CamsPorsche

so subscribing to this thread...very cool project!

Dan@SharkWerks

I finished rebuilding the second carburetor and it looks pretty good, too. I didn't spend a whole lot of time polishing up the air cleaners, but they look decent for now. I re-installed the carbs after replacing the fuel line that runs behind the fan (this line is notorious for leaking and causing fires on these cars from what I hear).

The fuel leaks are now all fixed!

I also replaced the deck lid strut because the lid was falling on my head while working on the car. Now it springs up with authority.

I spent the last couple of days replacing all the lights around the car so I can begin driving it. When I started, 1/4 turn signals worked, 2/4 parking lights worked, 0/2 brake lights worked, 0/2 license plate light lights worked. I replaced all 12 of these bulbs (about $20) which fixed about half of them... but I had to clean every connector and ground with a razor blade/pick/sandpaper to get most of them working. Now I'm happy to say 4/4 turn signals, 4/4 parking lights, 1/2 brake lights, and 2/2 license plate lights work perfect. I haven't traced down that second brake light but the wire looks fine so I'll look into it this weekend (there's one wire that runs from one brake light to the other, through the outside of the car and again through the deck lid area). I also couldn't figure out why the reverse lights don't work, but I'm pretty sure it's the switch. Anyway, the car has *most* lights and I don't feel unsafe driving it now.

Since the driver's seat was installed, I installed the seat belt for it, and because I just added it to my insurance ($9/month!) I took it for a spin around the block. It was pretty fun to drive, so I ran inside and grabbed the digital camera, and shot this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiAbj_UzDNc

Warning: the audio is terrible and an airplane flies over head at the end, but you get the idea.

More to come later.

Dan@SharkWerks

I drove it to lunch the other day to get it up to a reasonable speed of 50 MPH and be among traffic. It was around this time I remembered that I don't have side view mirrors installed and lane changes are a bit interesting.

I also noticed that dust from the rotted insulation and rusty bits blows all over the place while driving, making it stinky/dangerous/sucky/hard to see/etc. So this must be fixed ASAP.

I spent about 8 hours this weekend scraping up the loose paint/surface rust from the passenger side of the interior. My main tools were a paint scraper, wire brush, and shop vac. The goal was to remove as much of this junk as possible and vacuum it out of the car to prepare for rust conversion/sealing, and replacing the carpet.

Before:


After:


I threw out a whole shop vac full of loose debris and now much of this area is shiny bare metal.
Then I spent another few hours scrubbing with wire brush while keeping a shop vac running nearby to remove the remaining loose rust dust and surface rust. The floor boards look pretty good at this point, but with a couple small holes poking through, I might weld up replacements before I apply the rust protectant/paint and replace the carpet.

Dan@SharkWerks

The rust preparation continues, but in the meantime I've been driving the car a bit. One thing was driving me crazy... the shifter. The pattern on the 901 transmission is new to me anyway, but this wasn't the problem.

My issue was that the feel of the shifter was terrible. There was a "muddy" gray area, going left to right, that made it impossible to tell if you were in gear at all, let alone figure out which gear it was. Also, going to 1st gear was especially hard, since its position was down-left on the H pattern and the shifter would run into the seat. I asked James, who told me that I likely had to take out the shifter to see the cup where the ball of the shifter was seated.

Here are some awful pics but it explains the process I used to fix the shifter.

Removing the shifter was so easy on this car. I removed the three 13mm bolts that hold it in the console, then the two 10mm bolts that hold the cable in place. Here's what the plastic "cup" looks like, that the lower ball of the shifter rotates and moves in:


The pic doesn't really explain the problem, but the cup was nearly disintegrated. The sides were completely gone, meaning the ball had almost no support.

I bought a new cup for under $10 from our local parts house. Lubed it up a bit, then installed it onto the shifter's ball:


Then I took a sharp pick and hacked away at the old, worn-out cup until it could be removed. I put some of this grease onto the new cup and put it in place.

Here's the old cup, removed from its hole:


I installed the 5 bolts and took it for a drive. EUREKA! Night and day difference... now the shifter's tight and predictable. No more sloppy guessing about which gear is which, and I can actually downshift it now. I really dig this transmission now.

butzip

Amazing what that little sucker can do eh?!?! You should change the ring and coupler bushings too! Go with the weltmeister coupler bushing it is round not oblong so it eliminates even more 'built-in' play. I was exactly where you are now (15yrs ago) I can still smell the rust and nappy sound deadening. My shifter was just as !@#$ed as yours, but now I wouldn't trade my 901 for anything! Keep rollin' bro. when these cars are right they are great.

