The world is full of idiots

...And I am their King.

I wanted to take my Dad for a quick drive this weekend to show off my now smooth running sports car (that he helped me drag home in a MUCH lesser state). Barely out of the neighborhood she started really acting cranky.

We make it to the grocery store and it's getting worse, turn around to go home and she stalls at a light, half way back he looks over... "Son, are you out of gas?".....Nah, can't be the needle reads 1/4 tank but the light did just started flickering pulling into the neighborhood the other day.

1/2 mile from home she coughs her last sputter, 10 minutes and a Cheshire grinning wife later (bearing a 5 gallon can of gas) she starts right back up and runs home normally.

I guess unlike today's models where they plan for people who pull this, when an old 911 shows you that little light, it's NOT KIDDING AROUND!

(Yes, I know you aren't supposed to ever let get that low for a number of reasons, just a slap in the face with bad judgement moment that I can assure you won't happen again any time soon :D )

Where we are today...

We have come a long way baby! In just 5 months I've taken a giant jigsaw puzzle and turned it into a [mostly] functioning automobile.

I still have no top which means she stays tucked into the garage on days that there is any chance of turning her into a bathtub.

Just in the last week I made some adjustments and repairs that reduced the time of my startup procedure from 15 minutes to 30 seconds and made driving overall much better. Go Me :D

I've also been able to install several items collected for the most part from my previous post under the heading of others' generosity. Some of these made the car run better (fuel pump). Some made it look just a little closer to being a "complete" car (trim bits).

....I'm a constant reader of internet forums, I've mentioned this before. One small thing I find myself thinking this week is that predominately on Pelican Forums and Rennlist the cars posted there are "Cover Girls", pristine, just as the factory set them out, or painstakingly modified/improved. My own 911 is FAAAR from pristine, it's a factor of what I can afford more than anything else, I'd have certainly sought out a car that had everything working, hell, existing & in great shape if I had twice as much cash for the purchase but I'm not that guy.

I'd love to hear from others like myself that are probably not publicizing their "flawed" 911's, a constant work in progress. I started to post a thread as such but for whatever reason I chickened out. That makes me think there are many like me with these 25-40 year old cars that AREN'T perfect, and that still get heaped on love and enjoyment. I still show her off proudly, using my best pictures, but don't study too hard or you will easily find my huge list of missing parts :)

I've only had this old car for 5 months but I think it's eclipsed my previous 2 favorites out of my 20 or so cars for sheer coolness and attachment. Hopefully we have a long long time together and a year or 2 from now I can report she's almost a complete car, letting people oogle all her closeup shots.

The Generosity of Others

I've discovered recently that the Porsche community, much to the contrary picture many might generate, can be quite benevolent and generous. There is a perception I've witnessed first hand, in both our modern 2010 Boxster and my classic 35 year old 911 that drivers of this type of automobile are summarily a bunch of snobs (or worse). What's odd is I'm far from this, as is my lovely bride so there must be a lurking contingent of genuinely nice folks that happen to appreciate fine sports cars that may have started life quite expensively.

Glenda now sports several bits and pieces offered up for little more than shipping costs, a couple of these I'd have paid several hundred dollars for. Pelican Parts and Rennlist both have some of the nicest car guys I've come across, people that with something taking up space on a shelf choose to offer it up to a fellow obsessed instead of making an extra buck.

We aren't "broke" but are far from "well off" either and these acts of kindness that continue to increase my own joy in my toy are so very appreciated. So Thank You! :) Hopefully I get to pass on this good will in time.

Shifting Improvements

So last week I went from having a vague, somewhat challenging shift action, to having not much rhyme or reason as to where I might find 3rd, 4th, or 5th gears. The day this got seriously bad I had to be super careful not to engage 1st when I wanted 3rd (or 5th). This, an enjoyable drive, did not make!

Past experience and some internet searches added shift bushings to my weekend to-do list. When I opened up the rear access panel (to get to the shift coupling) I found this! Needless to say I felt pretty sure the lion's share of my problems centered around it.








About 2 pleasant hours later I had the whole assembly from knob to coupler cleaned, re-greased, re-bushed and functioning as the good Dr. ordered. The pin for the coupler was a minor stumbling block that wanted to argue with me, but nothing to the magnitude of my past experience with the pedal cluster.

Now it changes gears with a nice slick and solid engagement, I've had a couple of other cars with nicer shift action but it now feels like a proper sports car.

The Saga Continues - Fuel Injection

.....but it's getting better all the time.....

