01x01 - Porsche 924 Part 1

[bunniefuu]

Welcome to Wheeler Dealers,
where I show you how to buy,

restore and sell modern
classics cars of my generation.

To help me I've got my very own mechanic,
Ed China.

We're going to be showing you
where to get the cars from and

how to return them to tip-top
condition for no more than £1,000.

I'm going to be showing
you where the best places

to find the cars are and
how to source the parts.

Ed's going to be fiddling with the
spanners and hopefully breathing life back

into these motoring icons like this
stunning Porsche 924.

It may not have the enduring
appeal of a 911, but this

sleek sports coupé was a
breakthrough for Porsche.

It bought the famous Gold Stuttgart badge
a step closer to the average driver.

I love the Porsche 924.

Because of its iconic 80s-ness,
it defined that motoring period in time.

But I love it most of all
because it went like a train

and never blew up thanks
to its bulletproof reliability.

And that means it's still with us today.

In the mid-70s, Volkswagen and
Audi joined forces and commissioned

Porsche to design an affordable
mass-market sports car.

They spent millions on development and
testing.

But as the 70s oil crisis loomed, VW
lost faith in the project and pulled out.

Luckily, Porsche decided to carry on,
and in 1976 the 924 was born.

Its styling immediately attracted praise.

It had a perky 2-litre engine with 125bhp
and a 5-speed gearbox.

With a near 50-50
front-to-back weight

distribution, it was also
great fun to chuck around.

But the looks and ability didn't come
cheap.

In the UK, its launch price was a whopping
seven grand.

That's 48 grand in today's money.

Nevertheless, Porsche
sold plenty of 924s in the

UK, and there's still a
common sight on our roads.

My challenge is to find a going
proposition for under £1,000.

It's a tough call, but I know just where
to start.

Now, one of the best
places to source your 924

is in one of the monthly
specialist magazines.

There's Practical Classics, or even
Porsche World.

Now, I had a little flick
through here earlier,

and I've come across
quite a few 924s for sale.

Look at this one.

924 Creira GT 81 in silver.

But look at the price.

£16,000.

But here's a cheaper one.

924 Special Edition 1977, two and a half
grand.

They're going the right way, but this is
the one for me.

Look at this.

A wide plate in guard's red.

Body work needs attention, but good
runner.

But listen to the price.

£850.

It's time to make that all-important phone
call.

Hello there, I'm ringing about a car for
sale.

If the seller answers which car,
then you know you're probably

speaking to a dealer who's
got more than one for sale.

What kind of conditions are in?

Avoid cars that have been sitting on the
drive waiting for some TLC.

It's much better to buy a
car that gets a regular daily

drive to work, even if it
does rack up the mileage.

Okay, bye-bye.

This pour sounds good, so I'm off to have
a closer look.

If you're looking for a pour key, then
my golden rules are to avoid automatics.

Never buy a white or gold car and be aware
of any 924 with a tired interior,

as it would have had a very hard life.

Must be Tim.

How are you doing?

Nice to see you, it's Mike.

It's not broken, is it?

No, no, I'm just having a little tinker.

Yeah, it's worth just checking this
chassis number.

So 404-601-404-446.

Yep, that's fine.

Good.

Right, that looks all right, doesn't it?

It's nice and straight under there,
actually.

You have been tinkering, haven't you?

Right, body work.

Bonnet's in good shape.

All this is in good shape across the
front.

This is going to have to be addressed.

This quite nasty dent here.

It came like that.

Did it?

Yeah, I'm no body panel expert,
so I'll just make it worse if I did that.

To be honest with you, I'm not too worried
about the dent.

I'm more worried about this decal.

Yeah, the transfer, yeah.

I wonder how hard that is to get hold of
it.

Underneath?

Mm-hmm.

OK, no exhaust.

Yep, yep.

That's not.

That's a lot of money, that was nearly a
week's wages.

Really?

Yep, worth it.

Right.

