Porsche 944

last updated March, 2020

I bought a Porsche 944 to be a daily driver while I worked on my Trans Am. Once I got the Trans Am up and running, my plan is to sell the Porsche and, with the money from the sale, get the TA painted. I figured I'd only have the car for maybe a year, but we are closing in on three years now, and the Porsche has become a project in it's own right.

Getting a Porsche

• Cheap, ideally under $4000
• A stick shift
• cool and/or interesting

Then, in January, it was stolen. What the heck? Who steals a 1984 Porsche 944? I mean, it's a Porsche, but not a valuable one. It's also a stick, which means that the percentage of the population that can drive it is shrinking. No millenial is going to take it, right?

I parked at the transit center in the morning, took the bus to work, and when I came back, it was gone. I really didn't believe it was stolen at first. But it was. I called the police, and they called me back an hour later. They found it. It was abandoned in the middle of the road on a side street about 8 miles from where it was stolen. The police had already had it towed to an impound lot.

The next day, I went to pick up the car. It looked in good shape, not trashed. It started up, but when I put it in gear, nothing happened. The clutch was fried. Whoever stole it did not know how to drive a stick, and destroyed my clutch with their attempt to learn.

After a long process with the insurance company, they decided to total the car. Parts and repairs on Porsches are expensive and more-so for vintage Porsches. Add to that the fact that 944's are not valuable or desirable Porsches, and it would cost almost as much to repair the car as to replace it. They offered a settlement, and asked if I wanted to keep the car. If I kept it, they would deduct the cost of what a scrap yard would pay for it. That turned out to be only $500. I didn't want to see the car go to the crusher and be destoryed for scrap metal, so I said "I'll take it."

Now I need to replace the clutch on the car to get it working again. Replacing the clutch is one of the most difficult jobs you can do on a 944. Trained Porsche mechanics estimate 20 hours of labor for the job. As a guy with not much Porsche wrenching experience and no garage with specialized tools or a lift, it will probably take me at least twice as long. But hey, we are under COVID-19 quarantine here, so I've got lots of time to spend at home.

Weekend 1

Up on jackstands we go.

Saturday, 3/28. Step 1: Remove exhaust system. Boom! Done! Thanks to Lizzie Hawk for the help.

Sunday 3/29. Step 2: Remove the transaxle. Boom! Done! The Mad Dawg, Madeline Hawk helped me get this heavy thing out of the car.

Weekend 2

Sunday, April 5. I wanted to have the clutch and flywheel off this weekend, so I could drop the flywheel off at the machine shop for refinishing and have it back by next weekend to put back on. I didn't quite make it. Things went very smoothly for the first half of the day. I was very confident I'd get it all done. Then I ran into the speed sensor and the reference sensor. These two little things bolt on to the top of the clutch bellhousing, and the bolts are almost impossible to get to. I had a crazy allen head socket attached to 5 extensions and 2 universal joints, and I had to come at the bolts from underneath the car! With some help from Stephanie and especially Madeline, I finally managed to get the sensors out. It ended up taking 2 hours. Now the bellhousing is off.

And the clutch is finally accessible. Only nine bolts are holding it in place, and another nine are holding on the flywheel behind it. I might be able to get to it one night this week after work, and get it to the machine shop in time to have it ready for next weekend. Fingers crossed.

Also, I am not holding the engine up completely with that little jack. By removing the torque tube, which houses the 944 equivelant of a drive shaft, I removed a load-bearing component. The engine is still attached by several motor mounts, but it is recommended that you add a jack for support to make up for the removal of the torque tube.

Monday, April 6th

Alright, I got to it quickly. After a 10-hour day making a new COVID-19-related website at work, I was able to walk out to the garage and finish up with the clutch and flywheel. It took two hours to get them both off, and I'll get the flywheel to the machine shop tomorrow. I should have it back before the weekend, and I'll be able to start putting the 944 all back together.

Here's a side by side comparison of the old clutch and the new clutch. The old clutch is only about 1/4 of the thickness of the new one, on the side that contacts the flywheel. It's about half as thick on the other side.

