Project Minne - a 72 build thread

[_gonbau]

Baudett, no estoy seguro de lo que quieres decir. Ya he pintado el coche con productos PPG de una sola etapa.

I'm sorry, I thought I had published in English! I wanted to say, what paint you will use to restore the watch rings!

[jpnovak]

The gauge trim rings will be painted in two ways. The outer crimp ring will get a satin black. The inner ring (external glass support) will be flat black. This is as close as I can determine from the original gauges. Otherwise, the gauges will be cleaned inside and out.

[jpnovak]

I am still working toward my goal of having the car on 4 wheels before the end of the year. A box of suspension parts arrived that fill holes in the "wear item" list of the suspension and steering. Strut mounts, trailing arm bushings, turbo tie rods, ball joints, etc. I guess It all has to be installed before bolting on the car.

I started with the trailing arms. The car is getting a set of 74 Aluminum trailing arms. These are unique due to the factory ball stud drop link mount for an early sway bar. This makes it easy to bolt up the existing bar. But first, trailing arm bushings must be replaced.

I started by pressing out the rubber centers. These are cracked, split and highly compressed. You can see the cold flow on bushing where the bore center is no longer in the center. I guess this is like the updated version of raised pickup points. In my case, they are just plain worn out.









Since I Had them out, I installed some Rebel Racing monoballs. My goal for the suspension is friction free compliance. These fit the bill.



Once the monoballs were installed in the trailing arm I Had no choice but to bolt them on the car. Yes, they hang free with no friction. Exactly as planned.




I Have also been working toward the engine build. The head studs are pulled and the case is mostly bare. Time to start cleaning it. Bearings and gaskets will arrive this week.



This is my pile of pick-up sticks. 11 dilivar, 12 steel and one broken (also diliver). Not too bad. At least the collet was able to grab the broken one and it spun out easily with a little heat.



And last, I finally crated my heads and sent these off to Craig Garret (Cgarr) for machine work. The top of the box was filled with... What else? the lower valve covers for some twin plug opening action.




More wiring and suspension updates coming soon.

[jpnovak]

A few posts ago I showed the mostly trashed gauges. After taking them apart I sanded down the trim rings and ring supports. I also cleaned the glass and wiped down the interior faces. The tach needle was repainted. In the end they came out quite nice. Certainly better than before.



The gauges looked so good I could not resist to pop them in the dash for a visual. Oh, and I dug out my dash from storage to make sure it fits. Nothing like a full mock up to get you motivated to keep going.




These are not wired in yet but will be over the next few days. I am currently working on the under dash wiring. Oh, and the steering stalk switches were cleaned and checked out then screwed into place. They will get new rubber ends sometime soon.


Moving on to other parts of the car... I managed to find my torsion bars. I will be running 21/28. The front end of these early cars is quite light. No need for heavy torsion bars. But the extra weight of the 3.0 requires a little more spring. Should be a nice balance and well matched to the compliance.



Speaking of compliance in the suspension. The bushings are all installed front and rear. The front is handled by Elephant Racing Sphericals.



The rear spring plates are supported on Rebel Racing.



Its all coming together...

[jpnovak]

Tonight was another milestone. Minne is off a body dolly for the fist time in years... This means the tub was transferred over to my low-rise lift where I can finally begin suspension assembly. Its really hard to bolt on front suspension when the mounting points that hold the cross member are also holding the tub. Yes, I am excited.



After moving the body I had no choice but to bolt on some more parts. The steering rack (with new turbo tie rods), steering cross member and a-arms are all in place. Cool. Notice the full droop on the a-arms. I just absolutely love suspension bushings with near zero friction. Yes. Elephant Racing Sphericals are that good. The self-alignment is pretty nice too.



If the front gets some love, why not the back. Trailing arms installed. Spring plates installed along with Rebel Racing bushings. Just a few more bolts to go here.



And finally, there is a strange visual walking out into the garage. I am much closer to the 911. My art hood is in the background still serving watch over Minne. Albeit at more of a distance.

I am still working toward my goal of 4 wheels by the end of the year. Not sure I will make it with Christmas travel coming up. But I am going to try.

[jpnovak]

More progress on the suspension parts. Last night I was able to clean up and repaint my Koni struts. I prefer the Koni since they have a softer compression damping and adjustable rebound. This matches well with larger torsion bars where you want a little soft compression to facilitate suspension movement but adjustable control on the rebound. The car will get yellow sport inserts/shocks on all 4 corners.




The struts have been modified by raising the spindles 17mm. I also bend downward the Ackerman arm to compensate for bump steer. The total bend depth is 17mm + some more based on my measurements. I am not going to say how much. In the end, the tie-rods should be very close to parallel with the a-arms when sitting at ride height.




Some may ask why I don't do an "S" bend in the ackerman arm. This is because I do not want to shorten the torque length. I did that on my last car. While the steering was much quicker It felt slightly twitchy for minor adjustments at speed. This time I will favor the straightline stability.