This panel's shot is...

It's going to need a little bit more than
the dose of elbow grease.

Yeah, a little bit of buffing.

It's going to need more than buffing up.

Right, got the dials, looks good.

Good.

All the electrics work?

Yep, they work.

Electric windows.

Headlamps, they're always important.

Yeah, they're nice, they come up and down.

It's all right, actually.

Yeah, I mean, on the face of it.

It is exactly what I'm not looking for,
because it's too much work.

But that's what's good about it.

I quite like the fact that this old girl,
because it is a Porsche after all,

this old girl, we can bring it back to
life.

Other than driving it, making
sure it starts, stops, and

goes in a straight line, I
might have a deal with you.

My first drive of the 924 for many,
many years.

Pulls nicely through the gearbox,
into third gear, into fourth gear.

Keep an eye on the gauges, make sure the
temperature's going up.

Oil pressure's good.

Mechanically, these cars are bulletproof.

A lot of the parts of Volkswagen Audi,
so to get bits for it is a doddle.

It actually feels really nice.

I've got a big smile on my face while I'm
driving this.

Heh, heh, heh.

We could have found a little minter here.

It's going to take a little bit of work to
get the body work up together.

But that's fine.

It says all the right things, doesn't it?

Porsche.

When you walk into a pub and throw that
keyring on the table and pick the last

which you're driving, and you say you've
got a Porsche sitting outside,

they think you're a man of means.

Little do they know you're driving around
in something that costs less than £1,000.

Now, that puts a smile on my face.

I don't know about yours.

There is a knocking coming from the rear,
but this car's just recently had a new

exhaust system
fitting, and I just don't

think they've put the
exhaust system on right.

And that's easily...easily rectified,
really.

850 quid he wants for it.

It'd be nice to get it a bit cheaper.

I'll try my hardest.

Ooh, ooh, ooh.

Exhausted.

I've got what it's like to drive a car
without power steering.

Yeah, it's tough.

God, it's heavy.

I think you were lying about your
mechanical skills.

Actually, it drives all right.

Big rattle down at the back coming from
that exhaust.

Really, the only
problem I've got is this

paintwork that's going
to really need addressing.

How much did you advertise it for?

I put it in the paper for 850.

850?

I reckon there's a good couple of hundred
quid to spend on it.

So, 650 cash.

Sort of middle way, 700?

700 quid?

It's not the middle of me, but I'll have a
deal with it.

Yeah, that's cool.

Fantastic.

Yeah, nice one.

Brilliant.

A Porsche 924 in good mechanical nick for
just 700 quid.

I'm very happy, but what will my mechanic,
Ed, make of it?

After all, it's him who's got to do all
the donkey work of putting it right.

To start up this paint, it's very,
very tight.

A bit of tea-cut is going
to sort that out, but you

really aren't going to be
able to do that with this dent.

No, let's have a little bit of accident
damage here.

I was well hoping that
you could sort of paint

underneath the line
and replace a deck out.

You might be able to do that.

That wouldn't be so bad, actually.

I know the deck out is going to be hard to
get, but I'm sure we can source one.

Well, what about these wheels?

Well, the wheels, the easiest thing with
those guys is they're looking very untidy.

It's just to have them
shot-blast, make them all

shiny and really smart
on the other side of the car.

Shot-blast?

Yeah, lots of little dots.

Lovely.

Really?

And that'll bring them back up?

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Right, it's had a brand spanking new
exhaust system at the rear, but when I

drove it, it was rattling and banging away
underneath.

That's probably really easy to fix.

I reckon that's just
like a bad fitting or

whatever, so it should
be really easy to do that.

Right, round here, it looks like
we're going to have to repaint

this side of the car because
the paintwork's gone there.

Actually, no.

I have a cunning plan.

We could actually mop this.

Mop it?

Yeah.

Well, it is.

You know how, like, you might polish a
floor?

Yeah.

Same sort of thing.

Much, much smaller.

