchros (in particular the inside surface that slips onto the cone on the dog gear)

2. Worn cones on the dog gear (the part the synchro grips)

3. Worn teeth on the guide sleeve.

If I wanted to fix the box on the cheap I could probably just replace the synchros and reverse the guide sleeve (it's symmetrical), but that's a half baked solution as the dog gear cone is likely worn so it wouldn't last as long.

The next cheapest option would be to do the above and replace the dog gear (it is attached to the gear, but they can now replace those separately, otherwise you replace the whole gear for $$$)

The most expensive option is to replace the synchros, dog gears and guide sleeve. I did that. You wouldn't know what I'd done unless you had the invoice. Not all gear box rebuilds are equal.

New synchro. Notice how even the inside surface is? That is what slips and grips onto the dog gear and slows it down. When worn it doesn't slow the gear down well enough.

A worn synchro surface

The synchro slips/grips onto the dog gear which is attached to the actual gear that takes the power. The surface on the dog gear wears. The synchro is made of softer material than the dog gear. If you got in early enough you might be able to save the dog gear. That's why shifting around the wear is actually still damaging the gears.

As you can see in the images the gears that transmit the power are in beautiful condition, which is why it's a waste to buy a whole gear set to get a new dog gear. The dog gears can now be replaced on their own. A great solution, which is what I did with 4th gear.

This video shows how the slider, synchro and dog gear work together. As the slider is symmetrical and usually only worn on one side apparently a cheap fix is to switch it around. I replaced the whole item. They are on back order from Germany right now I.e. Unavailable. I got a used spare from Cog Cogs but fitted a new one ex Scargo.

On a C4 there are two sets of clutch plates. This image shows the plates controlling front/rear grip. Mine were worn but not damaged. However replaced anyway. As the Gylon discs are no longer stocked you need to put a new system with Valeo discs in = $$$.

The other clutch plates control rear left/right slip. Mine were very worn, damaged in some areas. This is probably because I track my car. Again, replacement with Valeo discs is the only option.

The car went in for its road worthiness certificate today. Surprisingly they picked up that one of the headlight lenses has an incorrect beam pattern. It looks like I've had one for the left hand market, for the last three years, which is no good for a fully right hand drive market. The rest looks ok.

On another note, luckily, the transmission mount insert arrived in time to be fitted. I let the shop do this while it was up on the hoist. A look while it was up there revealed a small oil seepage on the case seam. Given the rest of the engine is clean I know this is a leak there as opposed to oil from elsewhere. The mechanic said Porsche use a special wicking loctite for this. I may try that later. It's not serious enough to worry about.

great pics of the gearbox internals - how did your ring and pinion look wear-wise John?

Apparently they were fine.

The mechanic said someone had been in there before which I found interesting and the diff bolts wouldn't torque correctly. New bolts weren't cheap either :(

On a positive note the gearshift is so sweet. Like the cliche 'rifle bolt'

One of the last items to fit, a new car stereo. The Sony was good enough for the job, and you can blank out some of the display bling, but overall the Keinzle is just a better aesthetic fit.

Luckily the wire coding appears to be generic these days so fitting it was a matter of connecting wires I'd already identified when I installed the Sony. I chose to solder rather than crimp this time as it's less prone to poor connections, plus it doesn't bulk up the loom.

you can paint the knob to hide it a little better if you like...
The knob pulls off and the ring unclips


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...226a783e77.jpg


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...82ffcc0eef.jpg

Thanks for the tip. I've moved on to finishing off the drain clean on my Cayenne so I'll have a better look when I've finished that crappy job.

John, in your stereo installation photos (1st and 3rd) do you know the purpose of the black plastic holder with holes under the dash?
As mine is empty but can be opened and closed.

I wondered that as well. Maybe it holds the wiring? I tried that but it wouldn't work.

it is just to diffuse the air coming from that vent, if it isnt fitted the air comes out concentrated in one place.

That radio does look nice. It appears to belong there.

great stuff!

Can you say something about the smoothness of shifts/shifting-qualitiy compared to the feeling before the gearbox overhaul?

Difficult to say really as I had already changed the engine mounts and plastic cups in the linkage prior to the rebuild.

Aside from the graunching in the 2/3 shift it felt smooth before the rebuild.

Right now it feels like a rifle bolt. A smooth precise mechanical action from 1st to 5th. Tomorrow I will take it to the track and see how it shifts when under pressure and hot.

And the track day shakedown provided more drama than expected....

I had driven a total of 100km on the rebuilt box and all seemed OK, but the track tested a different type of driving and it didn't turn out well.

Redline in first, OK. Redline in 2nd, OK. Rev to 5,000 rpm in 3rd and the gear pops into neutral. What the... Short shift from 3rd to 4th and Ok. Same with 5th. Also a slight snick from 2nd to 3rd.

Something is not right. The box builder acknowledged that there was a problem after testing it for a few laps, said It's ok to shift around it for the day, but it needs to be redone A few laps later and there's a clunk. The box is stuck in third. The only way to get it moving is forward in third with the clutch giving a means of stopping.

The car is being trailered to the box rebuilders shop to have it all pulled out again. Grim faces, but kept professional as it should be. No point getting worked up when there's no control or information. Albeit I'm on tenterhooks to know what's wrong and hoping this is just sorted.

As I understand it there is nothing adjustable in the gear set portion of the G64 box. It either fits together or it doesn't. A fellow Rennlister had a similar issue with a box rebuild where a washer/shim was incorrectly located on the box, it affected the 1/2 shift because the gears were misaligned. Ultimately the synchro ring came adrift and his box was stuck in that gear. It sounds similar to my issue, but I'm just guessing right now. He also said that the Porsche manual may incorrectly note the parts placement. Again, just guessing. Fingers crossed.

A consolation. The box rebuilder lent me a fully caged road legal C2 for the local Porsche Festival weekend.

That meant I could participate in regularity trials (only event for non race cars) and the track record attempt (402 Porsches on the track at one time)

Fantastic photo !!

Can you see this ?

And if you can't see that, here are some more 356s there on the day

Wow - who would have thought there were so many Porsches in NZ :)

Proportionally, probably up there with anywhere in the World and corrosion free. Cup car anyone?

The gearbox issue has been isolated, a broken 3/4 selector rod. How this occurred is beyond me. Metal fatigue?

The bottom dropped into the diff housing and rod popped out of detent that's why it was stuck in 3rd

Oh many sorry for the box problems. That cup car is what I'm going for with mine :-)

Thanks.

BTW: The Red Cup Car #27 was very competitive on the day. Great to see these cars doing what they were designed to do.

Latest update.

The selector rod was replaced with a used one and the box reassembled. It failed the test drive and was dismantled again. Apparently the rod breakage ruined the 3/4 gear guide sleeve and a syncro.

Luckily I had spares so the box could be reassembled albeit the replacement guide sleeve was a good used one ex 993 (from Cogs Cogs) not the brand new one that was ruined. The mechanic now thinks the box is sorted.

Other items revealed in what has become the shakedown were a leaking power steering hose, a leaking slave actuator, a cv clip that came undone and a bad coil.

The latter was interesting as it means that the car has been running on one set of plugs which affects power and may be a reason why the car has been running a black exhaust for the last year. I have asked the mechanic to run the car with an Innovate AFR logger as I have an aftermarket ECU.

It is now close to 7 months since I started this light refurb and it has tested my patience lately, plus my wallet. Right now I just want to drive it and regain the love of piloting an air cooled classic.

The car was picked up from the mechanic with an uneventful 140km drive home. I then took it for small local drives and a shortish B road run with other air cooled owners

While the car is running strongly there are two things annoying me.

