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  #61  
Old 06-26-2007, 05:39 PM
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Originally Posted by BlackTalon View Post
Jazz -- Awesome project! The only thing I've seen that was more impressive was when TD completely rewired his 944 a couple months ago. Hopefully you consulted him for some pointers!
I'd forgotten about that too!
BTW - I guess this answer my question! Very nice indeed! Nice that you squeezed some work out of Charlie too! My rear window leaks too, found the same thing you did in the back seats. Going to remove mine for the respray but need to know where you got your new widow seals from? Is the sun roof coming out too?
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  #62  
Old 06-26-2007, 05:45 PM
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Originally Posted by TD in DC View Post
I was actually being serious, I would love to let Chris drive my car if only the seat adjusted, regardless of whether he let me drive his. (Of course I would buy it if I broke it).
Sadly, it's true. TD was going to let me drive the fo-fo at Summit in April, but I'm a little too "vertically challenged" for his car. Maybe if I sit on a phonebook...
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  #63  
Old 06-26-2007, 06:38 PM
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Damn, Chris, very nice work.

However, I've gotta ask. Are you photoshopping those pics ??

Thanks for the heads up on N&S and POR. N&S is literally 2 minutes from my house but I've never looked in their paint section. Hopefully they stock silver as I have to redo my battery box (again).
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  #64  
Old 06-29-2007, 03:12 AM
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Update 28.June.2007

While most of the track junkies trying to sleep the night before WG, I was, as usual, working on the never ending project. Things are really starting to come together, as the disassemble, clean and order new parts part of the process is all but finished. In fact, it should have been done with all ordering, but I decided to bite the bullet and buy the engine fuel lines.

For those that don't know, a known issue on Carreras is the main fuel injection line on the engine. Over time fatigue gets to it and it springs a leak. Of gasoline. At about 45-50psi. All over your engine. This is bad. The problem is a new line is $400 . Well, I debated getting one made from a hydraulic shop (cost, about $32) but in the end bought the new Porsche line. Why? Two reasons: 1. No time to dick around with the hydraulic shop. A fellow dorki (88carrera) had a good experience with a place in Baltimore putting new fittings and rubber hoses on his old line. To do this, however, means driving to Baltimore. If they do it while I wait, its a 4 hour trip. If I have to go and come back another time, its a 4 hour trip. I can't spend half a day, missing work, to save $350. I loose more from not billing. So, in 5 minutes, I had new lines on the way. 2. I'd always obsess about the made up line when on the track. I want to change the line and not think about it, not check it after every run to make sure the new fittings are OK, etc. Oh, well, no one said this was a cheap hobby. When done, however, all of the rubber fuel lines on my car will be brand spankin' new.

Last night I re-installed the master cylinder/brake booster. Not thinking, I bolted it down and torqued the nuts. Then realized that I needed some play in the booster to reattach the brake actuating rod. Dammit. Looking inside the car, I figured I could remove the pedal assy with about the same amount of trouble and accomplish the same task, so I went that route. While I had the pedal assy out, I looked at what it would take to rebuild. I've had a set of bronze pedal bushings laying around for about 2 years, never wanting the hassle of the rebuild because I heard it was a pain in the ass and mine was fine. Well, after getting the assy out, I found I was wrong on both counts. The original plastic bushings were noticeably worn, and its was extremely easy to rebuild.

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It took all of 30mins from the start of pulling the pedals out until the cluster was rebuilt. Granted, I already had the floor board out and easy access to the bolts in the steering rack tunnel, so figure 1 hour if everything is in place. And, BTW, it's unbelievable how much crap there is under the pedals.

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I'm really happy about the way that turned out - believe it or not I had almost resisted the temptation to not do the rebuild, thinking it was a 3 hour job. It's not. So tonight I reinstalled the pedals and finished up one of the major projects - battery relocation/rewire:

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The battery is in and secured. The switch is installed and all wiring is reattached. If the engine was in the car I could start it up right now. BTW, notice the black smuggler's box.

