Original '86 944 garage find

[355]

I just joined the forum a couple days ago and was encouraged to start a thread dedicated to my recently acquired 17,000 original miles '86 N/A that I rescued from the garage of a hoarder who had locked it away and never touched it again for over 20 years.

The story with this car goes that he purchased it from the original owner in Hawaii who was a friend of the family and had kept the car in immaculate condition. The hoarder had it shipped to GA and started driving it but the windows failed to operate soon after so he took it to the local Porsche dealer in Atlanta to have them repaired. They replaced the power window relay (I still have the original one) but soon after the windows failed again in the closed position accompanied by the A/C failing too. Keep this important detail in mind as I continue the story. This is a huge problem if you live here and you want to daily drive a car in the hot and humid Atlanta summers so he became disgruntled with the 944 and put it away with a 912 and and a VW Beetle he owned in one of his garages and never drove any of them again. Eventually the garage became filled nearly to the ceiling with all sorts of junk this fellow collected or never threw away but somehow the 944 was lucky enough to have never had things stacked on top of it. Oddly the tags and insurance were kept current on the 944 until he passed away last year too.

So, this past winter I got a phone call from his widow's son who is a friend of mine and had been tasked with selling the cars for his mother asking for my assistance with digging them out. Of course I agreed and we spent a solid week just trying to get the cars uncovered from the garbage piled on top of them and accessible to be viewed by potential buyers. Here is a photo of the 912 and VW Beetle half uncovered and taken from where the 944 had been sitting after we were finally able to push it outside so you can see just how bad this garage and the storage conditions were. Note the paper covering every window to keep prying eyes and any light out of the garage. Did I mention he was extremely paranoid too?

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More to follow!

[Larry C]

Great story. Can’t wait for chapter two. Are you going to tell us about the 912?

[355]

Here are a couple photos of the 944 when it finally saw daylight.

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Amazingly the original tires were able to be inflated and the car rolled without the brakes binding. It doesn't look too bad in those photos, but just check out the interior.

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Everything was moldy inside and out on this car because the garage had moisture problems and had been kept shut and dark at all times so there was no light or air movement. And yes, those tires and paint guards are moldy as well as the windows! I wouldn't even stick my head inside the car at this time because it was so nasty.

[355]

As far as that 912 soft Targa goes, it was in a really sad state. It had been in a couple of accidents and the chassis was bent so none of the body panels lined up. It was a California car, but had obviously been exposed to salt air and the moisture in the garage had taken its toll on it too because there was rust everywhere. Of course it was completely moldy inside and out and the weight of dozens of sheets of plywood and other building supplies on and around it damaged all the body panels. It was completely full of mouse nests and the accompanying feces and chewed wires and such too and was also missing many parts. In the end it was a complete mess that would cost more to restore than it would be worth.

The good news for me is the 944 somehow never had any mice in it nor any accident damage or rust but I didn't know this at the time and just assumed it was going to be in poor condition like everything else in that garage.

And another thing we found out with these cars is there were no titles or keys to be found because the hoarder had hidden them somewhere and never told anyone. Remember I mentioned his paranoia?

[355]

In a second garage were two other Porsches, a 356C coupe and another 912 but this one was a coupe. This garage had even more junk in it that had been piled on top of the cars. The cars were in a little better condition but still suffered from being buried in a damp environment and both were missing many parts we could not find. For example, the engine in the 356 was missing everything from the cylinder heads up, so no carbs, intake manifolds, linkage, distributor, etc. The roof of the 912 had a large bath mat on it with piles of junk on top of it and when we removed the mat the entire roof under the mat was rusted badly from trapped moisture. Just like the other garage, these cars were filled with mold too.

At this point in time I had no interest in owning any of these cars whatsoever because of their deplorable state once we uncovered them so I just helped out where I could when prospective buyers came to look at them. The first couple guys were only into air-cooled Porsches so they wanted nothing to do with the 944 and one told the widow it was basically worthless when he declared the engine was seized. Eventually a guy came along and bought all three of the air-cooled cars and another took the Bug so the 944 was left siting there.