Dan@SharkWerks

Yeah, it made a big difference! I'll look into the upgrades you mentioned too.
That smell is nauseating, eh?


Yeah definitely! It's so much fun to drive that I don't want to work on it, I just want to keep it driveable. I can't wait till it's all healthy again inside and I can drive it proper.

Snowboarder54

Dan, you are right, it's almost in new condition!! Which do you enjoy driving the most; Kermit, the banger bus, Tadpole or the 912?? Be honest!! Congrats on your new ownership!!

sharkster

Poor chap has been working nights and weekends. He's trying to be James Jr. I think?

Nothing and I mean NOTHING compares to the BangBos!

Dan@SharkWerks

I know that's not a serious question! The bus is at least a manual so it beats Tadpole.

ditch68

Thanks for the shifter disassembly pics - I just ordered the bushing set from Pelican. I will be doing it this weekend, all the bushings. The ones in the tunnel hatch on the coupler disintigrated, and I suddenly had no 3rd or 5th gear today. Yikes.

Hopefully all will go well.

I love your car. I will be closely watching your excellent posts!

Jeff

Snowboarder54

Dan,

Here's a photo of me working on my very first Porsche, a 1956 356 cab. They Hadn't even thought about the 912's yet. I'm the one in the center with my head in the wheel well!! Photo was taken in 1961, a few years before you were thought of either!!

Max Power

thanks for posting all the pics!

my 912 has been a daily driver, was entered in a car show, and spent the weekend at a DE, all in the same week

the trick to driving a 912 fast is to not use the brakes

Dan@SharkWerks

Max, that is such a cool avatar you've got!

And Snowboarder54, thanks for sharing that photo, I bet that 356 is worth some $$ now! That wasn't the car you "borrowed" from your uncle (I think) as a teenager was it? I think you should write a book about your adventures in Porsches. How many have you owned over the years? I hope you come with us to the historics in August @ Laguna Seca. It was good seeing you the other day!

Snowboarder54

Almost correct Danny boy, it was my step fathers car and my uncle "authorized" me to drive the car to notify him when he was supposed to go pick up his brother from the airport, if I remember correctly I was only 13 years old. (it was way before cell phones). On the way I was working on my 4-wheel drifting and drifted right into a stump!! (way before drifting was popular) Uncle covered for me and the cab was eventually my first Porsche!! I have never tallied up how many Porsches I have owned but it really wasn't that many, maybe 20-24 total. Some were only for a few months, most were the aircooled variety some weren't street legal but they were all very special to me and all were driven like they were stolen!!

The book may be a great idea as there is a huge amount of history that will eventually be lost. My favorite years were when I worked for Vasek Polack as a teenager in Manhattan Beach!! Seemed as if we went racing every weekend back then.

I may consider the historics if we can ride in the bang-bus!!!

Dan@SharkWerks

We have been busy lately, but I had a little time to work on the 912 which required immediate attention.

First, the turn signals stopped working. They were pretty rough in the first place. They didn't shut off automatically when finishing a turn, and the right signal was becoming hard to engage. Finally last night, right stopped working altogether. Then left this morning. I also broke my driver-side window roller this week, so I couldn't easily roll down my window to perform those cool hand signals.

So I took off the steering wheel and disassembled the column slightly. Luckily it's all easy to move, just requiring a few screws. While I was in there I cleaned everything nice and pretty. I couldn't find anything damaged in the signals, but it was definitely stuck. James suggested contact cleaner, and after a few sprays (and dirty paper towels later) the signal started working. I continued to clean up the little cluster of complex gears and finally sprayed a dry lubricant on when I was finished. Now they work like new!

I reassembled the wheel but somehow lost the horn in the process. I will have to fix that this weekend.

I also mentioned before that the lack of mirrors was making the car pretty dangerous to drive. The car came from the factory with only the driver's side, and I plan to keep it this way. Here's some ugly plastic aftermarket mirrors the previous driver had installed:


They looked tacky and actually were really bad mirrors, constantly moved around etc. Shown also is the stock mirror. But I realized this was from a 66-67 model, so I swapped out for this larger one:


I purchased the small one on Craigslist for $30, the bigger for $45.

One of the most unappealing things about the car was the rear deck lid grille. This piece is notorious for being warped or damaged (look at 68 and 69 911s, 912s and you'll see what I mean). Mine was missing a couple bars and many others were bent (this is after I tried straightening them out):



I popped into Parts Heaven in Hayward and saw this one on a 911E, so I quickly purchased and installed it:



Big improvement eh?