And you can actually
cut away the bad paint on

the top here and get
through to the real colour.

I thought all this white was the white
undercoat underneath.

No, it's just where the paint's
gone bad because of the sign

and because of the road
dirt and all that kind of stuff.

So, literally, we can cut through that.

Fantastic.

That'd be really good.

Fantastic.

So we can save on money there.

Inside, the dashboard I was a little bit
worried about.

It's got some cracks in it, but
I think finding a replacement

dashboard for one of these
is going to be expensive.

Yeah, so I think we'll leave that.

The radio has been ripped out.

It needs a blanking
plate for that or even

another stereo for the
environment to chuck it in.

Having an end just needs a general
cleaning inside.

I was quite happy with the interior.

And the good news is everything works.

All the switches, knobs, buttons,
everything works.

That's great.

Happier?

Yeah, less work, I think, on that one.

Good.

All right, Phil, there's the keys.

Good luck with it.

I'll catch up with you soon.

It's time to pull on the
overall, so join us after the

breaker's egg gets to grips
with restoring our Porsche.

Welcome back.

This is our Porsche 924.

The challenge is to buy and restore a car
like this for just the grand.

Now, I spent £700
on buying a car, so my

mechanic, Ed, has just
got £300 to spend on parts.

Can he turn our tired old Porsche into a
drop-dead gorgeous sports car for that?

Looks like he's in for a few late nights.

This is the Porsche which Mike has very
kindly bought for us.

It's supposed to be a sports
car, but its sporty looks are

really being let down by
the condition of the bodywork.

There are a number of jobs I have to do.

The passenger door has a dent in it and
needs to be replaced.

There's a dent in the rear quarter,
which needs to be filled, and I'm hoping

that a good teacup is going to bring this
bodywork back to its former glory.

So let's get going straight away.

Here we have the dent in the rear quarter.

It's not that bad.

All it needs is a bit of filler and a bit
of paint.

Before I can even start that, I need to
remove the trim and the day-call.

And the best way to do that is with a hair
dryer or a heat g*n.

Now, to pull out the
dent from the side of

the bodywork, I'm going
to use a slide hammer.

It's a cheap, readily available tool.

I fitted it with a screw.

I'm going to drill a hole into the
bodywork, wind in the slide hammer,

and bang out the dent.

It might seem a bit drastic
drilling into our lovely

car, but it's a cheap
way of pulling out dents.

You just need a bit of courage.

A few knocks with the slide hammer and the
dent simply pulls out.

Well, the dent's out,
but there's still a bit of

distortion which I can knock
out with a body shop hammer.

Well, that's as good as it's going to get,
but before I can add any filler,

I need to grind back the paint to bare
metal and weld up the hole.

I filled the hole, I've removed the paint,
now I can put some filler on it.

This is just standard body filler.

It's great stuff.

It costs about £10 a tub and takes about
20 minutes to go off.

So while I'm waiting, I'm going to have a
look at the damaged passenger door.

A new door would be very pricey,
so I've sent Mike off to get his hands

dirty and try and find me a replacement in
a salvage yard.

Our 924 needs a door and it needs a couple
of wing mirrors.

Now, I've found round of
food breakers and one of them

on the phone says he
specialises in Porsche parts.

He says that he's got a couple of doors
and wing mirrors and more importantly,

they're red, so they shouldn't need
painting.

I just met him and he
pointed me down in this

direction to this
Aladdin's cave of doors.

So follow me, look, we've got one here for
a golf, one for a rover, one for a voxel,

one for a fold, but in amongst this is a
very rare find.

This is a door for a 924 with a wing
mirror attached in lovely condition.

It doesn't need any paint, it's just a bit
dirty.

But behind it is this, the near-side wing
mirror for the other door.

He says the other door
is in amongst his pile here

somewhere, so I'm
going to have to dig it out.

These doors are going to be about £100
each.

