Electrics
Electrics on a 924 can be troublesome but they need not be. If left unmolested the electrics work well with minimal maintenance. Sadly, lots of 924’s get their electrics chopped about by owners wanting to fit “improvements”…
The biggest problem found with 924s is that aftermarket alarms and immobilisers spliced into the loom create havoc with the starting and running. Elderly alarm systems or poorly fitted ones are almost inevitably going to fail. Removing these, repairing the loom will help bring a lot of confidence back in the car.
Many electrical failures in the car are down to corroded earths. In the car are several earthing crowns (under the dash and at the rear of the car). A good clean up and grease fixes a lot of electrical gremlins. In fact, dirty contacts cleaned up with a glassfibre pen will often sort out most issues.
The fuse box is in a vulnerable position below the battery tray. Battery trays can fill with water and then rust through causing serious damage to fuse boxes and relays. If that has happened, the owner really needed to remove the fusebox, clean and dry it etc. Often they do not and that can then lead to lots of frustrating problems.
Electric windows are generally reliable and should move up and down freely on all buttons. If there are issues, the switches can be repaired, often carbon scoring on the contacts just needs a good clean and they’re ready to go again. If there is grinding or straining when the windows are used the guide channels might be dirty or warped. Alternatively the original motor gearbox grease has gone solid and needs replacing.
The small ashtray mounted switches all need testing. Rear wiper, headlamp washers, wing mirror (left and right test the control joystick on the driver’s doorcard) and the mysterious headlamp switch. That headlamp switch allows the bumper lights to flash on the stalk so you can flash your lights when the headlamps are down. There is an associated tell-tale light mounted on the top of the instrument binnacle.
The rear window heater needs the correct gas struts fitting to the rear hatch. These have electrical connectors on them. Cheaper ones do not and they make the rear demister inoperable.
The headlamps should raise promptly on the switch. If they do not or fail to come down this can be a big problem. Overheating and potential fires can occur as a result. It might just be the relay, it might be the switch or the motor itself.
The headlamp switch also has a rheostat fitted on a thumbwheel. This adjusts the brightness of the gauges. Check it works. If it doesn’t work then the rheostat may be faulty, it then over heats and can melt.
The washer pump is operated by the steering column stalk. It should shoot a strong jet to the window. Pumps can fail, pipes can clog up and the one way valves stop working. A feeble squirt is not normal but it is all easy and cheap to fix. On the point of the washers expect the wipers to sweep in the LHD pattern, there wasn’t a RHD conversion for them.
Later cars had a remote release button. This is generally reliable albeit the mechanism can get a bit sticky of regularly lubricated.
Also later cars switched to the 944-type sunroof. This electrically operates the tilt mechanism and releases the roof to remove the panel. The electrics are pretty robust here but there is a plastic gear in the mechanism that can strip. Available cheaply it is an afternoon’s job to fix.
Finally, beware the 924 that claims low mileage. You want to see very good evidence of this. Firstly, the clock only reads up to 100k before starting from zero again and these cars wear miles well. Secondly, the odometer drive often fails around 60-100k. The small gear slips on the drive shaft and the miles don’t show correctly. It can be fixed easily but many uncaring owners don’t bother.