Here's the old clutch and pressure plate on the left, and the shiny new ones on the right. The old ones, and the inside of the bell housing, were covered in dust, I assume from the rapid destruction of the clutch by the car thieves. It was kinda nasty getting the clutch and flywheel out because of that.

Weekend 3 Saturday, April 11th

Today's accomplishments: New rear shocks in, gas tank out. Wait, what do those things have to do with the clutch?

Everything is apart as far as I can get it, and I've run into a roadblock. I wasn't having any problems with the pilot bearing or the main seal, but the internet consensus seems to be that you should replace these things every time you get the flywheel out, because that doesn't happen very often and it's a pain in the ass to replace when that's the only thing with a problem.

It is supposed to be simple, but I'm having a bear of a time finding the right sized bearing puller. I checked one out from O'reilly's, I borrowed one from my neighbor, and I bought one at Harbor Frieght, and they were all too big.

So, I think I've found the right sized one, but the only place I could find it is Summit Racing, and it'll be at least two weeks until it is delivered. So I can't start putting the Porsche back together for a while.

And that's when scope-creep comes in. As long as I have the car this far apart, I can address an issue that has annoyed me since the first time I filled up the car's gas tank. When I drive my 944, there is a gasoline smell inside the cabin. If the tank is full, or if I have the windows rolled down and the sunroof open, it is a strong smell. So I never fill the tank all the way. When it gets low, I only put in 5 gallons. This keeps the smell from being bad.

It turns out this is a very common problem for 944's, and it stems from how the gas tank is made. Stamping indentations into the steel creates weak points that, over the decades, develop tiny cracks. These cracks leak gas fumes. Since you have to drop the transmission to take the gas tank out, I've lived with the problem. But now my tranny is out, and I have a couple weeks until my tool gets here, so I decided to fix my tank.

I got the tank out, and sure enough, there are very small cracks right where the internet said they would be.

I've ordered some tank sealant, and I'm going to flush and clean the tank. I may also take it somewhere and try to have the cracks welded. The internet is divided on the best method for repairing these cracks. I might throw several methods at it and hope at least one of them or the combination of them will fix it. They don't make replacement tanks anymore, and the used tanks you find on eBay all have the same cracks. Hopefully, after I'm done, I can cruise around with the sunroof off and not be overcome with fumes.

And while I have the back end all apart, I threw in some new shocks. I had purchased the shocks before the car was stolen, and I was going to put them in over president's day weekend. But the car was in impound then, so I'm getting to it now.

Thursday, April 23rd

I did not work on the Porsche last weekend. I focused on some home improvement projects, installing a new garbage disposal and doing some work on my plumbing. I did get the gas tank back from the radiator shop this week, and it is great - better than new, with extra metal re-inforcing the weak spots where the cracks had been. I bet it won't fail for at least the next 35 years.

And tonight is a big milestone. I actually started putting the Porsche back together. I put in a new rear main oil seal and a new pilot bearing. Before today, I'd only taken things apart, ordered new parts, sent things out to be repaired or refurbished. But it all started coming back together tonight. Hopefully, I will make a lot of progress this weekend and things will go together quicker than they came apart.

Week 5, April 25, 26

Saturday didn't start out well. It rained hard all morning, and when it cleared up in the afternoon, my car was still sitting in a lake. Not conducive to work when you have to lay in puddle of water. I was able to do a little work in the evening after the driveway finally dried out.

Sunday was a beautiful day and I got a lot done. I got much of the car put back together. I re-installed the newly refinished flywheel, then put in the new clutch and pressure plate, then put the bellhousing back on. Great progress. I hope to have it running next weekend.

You can see the heat shielding in these pictures - it's the shiny stuff with the torn-up furry edges. It's deteriorated over the years, but is mostly intact. But that furry stuff is fiberglass, and working up against it all day, even with gloves and long sleeves, results in very irratated skin. My wrists have big itchy red patches where my skin came in contact with it.

