Door exchange

The original drivers door had a real bad damage just below the window:

Maybe someone tried to break in, anyhow this wouldn't be an easy repair, so I searched for another, used door. A few days ago I found a driver door and a nice Targa top (the one on my car is also far from nice), so I organized a transport - special thanks to Mirko - and now I have to exchange every nut and bolt, clip and cable from one door to the other. During the disassembly I also found out why the power mirrors didn't work:

Some genius cut the electrical connections off - my guess is that the body shop which repainted the car wasn't able to remove the mirrors as Porsche designed it ( which involves unpinning the contacts from the connector plug), so they just cut it off!
I wouldn't accept that the mirrors don't work after  a re-paint!

The screw which attaches the mirror to the door was knackered, so I had to drill the head off. The remains were rusted solid to the thread...

A pair of grip pliers and some WD40 later the screw is history!

During the exchange I directly install the Power windows which came with the car. Original mechanisms and switches. The cable harness already has all the connectors attached - which make the job a lot easier!
switch plug:

motor plug:

On the driver door I had some bad luck, this is what the harness looked like:

... some cables, but no connector housing...

this is what I found on the bottom of the door:

So, the next time you will no longer see the window winder crank, and the blank spaces will be filled with 2 switches!

Oh, and I used the first original VW beetle part on the Porsche... You can see it in this picture:

I replaced the rubber seal on the door ajar switch

Shift linkage repair

During the weekend I installed the great shifter repair kit from Kyle at Only944.com.
The amount of play was unbelieveable and everything was totally worn our:
This is the sloppy shifter in fifth gear:

I used the excellent instructions to exchange the original shifter for the new one. The axial bearings were greased with silicone grease:

and the ball cup and shifter plate were cleaned:

everything re-assembled and loctite'd:

final assembly:

... and a much firmer shift feeling and less slack in the shifter!

Instrument cluster illumination

Another weak point of the Porsche 944 late models is the illumination of the instrument cluster. The idea was to guide the light from the bulbs on the carrier through these prisms to the front side of the cluster for indirect illumination of the bezels.
The light prisms which are chrome plated loose their shine and the chrome corrodes and starts bubbling up.
This effects the amount of light which actually reaches the cluster in a dramatic way.
This is the cluster and the 3 light prisms:

 You can clearly see the bad surface of the prisms. They are made of PC and hot-caulked to the bezel:

These plastic domes need to be carefully removed, then you can pull the prisms off:

 

This is how bad they look:

Removing the chrome surface and "re-chroming" is necessary. Of course, I can't chrome plate plastic parts by myself, but I have a plan...

wet sanding with 1200 to start with:

followed by 3000 wet sand paper:

and a polish with UNIPOL for the finish:

Now this one is almost translucent again!

A before / after comparison:

and all 3 in polished state:

(I didn't remove the perfect chrome finish in the areas which were stuck inside the cluster. This might be a good way to compare the before / after surface shine...)

Coming from the RC hobby, I have used an -almost- chrome like paint for some RC car bodies, so I try to give it a shot with this paint... 

The RCC color code of the paint is RCC 940 Chrome. It comes in a tiny 150 ml spray can.

After a lot of very light coats of this paint, the prisms have a good amount of shine again, but it doesn't really look like new again:

maybe not perfect - you can see the "original" chromed areas are more shiny -  but good enough for a reflection of the camera:

and the finished article:

For comparison: This is what I started with:

Afterwards I exchanged all the light bulbs in the cluster to bring it back to former glory...

Tommorow the cluster will find its way back into the car - so I can check if this job was a success...

Instrument panel

When I checked the car for the first time, the actual milage (in km) was unknown, something was hiding the numbers:

This is the problem:

So, out with the instrument panel:
Which also means removing the bezels, the steering wheel ...

... and dismantle the whole lot:

 removing the speedometer out of the cluster:

pulling the needle off and removing the bezel:

Here we are! 

It was a label which VDO installed during assembly!

Assembly in reverse order :-)

clock work

As with all 944's, the quartz clock was broken. Apparently, the LCD displays which Porsche used were not designed to be used in temperatures below 0°C!
 

The displays were "bleeding out" - no visibility of the time any more!
Fortunately, there is a repair set available to fix this. You can order it here:
http://stores.ebay.de/WPO-shop

It consists of a new diplay and contact stripes,a special cleaning rag and a new light bulb.
The repair itself is no rocket science and there is a great tutorial on Youtube:
Porsche 944 quartz clock repair

It took about 30 minutes after the removal from the dashboard:

Splitting the housing, pcb assembly, display, screen:

 already re-assembled:

using a LiPo battery for a little test:

It lights up, but what about the display itself?

 Perfect!

  

sun visor clips

The sun visors unclipped every few kilometers during the pick-up and drive home. I was blind folded everytime which is not funny on the Autobahn!
So, a set of new clips was ordered (as mentioned in another thread) and I installed them recently. First of all I wanted to understand what the problem was, so I did a 1:1 comparison:

No wonder they unclipped! The new clips are much more firm and stop the visors from falling "out of the skies"!

Let's get started

I couldn't resist to drive the Porsche into the garage for some initial work. I had to check if the brake parts I ordered are correct, some measurements had to be taken as well. What are the ARB (anti roll bar) diameters and so on. But, having the car in the shop, it would be stupid not to do a little work!
A first inspection was on the list as well. There was a sketchy cable on the battery I wanted to learn more about:

This little guy here - First of all, this is a color code used in houses, not in vehicles!  On top of that, this color code is for "ground", but used as "power"!
I followed the cable, it runs through the bulkhead - of course, no rubber seal - and into the instrument panel, under the glove box:

Oops, cut off somewhere, not isolated and no fuse - this could have been nice fire!

So, removing this junk and closing the hole in the bulkhead with a nice rubber cap:

I also checked the battery tray, a typical area for bad rust, but luckily, only some surface rust which can be removed easily!

The fuse box was checked as well. I found a broken fuse for the rear wiper - replaced it and it works again!

There is a very handy item in one of the relais, a fuse tester:

Which helped a lot to indentify the broken fuse, as it was not visible that it was defect!

More to come soon!