Note: Nothing you will read here is a new discovery, tons of those before me figured all this out so I don't profess to be providing the world with anything "new". But this is my journey and you are reading it so enjoy :).

When we last saw our intrepid quasi-mechanic he'd breathed life (gas really) back into his persnickety steed. Well, the morning startup issue was far from gone, if anything it was getting worse. With the weather starting to cool and dry I used the old girl for work for a few days. Things were getting worse, regular back-firing through the intake and a new shifting problem. So I resolved to address some things last weekend.

So what we learned:

I have/had vacuum leaks, the CIS Fuel Injection System on a 70's era Porsche 911 is not a really complicated device, but it demands precise conditions to work properly. Apparently I was somewhat chasing my tail when I needed to be focusing on some little things. I sanded down and THOROUGHLY cleaned the popping off pop-off valve and re-expoxied that bad-boy, then I applied a gasket sealant to a weeping fuel distributor (this may be a no-no, but I've read there are no rebuild kits for this and it worked, so bite me). I also cleaned up and tightened as much as I could see while I was tinkering around.

Then I read my conditions sounded like a bad lean condition, I found the 3mm hole to adjust the mixture. Started it up and Voila! Cranked and running smooth in 20 seconds, amazing! The boy and I then enjoyed a slow drive around the neighborhood. Then the real test, 2 days later I sit down in the car, turn the key, 20 seconds later she's purring away. I've actuallly fixed a huge headache.

Next up, I've solved some massive shifting woes....

She's Alive!!! (again)

After 3+ long weeks of having my car stuck in the garage she galloped down the road again, the whole family got to enjoy the test run.

The short story (something I'm not good at obviously) is that I've got a metric car in a decidedly standard world. Don't even think about going to your local auto parts store in Southern Alabamy and asking Bubba for a 12mm Banjo Fitting with a Barbed end. Hell, once you find one of those, pay a rediculous amount of money for a funny looking bolt to be sent to you from somewhere else in the country and just need a regular old bolt in a size with "millimeter" on the back and some small fuel hose, they still look at you like you are crazy.

My favorite conversation is this: [This is what I need from you] (Bubba) "What year and model car is this for" (the Geek) "It's for an old 911 but I have a mixture of parts, I'm telling you what I need to make them work together" (Bubba) "So what year and model car is this for?" (Geek) "fine, it's a '75 Porsche 911" (Bubba) "I don't see a part number for anything you are talking about" (Geek) "no $h1t? This is why I'm telling you what I need"

Apparently even mechanics have gone to a lack of imagination in making something work if the computer doesn't tell you a number.

So anyway, I finally got it working, seems buttoned up and not leaking. So far it's starting without hesitation, and I'll know tomorrow morning if I've really fixed my awful hard start problem that's plagued me for 5 months now.

For now, I'll call this a victory, with wind in my hair :)

Braved the superheated garage to accomplish something

An evening out in my toy last night spurned me back to the garage today. Somehow I'd been procrastinating on a usual staple to my car tinkering, a good cut/polish/wax. I had a few hours without a [well deserving] wife and child wanting attention so I gave it to the car.

Oh how I love sparkly, clean, bright silver paintwork shimmering in the sun, also managed to get out some of the staining that had built up from sitting for a couple of years after the fresh paint job.

Then with more time left I got my front parking/signal lights working. This was a great accomplishment as it was something that had bugged me for months, had a missing signal light and hadn't taken the time to decipher what wires went where. In the process I found what I now know to be horn wires, woo hoo! Just need a horn now :)

Looking forward to fall

Must.....have......A/C!

The old girl will certainly make it out of the garage a LOT more in about another month, seems unprofessional to show up somewhere looking like I just stepped out of a shower :)

Every time I turn around I find something else

In the last few weeks I've not done too much more than drive my toy. I fitted a new (used) door seal I won on ebay for $8 (which highlights that I need the other side and don't want to pay $40 for the not quite right one :( ) That led to installing the trim pieces on the door sills which hold the carpet down and look much more finished.

I figured out why my steering wheel would flop around in my hand by 1/4" (thanks to the internet) and fixed that with a nice little cheap replacement bushing, it's great when something isn't ungodly expensive on a car like this.

My biggest issue at the moment continues to be starting the car, it's a LOT better when it gets driven regularly but is still nowhere near right. Thanks to hours worth of reading how-to articles I think I've pinpointed it to one or 2 parts. My lovely bride offered up her little bonus check last week and I have a set of gauges coming that will formally identify what it is and aid me in my quest to become proficient in speaking fuel injection.