My next concern is getting the car titled. The insurance company totalled the car, which means the state considers it a destroyed vehicle and the title is no longer valid. I have to re-apply for a salvage title. The Department of Licensing offices are closed because of COVID-19, and I don't know when I will be able to get it titled.

Weekend 6 - May 1st

I was hoping to get it running this weekend, but no such luck. I couldn't work on Saturday, as it rained the first half of the day and there was a big puddle under the car for the rest of the day. But Sunday I made great progress. I re-attached the torque tube and reconnected a bunch of hoses and wires that I had disconnected to get access to the bolts and stuff I needed to remove to get to the clutch.

One thing I did this weekend was get the newly welded tank ready for install. In order to get it welded, I needed to remove some rubber pads that keep it from vibrating and making noise. I glued them back into place. A couple were located on a curved spot, and I strapped a broom handle to keep them in position and tightened against the bend while the glue dried.

I bought some new fuel hoses to replace the aging ones, but there was no clear documentation on the size of the hoses. I used a micrometer but it was hard to get an exact measure, the old rubber had stretched and deformed a little bit. I made my best guess and ordered 3 pieces of various standard size hoses. When I tried to replace them, I found that one was different sized at each end - a very specialized piece of hose! Another piece I ordered was about .5mm too small. I ended up re-using all of my old hoses except for one small piece. $60 worth of hose that didn't fit!

Now that the tank hoses and pads are all sorted out, I have three steps left to get the car running - reinstall the gas tank, put the transmission back in, and reattach the exhaust. At this point, everything should be straightforward, with no surprises, no more parts to order, no more special tools needed. I might even be able to get a couple of these tasks done in the evenings this week.

May 5, Tuesday

Got the gas tank back in the car. Connected fuel filler neck and put back interior upholstry that was removed to access that.

May 7, Thursday

Put back exhaust heat shields and rubber muffler hangers. All the little loose doodads are back in place. Only the major transmission and exhaust pipe/muffler remain. So close now!

Weekend 7 - May 9th

I was convinced that I would have the car running this weekend, but it was a disaster. I put the transmission back in and torqued all the bolts down to specification. The last step was to slide the coupler from the transmission shaft onto the drive shaft and connect the two. And it wouldn't slide! I spent some time trying to get it to do so, but it would not go on the drive shaft. I went and watched a youtube video on transmission installation, and the guy on there was saying, "and the coupler slides this easy, just back and forth." Liar! I then spent an hour and a half trying to adjust the angle of the transmission with a jack. I was climbing under the car to slide the coupler, then climbing out to raise or lower the jack a couple of inches, then back under the car to slide again. I tried using a pry bar to force the coupler on. Nothing worked.

I did end up knocking one of the axles off of the blocks it was resting on, and it fell on my face. I got a nasty cut on my forehead.

I finally took the tranmission off again, to inspect the shafts and see if they were damaged at all. They looked in good shape, so my plan is to try again, and get the drive shaft and transmission shaft aligned better, so the coupler will slide on better. I will also thoroghly cleaned the shafts and the coupler, so no dirt or rust could be binding them up. But all in all, a very frustrating weekend. Lots of work and no progress.

Weekend 8, 9 - May 16th/17th, May 23rd/24th

Two weekends gone by, and I really hoped to be done. I've been very close three times now, and been thwarted with the finish line in sight. I've put the transmission in and taken it out twice more trying to get the coupler to connect the drive shaft and transmission. The first time I took the transmission out, I cleaned the ends of both shafts. While I was cleaning them, I noticed what looked like metal shards in the splines. This would indicate that something was rubbing and wearing away bits of metal. I couldn't tell what might be causing that, so I cleaned it up and put the transmission back on.

And I had some success. The coupler would now slide over both shafts. I was sure that I would have the car ready in an hour. It is very difficult to bolt coupler the brackets in. The bellhousing has to be in place, and you have to reach through a small opening in it (normally covered by a rubber seal) to move the couple and then screw in the bolts.