This wing mirror is going to be about £60,
which does sound like a lot of money,

but to buy them new would cost an absolute
fortune.

So I'm going to go and see the guy now and
see if I can work out a better price.

How you doing, mate?

You know what you need?

Yeah, not bad.

You've got a couple of 924 doors down
there and a couple of wing mirrors.

I need one of the doors, though,
how much are they?

We want £100 each with doors and £60 each
for mirrors.

I'm sure we can have a deal.

OK.

Well, I only need one door, so I'll give
you £75 for one of the doors, near-side

one, and £50 each for the mirrors,
£175 each.

That sounds good to me, mate.

Lovely, doesn't it?

Top work.

Top work, mate.

That's good.

That looks good.

What a great door.

It's really straight.

No signs of any repairs.

Mike's done us proud.

Now, obviously, I can't fit the new door
until I've removed the old door,

but if you have access to a trolley jack
and a plank of wood, you can support the

weight of the door while you undo the
bolts.

I also need to remove the door cards to
gain access to any wiring that needs to be

disconnected before I have a go at the
bolts.

I've just undone the two bolts that hold
on the door strap, and this gives me

better access to the four bolts that hold
on the door.

But while we're here, these holes are
slotted, so if I go round the butt heads

with a scriber, and when I come
to put on the new door, we've

got a much better chance
of fitting it properly first time.

All I have to do now is feed the hinges
into the holes and then line up the bolt

heads with the score marks we made
earlier.

Connecting up all the electrics for the
door mirror can be a bit fiddly,

but the hard part is making sure that the
door opens and shuts cleanly.

Once that's done, you're laughing.

Well, that's the last bolt done,
so now the moment of truth.

Does Mike's second-hand door actually fit?

Fantastic.

With the door now fitted, I can get back
to the quarter panel.

Now, the filler's dry, but I can feel it's
a little rough and doesn't blend in with

the bodywork, so the next stage is a
little laborious.

It involves more filler, bit of primer,
bit of sanding, a lot of patience,

and eventually, once we've got a mirrored
finish, we can put on some red paint.

OK, that's the priming done,
and I've just finished off with

a bit of wet and dry paper,
and now it's ready for paint.

The thing is, I can't get away
with painting just this area

because it would never
blend with the rest of the panel.

The only way to do this properly is by
painting the whole of the rear quarter.

Now, that's not as bad as it sounds,
because to prepare this panel,

all we need to do is give it a bit of a
key with a Scotch pad.

Take your time masking
up, because paint has a

habit of getting everywhere
if you're not careful.

Take special care around black seals.

Time spent doing it
right now will save you

hours removing excess
paint if you get it wrong.

I've got a good key on the bodywork,
and I've just wiped over with some solvent

to get rid of any contaminants or dust,
and now I'm finally ready to paint.

Getting a great paint finish is all about
patience.

If you rush the process, then you're
heading for disaster.

I'm working in a well-ventilated workshop,
but if you're doing this kind of work in a

small garage, then make sure you wear a
face mask at all times.

Pulling off the masking tape is the moment
of truth.

Finally, we'll be able to see how the
panel blends with the car.

That's such an improvement.

You'd never know the panel had been
damaged.

Definitely worth the effort.

The final job on this bodywork is to try
and bring this dull paint back to life.

Now, our budget won't allow a full
respray, so I'm going to use what's called

a mop and some compound, which is rather
like a high-speed teacut, and I'm hoping

that it's going to bring our Porsche back
to glorious red.

Look at that.

You can see the difference already.

That's before, and that's after.

Sports cars are all about
first impressions, and the first

impression I got with this
car was really, really poor.

There's a big dent on the passenger door.

There's another big dent on the rear
quarter.

The bodywork was horrible.

It was all flat and nasty paint,
but after many, many hours' work,

this car is really beginning to look the
part.

The Porsche's bodywork now looks fantastic,
but these are really letting it down.

The tattoo wheels are by no means past it.

They just need to be refurbished.

