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Upholster the Sturzbugel of your Rally Prepped ST
A fellow board member sent me the attached marked up image of the ST rallye spec rollbar shown earlier in this thread. This factory padded example was pulled from a MY 1971 Safari, the same donor car that provided its RePa harnesses shown in the prior post.
You will see this padded variety ST rollbar in other ST Rallye prepped cars as well. This variety of the 2,3L pattern roll bar is relatively rare.
I apologize for having taken so long to provide the measurements of the circumference of the factory pad. I measured the circumference at the three points indicated by the red lines on the image. For anyone contemplating duplicating this pad, here are some details: it is made from Porsche's typical grained leatherette and is sewn along its underside in a long running stitch.
The circumference of the padding at the points marked is as follows:
Center: 12”
Offset side: 10”
Near end: 7”
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Less Weight with More Traction
Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen AG, Gmund, Austria "Zed Eff" Slip Unit A board member in Kentucky found this Porsche type ZF multiple disc self locking differential on a dealer shelf in a vintage parts trove. The old parts tag is marked 901 332 053 11.
The matching output flanges came from the same source and have casting numbers 901 132 208 followed by 75/2370.
Seriously now, every hot rod needs positraction. Thanks for the posi, Tony!
"X Bars" The lightweight X bars for mounting race seats in the cockpit came from Jim Logan in Massachusetts. While often associated with the Carrera RS Sport version, these same brackets were included in the specs layed out by Race Department for 911 ST prepped for circuit racing. As you can imagine just by looking at them, these simple cross bars provide a considerable weight saving as compared to the stout folding brackets as fitted for the Recaro Sport Seats in the standard production 1971 911S. I think the Race Department introduced the X bars for the ST as a part of its extensive weight reduction program in pursuit of hot rodding's Third Axiom.
VDO 100L Sending Unit The aluminum long tube sending unit for the 100L gas tank surfaced in an on-line auction. The trim plate on the top of the sender is marked VDO 901 741 801 00 and shows a date of 12 72. This part is extremely light weight. One would think that the sending units, a wear item, would be more plentiful than the 100L steel tanks. In fact, it seems just the opposite. In my experience the sending units are scarce compared to the tanks themselves.
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2,3L Group 4 Look in Steel
Here are some pics of the front bumper in paint, prior to being buffed out.
The bumper's lovely shape duplicates the look of the plastic factory 2,3L Group 4 body kit race bumper, although this bumper is all steel. Why all this attention to the shape of the front bumper? To me, the shape of the front bumper provides the most critical component to the overall look and context of the car. Consider the fundamental change imposed on Butzi's original design by the simple change to a MY 72S spoiler, or yet again an RS spoiler or RSR or RSR with the lip, plus splitters, etc. You just have to get the look of the front bumper correct to give context to the rest of the car.
Details inner surface
The mounting brackets in the lower valence cavities for the Hella fog lamps have been shaved off to duplicate the Race Department modification described as "No covering of the hole for fog head-lights under bumper" and on the inner surface the welds related to the modification of the bumper ends, flared to complement the front fenders, are metal finished and hidden from detection. However, on the inner surface the center weld has been left cleary visible. These features duplicate the look of the factory grp 2,3L Group 4 bumper.
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Assembly Begins: Hanging Parts
The co-driver's alu-skinned door is hung on the RH hinge post.
Assembly begins with installation of the wiring loom in the fuel bay, engine bay and dash board.
Here the steering column goes back into place - you can see that the satin black paint on the dash has flattened considerably since we last looked at it when it had just been sprayed. You can see the threaded plate for installation of the sturzbugel in the lower right hand quadrant in the first image while the factory footrest for the driver's left foot is lower left in the second image.
Pristine wheel wells The last image shows the visually interesting details of the standard chassis welds revealed by stripping the underseal and presenting the wheel wells in color. This is the last look at them in this pristine state as soon they will be filled by products from the elite German Tier One automotive suppliers to Porsche AG: Ate, Bilstein, Fuchs and Minilite. Minilite?