When I slid the coupler in place over both shafts, it didn't quite work. The coupler needs to be placed in the exact spot, with the groove in the transmission shaft and the groove in the drive shaft lining up with the square brackets on the coupler. Things didn't quite line up. The red lines show the edges of the groove in the shaft. The blue lines show the edges of the bracket that holds the bolt that tightens the coupler in place. They are off by 1/8".

I loosened the bell housing and torque tube so I had a little play in the system and tried for an hour to wiggle the shafts into alignment, but I couldn't get them to line up. After some internet research, I found a recommendation to use a hammer to move the drive shaft in the torque tube. It might be possible to move the driveshaft with the proper leverage. So I took the transmission off for a third time. I disconnected the torque tube from the front and moved it as far back in the car as I could. There wasn't much clearance to get a hammer on the front of the shaft. I ended up trying a couple things, hammering a board I had wedged in place in front of the shaft, using a crowbar to pry. Using a puller on the back end of the shaft. I couldn't get it to move at all.

I put the transmission back in and tried one last time to line things up, hoping that maybe I had moved the shaft enough. I figured if it didn't line up, I would have the car towed to a mechanic and have someone who knows what they are doing fix it. It turned out that I was right, the shaft still didn't line up. It was frustrating and disappointing, and I was ready to give up.

Weekend 10 - May 30th/31st

Before I could take it to the mechanic, I did some research. I found a way to take the torque tube entirely out of the car, by dropping the rear suspension. With the torque tube out, I should be able to adjust the position of the shaft. It gave me some hope that I could get everything lined up after all, and with a two week wait until I could get an appointment at the only mechanic I could find who does work on vintage Porsches, I decided to give it a try.I was hoping I could get it done in one weekend, and with some gorgeous 70 degree weather the week prior, I was very optimistic.

Saturday morning, I woke up to the sound of thunder. It rained all day on Saturday, and halfway through Sunday, and I gave up on working on the car. But Sunday afternoon, it cleared up and the giant puddle under the car dried up. So I got to work.

I took the transmission out for a fourth time. Then I got the rear suspension mostly disconnected, but ran into an issue with the brake lines. I also ran out of time, as the sun went down. Good weather is forecast for the next few days, so we'll see how far I can get working evenings. But I have renewed hope that I can get the car back together without taking it to a mechanic, possibly after one good weekend of work.

Thursday, Friday - June 4th/5th The weather is unpredictable for the next few days and I don't know if I'll be able to work on the car over the weekend, so I jumped on this in the evenings after work. I removed the bolts holding the rear suspension in, but it wouldn't drop. I finally figured out why. I missed a step. Instructions called for the removal of a cross-beam support. I had seen a similar instruction for gas tank removal, but it was for a cross-member that is only on later model years of the 944. I assumed that the instructions were referring to the same cross-member, but it wasn't. There was a small, narrow cross-member that was hidden out of sight. I put the rear suspension back together, removed the cross-member, then dropped the suspension again. This time, it lowered all the way.

I was able to pull the torque tube completely out of the car. Now, I just had to adjust the shaft placement inside the torque tube. So I got a big hammer. Honestly, that is how you move the shaft. It is supported by 4 bearings inside the tube, and it is supposed to just slide in, and sometimes near the end need a few taps from a hammer to be positioned just right. My biggest concern was that I'd hit it too hard and move it more than just 1/8 of an inch.

I started out with a rubber mallet and a chunk of 2x4 wood between the mallet and the shaft, so I wouldn't damage anything. After a couple gentle taps, it hadn't moved at all. After a couple of spirited taps, it hadn't moved at all. After whaling on it, still no movement. Then I used the rubber mallet directly on the shaft. Then I used a real hammer with the chunk of 2x4. After 15 minutes the shaft hadn't moved at all. I'm at a loss. Not sure what to do now. But I guess we're in for thunderstorms all day tomorrow, so even if I knew what to do, I couldn't do it anyway.

before and after

Saturday, June 6th

Well, no thunderstorms. I got right to work in the morning, figuring I'd work until the weather turned bad, but it never did. I spent about 10 hours working on the Porsche. I found a good method for adjusting the drive shaft on the internet. It involved a jack. I braced the torque tube in the frame of my garage door, with blocks of wood to fill in the empty space. First, I tried to use my bottle jack, but it was not designed to be used horizontally. It didn't move anything, just leaked hydraulic fluid all over the ground. So then I used my floor jack. It didn't fit as elegantly as the bottle jack, but it actually worked.