1. The warm start takes an embarrassing number of engine turns and

2. The exhaust is still black and sooty.

The mechanic tested the afr and it seemed fine with mid 13s at idle and high 12s at 5,000 rpm. However I'm not convinced it is sorted, even though the engine power seems fat.

Searching through the net for hot start issues I happened to see a FB post about the fuel pressure regulator. Two symptoms of a bad one are:

1. Sooty exhaust due to over fueling and

2. Hard warm start.

The fuel pressure regulator is designed to supply a desired pressure to the injectors. It does this with input from an intake fed vacuum line that adjusts a diaphragm in the regulator. If the diaphragm splits then the regulator won't work properly and fuel will be sucked back into the intake, enriching the mixture. This leads to a sooty exhaust and higher than normal fuel consumption.

The diaphragm split also allows fuel pressure to bleed out of the system when stopped for a while meaning a harder start as pressure needs to be built up.

There is also a possibility that the fuel accumulator is bad causing the same pressure issue but Im only going to do that if replacing the regulator doesn't fix this problem.

I wish I had known about testing this before I put the engine back in as its a big job to do with the engine in place.

One way to test for a split diaphragm is to disconnect the vacuum line from the intake, run the engine and see if gas/petrol leaks out. I'm not keen to risk fuel running on my engine and the regulator may only leak at higher revs which is difficult to diagnose with just myself in the garage.

If you do want to test yours this way the intake position differs based on the model.

In the metal intake version the off take is under the throttle cable mechanism (just visible in my photo)

In the plastic version it is far more accessible as shown by the red arrow.

In your pic of plastic intake version, the vacuum line is laying just above the w/b check valve , correct? So, if running for short time while detached, if any visible fuel coming from end of vacuum line, PR is faulty?

I've had warm start issue for some time as well... I've tapped the pedal once, turned it over a bit longer and it starts? IMHO, this is a frequent Owner complaint and wonder how many accept as normal? I have a vacuum gauge l've been wanting to hook inline to the system and take measurements at different Idle, 1k, 2k, etc... Anybody know what to expect as normal vs abnormal?

Rooting for you to solve the infamous "warm start issue" :) Sadly, it even has it's own name.

BTW, great pic. Do you live in the countryside? What are the objects on the hillside, is it a cemetery?

Yes FPR is definitely faulty if gas comes out of the vacuum line. My car has metal intakes so the plastic pic is from someone else. I hope it's accurate. I'm determined to fix this problem and will report back.

I don't live in the Country but have easy access. This particular image was taken at a church we visited that I had wanted to see because an ancestor designed and built it in 1863.

You can unhook the vacuum line at the bottom (FPR side) without removing anything, provided someone with small hands does it.

May have said this before... A few threads with this issue lately.

I chipped my windscreen on a B road run so the car went in for a new screen $$$$$.

While it was in there I asked the shop to check the fuel pressure. It turned out to be absolutely solid, cold, warm and hot. This means that the injectors have fuel pressure on start up no matter what the temp. The shop thinks it could be my aftermarket ECU. As a test I am going to change back to the OE ECU and see what happens.

BTW: I found that a hot start was not a problem if the key was advanced to ignition on for a few seconds before starting. Not sure why it would do that.

^ on that subject...

One trait I notice of this ECU is that the engine will not fire UNTIL the initial pump prime has completed. This is not due to lack of fuel pressure, but appears to be more about how it works. This means once you turn the ignition on, you have to wait a few secs before turning the engine. As our cars have a pressure non-return valve at the pump outlet, this priming is of less importance. The pump priming duration is tweakable in the config. I turned mine right down to about 1 second. This is fine to do. Put it this way - the motronic doesn't prime the system. It only energises the pump once it sees the engine turning/cranking.

Thanks Rob, I will adjust this. As you know the 964 requires a non start to go back to the fully off position before going through the start sequence again.

If the car stalls at say an intersection (happens rarely but the car still isn't perfect), then there's a mad rush to turn the ignition off and attempt to restart. It's frustrating and embarrassing to be cranking for seconds until it catches.

It's great if this is as simple as reducing a variable on the ECU, but as I've said before I think this kit is either under-documented or just not intended for the average DIY mechanic. It was touted as plug and play but it hasn't turned out that way.

No map supplied with an ECU will cover all bases for everybody. They ALL require tinkering to get them how you like it. The level of investment and dyno time the original Motronic would have received is incomparable.

The WB sensor is wired in. It's too late to start it up now so will do that tomorrow. Quite excited to see a live AFR and finally start to understand what level the overfuelling is at right now.

Lambda turned out to be near perfect as is. A local mechanic suggested I run a tank of race fuel and see if it cleaned up the exhaust. It sure did! Based on the readings and reaction to different fuels I am leaving the map as is, but adjusting the fuel pump prime time lower (it delays the ECU allowing it to start) to aid with warm starts.

With the test run done I have moved on to the alternator. It sounded a bit rumbly and it was the last weak link in my refurb. It may well have lasted a few more years but I want a longer base line so I farmed it out to a local enthusiast.

The brushes will be replaced (didn't know you could do this without replacing the rectifier as well so thats a win). The two bearings are being changed and the slip ring smoothed.

The large bearing was on the way out apparently so this is cheap insurance when you have an expensive new fan at risk.

Good news about your map John :thumbup: I didn't think it could be far off considering you're running a stock engine.

Yes, it is good news. I watched the Lambda live and it showed nothing out of the ordinary. Running around town I was getting 0.95 to 1.0. It dropped when I pushed it but that's exactly what I wanted. In hindsight maybe taking out the cat wasn't the brightest move but that's 20/20 hindsight.

Alternator recondition is finished. Two new bearings, slip rings smoothed back to round (it will need new rings next time) and a new rectifier/brush set.

Alternator refitted. A short test drive to pick up 4 litres of Mobil 1 Racing oil and all seems good. I washed the car and put it under a cover. The next drive will be an 1,800km road trip completed over two weekends. A solely air cooled affair. A '70T, 1990 C2, 1990 C4 and 1991 T3.3 :)

And as one refurb closes another one opens! I have purchased a second 1990 964 C4. This one has a large mileage (for New Zealand) of 237,000 km (147,000 miles). It doesn't smoke or have a graunching gearbox however there is evidence of a past water leak in the cabin and deferred maintenance e.g. Crazed indicators, split CV boots, perished ARB bushes and strut bump stops etc.

I will do a full interior change to Black (currently Linen), a full service, check the planetary gear etc. Purchase cost was USD 34,000/GBP 23,600/ AUD 46,700.

As the mileage is highish I don't have a large budget for refurbishment given New Zealand 964 prices. The goal is to get it to enthusiast condition then pass it on to an enthusiast. Even If that takes a couple of years I will be happy. No rush as the joy is in tinkering not in buying and selling.

John, I just spent the morning reading your thread. As many others have said, I really enjoyed it! Your car is stunning, but your/its story are even better. Thanks for sharing and documenting. Also, welcome to the silver club. I like your white, but the curves are beautiful in silver. Look forward to following your "mini" "light refurb" on the new 964. All the best from Texas. ~Will

Thanks Will. Some parts of the build were so manic I would have to revisit the thread myself to see what I did. It sure was thorough.

I take possession of the Silver car next Saturday. A mixture of excitement and trepidation. Have I jumped in where others fear to tread? Will I really want to sell when it's finished? What rational reason is there for having 2 C4s? All but the last question will be answered soon. Watch this space.

Definitely watching!

My new to me C4 has arrived. A new interior is first thing on the to do list

Mulling over interior options. I'm starting to think a Linen/Black interior might work.

Black carpet works!

