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Thread: Benny and the jets - a coming of age tale about a '77S rebuild

  1. #11
    Senior Member obscene's Avatar
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    Chapter Six - Hershey

    Once a year the Hershey PA Porsche club hosts a weekend swap meet, concours, and autocross. The event has grown exponentially over the years and is now considered the largest Porsche event on the east coast. The swap meet is the main feature and spans most of the parking lot normally dedicated to Hershey's Giant Center. Word on the street is that you could buy enough parts at the swap meet to assemble a 911 from scratch and drive it home. After seeing the sheer scale of the event, I'm a believer.

    My day started much earlier, with a coffee meet and PCA cruise to Hershey. It was cool to see so much variety in local Porsche enthusiasts, but I was a little disappointed with how clicky it was. The old cars and new cars might as well have been in different parking lots. The other thing that really caught me off guard, was when a guy asked me to stop taking pictures of his car. You'll NEVER hear that at a Volkswagen meet!



    After some quick instructions, we fired up the cars and assembled to jump onto the turnpike. This part was awesome. Hearing all those flat sixes blasting through the crisp morning air was euphoric.





    Then I got my second big surprise of the day. Holy hell these crazies drive so fast. Let me preface the story, the cruises I'm used to are organized trains of low & slow cars following the speed limit and changing lanes only for the occasional rolling photo.

    This was not a dubber cruise. As soon as the lead cars were through the toll booth they were off, accelerating hard into the triple digits. Weaving in and out of morning traffic was the norm. My little old Porsche was struggling to keep up! Eventually I had enough, and with a growing anxiety about cruising at such high RPMs, I backed off and let the group go. No one seemed to mind, and one by one they flew by off into the distance.

    This wife was not impressed:



    Traffic did what it does best though, and by the time we reached the exit, I had caught up with the group. We entered the park, and joined the other thousands upon thousands of Porsche cars in the reserved parking area.



    Some quick sunscreen, and it was off to the swap meet! Give me all the sweet deals!!













    Whew! I ended spending $23 on a flag and a hot wheels car lol.

    With that out of the way, I met up with some friends and cruised the parking lot.







    All in all, a very cool event that I'd recommend to anyone. The best part was I ended up clocking around 300 miles in the car between Hershey and Cars & Coffee this weekend. After filling the tank again, I ran some quick math: Fuel economy was 18.4mpg!!!


  2. #12
    Senior Member obscene's Avatar
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    Chapter Seven - May 2015

    You know what grinds my gears? Shifting.

    When talking old cars, specifically 911's, one thing you'll hear over and over again is the love affair we have with the quirks and charm of driving these relics. People go on and on about feeling the raw engagement of non-assisted steering or the response of a throttle that's still opened via cable or linkage. However, when the Petroliscious video is over, and it's time to drive home, every owner across the country will perform a familiar dance - the delicate dance of trying to change gears in an early 911.

    It's possibly the most frequently discussed topic on 911 forums, and unlike other issues, you'll be face to face with it on every drive. Shift linkage bushings are a common culprit followed by synchros worn from over 40 years of service. In some cases an unfamiliar valet or strong armed HPDE driver can cause catastrophic damage in what's sadly referred to as "the money shift".

    Luckily for me, shifting troubles are limited to extremely vague gear engagement and a retired first gear synchro. The first part I can fix. The second just means coming to a complete stop before shifting to first, something I can absolutely live with. The fix for vague shifting is to replace all of the bushings in the shift linkage. The procedure is documented everywhere and can be conquered in an afternoon. This was actually the first job I took on after buying the car, and my effort was quickly rewarded when I found that one crucial bushing had completely disintegrated and another was missing all together!



    That sort of helped, and I quickly learned the dance, but I always felt the shifting accuracy could be further improved - especially the transition from 2nd to 3rd and the rattling noise the shifter would make while in 3rd gear.

    Fast forward to this week! The shifter and housing are easily removed, and I went from cover on to the whole business out of the car within 15 minutes.





    Upon further inspection, the culprit became immediately clear. Although I had replaced all the bushings in the shift linkage, the shift lever itself still had several degrees of lateral free play within the shifter housing. This explained how I would sometimes randomly miss 3rd gear from 2nd. These two pictures show just how much side to side play the lever had:





    After studying a few diagrams, it was time to visit the work bench and get the whole thing stripped down.