I gently pumped the jack but the shaft wasn't budging. Suddenly, there was a loud ping and it moved a bit more than I wanted. I needed 1/8 inch adjustment, and I got almost three times that. So, back to the hammer and block of wood on the other end, and I moved the shaft back a little bit. It still didn't perfectly match my measurement, but I wasn't super confident in my estimate. I found some internet recommendation that you can just make sure that the groove in the shaft is centered in the access hole. It looked pretty good going by that metric. I think my measurement was at the very edge of the possible range, and this alignment is probably better.

After getting the shaft aligned, I started putting the car back together. I got the rear suspension back in place and bolted down to torque specifications. I got a lot of other stuff back in place. I'm ready to put the transmission back in and check if my adjustment worked. Fingers are crossed. If I'm still not right, I'll have to take everything apart again. But that's the thing with car work. Lots of times you end up putting something back together and then having to take it apart because you put one small thing in backwards or something. The second time you put it back together goes a lot faster. By the third time, you've got it down, but then, you'll probably never have to do that job again.

Sunday, June 7th

Got the transmission put back in, and after a little wiggling and tweaking, the coupler slid into place. I spun the shaft around and confirmed that the shaft grooves lined up with the coupler bolts. It worked! All that business - dropping the rear suspension, disconnecting the brakes, using a jack to adjust the shaft placement - it all worked!

After the transmission was back in and the driveshaft connected, I started buttoning up the rest of the car. Put the starter motor back in, some exhaust heat shields, but I ran out of daylight before I could get everything ready. I have three big steps to go:
Bleed the brakes
Re-install the axles
Re-install the exhaust

It is very satisfying to fix a really difficult problem. The shaft alignment problem was really challenging, and well outside the typical kind of thing a backyard mechanic is faced with. Being able to stick with the problem and not give up, to take a step back and come up with a new plan when the first couple things I tried didn't work, and to finally have success, gave me such a feeling of accomplishment. It makes all the frustration and problems worth it. Now, I can't wait to get back behind the wheel.

Monday, June 8th

I worked hard to get everything back together today, for a few hours after work. I was racing sunset, when it would get too dark to work. As it got later, I got further along, and realized I was going to make it. After 3 months, I was going to get the car running tonight! The final task was to put the exhaust back on. I got the assembly under the car, I got a couple of the hangers attached, and then I went to grab the new gaskets to attach the pipes to the exhaust manifold. And the gaskets weren't there.

I had purchased new gaskets at the start of the project, and they had been sitting on my workbench for a long time. I frequently noticed them when I was working. But I hadn't seen them in a while. I turned the garage upside down looking for them, as it grew darker and I lost my daylight. Here I was, at the end of the project, and I couldn't finish because I was missing a $12 part!

Not sure what happened to them. I found the old ones, but he new ones proved elusive. They might have gotten thrown out by mistake when I took a lot of old parts from this project to the dump. Of course, AutoZone or Napa don't have exhaust manifold gaskets for a 1984 Porsche in stock, so I can't pick it up locally. I had to order it online, but even with 2-day shipping, it won't get here until Thursday. After all the troubles I've had with this project, this seems like the most ridiculous. It will take me 20 minutes to get the exhause attached, once I have the gaskets. But until I get them, I'm stuck.

Thursday, June 11th

Gaskets came today and I got the exhaust hooked back up. I got the car off the jackstands just after dark, put some gas in the tank and tried to start it. The battery was dead from sitting for so long. It's been almost 5 months since it was stolen. Anyway, the battery is on the charger, and I'll drop it in tomorrow and we should be good to go. The car desperately needs a wash. It looks a mess. But I'm very excited to drive it.