Thanks for the vote Tiaan.

My Turbo 3.6 was Polar Silver with a Black full leather interior with Sports Seats. The pinnacle of 964 interiors for me.

It would be an expensive exercise to try and recreate that here. A full carpet change to Black and rejuvenated Linen seats is a good compromise. Otherwise I'm up for dyeing leather and leatherette, which may not look OEM quality even if it's good from a few meters.

First drive today. Woohooo. You can never have enough 964s!

I spent the weekend getting to know the car. First up was checking what history there was. It looks like it's been relatively reliable and well maintained.
140,000km Cat Bypass, Cup Pipe, performance chip, lowering springs.
183,438km New Clutch, RMS, Gearbox Input/Output Seals, Power Steering Belt.
192,000km 20k service.
227,000km A-arm bushes, alignment and 20k service
235,000km Indicator switch and new windscreen.

As the current indicated mileage is 238,000km I have no logical reason to drop the engine and box except to check the planetary gear :(

Faults discovered so far:
Battery won't hold charge
Water in right hand footwell and rear foot space
Odometer not working
Spoiler split at top
Spoiler alarm erratically coming on
Front badge bent (attempted theft?)
Door seals worn
Drivers window slow to move
Rear indicators all crazed
Drivers seat bolster in tatters
Rear seat pad deformed
Rear decal missing part of 'C'
Bump stops almost non existent.
Rear wiper arm broken.
Momo steering wheel too small and off skew
Engine mount leaking

The positives:
Smile straight
No obvious body damage or rust
Fan in good shape.
Minimal oil leaks
Drives very nicely, strong power, steady idle and gearshift is smooth
New windscreen
Gauges all clear and no cracks.

I bought a new battery. It's a traditional lead acid. However I plan to buy a LiFePO4 battery for the other car. 15kgs saving is too good to ignore :)

Next up I borrowed an original steering wheel to replace the Momo. Now I can see the speedo and it's more suited to the normal road driving I intend to do with this car. If I was tracking it I would go with a Mod 07

This looks like a great restoration project looking forward to seeing it come together ,,,,,Enjoy :cheers:

Thanks. I'm going to keep this car at a general driving level, not a track rat build so that makes things easier. Plus I'm reusing parts I took off the White car, where they are better.

Tatty drivers seat temporarily replaced by a spare from the White car.

Black dashboard in great condition will match the interior condition post carpet change and seat refurb.

Old badge from the White car will replace the bent one. Period correct as both are 1990 cars ;)

POR3513 lowering springs and Unknown shocks (can't see any markings). Does any one know what they are?

Looking for an original steering wheel. I have a 930s wheel and boss if you're interested. Like the RUF ones.

Tiaan, our cars must have had the same owner type as it also had an Aitiwe 930S wheel when I bought it. Too large and soft for the track. I really like the OEM wheel so I'm going to look for one locally. I'll see if there is more than one in NZ if you like. I'm back in Sydney in July.

Left hand rear indicator sourced. That's all the rear lights sorted. Not perfect but usable.

Thanks! Drop me a line either way.

Apparently these shocks are likely the original Boge units. 25 years and 238,000km means they are likely to need replacing. I think I'll go with Bilstein B6.

The odometer went off to be fixed today. Then I cleaned up my garage to try and find the rear decal I took off the white car. Success. The lesson of the day is never throw anything out.

Shocks have been sourced. Spare rears off a local Rennlister and fronts from a local vendor. On the latter's advice I won't buy new springs.

Lol. I think this is why I ant my own detached garage. So the wife doesn't whine about not throwing things out! 😂

How quickly could springs really wear out?! People only change them to change ride height.

I'm not sure. I thought springs and shocks had to be matched. He said for the road it's more about the shocks.

Certainly they should be matched. I was saying they wouldn't really wear out that quick. Not like shocks.

Heaven help us if the Australian import rules change because without the competition we are pigs in mud. Clay bar and sealant. Replace a very worn clutch pedal and admire what must be very recently refurbed gauges

Kinda...

https://practicalmotoring.com.au/car...but-more-risk/

So you can't compete until 2018 :)

Odometer fixed and back in the car. It wasn't the usual stripped gear problem. They said it was gummed up so they just cleaned and lubricated it.

Still trying to identify the exact year of the car so I get the correct rear B6 shocks. The car is a later 1990 VIN but was delivered in August 1991. The pink dust is disintegrating bump stops.

Can you tell from the rear strut top bolts?

This is old style

This is new style

Drove the car to work. The clay bar and sealant have worked well.

The interior decisons are made. New Black Sliverknit carpet, Black leather seats front and rear. Some new skills to learn.

In New Zealand we have more personalised number plate options than many others however a company has the monopoly on anything but standard plate issue (content and plate format). The Company charges $400 for a wider Euro plate style that fits our bumpers and It's illegal to use offshore manufactured plates with NZ numbers.

Lo and behold my car has illegal plates as the previous owner bought cheaper manufactured plates from Germany so I have to change them or risk being pulled over by the Police.

I get a bit sick of paying but I'm a sucker and picked up 964 CS for this car, which is being manufactured in Euro format. Most other 964 combinations were long taken. This one has previously been on a car trailer!

Meanwhile I finally have a chance to test out the White car on a road trip. New Zealand is the size of Great Britain but only has 4.5 million people and some great B roads. We're doing 1,800km over two weekends. 3 x 964 and one SC.

The first thing I have found is that working aircon is a priority to clear the windscreen in wet driving!

Btw the car pic in water is at the most easterly point in the World. Well almost. There's an island well off the NZ mainland but i can guarantee this was the most easterly Porsche in the World for a short time.

Pics. I really wish Rennlist would sort out these apps.

Can't wait to get back to NZ!

First leg of the road trip over. Cars cleaned and ready for the second leg next weekend

Another couple of pics from the weekend. There were four of us, all manual. SC, C2, C4 and 3.3 Turbo. Over 900km the driving strengths and weaknesses showed through. The turbo walked away when the road opened up but was not as agile in corners and the driver was relatively reluctant to gas it in wet corners, as were the C2 and SC. None of us had working aircon and that sucked. Major fogging issues on the heavy rain portion of the trip. That will be the next fix.

First lot of spares arrive tomorrow. Some seals, pads, service kits. Nothing exciting but necessary.

In the meantime I've been mulling over making a new driver sound pad. This is the piece that goes under the drivers carpet and gets wet when you have a leak from the bulkhead. The landed price in NZ is expensive enough that I'm looking at home manufacture. 3mm rubber sheet, 1cm polystyrene and some special expanding foam. How difficult can it be?

That's in much better condition than mine. I haven't seen a definitive solution for replacing the originals yet. I've considered cup boards and non absorbent sound insulation such as Synamat, mines a Targa though and thus more prone to water ingress so I need a removable solution that allows me to dry the footwells properly.

The rear shocks have arrived. Now I have to work out what length of bump stop I need. I have reskinned an indicator and discovered that my rear seat base was full of water. I will have to replace padding and carpet, plus work out where the leak is. Finally I got rid of the illegal plate and have a temporary one until 964 CS is made

My footwells kept getting wet,too. Drove me nuts trying to find it. I used colored water to track it down. Finally found it was coming in under windshield washer seals that had been left off after a paint job. Good luck finding yours.
I asked my mechanic to find it and he said we both lose. He feels bad charging his rates to find it and nobody wants to pay that much to find a little water leak!

Nice to have a dry car though!

Sunroof drains / tubes.