    After wiggling my lever (heyo!) for a bit, I found that free play was a result of the lever base not being an exact fit in the shift fork. The shift fork is basically the piece that anchors the lever in the housing and provides the rotating axis for the shift knob to move left/right and fore/aft. Anyway, I just so happened to have a perfectly sized washer that I carefully wedged in between the lever and fork. It was definitely a snug fit, the result is no more free play and only minimal increased fore/aft resistance.



    With everything lined up and bolted back together, I lubed my lever and re-installed the whole assembly. Success! I even had time to replace a few worn out interior bits!




  3. #13
    Senior Member obscene's Avatar
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    Chapter Eight - Oh Deer

    5.10.2015 - 8:30am

    Everything was going great for my early morning drive to meet family for Mother's Day breakfast. Then a deer jumped over the median, and in the blink of an eye things were no longer going great.





    It's definitely been a heart breaker, but thankfully neither myself nor Mrs. Obscene or fetus Obscene were injured. Thinking back on the impact, we were actually incredibly fortunate in the way we stuck the deer. We essentially clipped its legs with the low bumper, and it rolled onto the hood then off the side. Amazingly in this situation we were safer in the old low car with no airbags.

    Regarding the car... I haven't touched it since towing it home Sunday; but at a minimum the hood, right fender, right headlight, headlight bucket, and lower valence are toast. The hood also got pushed back and damaged the windshield wiper panel. I'm praying that there is no structural damage. The paint is not original, so no worries about a front or full respray.

    I have the car covered with Hagerty classic car insurance. I've never filed an insurance claim before, and truthfully I'm terrified of the whole process. The Hagerty folks have been great so far though, and are sending an appraiser out tomorrow to see the car. I'm looking forward to getting a closer inspection of the damage, and ultimately making the decision of repairing the car myself or sending it to a local shop.

  4. #14
    Senior Member obscene's Avatar
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    Chapter Nine - June 2015

    It's not exactly how I planned to kick off the rebuild, but I guess these things have a way of letting you know it's time. All in all, the weekend started off rather pathetic. To mow the lawn I have to first get the mower out of the garage. To get the mower out of the garage I have to move the caddy. To move the caddy I have start the... grrrrr... had to pull the cover up and use the 911's battery to jump start the caddy.



    Having the 911 in such a sorry state ate at me all day, so late in the afternoon I grabbed a beer and my helper and unbolted things for half an hour before the heat got to us.



    Coming soon:
    Full dis-assembly and clean up of the front end
    Project plan and parts/paint options
    Buying stuff!



    I love working on this car, and I love Eastwood's extreme chassis black paint.

    When we last left off:


    Before:


    After (still wet but should dry flat):


    And the full frontal:

  5. #15
    Great thread, thanks for posting!
    Member #2768 http://www.no-speedlimit.it

    • 1973 Biancaneve - 911 2.4 S/F Ivory
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    I keep a registry of 1972 and 1973 2.4 S coupé chassis. Infos always welcome!!!

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  6. #16
    you'll want to get rid of those dangerous hose clamps on the carb inlets that cut into the hoses & put some non-damaging ones on there instead

    I'd replace every bit of rubber fuel hose with new ethanol-mix rated Cohline or similar

    and next time you are at a public event and some guy asks you to stop taking pics of his car, tell him you're a journalist working on an article about how Porsche went all wrong

  7. #17
    Senior Member obscene's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Biancaneve View Post
    Great thread, thanks for posting!
    Thanks for reading! We're almost caught up to present day updates.

    Quote Originally Posted by 37yrold911 View Post
    you'll want to get rid of those dangerous hose clamps on the carb inlets that cut into the hoses & put some non-damaging ones on there instead

    I'd replace every bit of rubber fuel hose with new ethanol-mix rated Cohline or similar
    That's great advice, thanks. I'm not sure how I didn't think to do that previously.

  8. #18
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    Chapter Ten - July 2015

    Actions have been set into motion; actions which have direction and consequences and price tags. As you may have seen, I recently began the slow process of disassembling the impacted body panels and their peripherals. I've said this many times before, and not surprisingly have seen it in our other Porsche threads, but it's so surprising how cooperative these cars are when it comes time to unbolt things. Many people might not appreciate that, but for anyone that's torn down an old watercooled volkswagen, you can truly understand the happiness that emanates from a nut or bolt that needs nothing more than lefty loosey to be removed.