Friday, June 12th

Heartbroken. I put the charged up battery in, fired her up, put her in gear, and nothing. Would not move at all. 3 months of work, lots of difficult and creative problem solving, and it doesn't work.

There are a couple possiblities. One, I screwed something up, put it together wrong somehow. Two, there is more broken than the clutch, the transmission has some damage too. At some point, I'll get the car back up on jackstands and do a little diagnosing, but I'm so bummed out right now, I'm just going to take a break for a couple days. I don't even want to think about the Porsche for a while.

Tuesday, June 16th

I got the car up on jackstands and had my daughter turn it on and run it through the gears while I looked at the driveshaft underneath the car. The good news is that the clutch works perfectly. Push it in and the driveshaft stops spinning, let it out and the driveshaft turns. So I did that right. The bad news is, I can see the transmission shaft turning, but it is not turning the wheels. I confirmed that the shift linkage is working properly, and I can put the car in each of the gears. But something inside there is broken and the power from the shaft is not getting to the wheels.

I was pretty sure that repairing the transmission is not a job for a backyard mechanic. Some research confirmed that. It is not a job for a regular mechanic either. It is a job for transmission specialist, with expensive specialty tools and lots of experience. And it is not cheap. A company called 944 Online used to rebuild transmissions. But they stopped and instead started selling used ones instead. It was too much work and too many expensive parts to rebuild a broken one, when used ones are generally in fine shape and cost way less.

I called North Seattle Transmission, and they quoted me a price of somewhere between $4000 and $6000, they'd have to take the transmission apart before they could be more specific. That's more than the entire car is worth! Ed's Transmission was in the same ballpark.

So I started looking at eBay and Craigslist. And there are lots of 944 transmissions out there, for around $500 plus delivery. That helped me over my sticker shock. I sent out a couple emails asking about two I found on Craigslist that are local and I could go pick up. I'm a little nervous about getting scammed. $500 is a lot of money for a part that may potentialy not work, or may be worn out and break soon after I get it in my car. I'm going away for a long weekend getaway, so I have some time to mull it over. I probably won't do anything until next week at the earliest.

Thursday, June 18th

Well, I was supposed to be on my way out of town today, but we live in strange times and unexpected things happen. So I was stuck at home waiting on COVID test results when I got a text from a Craigslist guy with a 944 transmission. His price was under $200, and he told me that it came out of a car with about 90 thousand miles that had been in a wreck. It was from an 87, and my 944 is an 84, but they are pretty interchangable.

I went over and checked it out. It looked pretty good and all the parts turned like they were supposed to (unlike on my broken one), and I could run it through each gear. So I bought it and brought it home!

The '87 has a single mounting bracket, and a speedometer sensor ( 85.5 and earlier have speedometer sensors at the driver's side wheel), but other than that, they are the same. You can see the old-style twin mounting brackets in the photo, they are the yellow tabs on each side of the one in front. The black blob in the middle of the one in back is the newer style single bracket. Both transmissions have bolt holes to accomodate either type of mounting bracket, so it was easy to switch the older style brackets to the new transmission. I also changed the transmission fluid, and got it all ready to go into the car.

That's as far as I got today, but it is further than I thought I'd get this week. Probably some night next week, I will install this new transmission, and, fingers crossed, have a running 944 again. I'm pretty excited. Less than a week ago, I was despondent and unsure if I'd ever get the car running again. Now I'm hopeful and I think very close to being back on the road.

Friday, June 19th

Just because I mentioned it, I figure I better say the COVID test was negative. Off to vacation for now.

Wednesday, June 24th

Got the Craigslist transmission back in the car, got everything buttoned up, and it runs! I'm so happy right now. The car is a mess, it's been sitting in the driveway for five months. It needs a wash, and I need an appointment to repair the body damage from an unrelated accident that happened around Thanksgiving.

It's been a lot of work, and sometimes it was incredibly frustrating, but I have such a sense of accomplishment and I'm glad to have my car back!