Hello friends of retro rides,
At first, I'd like to introduce myself:
itx, currently 22 years of age, filmmaker, living in the south-west of Germany, therefore driving on the wrong side of car and road. And the only reason I am here is that formerly guards red '77 924 thread, which has thaught me many things. Thanks dude!
This thread is about my third car, a black Porsche 924 from 1978. Both first and second were 924's as well, and as I still own the wreck of my first one, I may refer to it occasionally.
Back in jan'15 I had another engine failure on my second car after driving it in a snowstorm ±200miles home. The car was temporarily placed in front of my mum's house where a not-correctly attached trailer hit it at 20mph. And that's how I lost my second 924 and why I am even here.
Fast forward mid march. The insurance finally paid my wreck and I gave it away, inculding all the love I had given to it. Uargh, not the best feeling...
I didn't even wanted to get another 924, I was on the hunt for a much older Volvo Amazon, but as I found this one, I couldn't say no. I just couldn't (Even though I probably should!). From the first 924 onwards I had a very distinct vision of how my personal 924 should look like. The car itself is a breed of the 70's. And that is the single worst thing for me. I don't like 914's and I am probably a good twenty years away from being able to afford a 60's Porsche. And the 60's are by far my favourite period of automotive design.
So the challenge is simple: How would 1960's 924 look like?
I already got the car three weeks ago, so some stuff already happened, but pictures first:
First, those pics were taken on the drive home, and are by far outdated. Second, apart from the last two, they were taken on my drive home which was kinda awesome. Third, after three weeks I still have a love-hate-relationship to this thing.
It's a 1978, 1979 model year, 2.0 N/A, with removable mechanical sunroof and the factory 5-speed Getrag transmission (first gear front left). Nothing apart from that. Just pure driving, the perfect base for a build towards the 60's. And of course: It's BLACK! As it was repainted from it's original silver, the paint looks fairly fresh but isn't in top condition. Good enough for a daily driver though. Something rather small but very important to me is that someone decided not fit the plastic trim on the sides of the car, look way cleaner that way!
So what has been done so far? As there were a good four weeks from looking to getting I had more than enough time to get cracking with things I knew I wanted to replace and had laying around. Before I started I had never worked with leather, glue or needles!
First: Stripdown of necessitiies!
In the meantime of waiting for other stuff: Polishing of my old black doorhandles and roof-trim. Sealed with Liquidglass.
Next up: Re-doing a dashboard. First try went horribly wrong, second try worked out quite well. The one from the car tough... That is going to be my holy grail.
And the first non-factory extra: The custom brown leather steering wheel. As close as I can get to a wooden one without having to own a car from the 60s.
After preparing an awful lot of stuff I could finally get the car. And immediately had some severe issues. The pre'80-cars have the old ignition system and that didn't seem to be happy, so it decided to give me no spark around 2.000rpm. Really nice in the city, wiggling around. A swap to an old distributor I had laying around cured that temporarily, the ignition swap (AccuSpark kit for existing distributor) next week should cure that permanently and hopefully improve the overall performance and idle.
Next on the board was a very very disappointing discovery: Rust. The day after getting it, I watered it to remove all the dirt. Later that day I started working on the doors (fitting, swapping doorhandles) and noticed that the passengers carpet was soaked. After some tracing, I found this:
Nothing of this was visible from the outside, but a few pokes with a screwdriver and I my hands were quite rusty. And someone knew this and covered the hole in the battery tray with black seal while the rest was happily rotting away. I was and still am very much not amused.
And because that needs welding from out- & inside I haven't yet swapped the dash (which had a broken dash-cover, hopw ironic is that?!) or the carpets (which are new, but of poor quality and I recoloured a set I had stripped). Not to mention that the battery doesn't really like this swinging platform, or that this car can't be driven or even parked in the rain. Perfect for a daily driver... I hope to get this out of my way within the next three weeks. I have spare sheetmetal and a perfect battery tray from the scrap car. If I knew how to weld... But I don't.
But that didn't stop me from doing other stuff to the car.
I never liked the scrappy toolwrap I had (apart from a giant Mercedes-Benz logo up front) so I decided to give it a proper shot and ordered some stuff. Lower left corner got a cloth-holder after those pics were taken. Leather is the same as the steering wheel. Mounting is via two leftover strap-clamps as seen on the lower left & right corners of the fold-down-seats. So all correct. Pictures also show the terrible quality of the "new" carpets.
Next up was something my old car had from the day I bought it, but poorly executed. I did it properly this time. Polished rear hatch & front window frame:
Easy to spot that the mirror isn't original an as far away from the 60's as possible. Next up for the exterior is a set of chrome ones originally found on MGB's (or at least I've seen them on there).
So far so good. I spent half of today removing glue from the dash as I stripped the cover and trying something rather uncommon for a 924 with the gauges (no pics yet) and tach. The one which was in there hadn't been counting any more, so I swapped that. The original one needs repair and all six intruments need chrome bezels (which I had in my old car...). But more on that after the rust is gone.
Next plans (after fitting my dash and carpets) are to get the interior done, re-do all the vinyl compoinents (new dash again, new roof, new rear side panels), maybe even re-do a set of seats to a more 60's-esque look. But that's not for now. And what's after that... That's going to be surprising.