    With work life and personal life seemingly spinning out of control these past few months, I often only have time to fit in 1 hour sprints with the car. One hour at a time though, the parts are coming off, the fasteners making their way into baggies, and the exposed areas getting scrubbing and treated. My rabbit pickup has somehow also volunteered to help it's older brother out by storing all of these items in its rapidly overflowing bed.



    We recently had a local car show that often attracts a pretty diverse swap meet. I originally had thoughts of driving the truck, with a full bed of parts, to the show with hopes of selling something here or there. My wife, however, in her infinite wisdom reminded me that spending a whole day confined to your swap space is rarely an enjoyable Saturday. She suggested that I instead list the items on Pelican and deal with the shipping if they actually sell. Good idea right? And really, who's gonna buy smashed up body panels?

    A couple quick photos later, and my stuff was live on Pelican. Then my inbox filled up? Jackpot! After a visit from a gentleman just north of me yesterday, I'm happy to have a much lighter truck and most importantly, another $800 in the budget!

    What's a point of all this rambling? Said gentleman not only took my front bumper, but also purchased my accordion rear bumper thus removing all remnants of the car's impact bumper history. It's official, we're backdating.



    Benny and the jets - My '77S Rebuild Adventure

  9. #19
    Senior Member obscene's Avatar
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    Chapter Eleven - August 2015.

    Parts hunting is an art.

    Let's face it, this really is the golden age of buying hard to find car parts. The millennial in me *literally* cannot comprehend a world where multi-region craigslist searches, pelican parts classified filtering, and paypal accounts do not exist. However, even with the information super highway at your fingertips, finding the right part for the right price is still a skill that few ever master. The hunt becomes even more extreme once your cross-hairs are fixed for early 911 body panels.

    *Correction, the hunt becomes extreme when you're not willing to shell out $3,500 for a pair of fenders. If you've got the money, then it's a like a dentist chartering a trip to Africa.


    I love the hunt. As a result, we have a few successes on the way and several more in queue. It's not much of an update, but money is starting to leave fast so I figured I'd share. Stay tuned for more shopping, and hopefully some test fitting soon.

    *I should also mention that the parts below are being shipping to me via Greyhound. It's a service I've never used before so I'm excited to see how things work out.








    a few weeks later..

    Greyhound came through, and I was able to collect my two shipments today during lunch. The pickup process was super easy outside of the normal shenanigans you'd expect inside a busy urban bus terminal. The bumper and fender appear to have survived the trip, but unfortunately I'm traveling for work tonight and won't be able to open these up until Wednesday.

    I also have a large order in place with TRE Motorsports out in California, but that's not expected to ship until mid September...




    Back in the garage, I've slowly been keeping things moving by finally getting the crunched hood off the car and up as some wall art as well as diving into a bit of overdue wiring clean up.





    continued..

    Having safely returned from a work trip earlier this week, I had some time Wednesday evening to unwrap my new goodies. Both pieces were packaged pretty well and the greyhound process was super smooth. Kudos to my sellers and to Ashley working the desk at the bus terminal. With the bumper and fender unwrapped, I placed them on some saw horses and inspected further.



    I wasn't expecting much as both pieces were relatively (for Porsche parts) bargain priced. The bumper, however, had about a dozen runs in the clear coat and several places where the paint had chipped off all together. The fender, whether before or during shipping, had also sustained some bruising..



    Ouch! But wait! I had just bought a body hammer kit and was excited to try it out. A little dent like this would be perfect to try hammering out. So I applied a little heat and started tapping away. It was neat to see the metal coming back to shape, and I think I got it about as close as my first time skills were going to get it so I laid down a little filler and set it aside.



    Onto the bumper. This is another first time effort as I've never worked with fiberglass body panels before. Well, there was that one time with the shogun style body kit but we'll leave that alone... For the bumper I just ran the sander over it to smooth everything out and finished by spraying a coat of high build primer. It will need a little more work, but I'm waiting until after the test fitting for that.



    That's pretty much where we're at for now. Once the other parts arrive I'll get started with some test fitting and hopefully minimal adjustments.
    Benny and the jets - My '77S Rebuild Adventure

  10. #20
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    Looking good, good luck with your build...

    OG3
    RG715

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