That's a front runner. When I have stripped the interior I will stick paper towels to the panels and give it a serious dousing to see where it's coming from (the previous owner may have fixed leaks but not dealt with the trapped water). I think I will use Dynamat and Dynaliner, except for the floor pads which I will remake.

progress continues - great thread

just my 2c - dynamat doesn't do much for what it costs ... its the open cell foam that does the (noise reduction, internal calm) work ... also the common hardware store roof flashing which is aluminium with bitumen base is exactly the same as dynamat at 10% of the cost.

this type of thing John

@HiWind: I agree with you. I had used the same product from Home Depot and just couldn't imagine how Dynamat would be better. It is just bitumen/tar base... I was thinking of doing the tar roofing product with the foam on top instead of spending $$$ on the original sound deadening. Then track mats from Rennline on top.

Having said that, DynaPad (not any other product) seems to be the better solution for undercarpet insulation.

Thanks I'll check out the options. I have another month until I get the carpet.

Meanwhile the road trip has finished. 2,002km with two other 964s and a SC. None of the cars had any major issues except I lost the screw out of an indicator.

Back to the project car.

I expect the carpet will take another 3 weeks to arrive so I have time to find those leaks. First I needed to see what is wet. The answer is both footwells and both rear seat bases.

Today I started to remove the rear carpet and foam. Box cutter, WD40 and plastic razors were the tools of choice. It's coming off better than I thought. The diagnosis is full replacement. I will use Dynaliner to replace the foam after I've found out where the leaks are.

I have also had a touch up bottle and spray can made up in my paint code.

Pics

Your trip reminds me of our Tassie trip last year. Perfection.

NZ must be one of the best driving countries in the world...

It's certainly up there Tiaan. When the sign says 27km of winding roads ahead the smile broadens ;)

Side panels out and time for leak detection. I taped paper towels to the likely points and had it sorted in 5 mins. The sunroof drain holes are blocked

I removed the rear shelf sound pad as it was slightly wet. Lucky I did as I discovered both sunroof drain pipes were disconnected from the drain grommet. Basically the water drains into the rear shelf, not outside. I have no idea how that happened. Maybe someone tried to clear a blockage with a wire from the engine bay and dislodged it?

We just went through the the same thing. Luckily the headliner was coming out, so that made it easy to resolve. A little silicone on the tubes and they won't be coming off again. You can get to the tubes in front by taking out the sunroof and rails, and very carefully in wrapping the headliner from around the inside of the sunroof hole. Then re-glue with contact adhesive. For the rear you go in blind through the zipper.

Back to the White C4.

Three years ago the car had an engine rebuild. While they worked on the engine they left the car out in the elements, including a fair few rainy days. These cars are pretty robust so it didn't have any long lasting impacts however I felt the speakers were a remaining weak point with moisture damage in the speaker paper and corrosion in the terminals.

Long story short I bought some Rockford Fosgate 6.5" speakers with component tweeters. I bought that size because the Clarions fitted were that size.

The goal was to fix the speakers directly to the metal door inner to do that I removed the cardboard spacer and made a (rough) rubber gasket. I also used some Dynamat in the door. Really just for fun because I bought some for the project car.

I'm happy with the final result.

The two cars parked on the street while I clean up the garage, then a later solo pic of the White C4 with its track wheels on. We have a track day next Saturday. The tyres are my all time favourites, Hankook Z221. DOT Legal and so consistent. However rain is forecast so I may yet go back to my roadies.

Infinity Reference speakers and tweeters on the Project car.....attached by the door card :( I will refit them to the door inner metal skin and put some Dynamat in the doors.

No turning back now. Next is full glue removal in anticipation of installing Dynamat, Dynaliner and the new carpet. I'll also get a new gear stick gaiter.

I couldn't find a reasonably priced gaiter with shipping included. Instead I am trying the First Function solution. As I understand it I cut the top off the OEM gaiter and use it with the new shaft. As per the conservative brief it's all Black

I got my gaiter from here https://redlinegoods.com/9119598shiftboot.php

20 minutes too late :( still I have bookmarked the site if I need it again. Thanks.

Car stereo has arrived ex Germany.

shifter and gator look cool ... radio looks fantastic

just re the glue - I wouldn't go manic on removal if you're covering with the dynamat/bitumen tape as there is no reason to remove it - just get the chunks&bumps off and then cover the glue up with the mat

.. fond memories here

Thanks. You had yours looking like the shuttle.

I was actually wondering about the time/reward ratio with the glue.

I could be there for a long time and if it's so hard to remove then it won't be a weak layer in the mat adhering to the metal.

Like you I will take some dB readings. I hope the iPhone app is accurate. It sure is noisy right now. I swear the starter motor is in the cabin.

yes as I said somewhere there, an OPEN cell foam and vinyl layer is much mroe effective than the closed cell foam ... the other idea I had was to spray this stuff in and then sculpt it down ...

nothing as crazy as this guy below, but just to fill, smooth and dampen the rear seat area for the carpets as well as adding a sound cushion .... decided it would actually absorb enough so bailed

That's extreme.

A new package arrived on Friday. Brake pads, sensors, anti vibration mushrooms, engine mounts, internal door handles, screws for the door cards, centre console tubs and carpet for the door cards.

A few stuff ups. Firstly I ordered the engine mounts without understanding that they come as a pair and need separate orders for washers and bolts. So I have enough for two cars and have to order the fixings. Secondly, the seller doubled up on the console tubs. I ordered two and got four. Maybe it's a sign I have more 964s in my future!

A new (to me) rear wiper arm arrived on Friday. It's off a 993 and been well repaired. It cost 25% of the new one, landed in NZ. I'm very happy :)

I will have a look at repairing the broken one some day.

No time to do anything with the new parts as I had a Track day to attend. A good air cooled turnout. Only one session was dry, perfect C4 weather. A 750km trip and the car is still faultless :)

Work continues on the Project car. I bought new Black Sliver knit carpet sections for the door panels as you can't dye nylon and the interior is going All Black (pun intended on NZ's mighty Rugby Team).

Taking off the old carpet was like skinning a Possum (Australian marsupial that is plague proportions in NZ). Putting the new carpet on might be as difficult as putting the skin back on the Possum. I'll leave that until tomorrow

Great stuff John. I took a few days to read all your posts. Wish I could do a fraction of what you've done. Keep it up.

Peter

Thanks Peter, I have no special skills, just a willingness to have a go despite the fact I might stuff it up. Most of the time I get there in the end.

I went to fit the door carpets tonight only to find that my can of ADOS F2 was a solid block of adhesive. I'll need to buy a new one.

So what to do? Let's start laying Dynamat!

I have the patience level of a teenager so the idea was to start on the door card carpet, then alternate between that and the Dynamat. That way the contact adhesive would have time to dry.

The door card carpet doesn't look that hard until you look closely. The factory fit has a constant line of vinyl showing and some of it is in two planes. Add that the carpet has to be pulled tight which impacts on the amount of vinyl showing and there is no alternative but to do it slowly. I used clamps to position the carpet then took off one and glued under it, then when dry I moved on to the next one. Laborious but accurate. I did half of one last night and am happy with the result so far. I think it will look close to factory and brand new. Yes new Sliverknit smells different to 26 year old Sliverknit!

BTW: The new door carpet was sourced from Pelican.

As mentioned above, I interspersed applying Dynamat with carpet fixing.

It appears that a 3.33m2 pack of Dynamat is enough to do a 964. There's little wastage as offcuts can be used. I applied it to areas not soundproofed as original e.g. under the seat but it would only stick on the right hand side. Something on the left hand side under the ECU made it a loose stick. Btw I agree with the glue removal comment. There is no need to go crazy if you are covering it with Dynamat. In fact that OE glue sticks to Dynamat better than to paint.

