CurtisRider

The next area I wanted to paint on the Porsche was the front badge panel and headlamp covers. Many stone chips, some badly filled in and some rusting away have made it look rather grotty upfront. I had a chance to sand down, treat and primer the panels. They still need a little work but aren't far off being ready! Can't wait to have it looking rust free Just need to sand/fill a few more areas where some little dents have shown up, then paint on tomorrow.

I'm just waiting to hear back from the guy I bought them off, hopefully he will sort it, if not i'm not massively fussed. I fitted the new seals tonight, it's amazing how much better the car looks with such a subtle difference! The old ones were really rotten. I also frenched my driving/side lights, rather like how that looks and it also covers up that the lamps don't match

Nice work Hermes, that was a 7 foot gate that you managed to throw my parcel over containing 2 windows... thank feck I only wanted the seals!

Yup, anything based on the same platform is the same fitment i believe

Sounds like you probably need to make some car friends with a little guidance you will soon be curing those problems easily!

Repairing vs replacing the seat= more hassle! Standard Leon seats are cheap enough to buy, might as well get some rather than fixing yours

Why not get a local paintshop to do the odds and sods in 2K? It seems a shame to not so that on such a nice car

Good work, are you rattle canning it or using a gun?

Have any of yours actually spent time on the road?

Avoid the poverty grinders (£15 ones) they are painful when they go wrong I have both the Makita and Bosch £40 ones and they are lovely things, infact i'm finding it hard to decide which brand i'll go for when I buy a third grinder (one for cutting, one for grinding and one for wire brushing)

Dremels? On a car? That must take bloody forever to do anything! Get a real grinder chap, well worth it

After my woes with timing, my car finally runs fairly well thanks to advice from you chaps on here! (still a little tweaking to do here and there). To celebrate the fact it works again I decided to wash it Fresh paint on the cambelt cover, ready to go back on when I find some suitable bolts I really need to order some replacement stickers for the back, it looks so plain and boring after the respray! I also need to cut back all the soot from the exhaust when it was running super rich. Front panel, headlight panels and front bumper are next on the respray list as they are really letting the car down right now (and then once they are done it'll highlight something else...)

I would have thought the reason is if his dads old X-pack came up for sale then he could get a decent wedge for this and use it to fund buying the X-pack and restoring it to its former glory? Makes sense to me Robin, colour matching the wheels might look a bit wrong I fear, have you tried 'shopping it? Perhaps it could work with a polished lip?

That is rather lovely, i'd really like a Capri at some point! Or a Manta

Yeah i'm thinking what i'll have to do is find the proper flywheel timing marks and either measure the distance between them (+10, 0, -10) or mark them on the crankshaft pulley and then measure after that, then I can add the marks to the new timing mark I have on the crankshaft pulley and replicate them on the flywheel. It's a rough way of doing it but I'm not sure how else to do it!

That M3 looks even cooler with that bumper, love it! I got the car going at about 11 this morning, and its far better than it was now. I have the ignition timing nearly right, i just need to find a way of making new marks on the flywheel for the timing light. I have just done 2 hours of driving and it was purring along, the lumping at idle has even gone. Thank you everybody that helped, it is much appreciated

Cheers for your help Adam, I've had all 3 of those links open unfortunately The flywheel marking is off, I have checked and when at that point the piston is not at TDC, so the flywheel has been off and bolted back on at a different point. I have a different marking for the crankshaft so I know when that is at TDC now. It's just the camshaft marking that I need to figure out right now, I set it to what I thought was TDC, I get lots of popping and banging from the exhaust, no difference is made when turning the distributer

It's a Porsche 924 n/a 2 litre. The mark on the camshaft lined up gives me 1 of the valves open on piston 1, I don't know which one it is though

This is seriously annoying, I wish I had a clue what i'm doing

Rocker cover is off, should the camshaft be rotated so the no1 piston valves open the same amount at TDC?

The emissions 'passed'. Did the belt this morning with no luck It won't even start now. Got the distributer set to TDC, occasional pop from the exhaust whilst cranking over if that means anything? I tried the screwdriver method to check TDC and all that happens is it seems to get stuck, i'm guessing a valve must hit against it or because the spark plug enters at an angle it gets squashed as turn the crankshaft. Whoever was last there had put a white mark on the crank pulley, this didn't line up to TDC on the flywheel so I ignored it, it did however line up to when the screwdriver started getting stuck... even that didn't line up with the camshaft markings though! I'm very stuck EDIT: Using my endiscope I can determine TDC, completely forgot I had one... now, using that I can see the white marks the previous person left are indeed correct for TDC, however timing is still VERY off on the camshaft going by the distributer, my spark plugs are in the wrong location too regardless of if I turn the camshaft. do I simply just put the leads into the correct order for the new location?

Plan is to get up early, time the engine, then dash to get my timing light from the sorting office, time the ignition, tweak mixture and then drive to the school i'll be working at...fingers crossed it lets me do that! Can make some tweaks here and there on the journey i guess

I think the hardest thing I have ever done is change a gearbox, that's how basic my skills are in that area It is an easy engine to work around in all fairness, compared to all the diesels I have had it is a bit of a pleasure to work on!

Not sure if i worded that correctly, I know 3 teeth is a lot, that's why i'm surprised at how well it is running! I'll double check with the dipstick to confirm TDC is correct on the flywheel marking and if so i'll reset the timing on the camshaft it is a non interference engine so I can't actually hurt it I guess! Timing light should arrive tomorrow as well which is great! Oh and cheers for the confidence in my skills haha, i'd say i'm fairly special needs when it comes to engines, never had much luck with working on them!

Well judging by photos of other people's engines, my dizzy is at a crazy angle!