DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Guys, guys, guys. Darren promised he'd sort mine out first. He can't remember due to that hospital thing but I've been busy constructing emails...I mean finding emails that prove he said he'd sort my 914 first.

Ok Darren, how's about a 924 turbo ? Will go halfies with you !

milhouse914 wrote:Ok Darren, how's about a 924 turbo ? Will go halfies with you !

Good choice! Prices have shot up recently though even for basket cases

Very funny guy’s.

(I do already have a project that's a slow burn that I'm planing to turn to next until something that can be done in 18 months and is much "easier" turns up)

Milhouse, I have actually something to admit….I’ve been stalking a few 924 Turbo’s on fleabay recently. I reckon they’ll go some way as the 914/6 does to 914/4 in terms of comparison to 924 lux values in future.
I have also been looking at very early 77 year 924’s.
Many years ago I actually bought a 924 brand new (ex demonstrator). It was my first watercooled Porsche!
Series II 924 turbos are the better to have, but unfortunately due to low values 99% of them now are trashed & neglected. The challenge would be in the search now to find an unmolested one.
The 924 will be a sleeper I believe for at least another 5-10 years before prices rise based upon demand and the lack of cars. They were broken/scrapped in their 1000’s, some hung on in there with awful Clubautosport fibreglass 924Carrera GT & GTS body kits and even worse 968 conversions! Forget the S. For the same engine everyone prefers the 944 without the LT van stigma.
Currently they’re cheap as chips which makes proper restorations not viable. That said, buy now and stuff in dry storage for 10 years then wheel it out.
With ten classic cars currently, dry storage is the main issue for an 11th.

Anyway, today I started with taking my son out on some more driving lessons, 1200 flatted the front section of the Traveller roof & front wing, then polished out with rubbing paste & T cut. Lunch, then out for more driving before dropping him back.
I then carried on with the “tinkering”.
I’m going to call it “tinkering” now, as I’m just finding stuff to do until the wheels come back and I can get the car down the MOT centre.
With the afternoon so sunny and warm I mixed up some 2-pack lacquer and finished off the roll over edges of the wheel arches with a fresh mini gloss roller.
I then crawled under the car and touched in a few little area’s of the stone guard in the original heavy ripple texture, where from certain angles I had missed a few valleys in the texture.
I also had an in line fuel pressure tester (with gauge) turn up in the post today. I’ve wanted a professional one for a while and had knocked myself up one (cobbled from bits & bobs) that had started to leak a bit and I wasn’t sure on the gauge calibration so had taken the plunge and bought a new one.
I made up some extra fittings on my lathe this evening and shall have a play tomorrow!

I had a nice unmolested 79 924 that cost me very little that I was planning on keeping hold of and restoring ready for when values started to rise. Some bugger drove into the back of me last week though and wrote it off.

So what is your show burn project Darren?

Pm sent Stuart.

So, Stuart
What's his slow burn project ?

I wish I knew!

Today I did a little more turning on my lathe to make a fuel return bleed and assembled my new fuel pressure tester.
I sorted out the fuel hoses in the engine bay and tidied everything up. A trip down to the local petrol station with two cans (with a stop for lunch) I put fuel back into the car. It’d been dry since pulling the tank out to replace the fresh air blower motor a couple of months ago. After replacing the fuel pump relay (removed while I was sorting out the cars electrics that needed the ignition on) I ran the pump and found a few leaks. These were repaired and the pressures set and tested.
After some more fettling I ran the engine and warmed it through while checking for leaks from over the whole system, tank to engine bay & back.
One of the criteria when the car went into the paintshop was that the painters could drive the car. I’d temporarily rigged up the engine & fuel system so that this could happen, but now I needed to make a more permanent (and safer) situation.
With everything looking good I stopped the engine and made use of the heat in the garage to touch in a bit more paint including the LH heat exchanger where the outer casing had moved/expanded along the pipes about 3mm and revealed bare metal needing painting.
I was interrupted by a neighbour with car trouble so gave him a hand to fix it before returning to the 914. Finally fitting a few tinware screws that were missing and clipping the throttle cable near the coil to tidy it up before calling it a day.

Today I had another afternoon of testing and prodding at the Hospital. I did however manage to visit the zinc platters and take along the wheel bolts.

I took along the brand new single bolt as an example of how I wanted the old bolts refinished in dull zinc.
After an inspection and discussion they agreed to do a sample strip and replate on one bolt only as a trial.
Expecting to return tomorrow the guy said, take a seat, have a coffee and I’ll do it while you wait.
10 minutes later he came back with a electro stripped and replated old bolt.
The colour & matt finish was good but the old bolt hex head had some wheelbrace/ socket marking.
The new bolt (and my old ones when new) had a very slightly rough texture in the metal from the forging/manufacturing process. Over the years taking them off and on with a socket had “smoothed” the textured surface. Not easily seen when in the old condition, but once the bolt had been replated the smooth corners of the hex had quite a comparison to the textured centre of the hex flats. The smoothness makes the zinc plate look more chrome/shiny than even dullness.
After a bit of deliberation I plan to take all the bolts over to the bead blasters tomorrow (including the replated one) and have just the heads blasted to return the texture finish evenly to the hex flats.
Afterwards they can go back to the platers for a coat of dull zinc. I want a minimum 15 microns to give good rust resistance whilst retaining the surface texture.

Photo below show (from left to right) New Bolt, replated & bolt as was (remaining 14 are like this).



The plan is to get them looking like original brand new against the refurbished wheels without spending a fortune on buying all new bolts.

Darren
That's a serious case of CDO you have there


It's like OCD but with the letters in the right order, just for you

Darren C wrote:I took along the brand new single bolt as an example of how I wanted the old bolts refinished in dull zinc.

Darren,
What puzzles me is that you buy a new wheel bolt from Porsche which was only made recently and you are saying it is the original finish, Dull and the wheel socket had made the edges smooth!
To know what they were like back in the day you need to look a good old one. Also look at photos of the wheels in the sales brochures and you find they were a Bright Finish.
They were also copper platted first also.
Just so happens I have some old new stock samples.

Hmmm,
Very curious Kev.
I have 15 old bolts, all with dull zinc plate (especially the shank under the head with no thread that is protected from weather, and the end of the bolt wound into the hub) All are dull zinc.
At the platers they did a chemical test yesterday and there is NO copper on them, just zinc and a trace of a tiny nickel content which they say is most probably in the steel rather than the plating.
I have also looked at the metal forged finish on these bolts and it is certainly without doubt a grainy finish, not smooth.
The bolts in your picture look like BZP. For BZP you need a smooth not grainy finish. Dare I suggest to the 914 guru that your NOS bolts may be from a separate supplier who Porsche may have used in the 80s/90s? The corners of the dome washer looked as if they’ve been machined sharper (not as radiused as my bolts)
Further the hex on your bolt heads show a fly cut mill finish which is completely NOT the machine process on my old bolts or the new one?
What is certain is that my bolts were grain texture dull zinc plated when new and not at all as gordy as the BZP ones that look too gimcrack and CNC made to me to have been used on the production line.

It would be interesting to get others opinions on their original bolts, ideally looking in detail at the centre of the flats to see if they were grainy or super smooth fly cut and the sharpness of the radius corners of the dome washer at the base of the hex.

Do you guys think there was a difference based on the original wheels fitted??
Steel wheels dull finish!
Shiny alloys shiny bolts ??
Just a thought

Mark

My flats on my bolts are grainy, not fly cut. And the edges definitely don't look sharp - they have a radius on them. I'm pretty sure they are original to the car. The spares car I had for a while also had wheel bolts that were the same type