When finished the only original foam will be on the transmission tunnel.
Next up is fitting Dynaliner.

satisfying work! enjoy - i would double up the fire wall KWIKN altho maybe that's what the D liner is for?

Costs to date. 1990 C4 with 148,000 miles.

Car Purchase GBP 25,050
Change number plate GBP 10
Personalised plate GBP 350
Dynamat - Bulk Pack (3.33m2) GBP 215
Dynamat tool and tape GBP 25
Dyanliner - 0.5" (2.22m2) GBP 210
Dyanliner - 0.25" (1.11m2) GBP 83
Ados F2 GBP 33
Battery GBP 123
9 litres Mobil 1 Racing 4T GBP 140
Oil Filter and washers GBP 21
Reskin left indicator GBP 191
Right indicator - ex spares GBP 0
Centre indicator - ex spares GBP 0
Rear decal - ex spares GBP 0
Front decal - ex spares GBP 0
Repair odometer GBP 70
Front B6 Shocks GBP 783
Rear B6 Shocks GBP 279
Bump stops and covers GBP 60
Door pocket carpet GBP 80
Textar Brake Pads GBP 113
Brake anti squeal mushrooms GBP 16
Brake pad sensors GBP 25
Kienzle Car Stereo GBP 124
Function First Delrin Gear knob GBP 139
Used rear wiper arm GBP 54
Engine mounts GBP 86
Engine mounts fixtures GBP 41
Door handles GBP 29
Console Cup GBP 22
Foam GBP 25
Rubber GBP 65
Polystyrene GBP 5
Door fixings GBP 17
Screw bolts for rear seats GBP 13
Carpet GBP 794
Door seals GBP 55
Mirror button GBP 13
Front seat recover kit GBP 982
Rear seat recover GBP 522
Door membranes GBP 84
Front and rear lid struts & Pins GBP 70
Touch up spray paint GBP 53
Total GBP 30,956

I'd say that this is typical of an under-maintained 964 e.g. saggy engine mounts, non functioning engine and frunk lid struts, worn door seals, original knackered shocks, worn drivers bolster, cracked/crazed rear lights.

What is less usual and ultimately more expensive is letting the sunroof drain into the interior to the point where it all needs to be replaced. However there is an upside in that the interior colour can be changed and is all new. Good for another 26 years!

Thanks for the updates. Good stuff, as always!

No problems, I do it as much for my own records as to share.

BTW which silver is 758? Mine is 980 Silver Metallic.

It is very satisfying. I just received an email to say my carpet etc has been dispatched so we are reaching the best bit, seeing the finished product.

Dynamat is the first layer. Dynaliner is the next layer. It's a closed cell foam. I believe it does more sound proofing than the Dynamat. Depending on the sound attenuation I may yet fit rubber sheet over the Dynaliner. NZ roads use a rough chip surface that is very tiring on long trips. The goal is to make this a comfortable sports car.

Pretty good for a novice upholsterer if I say so myself. One down and one to go. GBP 80 landed in NZ for two door carpet pieces in original quality Sliverknit. About GBP 3 of contact adhesive and some time. Sorted.

Still removing some items. Door membranes and more of the tunnel foam went today. Just about time to add. That's the fun bit. I also decided it was time to drive it again so the gear knob and a spare seat went in

http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/car-...1115069335.htm John you still after one of these, will a 928 wheel fit?

Thanks Pel, I had checked it out and despite the visual similarity it wasn't a fit for the 964. Funny that so many have been replaced with Momo wheels etc and none have surfaced for sale.

Discovered an interesting fact yesterday. Until now I never knew that the body shell has stamping marks.

The rear parcel shelf, near the ashtray and both doors should have matching numbers if its all original.

I suppose like me most of the takeoffs want to be kept with the car. I personally wont reinstate the original wheel but i'm just a temporary custodian of the car. You never know some one in the future may do an original restoration on the car

More parts arrived at home the day I left for Sydney. The family wasn't that devoted to getting nice pics for me so these are teasers. It's all ex Design 911. The carpet is OE Sliverknit which is supposedly made up to look totally original e.g. Some parts have jute backing. I'm surprised it has pieces for the door pockets. Like most project cars there will be double ups and mis orders to sort out when it's finished. The front seats are leather perforated faces with vinyl sides and backs. The rear seats are another two weeks away which fits in with my work schedule so no hardship. The Gear knob is Function First with black Delrin. It will be the only non original interior part.

Door membranes. OE. On closer inspection I have ordered two lefts :( these are self adhesive and expensive. I will now order two for the right door so I have a pair to sell later.

Brain fade time. How does original fit with Duck tail? It doesn't, yet I couldn't resist picking this up off the local eBay.

Back in Country and checking out my orders.

The carpet is all there. I got a roll of heavy card 1.5m wide and traced out all of the pieces in case I want to make parts for my other car. It would take a 7m run of Sliverknit (10.5m2) to carpet a coupe. However it would be hard to do the jute backed items. Overall I think the Lakewell kit here is nicely done.

First up is doing the smaller carpeted parts.

A quicker win was installing the Function First gear knob. The fit is temporary until I have the console refitted. Then I will trim the gaiter further so it rides lower

Pics

Pics from today

Halfway through Dynaliner installation. Small carpet panels fitted to removable panels. Wiring installed though the firewall for a future Y shaped exhaust bypass. USB power source to be fitted to a console cup. Carpets test fitted. I hope to have the tunnel carpet sorted tomorrow. I have some messy work to do on the rear window so won't install the other carpet until that is finished.

Fail on the goal of getting the tunnel carpeted. The lining work took too long then I found then I found out a pedal board screw was corroded so I will have to grind it out. I need to remove that to put the carpet in. Lastly I did another carpet test fit to keep myself motivated. Very happy so far.

Not a lot done today. I just removed old tint film from every window except the windscreen. I used a clothes steamer to heat the film and a goo remover for any adhesive left on the Windows. If the film hadn't been so badly worn on the rear window I probably would have left it.

I think I have made a lot of progress in the time since I started the interior. Maybe one more full day's work. The Centre tunnel is harder than I thought. The front end had constricted room and the rear has some big curves which bunch the carpet. I'll take my time.

Looking really good ...I spent time removing seats cataloging electronics, lubricating seat drives, etc. Removed center tunnel for cleaning 15 yrs of soda (oh shoot, not again) spills and at 5' 9" tall, following day felt like I went through dryer spin cycle ...

I'm 6' 4" so even more contorted. The original Carpet was beyond cleaning

New plates have arrived

I have some comments on Facebook about the weight aspect of the interior install.

Another thread for RS carpet install weighed the original soundproofing at 16.7kg

So far I have added 3.1kg in Dynaliner and 13kg in Dynamat. Add in the rubber sheets I added and this is a net PUSH on OE weight I.e. This car is no heavier than the day it was built.

More progress. Considering this is the first car interior I have ever done I'm very happy

Very nice John, came up a treat

Thanks Pel, it's a visible transformation every day so easy to keep motivated.

The plates are stunning too.

Thanks Pete, they finish off the car nicely. Not that 99% of the population would know what a 964 is.

Carpet is in. It took one week after work and both weekend days to complete. 3 litres of contact adhesive has been partially inhaled but the end job is outstanding even if I do say so myself. A few small items to secure and I'll take some pics.

I have replaced both sets of front pads, and put in anti squeal mushrooms and sensors. I've gone with Textar as it is oe and should be a good balance between road driving needs and noise etc. By the way the old pads had lots of life in them. I'm just re baselining maintenance.

Still a few items to fit. The suspension should transform the ride. The rest is basic and/or cosmetic

Carpet is finished!

