captainOCD

Took the car out to a car show sponsored by the local camaro club at fuddruckers. There were a couple air cooled 911s there (two 80s looking and one 70s maybe). I talked to one of the guys (who seemed like he was on rennlist) in the 80s ones a bit. His car was in really nice shape.

I didn't get a chance to walk around much. Talked to one guy in an old (60s or 70s) mercedes s class for most of the time then it started raining.

My little sister enjoyed the ride in the car. The two 80s 911s were parked next to me, but left shortly after I got there.



So as it turns out, the car is not entirely waterpoof. I had one leak onto the gas pedal and another from the sunroof (only on sweeping turns, so maybe a clogged drain). I think the one onto the gas pedal was coming in around the hvac box. And it's getting on there because the plastic cowl panel that should be there has been sitting off the car since it's disintegrating.






The plastic where the seals go in is just peeling off and it won't sit in place without falling down anyway.

soontobered84

Captain,
Were you, by chance, running your A/C while you were driving? That water by the accelerator pedal looks suspiciously like condensate water from the A/C drain being clogged. The drain exits the car directly in the left-right center of the car above the exhaust and the associated heat shield a straight shot under the evaporative coil.
Not too many things more exciting than driving high speed around a sweeping turn with sandals/barefoot and having cold water dumping on your feet. It's not something you can anticipate or get used to.

captainOCD

I wouldn't be surprised if the ac drain needs cleared, but that picture was taken when I got to the car while it was raining, before starting it even. That said, the AC did actually work well enough to defog the windhshield, despite the obvious leaks around the compressor and some connections.

captainOCD

Investigated the water leaks today, and hopefully have solved both problems.

First was the sunroof. It was full of nature gack, including the drivers side drain. Got it cleaned out, so now hopefully the water will drain out instead of into the car.



Next was the cowl panel. Hoping to avoid having to spend $100 on a piece of plastic right now, I tried taping the broken one up.


Seems to have worked, but seems like maybe it's shrank or something? Is it just supposed to sit under the metal part of the cowling from the windshield?

captainOCD

So while I wait for parts to do the engine mount job to arrive, I bought a carpet dash cover for now to make the inside of the car look a bit more presentable, and too keep pieces of the leather from flaking off and hitting me in the eye again.








It's by no means a permanent solution, but until I can have a new dash pad covered in leather it at least makes the car look better interior wise. I did buy a new odometer drive gear (after reading one of dwayne's guides), so hopefully taking off the pod to do that will give me some idea of how the dash pad replacement will go eventually.

soontobered84

Captain,
The cowl cover sits on some metal fingers underneath the metal cowling. They are somewhat pliable and may be pushed up and not visible, but you should be able to feel them and move them back into position to slide the cowl cover on top and then secure the front with the weatherstripping.

Mrmerlin

I have a Blue Alcantera dash cover and pod topper that will fit your dash,
the color might be a touch lighter

captainOCD

So I was able to find those metal fingers for the cowl panel. A couple of them were bent up, but I just hadn't seen them at all before. Now the cowl panel seems to be sitting in place better, so thanks for the heads up on those.


And I have actually been thinking that some kind of fabric, like alcantera, would be a good replacement for the leather some day. At that point I'd have to commit to having the console, glovebox, and blue parts of the door panels done to look right though.


Aside from that, I've probably put 250-300 miles on the car since getting it, and other than a weird vibration at times on the highway, which I'm hoping the engine mounts will take care of, the car is doing well. It seems to run fairly strong, shifts much better now with the vacuum modulator adjusted, and rides fairly competently, even on ancient shocks.

captainOCD

I have a box of engine mounts and another control arm with a good balljoint that will hopefully go on the car this weekend.

I'm very appreciative of all the help I've received here with both of my cars, so I went ahead and became a paid member today also. Now I get one of these fancy signatures.

captainOCD

Well I was planning to start on the motor mounts today, but the porsche gods had something else in mind. Took the car out to get some stuff at the store, and after a WOT run I smelt something hot and realized I had no power steering. Popped the hood and found a nest of v belts, one snapped and two others seemingly just knocked off. The made it the 2 miles home keeping an eye on the temp gauge.

After it cools down, come to find it was the ac belt that snapped (compressor wasn't even engaged to make any pulsating load on the belt) and knocked off the ps and the fan belt when it went. These were belts I picked up cheap at autozone while I was doing the timing belt job. Ironically it broke right where it says "made in china".




Getting the new belt on was going all fine and well until I snugged up the lower ac bracket bolt. I didn't think I tightened it too much (maybe the threaded ear was already fatigued?), but the ear cracked and broke off. So I was going to take the compressor bracket from the parts car and weld a section of metal onto it until I remembered it's probably zinc plated and didn't want to fumigate myself. So for now I just made a small extension to the bracket that bolts to one of the other ears on the compressor.

It's definitely not an ideal solution since when you're trying to tension the belt it wants to pivot that bracket down some, but once you overcome that and tighten the bolt and nut holding the two brackets together, it should be just fine. I'm gonna see if I can get a buddy of mine with a cnc machine to cut me out a bracket that will reach from the block around to that ear in one piece.








My misfortune for the day aside, I think the belt from napa that they show for the car is on the long side. The adjuster is darn near maxed out to have the belt snugged up.

captainOCD

Fixed the odometer this weekend while it was too wet to do anything else outside.

The drive gear from the motor had disintegrated, but otherwise it was all working still.




Bumped it up 250 miles so it should be up to date with the miles I've put on the car so far.

captainOCD

I started tackling making the car waterproof again. I still have some kind of leak at the firewall (I think around the hvac box). I did get a new to me hatch seal from 928intl that hopefully has solved the leaky hatch.

Old one was ripe.


New one it much better.



Also related to the leaking, the door seals let water get on the locking mechanism in the passenger's door. That made it get stiff and the motor couldn't lock/unlock it. So that let me find out that the alarm horn still works, but sounds like it's under water. That wound up blowing the fuse for the motor on that side. Got some lube on it and got it working again. At the same time the lock button inside quit working. The light on it would come on when the doors were both locked, and it would blink when I pressed it. Swapped the lock control box from the 84 parts car and it works now.



The last issue was that when I was doing the motor mounts, the one lower control arm bolt on the passenger's side looked like it had some splatter from a weld on the threads of it, which tore up the threads. It seemed like it had enough threads left to hold back when I did that job, but it worked it's way loose. Ended up having to drill and tap threads for a slightly bigger bolt and now all is well with that. I drove the car around the block to dinner last night and all seems happy now.


So I need to find some door window seals and make the hvac box not leak still.

captainOCD

It's been either cold or rainy every weekend in the past month, so I haven't driven the car a ton, but still working on some smaller things. This weekend I took apart the fuel level sender, cleaned a ton of nasty corrosion out of it, and hopefully it's fully functioning again. I also changed my rear diff fluid since it hadn't been done since I got the car. The old fluid actually wasn't horrible looking, but fresh fluid sure won't hurt.

soontobered84

Matt,

Roger sells those door/window seals that are expensive, but much cheaper than Porsche.

For the fuel level sender, google sorghum molasses anti-rust properties. No BS. I have seen with my own eyes what a molasses and water solution will do for rust. It might be worth a try.

captainOCD

I might have to talk to roger then.

And I sure wouldn't have guessed that molasses would get rid of rust. I'm sure I'll have more rusty parts to deal with in the future.