Quote:
Thanks for the heads up on N&S and POR. N&S is literally 2 minutes from my house but I've never looked in their paint section. Hopefully they stock silver as I have to redo my battery box (again).
The stuff I used is acid-proof paint made for painting battery boxes in aircraft. Old Tee turned me on to this, being the former aircraft mechanic. Should work as well or better than POR (cross fingers).

Tomorrow - brake lines and e-brake. Then suspension goodies start going in, starting with the rear shocks, then on to the front. Hopefully Saturday the engine goes back in and the rest of the suspension/brake/fuel components are in by the end of the weekend. Which leaves body and interior work to do. Getting there...
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  #65  
Old 06-29-2007, 08:44 AM
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Great work!
As you mentioned it is definately worth taking the pedal cluster out just to clean up the crap. I also think that's the lowest point inside the car and water/wet crud builds up there. (Especially Targa and Cab.) Luckily the coating also did it's job on mine and there was no rust.
Although I didn't strip the weight out of my cars, I've been where you are twice and there's no feeling like when you get it done and know that everything on your car has been gone over. Almost good for another 25 years! I know you can't resist and will probably do some more upgrades in a few years.

BTW, when your ready, my alignment setup is finally complete. You saw most of it. After you were there, I made a home made version of the smart string setup. Fits perfectly to a stock SC and will fit many early 911's with some minor tweeking. (Bumper variences).

I have it all setup on my car now and am ready to start the toe alignment.
I realised last night that my eyes are starting to get old and doing the measurements with the fishing line is making me cross eyed.

Definately looks like you turned the corner and more things are going on than comming off!
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  #66  
Old 06-29-2007, 03:17 PM
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Wow, Chris, awesome. I'm supposed to be at WG today but I had a terminal wheel bearing/hub problem, so there's another $325 up in smoke for a DE I couldn't attend. I love this hobby.
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  #67  
Old 06-29-2007, 03:23 PM
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Originally Posted by Noah View Post
Wow, Chris, awesome. I'm supposed to be at WG today but I had a terminal wheel bearing/hub problem, so there's another $325 up in smoke for a DE I couldn't attend. I love this hobby.
i'm sure it's the last thing you wanna hear but it's almost as if while you were away the car just fell apart all by itself!
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  #68  
Old 06-29-2007, 04:16 PM
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Noah, sorry mang, that sucks. At least you didn't make the long trip for nothing.
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  #69  
Old 06-30-2007, 06:18 AM
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Chris, when you took the sound proofing out, did you find large areas of surface rust or was it in spots all over where the sound proofing was? I'm curious because although I don't see any water collecting anywhere inside my car, it is time to replace the sunroof seals as they are coming loose around the rear portion of the roof panel. I've had the 3 seals for about 2 1/2 yrs now but am reluctant to replace since the sunroof panel fits so well and I don't think water is getting to the inside of my car.
If possible, I'd like to come over to see in person some of the things that you are doing because alot of the projects you are undertaking I have considered myself. Especially with all the "clean-up" that you are doing. I've seen Kurt's car and was just amazed at how he has that thing stripped apart.
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  #70  
Old 07-02-2007, 02:26 PM
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Update 2.July.2007

Well, tech for SP is 6 days away so the pressure is starting to build. Yeah! Pressure! Things are going OK, but dammit there is always something. First, the good.

The car is going back together. Over the weekend I installed my new overpriced engine fuel lines. BTW, anyone who changes these lines with the engine in the car is insane. Period. 90% of the job is done from the back* of the engine, and even with the ability to stand behind it is still a pain in the ass. But they're in. A little clean up on the engine and the power plant is ready to go back in.

Charlie was over yesterday and he finished the rear suspension and brakes. The rear of the car is pretty much done and ready for the engine to be reinstalled (planned for tomorrow night). I have to tidy some wiring up in the engine compartment today, but that's about it. BTW, I found you could remove the whole rear fuse box when you backdate your heat and loose the rear window defroster:

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So here's the car right now:

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The front of the car is coming back together. I finally made a new brake line to the passenger front wheel after kinking the old one in an attempt to get more clearance for the steering rack. I put new front bearing in the hubs yesterday, and the bearing retainers and the 4mm VCI spacers on the new spindles are on. I was pleased to see that even with the 4mm spacer, the bearings are still fully seated on the spindle and the retaining nut is fully threaded. If either of these didn't work out, I would have bagged the VCI idea.