John,
The carpet looks great! How does the texture and fit of the Lakewell Sliverknit compare to OE? I'm sort of considering doing this as well, but may end up going with the used route for the few pieces that I need to repair mine. Also, the shift knob looks fantastic.

I have the other C4 with an original interior carpet to compare to and it's no different. This looks like it came out of the Porsche factory. Lakewell do a very good kit. The driver side foot pad and pedal cover are very good with jute backing.

Looks like factory work, excellent... Sense you mentioned Pads and Mushrooms, do your pads come with a steel liner epoxied to the back of pad? If so, do you remove and then use mushrooms?

Yes, the new and old ones have the steel pad. However, as it didn't work in the old ones I figure it needs some help with the mushrooms. No, I didn't remove the steel liner as it still all fits in there.

Reason I asked, I removed and just used mushrooms and didn't want to hear I did a major #%*+%# ...

Haha. I just did the rears and they had both the plate and mushrooms. Maybe it doesn't make any difference either way.

Went to start dismantling the front suspension, only to find the Allen key needed is a 7mm and every set I have jumps from 6 to 8mm.

So I decided to fit the RS style engine mounts instead. Easy work although the old ones didn't look that shot. Into the spares cupboard they go for the next 964.

Also did the rear engine lid struts. Huge difference using heavy duty ones designed for the turbo. One is enough to hold up a NA tail, but I fitted two. Overkill.

Now time to make like the cat and get some sleep.

Engine lid holding itself up.

Two heavy duty struts is overkill

Front struts out in 90 minutes. Probably 3 hours to change over springs and reinstall them. Might get both ends done in time before I go away for work again. Love working with the AC Jack and Esco stands.

Between this and flywheel thread, like the way you get after it... I am thinking couple helpers just out of camera frame, fess up :)

Nothing to confess, just me in my happy place. Every day there are professional mechanics doing these jobs with no issues or need to share. I hope that a few people will read this and take on the DIY challenge and keep their cars well maintained. The previous owner of the Silver car could have used some encouragement!

"beyond those doors are various forms of oxygen and various gases, do you want to continue?", she said yes :). A keeper :)

All geared up to change the springs over when I realized I didn't have the gear strong enough to undo the top nut. Instead I fitted the bonnet lid struts. I got it in the end but I won't volunteer for that job again. It would help to have a very long narrow screwdriver. I bent a pair of tweezers and taped them go another screwdriver. It took me 90 minutes to do both. A few additions to the swear jar.

I sourced the materials for the seat re-padding.

This type of foam is meant for auto seats and will last years. The thin foam will cover my reworked areas so the surface comes out nicely for the covers.

Pic

Good job with the first time carpet install! I just finished up my own first time carpet installation a week ago as well, and, like you, had some difficulty with the compound curves on the center tunnel.

Looking at the position of your "collar" piece relative to the outboard rear seat back hinge points, my installation is similar to yours ... Skewed to one side of the car by a centimeter or two. I also had some unfixable bunching right behind the center hinge point so
I slit the collar in an undetectable place.

Kudos to your install! You did a very nice job!


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...f6ae619fb.jpeg



https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...33b927771.jpeg

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...d9620db0b.jpeg

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...8353adb53.jpeg

Nice, very nice. What are you doing for the rear seat pads? I'm not sure whether to use synthetic horse hair or hard foam.

I admitted defeat on the shock top nuts and went to a specialist. Five minutes and they were both off. No charge.

I knew the shocks were stuffed (check out the bump stops), however unfortunately the springs are missing part of their coating so I'm going to replace them.

BTW I asked them to check the spring stiffness. A simple setup with a jack and a meter. The double progressive nature seemed too hard to measure e.g. At mid range it was 96 lb for a one inch move.

Next up was dyeing the Linen vinyl. It seems like a good outcome. It's a matte finish and slightly different to the original black vinyl. It will be interesting to see how durable it is.

wow lots of progress John .. like the matt vinyl alot!

Re the dynaliner and the convo we had re noise levels and interior sound - any notes or measurments?
There are db meter apps you can dowload for a phone - interested to hear the impact of the Liner as I found that the matt while it made things 'more solid' didn't do alot for noise ie could hear intake more etc.. I also used closed cell foam instead of the liner .. I'd rather use open cell (much like the stuff you have for the seats) if I were doing it again.

What product did you use to spray the vinyl?

Had know idea that one could do that to vinyl... And it's not going to bleed? Looks good...

This product that an American brought with him to NZ.

The $64 question. I need to put more coats on these before I install them. If anything will look worn it will be the door pull

I am having the original cushions recovered .... The originals are made of some curly-q stuff that is tan colored - is that synthetic horse hair?

Yes, the tan stuff. One of mine, pictured, is distorted. I don't think I can replicate that in horse hair. I might just use my high density foam. I'm getting brand new leather covers in Black.

Thanks. Despite the best of intentions I didn't get the raw metal dB levels. That said as I have back to back C4s to drive I'd say so far it sounds pretty much like the stock set up. I need to take it on a noisy road surface to really see.

Just received notification that my parts order has been despatched from the UK. It should be waiting for me when I fly back in to the Country. In it I have ordered the following:

Right hand 993 suspension air deflector. That's the curved part that connects to the control arm, directing air on the brakes. Mine has obviously taken a hit at some stage which broke the front bolt tab. As a result it flaps into the tyre and makes an annoying noise.

Right hand cabin heater hose. I tried to remove the original when doing the bonnet pull handle and it tore. I then found out that any breach of that hose and you get unbearable full footwell heat.

Front suspension gasket and clips. I could have just forgone the gaskets and put old clips on but I can't see the point of doing all of this work without going those last few yards. Do it right or not at all.

New H&R sports springs. The old ones were an unknown make and had rips in their coating. Even though I will likely sell this car I can't bring myself to do this half hearted. That and the fact that the B6 and H&R combo is a classic. Sure there are other options now, but for road use these are great and effectively mirror what I have on my white C4.

Drain plugs for the frunk. These are missing on my other C4 as well. What happens to the drain plug hoses in the frunk floor? If you lose them then road water can splash inside the frunk. Not a disaster but why not fix it when Porsche had a solution?

AC belts. Just as a precaution that I may want to change them. I may be getting soft but I'm more and more appreciating that working AC is worthwhile. It demists in winter and cools in Summer, especially at the track.

Ignition switch surround - just to finish off that interior.

Rotor arm, to go with a spare dizzy cap I bought. Really just in case, as are the two spare coils and inductance tester I bought. A friend just found out his primary coil wasn't working on his C2. How many 964 owners are missing out on that last 20hp because just one coil is working?

Anyway the first goal is front suspension back in. Only 7 days to wait until I can do it.

First day back in the same country as the car and started small. New frunk drains. Such a small price to have the frunk protected from road spray. Both cars were missing all of their drains

Then onto the front right air duct. The old one had lost its front tab. As I drove it flapped into the control arm and made a racket. I also replaced the ignition surround. With 20/20 hindsight that was a waste of time given the old one was good.

Front suspension was next up. I was disappointed to find out my B6 shocks were supplied with lock nuts but no spring perches (thanks Matthew for solving the enigma as to why my springs were not fitting properly). That's being sorted. All the other parts were good. Btw interesting to note my old springs are effectively copy cat H&R.

With no suspension to fit I decided to do the ugly job of removing the after market alarm. I don't like immobilisers and this alarm went off if the battery got low so it was a double dislike. I will fit a geofence alarm.

Finally I fitted an expanding nut in the door inner skin. Right now you are thinking whoopdeedoo. I mention it for two reasons.

1. It took three weeks to get the part.

2. I think it's worthwhile pointing out that the door card screws should not be over tightened as the nut is square to fit in a square hole in the door which holds the nut. If you round it off the whole assembly will rotate making the screw hard to undo.