So, we are to the downside of being a person who works for a living and who's income is a moving target. I've put on everything worth re-installing that came with the car and I'm out of $ to keep buying parts for a bit. Really this car doesn't "need" much more huge investment but the more I work on it the more I find small bits and baubles that need to be sourced. I'd guess $700-$800 more and this will be a lovely 5' driver quality car. It won't ever be a concours car in my care but that's not what I wanted.

I've not decided yet whether it's prudent to talk $ on an open diatribe such as this, for the good of others that are watching the value of their toys sink in today's economic times I think I'll leave it to speculation. They say that every 911 is a $20k car, I'm sure sooner or later an engine rebuild or upgrades I can't resist will meet that but lets say for the moment I've got a small fraction of that invested. I mention this for those like me who might otherwise think a car like this is unobtainable, it's not if you do all the labor :)

The good news is I've got a thrilling little barn-stormer, the sound of it at 6k through the back roads sends a chill up your spine and somehow pins the corners of your mouth to your ear-lobes. Its wonderful and you don't care that you look like an 8 year old opening a Red Rider BB gun at Christmas. My former vintage car comparisons don't hold a candle to the way this one moves. I'm inclined to agree, "Porsche, there is no substitute".

It's not the destination.....

I discovered shortly before the aforementioned date-night that outside of the nicely flat surface of my garage my toy refused to sit stationary. For this I introduced a highly technical device intended to keep my car where I last left it....a Brick. (This BTW did not add to the lovely Mrs' comfort level about our mode of transporation...note to self, wife assumes cars that need bricks are not functioning properly. Must adjust her expectations).

Also not lending to wifey trusting-ness was a car that wouldn't stay running at a stop light without my o' so skillful heel-toe demonstration (we weren't on a race-track, she was unimpressed).

What's funny about these niggling annoyances is that I was reminded that sometimes a good ole' fashioned book (manual) can be better than the internet. Will wonders ever cease? I searched for a good half an hour on the computer for hints on how to adjust the e-brake and then the idle, but then I smacked myself in the head and pulled out the shop manual. In about 2 minutes I had pictures showing just what I needed to fiddle with.

So, moral of the story is......I'll tell you how to do these things now that I know via the world wide web but it's guaranteed to be much faster just to look it up on paper.

...Where I teach myself to be a F.I. Wizard

Today was a great day! I set out this morning, 20 minutes away into town to register and title my car. I admit to being a little nervous, I'm in the "getting to know you" phase but I've explored and tested to point where might as well jump in and work out the bugs.

The blast down the highway 15 miles was smooth and sweet, another 10 minutes through town/traffic was uneventful, idle good, power smooth through the whole rev range, etc. Here's where it gets interesting....after 1/2 hour in the DMV she's a bit hard to start but finally lit. Well, at this point I can't get an idle in traffic. As long as I'm on the gas no problems whatsoever but she'll die if I'm off the gas. I nurse her 10 more minutes further across town where I had an appointment, come out from there and again a little hard to start but not awful.

Leaving there I decide to take the route home that's longer but only has 2 traffic lights before I hit the highway. 20-25 pleasant minutes later I get off at my exit, I started to head home but noticed she's idling (albeit at about 500 instead of 800) fine again. So I ran one more errand (didn't shut the car off this time) for 10-15 minutes. (still idling fine).

Just as I get to my subdivision she's having trouble with idle again. Sooo, she likes being flogged, a run through the gears and a 3k-3500 rpm sustained is a good thing, but being warm and running at ~2k rpm is gumming something up.

I haven't figured out the solution yet but I'm arming myself with knowledge in the form of internet searches and going to perfect this lovely beast :).......I promise to remember the previous brake light lesson and check the simple stuff first ;)

Helpful comments from folks that know more than me are welcome :)

Brake Lights I conquer thee!

I hesitated to follow this little tid-bit up, due to the cause being your D-A author not anything truly wrong with the car. But, if this serves to help anyone else out there in the world it's kinda my point in bothering to document this journey.

Always check the simple stuff first. I got to thinking yesterday while working and remembered I'd scavenged a couple of bulbs from one of the extra taillight assemblies that came with my car. I honestly wasn't even sure which lights in the back were "stop" "park" or "signal". So I looked that up and came home armed with a brand new set of proper bulbs and new knowledge of which lights were which.