Additionally, I cleaned and painted the headliner bows. Since they were ready, I might as well pull out the fabric and start stretching it out. Lots of wrinkles after being boxed for a few years. I will stretch for a week or so and then get the steamer out for the final fit.




Why the headliner so early? Well, I Have to install the headliner before I can wrap the A-pillar. I have to wrap the A-pillar before I can install the windshield. I also have to wrap the A-pillar to put the external VIN tag back on. I need all of this to get an inspection for registration. Its all part of the master project plan for long lead time items.

[jpnovak]

I have just about completed the front suspension and steering installation. Struts are now mounted and attached to new ball joints. The new turbo tie rods are connected to the struts.



Of course, the only way to test the steering is to slide a wheel onto the steering shaft. I have this old Dino wheel on the shelf. Its about the right size...




Steering is smooth. As expected really. Considering all the new parts up front. Next step is attaching rotors on hubs and installing new bearings.

[jpnovak]

Since I have parts at the machine shop that are expected mid-January I realized I have to start getting engine parts clean enough to build. Let's start with the case. It is the foundation of the build and must be clean enough to eat off..

The case was really crusty to start. Hot oil baked on like some type of impenetrable coating. Here are some before shots of the outside of the case. Even the cylinder spigot bores had coked on oil and that area usually stays clean. I have no history on this engine other than the earlier owners should have used some additional oil cooling and changed oil more frequently.



The inside of the case was way more dirty than the outside.



I ended up experimenting with a few different cleaners. The best result came from a mixture of purple, foodsafe degreaser and a citrus degreaser. Both available in gallon size from my local HD. I spray it on, scrub with a nylon (plastic) brush and then let sit for about an hour. Then I spray on another round, scrub some more, let it sit for 20 min and then rinse off. The citrus degreaser does not appear to be harsh on Al. Though I admit it works much slower than some others that I have tried.

In the end the case is really cleaning up. The outside is reasonably bright. There are some leftover cosmoline sections that will need to be scraped off. I am way closer to clean than I was when I started.




The inside of the case is much cleaner as well. I need some smaller and round brushes to reach some of the nooks and crannies on the inner case.



Once this part is clean I can pull the oil galley plugs and flush the insides including the passages.

After some Christmas travel I will pick up on the rear suspension, brakes and a few other parts of the car.

[jpnovak]

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and spent time with family and friends. Truly, that is what is most important in life. I traveled a few states away to visit my inlaws and had a great time.

Now that I am back I have 2 days left to meet my goal of getting the car on 4 wheels before the end of the year. Here are a few projects that I have been working on while waiting for a parts delivery.

Since the car was painted I did hang the doors. I had to install the door latches so that they do not swing open on their own. This is a potential for damage. I was really tired of reaching inside the hole to release the latch with one finger while pulling the door to open. So, it was time to work on the door handles.

Both door handles were disassembled completely. The lock cores didn't really work due to old hard grease. The triggers were stiff and the release pin was sticking so badly that it didn't want to return. So, remove the screw holding the lock arm in place. Push out the lock core and flush out the grease. Lubricate with some graphite and put it all back together.



Then pull the trigger pin mechanism to clean and lube. Put it all back together including the return spring and what do you get? ...a pair of reworked door handles ready for installation.



Of course, if they are ready to install... Why wait? I dig out the new handle seals and bolt them on. They work great! Well worth the effort.



I have also been spending time getting everything in the tunnel installed. This is the heart of the car and some areas are more difficult to access once parts start stacking up.

So, Let's rundown the items installed through the tunnel. You can see them all from the picture below.

The throttle rod is installed with new guide bushings.

The brake lines are installed. Since I reinforced the torsion tube and tunnel interface I had to custom bend the DS hard line so that it passes on the rear side of the torsion tube rather than the forward side.

The fuel lines are installed. I ran AN6 lines. These will mostly follow the factory guides for the emissions lines. The fuel pump will still be located in the stock location under the rear DS seat pan. I will complete these connections at a later date.




The final part of the engine bay wiring was to mount the rear electrical console. This was disassembled and painted black.



The above projects were all filler time while I waited for rear wheel bearings. it was hard to complete the rear wheel assembly without the fundamental part installed. After an hour in the freezer the bearings went right in.



Since the bearings were in it was time to install the parking brake structures. This all has to install before the hubs and rotors go on. Stack up tolerance is key here.



Hopefully the next post will have a car sitting on rubber tires.

[911scfanatic]

Thanks Bill. Its been a while since I have seen you around. How is your project?

Things are good. Life has gotten exponentially more busy (and fun) the last 5 or so years. Oldest in college now and 2 of the 3 other boys close behind.

Project is picking up pace. With some luck and $$ I hope to be done by the fall. Unfortunately, I starting turning a lot of the work over to others to get things done.

Ever in the Midwest? I see Craig is doing the head machining. I miss seeing the guys on the west side...