Do you think those were OE springs? I hope I took side by side spring pics, will have too look. Think I replaced bumper stop and dust hood on rear struts, you doing same?

No, the receipts show the springs were changed in 2007 so they are aftermarket.

The rear shock bump stops will be as bad as the fronts i.e. All but obliterated. I have new ones and dust covers as well.

The front wheel wells have witness marks where the wheels have been hitting due to stuffed shocks. When this is all done it should ride like a new car :)

Spring perches supplied and one side fitted.

For some reason the lower strut hole fit with the wheel carrier tab is very tight on the other side. I either have to widen the gap or take a sliver off the tab.

The last of the seat covers arrived. They all look good. However, possibly too good as I have decided to get them professionally fitted. It will end up with a better fit (hopefully) and it will cut short the refurb by a month or more as I have limited spare time right now.

I took the seat covers into the upholsterer.

I was dreading the moment where I picked the items out of the box for inspection as these guys are known for bagging kits. Thankfully he was pretty complementary.

We think it's a Lakewell kit. He said the leather was good quality and the perforations are Porsche correct. The only thing he didn't like was the lack of laminated foam on the leather as it makes a smooth fit harder. That said he will just pad the seat base to smooth out the lines.

On another subject, the P-fixit engine rebuild DVD arrived. I am however not planning to do this car as it doesn't obviously need it and it wouldn't be reflected in the sale value...assuming I can bring myself to sell it after all of this work.

Front shocks are finished. One side was easy, the other side was a tight fit and took a fair amount of work to get it in. The car will need to be run to see how low it settles. I will have to do the rears first though.

I took the seats to the upholster. He asked me to take them back to the car, connect them and recline as far as possible. He also asked if I could remove the runners. That was 'fun'. I hope I can remember how to refit them.

By this stage I wasn't really looking for a big job so I had a rummage through the parts box. Sunroof seal looks easy but I'll check for DIY tips first

When I delivered the seats to the upholsterer I also took in my dyed/coated vinyl. He suggested a leather balsam to add a gloss to the coating. I've done a small patch here. Pretty good match. Left Is Linen vinyl coated with Porsche Black then leather balsam. Right is OE Porsche Black vinyl.

Front Sunroof seal fitted. The DIY tip was to use 3M Black weatherstrip adhesive. The reason for that is any other colour will show up on the seal if you accidentally get it too high on the seal. Unfortunately I couldn't find any before traveling for work so I used a yellow 'Permatex' adhesive. I was careful though so it came out well.

Pic

Nicely done! The vinyl change looks good too

Vinyl and leather work looks really good.... Following your reupholstery process, someday will venture that road, I'm sure ....

As usual when I travel for work I research and order parts.

First up this time was a new front left hand drop link. The link itself was fine but the boot had disintegrated. There's no way to just replace the boot so I have bought a new one.

Next up were the front seat belts. I know from the original refurb that new parts show up any neighbouring old parts and the belts were not only 25 years old which must have some impact on their strength but also faded and slow to retract. I figure that leaving the old ones in will ruin the impacts of new carpet, seat covers etc. I ordered the parts from Lakewell. They were reasonably priced.

Lakewell also has various interior retrim options so is a welcome backstop if my recolour work isn't to my own standard.

Awesome progress! Thanks for the updates.

What are the details on the drop links you purchased (brand, price, shop, etc)? My bushes are shot also and mechanic also advised that i need to replace the whole link.
How hard is the replacement?

I ordered mine through Design 911. The left one is £102. The right is £125. Not sure why there is a difference. It looks easy to fit. I will do it this weekend and post the tips, if I have any.

Parts have arrived. Seat trim, Seat belt caps and the left drop link. The latter is Porsche OE.

Usual MO. Arrive home at 1am from the Airport, sleep, pay sufficient attention to the family then into the garage to check out what arrived in my absence. Not that much this time. Seat fittings, caps for the rear seat belts (why did I order 8?) and the new left hand drop link. It's a Porsche part and about NZD 270 landed with freight etc. The old one's boot had disintegrated and the ball joint was sloppy compared to the new one but I think I would struggle to notice it on the road. Someone doing this for a living would have likely left the old one in place. But I do this for satisfaction and it has to be right. A bit of copper grease and tighten to 34ft/lb. A bit of loading required on the wheel hub to line up the anti roll bar end but not difficult.

I have a week until I leave for Germany (factory tour, museum and Nurburgring - can't wait), so my main focus is to get the small jobs done.

First up I resoldered the ignition switch wires the after market immobiliser had cut into. Not much fun (no pics).

Secondly I fitted the right hand footwell heater hose. I ripped the old one trying to remove it for more room to do the bonnet hinge carpet. The result was an unbearable amount of heat in the footwell. Knowing a tear was not an option I took it carefully. It wasn't easy to refit, but I managed it. Carpet cover back on and onto the next job.

Next up was radio wiring. The old radio was an Alpine. While the plugs won't fit the new Kienzle, the wire colour codes are the same. I was determined to solder the wires and put proper harness tape on it. It makes the final result much tidier and more reliable

Radio is in.

Passenger door membrane is on. This is the proper Porsche one that can be removed and refitted as many times as you want. It has a special adhesive. The cheap ones out there are just plastic and only get one use.

Tiaan, this is the run done last weekend by our group.
I wasn't able to go but will definitely look at that road in the future

NZ is God's country...

That road is a dream.... My blood pressure rose and brain fully twisted watching... I clearly have not been paying attention that your NZ cars are right hand drive :)

Not a lot done in the week back in the same country as the car as I leave for Europe tomorrow and didn't want to get half way through a job, then forget where I was up when I get back a month later.

First up I sourced an OEM steering wheel. A slight misstep though as I first bought a 944 wheel which is the wrong size. The second one looks right. Putting the images next to each other it's easy to see one is wrong

The interior quality was weighing on my mind so I went the top shelf option and ordered new door cards, b pillar covers and rear quarter panels. All from Lakewell. I also bought Rockford Fosgate speakers to match the new door cards.

B pillar covers look like an easy job, it's just padded vinyl over a metal sheet. The existing covers have tears that I tried to repair and was going to recolour, but in the end replacement with OEM quality Black Vinyl makes a lot more sense.

There has been a hiatus as I'm on holiday in Europe for a month. Visited the Porsche Museum, Nurburgring and Spa. Also visited the Deutsche Museum in Munich and picked up an engine kit to build. I have 290 pieces to assemble in seven days and then work out how to get it back to New Zealand in one piece

Pic of engine model

290 parts! Like building a Rolex watch ....

It works

Did u put it together?

Is that spark I see? What's the timing?

Yes, I put it together from a kit bought from the Deutsche Museum in Munich. Rather bizarrely it wasn't in stock at the Porsche Museum.

It has a timing setting and a distributor feed off the cam that should fire the cylinders in the same order as a real engine. I haven't checked the order to see if it's correct. The spark is simulated by lights.

Ah, I chickened out and didn't recover the B-pillars. Even though I had the leather to re-cover the B-pillars, I lost patience at this stage of the project and had a pro come over and re-dye the vinyl B-pillar covers in-situ. It looks very good.

On balance if I ever get the motivation to take apart the interior again, perhaps I will fit the leather b-pillar covers that I have.

Did this end up being as easy as it looks? I can imagine two things going wrong --
a) B-pillar covers need padding in the rear, which might be hard to get looking smooth.
b) the metal substrate might bend/warp while removing the old cover...

Did any of this happen to you?
Thanks

I am on a month long European holiday/vacation so I asked Lakewell to hold off sending my interior parts until I got back to New Zealand. In other words I haven't yet installed the B pillar covers.