Then we discovered one of the keys for the 944 under the center console so we could could finally release the steering wheel lock and maneuver the car around the garage and driveway so that was a major plus. Also we learned that it was titled in GA in the widow's name so she could easily get a replacement title for it. We never found keys or titles to the other cars and later found they were last registered in CA back in the 90's before the hoarder had moved to GA. To make the situation worse CA no longer had records for them having expunged all the records from their system years ago when the hoarder moved to GA. Since he had failed to register the cars in GA, as far as GA is concerned they are still in CA and as far as CA is concerned they are in GA so neither state will help the new owner.

Now that we could move the 944 around some and get a better look at it, I could see that it was an unmolested car with all its original parts in place except for the radio which had been replaced with an Alpine unit way back in the 80's. This intrigued me enough that I asked about buying the car and she agreed to sell it for a very low price because I had helped her son dig out all the cars and she didn't have a buyer for it. So we struck a deal and I grabbed a trailer and brought it home. Here is a photo of it in my driveway and after I was able to take a hose to it and wash off all the big dirt.

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It stayed out there for a couple weeks while I killed the mold, aired it out with the doors and hatch open and made sure I didn't bring any critters along for the ride that would find a new home in my garage.

Then one day as I was cleaning mold off the upper radiator hose, I leaned against the front bumper with the car in gear and saw the crankshaft pulley move. The engine wasn't seized after all!

[Tom]

Loving this story, thanks for much for posting it here. Makes you wonder what's in all the garages you drive past every day without a thought.... Would love to see before and after shots too. I was stuck between Florida and California DMVs once, and California eventually titled my cars under something called their Goldenrod registration process. If all else fails, find ANY state that will title it through a lost title process. Once there's a title in one state, you can then transfer it to another state via established processes...

[355]

After many days of killing mold and cleaning the interior in my driveway I was convinced that the car would not introduce mold or critters into my garage so it was time to bring the car inside and start to bring it back to life. The interior cleaned up remarkably well and I found that all those years in the dark had preserved all the rubber trim, seals and plastic parts. The non-faded carpeting looks and feels brand new now. I was truly amazed by how new everything looked. Here are some photos of the initial cleaning results.

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I decided to see if the electrical system was still functional next so I removed the long dead battery and installed a spare I had sitting around into the battery tray that I was happy to discover has no corrosion whatsoever. To my relief there was no smoke leaking from any wires or components after attaching the battery terminals and most everything still worked except for the windows, the interior fan and side view mirrors when I turned the ignition switch to the first position. I figured those items were not essential to determining if the engine was still good so I decided to put off tackling them until later. All the lights and even the illumination for the instrument cluster still worked.

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Once the car was in my work garage and on my lift I began preparing to start the engine after all those years of slumber. The spark plugs came out first and I injected a little Marvel Mystery Oil into each cylinder. After letting it sit for a day I put a standard sized ratchet handle and socket onto the crankshaft pulley and gently rocked it forward and back a little bit at a time expecting some resistance but found none. I noticed too at this time that all the hardware on the timing covers and accessory tensioners showed no signs of ever having had a wrench on them. All the factory assembly paint marks on the attachment hardware were still intact along with most all the gold cadmium plating. Even the attaching hardware for the engine undertray still had the yellow paint marks from the factory still on them. I knew then that all the belts including the timing belts were original from 1986 and there was no way I was going to even attempt to engage the starter until they were all replaced with new ones.

With the car raised on my lift I was able to look at the entire underside of the car for the first time and found no rust on anything. I still have no idea how this car stayed corrosion free after all that time sitting in that nasty, damp garage!

[Tom]

What an amazing find. I wonder if, by not driving the car, the factory paint and corrosion inhibitors never got nicked/compromised enough to get rust starting anywhere?

Also, weird ask I know, but if you had any good shots of the gear shift boot, would you mind posting? Curious to see the texture / sheen level.....

[355]

That's not a weird ask at all. The light is pretty harsh in my working garage so the actual finish is more matte but do these help?

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Sorry it's a little dusty in the photos. I've been disturbing a lot of dirt in the vent system that's getting blown into the interior while working on the A/C.

[355]

Here's a shot of the underside of the engine showing the lack of corrosion. Parts have been removed so I can gain access to the A/C components right now but nothing in the photo has been cleaned yet so this is same as I saw it for the first time.

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The belts are the only parts not the original in this photo and your guess is as good as mine as to why nothing is rusted.

And everyone feel free to request photos of anything. I will be happy to supply them as showing the original components and how they looked originally is really the whole point of this thread.