[Dr K]

Originally Posted by david riley

Give a shout if you need any help!

Hey! You were supposed to be helping me, remember? :XX I could really use some experienced advice on-site getting my front suspension back in, and I'm 20 minutes closer to you than Jazz (who knows what he's doing, so I could probably help him plenty if he needs help, and I'm only 20 minutes away from him--after all, I helped him get my trailing arm bushings out).

Of course, you don't need to wear rubber gloves to work on Jazz's car. Touching his parts actually makes your hands cleaner.

Peter

[Jazzbass]

Originally Posted by pkaufman

Of course, you don't need to wear rubber gloves to work on Jazz's car. Touching his parts actually makes your hands cleaner.

Bullshit, everyone wears gloves working on my car. I don't want your fingerprints all over my parts.

[Jazzbass]

Originally Posted by Noah

But what's up with the fuel line replacement/gas tank cleaning? Your tank doesn't need to be cleaned unless it's rusting internally. Just take out the tank sender and look inside with a flashlight.

I know, that's the plan. I'm going to inspect it tomorrow (hopefully) and see what shape it's in. If there are any issues, its get cleaned/resealed.

Originally Posted by Noah

And fuel lines -- are yours leaking or cracked? Why are you making work for yourself!?

Cheap insurance. Carrera fuel lines are under high (50-80psi) pressure and are made of rubber. Rubber degrades over time. My car is 23 years old. The lines are < $150 new from Porsche. The biggest PITA about fuel lines is access - getting enough room to work inside the from suspension area and in the rear. Well, with the front and rear suspension out, there's plenty of room. So, WYIT, replace them. I'd rather spend $150 and a couple hours now than have one break on the way to VIR and pay for towing, lost DE weekend, the $150 for the lines and have to fight all the installed suspension to get them in. Or worse, have the car go up in flames.

Originally Posted by Noah

Any why no glass bumpers?

All in good time.

Originally Posted by Noah

Do you think you'll be faster than TD now?

Nothing is that fast. C'mon, be serious now.

[Noah]

Unless your car sat outside for two years with a quarter tank of gas in it, your tank will be fine. I've never heard of one rusting that was in regular use. When it comes time to change my fuel filter, I always backflow it through a paper towel (used as a strainer) to see exactly what the filter is catching. There's always a surprising amount of garbage in there.

Originally Posted by Jazzbass

Nothing is that fast. C'mon, be serious now.

[Trak Ratt]

Have heard and found lots of crap in them though. It's out, why not clean it out. Just don't go overboard... wait, that's a given

[racer]

Wow.. Very ambitious. I am impressed! Good luck with the project and when you are all done and ready to go club racing and this car no longer fits "stock" class rules, I'll gladly offer pennies on the dollar .

Seriously though. Good luck. I love watching other peoples projects and how their cars change for the better over the years!

[Jazzbass]

Update 31.May.2007

Today's topic: metric hardware hell.

Good times and bad times today. Not much work getting done because of that whole "job" thing, but I did get my McMaster order in and found a local source for the AGM Miata Battery. Did you know that almost all of the Miata batteries (see WestCo on PPBBS) are the same, and made by the same company - East Penn Mfg Co? Found that out today. So no need to order a WestCo from CA when BatteriesPlus has the exact same battery locally, for the same price. Plus, the UPS guy hates me enough as it is.

The good? I got my replacement trailing arm monoballs that Dr K ordered for me from Steve Weiner today. I also got these:



my caliper machined from VCI. Beautiful. I also got the hub spacers, so I can now reassemble the front hubs. I was anxious to bolt them up to check the fit, and that's when things went downhill.

The original caliper bolts are now too short to fit through the adapters. VCI didn't send new bolts (??? - I called and they're throwing some M12 40mm bolts in the mail for me), so I scrounged around and found some that worked - the trailing arm-spring plate bolts. I tried to bolt everything together, but I really need to press on the bearing retainers, put in new bearings, etc, so it didn't work so well. No biggie. In doing this, I noticed that the trailing arm bolts were rusty and boogered up - so I figured I'd just order some more.

I looked the bolt up in PET and that's when I realized I had a problem - it's a M12 x 1.5. Dammit. Standard coarse threads for an M12 bolt are 1.75. McMaster has some fine thread M12 bolts, but none in grade 10.9. Dammit. Then I realized that Porsche probably used M12 x 1.5 for all M12 bolts, and sure enough they did. That means the $12 worth of M12 x 1.75 bolts I just ordered for my sway bars are worthless. Dammit. Even better, I can't even find the right bolts - anywhere. Dammit. It really, really sucks trying to buy even the slightest non-standard metric hardware in the US.

So, I get to spend more time trying to find the following:

- M12 x 1.5 Socket Cap Screw, 50mm-60mm length, g 8.8 or better.
- M12 x 1.5 Hex Cap Screw, 40mm, g 10.9
- M12 x 1.5 Locknut, g 10.9

I found ONE M12 x 1.5 socket cap bolt - it was 180mm long. If worst comes to worst, I'll buy that, cut it to length, and use a die to cut the rest of the threads. What are the odds my tap and die set has a M12 x 1.5? As a last resort I can buy the last 2 items from Porsche (for $5 each - $40 for $4 worth of hardware ). For the the socket cap bolt, I'm kinda screwed unless I find the right part.

[KFJ]

You could try these guys - http://mdmetric.com/

Their site sux and not sure they would have it if mcmaster doesn't but the do specialize in metric stuff.

[Ryan]

Nice Jazz ...Looks like your going to be busy for a while. Hopefully won't keep you off the track for too long. BTW, careful talking about rubber gloves with Doc K....you never know what might happen

[Dr K]

If it makes you feel better, Jazz, both of your ER swing arm monoballs are now installed, with the proper M12 x 1.5 bolts, too. If only they were installed on YOUR car... I knew you got the replacement monoballs because my Camber King came today (and is now installed - mostly).

[Admin Edit - suspension questions moved to PKs suspension thread - seriously, I have to do this shit for you?]

Peter