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Dog Bones Courtesy of Gruppe Happich Ellamp "GHE"
The FIA required that all racing cars have manual devices to positively secure the front and rear lids in order to prevent inadvertent incidents caused by sprung cable latches. In its earliest days, the Race Department used simple belting leather straps with nickel plated buckles and hardware to secure positively the lids of its cars.
This is the same rule that resulted in the NASCAR pins being fitted to the Mustang GT 350R front and rear and the use of slick aircraft latches on the GT 40. On competition Ferraris all manner of spring loaded latch pins, leather belts and what-not appeared on the lids and decks to satisfy the FIA scrutineers.
Porsche later switched from using belting leather straps on its race cars to what they referred to as “rubber locks” to satisfy the FIA requirement. Racers refer to these rubber locks colloquially as “dog bones” because of their visual similarity to the rubber toys purchased at the pet shop for Fido.
Perhaps the first Porsche competition car to appear with the now familiar rubber locks was the 356 Carrera Abarth GT (on the engine lids of some cars; no two of these GTs seem to be the same). Carlo Abarth, an Austrian like Piech, was famous for fielding wickedly effective small bore cars on a shoestring budget and he seems to have given the idea of the rubber locks to the Race Department. Abarth used these same rubber locks on many other of his creations, most notably on the engine lid of the 750 TC Corsa
They made their next appearance on the 911R, a creation of Piech, sometimes with a single centrally located rubber lock on the front lid.
The rubber locks used on the 911 ST were manufactured by a German firm by the name of Gruppe Happich Ellamp, know simply as GHE. GHE manufactures a line of fasteners in rubber, plastic and metal as well as a broad line of other products for all manner of vehicles from buses to trains to airplanes as well as some more mundane vehicles as we will discuss a bit later.
All its products were sold through a catalog to its distributors as well as direct to end-users. In other words, these rubber locks were in no way exclusive to Porsche and were instead just the opposite: generic items in the category of industrial hardware.
Today GHE is headquartered in Milan but back in the 1970s it was still headquartered in Germany, where some of its products continue to be manufactured. Nowadays GHE prides itself on “Italian design with German engineering” although the rubber locks fitted to the ST appear to satisfy neither of those qualities.
GHE also distributes that magical metal polish we know as Happich Simichrome, shown below in the economy size tin, and well know to all readers of the Road & Track ads in the back of the magazine back in the 1960s and 70s. You can see the same GHE logo on the lower right side of the tin - the same logo that appears on the rubber locks.
The GHE rubber locks appear similar to the essentially identical products of other manufacturers. The key differentiating feature of the genuine article is the presence of the GHE trademark on the back of the rubber shaft of the version originally specified for use on the ST, Carrera RS Sport and the RSR.
The second image attached to this post shows the GHE dog bones that we have for the hot rod. The third image shows the reverse side where one can see the GHE logo. The large version as used on the front lid bears the GHE part # 602 0024 while the smaller version used to secure the engine lid shows GHE part # 11.
Perhaps one could imagine these wonderful NOS Gr 4 parts coming from the Vasek Polak close out sale (many did), or perhaps being discovered among the personal effects of an old time employee of the Race Department (the dealers at Essen will tell you that as they empty your wallet). Well I am sorry to disappoint you, but this story has nothing to it of that mysterious grandeur.
In fact the NOS dog bones for the hot rod came from the shelves of a spare parts dealer in the Czech Republic – a dealer specializing in parts for farm tractors.
As generic items sold from an industrial catalog, GHE products found their way onto all manner of vehicles, including some of a decidedly agricultural nature.
In Czech the leading brand of farm tractor is Zetor. The fourth image shows a fabulous old Zetor model 1306 painted one of our favorite colors, Vipergrun, and sporting some rather familiar looking hold downs on its engine lid!
With Preschona, Piech got rocket science, but with GHE he bought tractor parts.