So last night Charlie and I cruised through the rear suspension. At first we had a problem with the ebrake - one of the cables was suddenly too short. Turns out that if you tighten one side down too much, it takes up all the slack from the other side. Pulling the ebrake handle up showed the problem and it was quickly resolved. After this was done, we took a quick break to get some coffee and pick up my ducktail, freshly painted, from PaintRacer. It looks awesome. I can't wait to get the engine in tomorrow and get the tail on to see what it looks like.

When we got to the front suspension, things started getting a little more difficult. First issue came in installing the a-arms w/ the ER poly-bronze bushings. I got these bushing in 2004 so it's not a new install, but when I first put them in they were still a pretty new product and there wasn't a lot of knowledge on how to install. Turns out I did a couple things wrong the first time. First was to try to get the steel races as tight as possible on the a-arm by using 1/2 or 1/4 of a shim. What I found out later, this can put the race out of round, making it bind somewhat. When I pulled the a-arms out, both rear races had come loose, so I decided to use a new technique }{ picked up from PPBBS - getting the races close on the a-arms with full shims, and using Loctite to set them in place. In my case, instead of red Loctite, I used Sleeve & Bearing retainer, which worked very well. Once it set up, the races were on there but good.

The second mistake I made was just bolting everything together without checking to see if the a-arm could swing without binding. When we bolted stuff up, both sides bound. Charlie was able to fix the driver's side by simply unbolting and re-torquing the bolts a few times. My side (passenger's) was a much bigger PITA.

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As it turns out, when the main crossmember bolt (5) was tightened, it was squeezing the aluminum crossmember (1), and thus squeezing the rear bushing housing and bushing (A) . When the bushing was squeezed, the a-arm (14) bound up. It took a while to figure this out, but Charlie called it correctly. We pulled the a-arm and found that bushing housing (A) was very difficult to get out of the crossmember. That was part of the problem - if the housing is binding going into the crossmember, it's going to get pinched when the mounting bolt is torqued. There was some corrosion build up where the bushing meets the crossmember, which I got out with a dremel. I had POR'd the bushing housings, which was part of the problem, too, since POR is actually quite thick. The dremel took care of that, too. In the end it still wasn't enough, as it still bound when tightened (although not a much). A very thin spacer between the crossmember and the bushing housing where the mounting bolt goes through was the answer - it prevented the crossmember from squeezing the bushing housing too much. Now, the a-arms on both sides swing freely and with very little friction.

The shot of the front suspension here is a test fit, unlike the rear suspension its got a ways to go before its done. The good is the rotors clear the a-arms quite well. The bad is the used 22mm torsion bar I picked up are not usable :XX. The splines on the rear of the bars are cut wrong and the adjuster cap doesn't fit. There was a big problem with Sway-Away bars a couple years ago and apparently these are part of that run. New bars are being overnighted right now. Another big, unexpected expense. The other "WTF" moment last night occurred when Charlie went to install my Wevo CamberKing. See if you see the problem:

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If you said "the hole isn't tapped!" step up and claim your Rice-a-roni gift basket. WTF? This isn't cheap-ass made in China for $10 stuff, this is a $600 strut brace/monoball setup from Wevo. Well, fortunately I have a tap and die sets and Charlie and I were able to tap the hole. But seriously, what a PITA. For what that thing cost, I shouldn't have to spend 1/2 hour making my own threads (it was a bitch to tap, BTW).

Finally, the last annoying thing from this weekend was the discovery that my cool, special "acid proof" paint doesn't dry on non-metal surfaces. Like the seam caulking inside the smuggler's box. 5 days later and it's STILL wet. I started wiping it off with a rag last night and I'm going to just POR the damn thing today.

Win some, loose some.

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