With new bulbs in now what I knew to be brake lights were on (a first) but wouldn't turn off....hmmm. The MC pressure switch is brand new and was secure. So I take the (badly needing replacement) wooden footboard back off and find that the brake switch is making absolutely no contact with the MC plunger.....DUH!! I had to refit the pedal assembly earlier and didn't give another thought to that switch after hooking the wires back to it. Bend the little tab and test out till it worked flawlessly and BAM. We have lights :)

Holy driving heaven Batman!!

This post may have happened a few days ago but we decided we didn't want to make anymore children and I was chained inside for the weekend.....So I got the all new brake system rebuilt and the most wonderful wife ever helped me bleed them the other night. Monday I couldn't take it anymore, the newly polished Fuchs were bolted back on and she came off the jack stands she's been sitting on since that first day in her new home.

We took a tentative first drive around our neighborhood last night after dinner. Britney Spears fashion and all with the toddler on Mom's lap (we didn't get over 20mph and we live in a gated community, I'm not THAT awful of a Father). The young obsessed seemed to be having as much fun as his Dad. The beautiful missus likes it, thrilled that I'm in love with "the mistress" but had the audacity to mention she thought my Karmann Ghia (I had when I met her about a decade ago) was a little more "refined". To be fair I'd spent about 4 years restoring and perfecting that car before she knew me, I've had a month with this ole' girl and I still have work to do (so I'll cut her some slack).

This morning I'd planned to go to the DMV and get a new license plate to go with my new collectible car insurance but turned out my preferred spot, 10 minutes from the house through quiet back country roads, was closed for renovation. I've still got brake lights acting wonky on me so I wasn't about to risk a trip into town. But.....holy wow, the 30 min. or so cruise I had today was FREAKIN' AWESOME! Each mile I drove she got smoother, I had figured/hoped that 4 years of sitting around was causing some bits of rough running and it seems I'm right (so far).

Can a Porsche owner be a cheapscate/the $7 RS Door Pulls

Ok, existential query: I've had almost 2 dozen cars, plenty of those costing several times more than my beautiful new toy will probably ever be worth. I take a certain amount of pride in good ole' fashioned American engineering both on the point of getting something accomplished myself and paying as little as possible to leave my somewhat limited toy budget to stretch as far as it can. So now I own a Porsche, which in my head is a storied brand of car, with some incredible engineering. Can one bring such a special automobile back to what I expect it to be, look and perform like I want on a budget?

We shall see, but I've done some things I'm pretty proud of in much lesser cars so we shall see what I can do for this one.

So....my car came with a brand new set of RS door panels, but didn't come with arm rests, door pulls, or door pockets I'm very excited about refitting to my [beginning to come together] nice interior. The RS was a racing package and one thing it has (and some newer 911's and current Boxster Spyder) was a cool set of straps sticking out of the stripped down door panel that act as the unlock mechanism for the doors.

On-line you can source these for somewhere around $120. But for what these are that seemed kinda silly to me :D Not to mention I'm trying to use blue for my accent touches instead of the "standard issue" Red (I can't stand to be just like everyone else).

A trip to the hardware store got me a nice blue nylon strap for a grand total of $7. This was an overly simple project compared to most I've done and will do but it looks pretty cool and I was pleased with myself so it showed up here. If you want to replicate it yourself get a couple 10mm nuts and bolts and washers, cut off about 10" of strap, don't forget to burn the edges to stop fraying (and I burned the strap around the bolt too just in case). The pricey kit does come with a nice looking grommet for this which I don't have, I'm going to work on that and have a couple of ideas but I've made the smallest cut possible through the panel so I can go back later and work on a prettier pass through.

I need to get a pull-handle still, but that's yet another update.

I have the feeling this blog will be filled with plenty of these such little projects :) so if you are a purist, better look away soon. I'm a "resto-mod" guy. My goal is for this car to recall a '75 911 Carrera, having it's wider rear fenders but not updated to later models with all blacked out trim. I like the stainless Targa bar, the chrome headlight rings and plan to restore the polished aluminum trim.

I won't be "modernizing" the interior as I have nicely done in some of my past 60's and 70's cars as I like this car's classic feel. But I will be upgrading some systems along the way that are "behind the scenes".

Stay tuned :)

I have lights!

A few replaced fuses, a little help from the internet and I'm pleasantly surprised to see just how much of my car's electrical system is working. Don't get me wrong, I had hopes, but in my past experience things like working directional signals, parking lights, wipers, etc was a gift from the heavens (without hours of diagnosing and suffering). Even the high-beams shine brightly :D

On another note

Initial Discoveries

So I got the car home and muscled it (I mean REALLY MUSCLED) it off the trailer and into her spot in the garage. I knew when I picked up the car that the clutch pedal was stuck and it felt like the emergency brake was on [when it wasn't].