Cheers so far,
itx.
At first, I'd like to introduce myself:
itx, currently 22 years of age, filmmaker, living in the south-west of Germany, therefore driving on the wrong side of car and road. And the only reason I am here is that formerly guards red '77 924 thread, which has thaught me many things. Thanks dude!
This thread is about my third car, a black Porsche 924 from 1978. Both first and second were 924's as well, and as I still own the wreck of my first one, I may refer to it occasionally.
Back in jan'15 I had another engine failure on my second car after driving it in a snowstorm ±200miles home. The car was temporarily placed in front of my mum's house where a not-correctly attached trailer hit it at 20mph. And that's how I lost my second 924 and why I am even here.
Fast forward mid march. The insurance finally paid my wreck and I gave it away, inculding all the love I had given to it. Uargh, not the best feeling...
I didn't even wanted to get another 924, I was on the hunt for a much older Volvo Amazon, but as I found this one, I couldn't say no. I just couldn't (Even though I probably should!). From the first 924 onwards I had a very distinct vision of how my personal 924 should look like. The car itself is a breed of the 70's. And that is the single worst thing for me. I don't like 914's and I am probably a good twenty years away from being able to afford a 60's Porsche. And the 60's are by far my favourite period of automotive design.
So the challenge is simple: How would 1960's 924 look like?
I already got the car three weeks ago, so some stuff already happened, but pictures first:
First, those pics were taken on the drive home, and are by far outdated. Second, apart from the last two, they were taken on my drive home which was kinda awesome. Third, after three weeks I still have a love-hate-relationship to this thing.
It's a 1978, 1979 model year, 2.0 N/A, with removable mechanical sunroof and the factory 5-speed Getrag transmission (first gear front left). Nothing apart from that. Just pure driving, the perfect base for a build towards the 60's. And of course: It's BLACK! As it was repainted from it's original silver, the paint looks fairly fresh but isn't in top condition. Good enough for a daily driver though. Something rather small but very important to me is that someone decided not fit the plastic trim on the sides of the car, look way cleaner that way!
So what has been done so far? As there were a good four weeks from looking to getting I had more than enough time to get cracking with things I knew I wanted to replace and had laying around. Before I started I had never worked with leather, glue or needles!
First: Stripdown of necessitiies!
In the meantime of waiting for other stuff: Polishing of my old black doorhandles and roof-trim. Sealed with Liquidglass.
Next up: Re-doing a dashboard. First try went horribly wrong, second try worked out quite well. The one from the car tough... That is going to be my holy grail.
And the first non-factory extra: The custom brown leather steering wheel. As close as I can get to a wooden one without having to own a car from the 60s.
After preparing an awful lot of stuff I could finally get the car. And immediately had some severe issues. The pre'80-cars have the old ignition system and that didn't seem to be happy, so it decided to give me no spark around 2.000rpm. Really nice in the city, wiggling around. A swap to an old distributor I had laying around cured that temporarily, the ignition swap (AccuSpark kit for existing distributor) next week should cure that permanently and hopefully improve the overall performance and idle.
Next on the board was a very very disappointing discovery: Rust. The day after getting it, I watered it to remove all the dirt. Later that day I started working on the doors (fitting, swapping doorhandles) and noticed that the passengers carpet was soaked. After some tracing, I found this:
Nothing of this was visible from the outside, but a few pokes with a screwdriver and I my hands were quite rusty. And someone knew this and covered the hole in the battery tray with black seal while the rest was happily rotting away. I was and still am very much not amused.
And because that needs welding from out- & inside I haven't yet swapped the dash (which had a broken dash-cover, hopw ironic is that?!) or the carpets (which are new, but of poor quality and I recoloured a set I had stripped). Not to mention that the battery doesn't really like this swinging platform, or that this car can't be driven or even parked in the rain. Perfect for a daily driver... I hope to get this out of my way within the next three weeks. I have spare sheetmetal and a perfect battery tray from the scrap car. If I knew how to weld... But I don't.
But that didn't stop me from doing other stuff to the car.
I never liked the scrappy toolwrap I had (apart from a giant Mercedes-Benz logo up front) so I decided to give it a proper shot and ordered some stuff. Lower left corner got a cloth-holder after those pics were taken. Leather is the same as the steering wheel. Mounting is via two leftover strap-clamps as seen on the lower left & right corners of the fold-down-seats. So all correct. Pictures also show the terrible quality of the "new" carpets.
Next up was something my old car had from the day I bought it, but poorly executed. I did it properly this time. Polished rear hatch & front window frame:
Easy to spot that the mirror isn't original an as far away from the 60's as possible. Next up for the exterior is a set of chrome ones originally found on MGB's (or at least I've seen them on there).
So far so good. I spent half of today removing glue from the dash as I stripped the cover and trying something rather uncommon for a 924 with the gauges (no pics yet) and tach. The one which was in there hadn't been counting any more, so I swapped that. The original one needs repair and all six intruments need chrome bezels (which I had in my old car...). But more on that after the rust is gone.
Next plans (after fitting my dash and carpets) are to get the interior done, re-do all the vinyl compoinents (new dash again, new roof, new rear side panels), maybe even re-do a set of seats to a more 60's-esque look. But that's not for now. And what's after that... That's going to be surprising.
Cheers so far,
itx.