First of all, I need a
bucket of soapy water and a

brush so I can give these
wheels a damn good clean.

Originally, Mike and I thought we'd
shoplast the wheels and take them back to

the alley, but that costs around £50 a
wheel, and we just don't have the money.

So this is quite a cheap fix.

With the muck removed, I
can see that the paint on the

centre is worn and that the
rim is quite badly corroded.

Before I do any repainting,
I need to have a go at

the rim, the Scotch pad and
some body shop renovator.

The body shop renovator
is basically a fine-grit

paste which helps me
cut into the corrosion.

Before I paint the centre in satin black,
I've got to mask up the rim and the tyre.

Make sure you mask the
wheels properly because it's a

very fiddly job to remove
any excess paint from the rim.

And now it's time for paint, and I'm going
to use satin black cellulose aerosol.

The wheels will need about
three coats of paint followed

by a couple of layers of
lacquer to seal the surface.

Once again, you need patience with this
kind of job.

Don't rush.

Let each layer dry before you spray the
next one.

Some jobs make an instant impression,
and this is one of them.

A couple of hours' work and our Porsche
will look a million dollars.

What a transformation.

A wash, a polish and a bit of paint.

And this alloy looks as good as new.

It's going to look great on our Porsche.

I'm very excited because behind this door
is Ed.

Now, the last time I see him, I gave him
that very sorry-looking Porsche 924.

But he's halfway through the restoration
and he should have done some work by now

and I got a little present for him,
so let's see how he's getting on.

This can't be the same car, Ed!

How are you, fella?

Good to see you.

Not too bad.

Look at this.

It's great, isn't it?

It's shiny now.

Actually shiny.

Hard work?

Very, very hard work.

I have blisters on my hands.

Listen, when I gave it to you, it was
already a peach of a car in the first place.

Such a lie.

Anyway, tell me what you've done.

This looks good.

The first thing is the bonnet.

It's really, really shiny, really
polished.

Hours and hours and hours with the old tea
cutting.

Lots of polishing.

It's just hours of work.

So all that blooming,
all that milkiness we had

in the paintwork, you
just polished it away.

See, I told you it weren't hard work.

Just look at this door.

That's fantastic.

Is this the door that I got?

This is the very same door.

I did have to change the mirror,
but other than that, it was perfect.

It's a really good purchase, actually.

Same colour as the car.

Yeah.

It was only £100.

Was that good?

No, it's good, ain't it?

It's probably good, yeah.

It saved me a lot of time.

Excellent.

And was this a sign by the n*zi den?

You can't even see it, which is a good
sign, but it was just here.

It was quite a bit of work,
you know, to paint the thing

because I had to paint the
whole of the rear quarter.

But it came out right.

You obviously sent this off to a
professional to get it done.

Thank you very much.

It looks amazing.

Very, very smart.

Now, the last time I saw these,
they were like a black molten lava.

They looked terrible.

They were pretty poor, actually.

But didn't have to replace them,
just a bit of cleaning up.

It wasn't even too hard, either.

A bit of a scouring pad around the
outside, my key, and some paint.

Told you it wasn't, though, didn't I?

Now, there's something missing in the
middle.

Yeah, they broke when I took the wheels
off, unfortunately, so...

And I did say I was going to bring you
down to present.

I know you was expecting cream cakes,
but I actually got you the insert.

That's not a bad ticket.

That's nice.

Thank you very much.

The work's going well, but are we on
budget?

We've got just £1,000 to spend.

I paid £700 for the car.

Savage body parts sent me back £175.

Paint and other materials cost about £40.

So far, then, we've spent £915.

That doesn't lead much for the mechanical
work that Ed's got planned next.

Question is, will we come in on budget?

So far, so good.

Ed's absolutely transformed the outside of
our Porsche 924.

But what lies at the heart of this car is
what's under the bonnet.

So join us next time when we get to grips
with the oily bits.

See you again on Wheeler Dealers.