So I started by laying out the dozen boxes of parts I ferried home as well as various and assundry body panels and such. I had some really cool discoveries, the prev. owner did a lot of parts collecting and I now how have lots and lots of items I'd have spent thousands of dollars ordering myself. The bad side.....the more I catalog the longer the list of little missing items. I bought it with this understanding, so it's not a big shock.

I jacked her up and stripped off a set of polished 16x7 and 16x9 Fuchs with brand new Yokos. They had been refinished but sitting around outside untouched for a few years had left them pitted and dull. An hour or 2 on each wheel and they are almost back to where I want them.








Next off were the 4 calipers...which led to rotten soft brake lines...I found out over the next few days the Master Cylinder was toast, all the caliper pistons were frozen and the Pedal Cluster was ruined mess. It took me a night or 2 per caliper to rebuild them. In the process I ordered all new braided stainless lines, racing brake fluid, a new master cylinder. I used the time waiting on parts to clean up and repaint all 4 wheel wells too (amazing how much nicer a semi-forgotton spot of the car looks with years of grime and some fresh black paint).

I found out the hard way that I have a "late '75 911. This info came from ordering brake pads and bleeder valves that fit for the back, but not the front. This is good in that I have larger front brakes than expected, but bad because now I've got everything shiny and ready to go waiting on a replacement for the front pads to come in the mail.









In all this I started trying to rebuild said toasted pedal cluster. I spent 2 days trying to get it apart and then took the poor thing to a machine shop to get them to do it. Ultimately when even they couldn't get the $#%#^ thing apart I submitted to the idea that sometimes it's just better to get a replacement part. Thanks to the WWW that's a fairly easy thing to do these days. After all that effort the one I got in the mail a week later was a dream, only needing a good cleaning and some fresh paint, now back in the car working smooth and as Porsche intended.

So now I'm a month into to 911 ownership, I've bolted on and re-fitted a ton of small items interior and exterior. The car is purring (more like roaring :D ) fairly well in the garage on jack stands, but has a bit of a hard starting issue. I'm hoping/planning to get it moving on it's own out of the garage this week, planning a full tank of premium with some injector cleaner and maybe an "italian tune-up" before I go into full diagnosis mode on the engine. It's highly likely after sitting for 2-4 years there's gunk roaming around that needs to be blow out.

There's one more real obstacle to having a road bound car I need to tackle immediately. The lights, both front and rear were totally absent when I bought the car. I've gotten the rear's re-fitted and wired but the fronts I haven't tackled yet. There are blown fuses and I'm HOPING that rewiring and new fuses lights everything back up but I haven't seen that yet. Everything seems to work on the inside dash so I have high hopes this will be a fairly simple (compared to the brake system) fix, but it has to be done before I take Glenda (The good witch of the north) to the DMV to become an operating toy.

I have seemingly millions of little projects that I'll add to this blog but this post hopefully catches me up to today and gets me a jumping off point for future continued restoration and upgrading.

Introductions

What you are about to read will be the rolling diary of my efforts to put a '75 Porsche 911 back on the road. This car is the embodiment of a 25 year obsession for this scribe. It's not my first restoration, but it is my first 911 and as usual I find quickly how much I don't know. I don't pretend to have the deep pockets of some that choose to love cars as toys, and as such I try and make up for that with as much DIY as I can manage (which is usually most anything).

I've read "The most expensive Porsche is a cheap Porsche". I won't color myself shocked if this holds as true for me as has for many others, but the allure of a good deal on a car that checked off so many wish list boxes for me was too great to pass up. So in beginning of May ('10) I found myself dragging my Dad and a car trailer almost 1,000 miles away to pick up what was a stalled project of some other dreamer.

Thankfully the bodywork had been done (and seems to be of pretty nice quality) and painted in the same color I'd have chosen if I'd have painted it myself (big bonus). The car was still rather disassembled but came with [most of] the pieces that came off of it several years ago. There is even a fair amount of brand new pieces collected ready to be installed.

The trip home was......interesting. Aside from just being stressful ferrying my new prize back down the country we had one mishap. My car came with a somewhat rare vintage accessory top (Saratoga Top). When I picked up the car I noticed it seemed loose from the front frame. This made me nervous enough that just a few miles down the road I stopped and duct taped it to the windshield. Apparently the tinted Lexan's hold on that frame was much more tenuous than I realized as it now resides off the side of a highway somewhere in New Jersey (I still have the front frame though :) )

So there's the acquisition, next up: My initial discoveries