They look simple enough, just vinyl with foam backing. In fact that was the problem with repairing what I had. When they rip, they expose the foam backing so filling the resultant hole is difficult. I want those parts to be perfect as I think they will stand out next to perfect seats if I don't go new.

Arrived back in New Zealand after 3 weeks in Europe. Still jet lagged so not doing anything requiring mental agility so I checked parts that arrived while I was away.

First up was the correct front badge. Attached is a pic (from the left) of the original, the replacement, and a new 996 one. You can clearly see the 996 version is incorrect. In addition the 996 version is flat whereas the correct 901 part is slightly curved.

New vinyl covered door panels from Lakewell. I think these are a relative bargain at EUR 260 for a pair.

New rear quarter covers, rear parcel shelf and B pillar vinyl. A bit more work, but these should pop.

A solid state DME with pump prime. I will put this in the White car

As indicated earlier, I have had difficulty sourcing an original leather four spoke non air bag wheel for a reasonable price. In the end I got lucky and bought a wheel off a '88 928 and it is to all intents the same wheel (same part number, just one is 01VERL and the other 02VERL). The only thing missing is the horn contact ring, which I believe is a shared VW/Porsche part number 113-415-660-A.

I arrived back from work travel determined to focus on getting the car mobile. That meant tackling the rear shocks and springs.

Removal was relatively easy. Take out the air filter on one side and heater fan on the other, undo the three top nuts on each shock tower and the bottom bolts, then remove carefully.

The springs were not under compression and the top bolt was easy to undo. Nothing like the fronts.

The most obvious wear was on the bump stops, but these are likely original shocks deserving of retirement after 237,000km

I reused all but the shocks, springs and bump stops. Good for another 25 years

Despite setting the spring perches exactly as before, we have SUV height. Hopefully it will settle and an alignment will get it back to where it used to be.

The upholsterer is slooooow. However I daren't give him too much pressure and end up with the rubbish job so I bought a pair of 993 seats for temporary use. I like the Manual fore aft and rear incline. The seats are noticeably lighter than my 8 way OE seats.

Next up was the driver's window. I pulled the motor and regulator out, lubed the channels etc and it still worked intermittently. I've ordered a new after market one. I'm getting good at this job. I might do a DIY for this as I couldn't find anything on the 964 for a full removal and refit.

After the window effort I decided to do the passenger door card.

The first task was to replicate the foam additions by taking some across to the new card and adding some new strips

Next up was a new pull handle. If you take it carefully with the circlips it's easy. Then it's a matter of assembling it all.

I'm very happy with the result.

A word to those of you that sell-off original parts. Thanks! It's made my work easier as I didn't have to use my painted door pull and lid. That said I would never sell parts off my car. When you are looking it's the worst feeling. Nothing is easy to find and neither is it cheap.

A quick foam bath and running the car at idle to make sure the engine is dry. I can't drive it far as the right rear outer CV is clicking.

I might fit a normal primary to this car, in keeping with the original theme. It's too loud as is and surprisingly louder than my other car with exactly the same setup.

A DIY for the power window assy would be great John! A job I have to do also as pax window is not playing the game any more.

Also interested in the window regulator how-to. :) I need to pull mine to regrease as they're kind of slow.

Last night I sorted my driver window. I fitted a new motor and lubricated the slightly corroded spring. Soon I will put the pics I took into a DIY.

With the window motor sorted I moved to close up the door, which meant fitting the speakers. I had hoped to maintain the integrity of the membrane by using a heat gun to stretch it enough to insert the speakers but that wasn't practical. I also had to create spacers for the area between the door card and the door inner skin, otherwise the speakers would indent the card when fastened. I thought about screwing these to the door inner but opted for duct tape to minimize holes in the door inner. It all holds well. All that's left to do on the doors is repair and fit the door pockets.

Door membrane. The expensive Porsche one. It has an adhesive that mounts and demounts like post it notes.

I drove the car for approximately 10 miles to settle things. I had two alerts come up. E brake / Handbrake and spoiler. I adjusted the handbrake switch to sort out that alert. It's pretty simple. You adjust the switch position so there is no metal/metal contact when the lever is released. The spoiler alert will take some more research.

Another problem I found is that my indicators wouldn't self cancel with the new wheel. A look at the back of the wheel showed me why. The tab is in the wrong place on part 113415660A and further research has indicated that the correct part number is 92834709900. Predictably the 964 part is five times the cost of the other part even though it's close to the same design and construction.

Older pic is an OE setup. The second new part pic is the incorrect set up with 113415660A. The Tab is in the wrong place so can't cancel the indicator.

Spoiler alert is definitely more complicated:

- swapped clocks with my other C4, no difference.
- checked micro switches in the spoiler unit, they look fine.
- manually raised and lowered the spoiler, worked properly.

That means its the automatic circuit that's the problem. First I will check the wiring and boxes under the drivers seat (RHD 1990 model). My other C4 has a ducktail and no boxes to swap over. If that shows no issues I will need to take it on the open road. I'm expecting it will suddenly work at 72mpg/115km/hr when the emergency box lifts the spoiler. That would mean the auto box is unserviceable. Unfortunately the only spare I have is the later model one.

I removed the seat and noted that one of the spoiler boxes wasn't properly seated. The alarm stopped but I don't seem to have the functionality where the alarm starts on and then goes off after the car reaches 7km/hr. I need to get the car on the open road and check full auto functionality.

The correct steering wheel slip ring arrived so goodbye fugly wheel. Putting the slip rings next to each other there are clear differences. Firstly the orientation of the indicator cancelling tab is different. Secondly the width and length of the two tabs are different. If you want the wheel to work properly there is only one correct part. You can't modify the cheaper one to make it work.

nice progress and super detail in those posts thanks!

Thanks. It's still got interior work to go but is driveable and able to be enjoyed. Summer has arrived in New Zealand

Front seats, rear seat bases and rear quarter panels have arrived back from the upholsterer. Not Singer quality but not that price level either. I'm happy and look forward to giving them a clean and nourish when fitted. Next step is refitting the seat hardware. Luckily I have a spare set of the same seats and can compare them.

The original idea was to refurbish the Silver car and then sell it. Since it's become mobile again I'm less fussed about selling :) An incident on a recent road trip has given me self justification for that move.

I was having a bit of fun on a winding back road in the White car and a large bump unsettled it. Before the car could regain some suspension travel I hit a second bump and grounded the A arm. This appears to have pushed the force onto the anti roll bar which snapped one of the ARB mounts, which in turn damaged a drop link. Now I need to replace both drop links and ARB fittings. It could be out of action for 2/3 weeks while I assess the damage and order the correct parts :( . When this fixed I will raise the ride height. Porsche knew a few things when it designed these cars.

Finally had time to assess the damage from the road trip. It really comes down to a broken ARB bracket and a damaged drop link. I will replace one drop link, both ARB brackets, then fit new bushes.

With the White car out of action I decided to take the Silver car for a short drive. It reminded me at the exhaust was just too loud. It has a cat bypass, primary bypass and OE secondary with a buzz.

I have decided to go cat bypass and OE primary and secondary, the latter a replacement from my spares. However, I thought I'd have some fun with my hoard of spares. With OE parts, I also have a custom primary bypass and a swans neck.

In this video I have a straight cat bypass, OE primary and swans neck. It still sounds loud but has more refined bass, like a muscle car

It's impressive how different the primary and secondary bypasses sound. Swan neck definitely sounds 'bigger'.

Happy New year John!

Thanks Tiann, happy New Year to you as well. Here's the new set up on a couple of on-ramps