Porsche Parade Concours 2016- Part 1: Driving There

[304065]

. . . so precisely when did our toys become an "Asset Class?"

Judging by the proliferation of threads asking "What is my Unobtanium [insert part number] worth?" vs. "Help I am at the side of the road with 270F oil temperatures and nothing more than a 924 tool roll and some back issues of Panorama when it was on small paper," I think it happened sometime in the last three years. The global liquidity climate, some pundits observe, has created a rise in asset values, and our cars have inadvertently been caught up in it.

But one does not fall in love with an Asset Class. One does not look lovingly into the eyes of Treasuries and give them a hug.

One does take a Concours 911 and flog the daylights out of its 165 skinnies and two-liter motor en route to PCA's most prestigious contest of originality and cleanliness.

All good days begin before sunrise.



93 octane for the car and Black Coffee for the driver, a 200 mile burn on the back of a midnight wrenching session to change wheels, muffler and install the "driver" headlights with the bumps on the wrong side of the glass and some Hella Vision lamps that could fry the paint off a Prius. I stretched the Steinschlagschutzen over the nose and reminded myself not to tailgate an earth mover.


My destination: Series900, Sunapee, NH, and its proprietor Damon Josz: one part historian, one part artist, one part Hephaestean god of fire, hammer and tongs. The car was going back for some much-needed body work as it seems that there had been a little, er, DAMAGE done since it left his shop back in 2012.



Series900 looks like, to the casual observer, what you would expect if Colonel Kurtz owned a restoration shop. The property is filled with mangled hulks of 911s that didn't make it, their vital parts harvested to make others perfect. W111s and a couple 110s have begun to make an appearance here and there.



Who tows their 911 track car on a steel trailer with a 1963 Heckflosse? Really, who does that?



But true beauty is on the inside-- not in the collection of machines, Celette jigs for everything Porsche has produced, not in the rusty pieces of an ancient Celette lift called, I am not making this up, the "Eunuch" so old that even Celette doesn't know how it works anymore-- but in the passion that Damon has for our cars and the determination to make them perfect again even after the most horrible abuse by their owners.



I arrived exhausted, the first stage of the trip complete. Some minor work over the next month, then another burn to Jay Peak, wind screeching, old Blaupunkt glowing, head full of Caffeine, ears full of the beautiful flat six song.

[Bobs 67S]

Hear - Hear.

I'll drink a tall frosty one for this guy...


Maybe even two!

[72targa]

Hoping to see the full story in the Esses...

[joegt3cup]

John if your travels take you anywhere near Colebrook CT give me a holler.

[304065]

Resuming the story. . .Damon patiently put the crunched bumper back to perfect and did other things like change the windshield (old one was sandblasted) and fought with a Sierra Madre "perfect reproduction" Durant mirror that will be returned to Jorge after I have hit it with a sledgehammer a few dozen times. After 1.75 hours of Damon's time installing it, the metal was too thin, stamp in the wrong place, articulation weak, bolts too long and it was supplied with a conventional nut, not a nylock, even though those are supposed to fit inside recesses in the door where you could NEVER conceivably place lock washers, it was removed and the original one installed again. I am spoiled by guys like Eric Linden who take the time to make PERFECT reproductions that fit right. . .

After achieving escape velocity from The World, I arrived in Sunapee, NH through no small logistical effort to find the car ready to polish.



I decided to tackle the mechanical part first and save a complete two step polish with the Meguiar's microfiber detailing system for last. With that work done, I would then depart on Sunday morning for Jay Peak and spend Sunday cleaning the undercarriage and interior, one more coat of wax, then Meguiars Final Inspection at the last minute.

I did not know it then, but I would be tested by the Electrical G_ds three times before it was all over.

I set to work removing the fan strap-- 64-66 911 has a fan strap that is parkerized or phosphated, not painted or plated. In 67 you get the painted strap with the sticker, for a reason that I'll explain. These early straps are positioned right under the openings in the engine lid, so that water drips on them and rusts the strap at about the 11:00 position. Porsche knew this and painted the strap and put the sticker there to stop the rust.

Years ago I was fortunate to find a pristine strap without the rust spot, which I sent to Mr. Shaun Budka at Tru6 for phosphate coating. Shaun did an amazing job with the strap, just like original, I just needed to install it. To do this, you have to remove the ignition distributor to get the old strap off, and also the right hand heater duct, because the strap won't flex down to slide out under the fan without the duct gone. But wait, the right hand duct is held on by an M6 screw underneath, and you can't get THAT out without removing the cam oil line. So the oil line inboard end has to come off, which means oil drips everywhere, so you have to stop the drips, there is a Concours in two days, after all. Then once the fan is installed, you have to re-time the ignition, not particularly complicated, but time-consuming.

I had also sourced the original Beru connectors for the spark plug ends, these also appeared from 64-67, and were replaced by the right angle connectors in 68. They are unobtanium at this point. . . according to Up-Fixen, back in the day they tended to heat up and short out, causing ignition miss, so they were thrown away and replaced by the right angle type. I bought about 20 of them and managed to get six to ohm out (1000 ohms resistance) and I paired these with the boots and wires from a new Beru set that I bought before the 13 parade and didn't have time to install. So off came the Clewett wires and on went the originals with their "lollipop" wire holders, o-rings and original brown cap.

This was all looking good, I finished the job and was ready to start buffing, and I wanted to back the car out of the bay to wash it. I turned the key to "run" expecting the sentinel glow of the alternator warning lamp. . . nothing. Started the engine, 12.5v at the battery, not charging! My immediate thought is that when I removed the starboard duct I had knocked the cannon plug for DF/D- loose from the alternator brush holder, so I disconnected the battery negative, unbolted the fan strap and carefully tilted the alternator forward to look at the connections. . . which were all fine, and showing continuity to the plug on the electrical console. Even the D+/61 trio diodes were showing 833 ohms of resistance in one direction and infinite in the other. . . good enough. So I put the alternator back.

I then connected a small jumper between the cannon plug D+/61 at the console and ground and got the bulb to glow, so it wasn't the blue wire circuit to that point. I connected the same jumper between D+/61 and DF, that would send +12V straight to the alternator field, a 'Full-field" test. The alternator started putting out about 16V at idle RPM, so it wasn't the alternator, it was the Voltage Regulator.

Now where was I going to get a Bosch 14V regulator on a Saturday night in Sunapee, NH? They don't even have a taxi service. I thought of driving to Claremont to an auto parts store, that would either yield a voltage regulator that would work or a second battery that could be held in reserve until the first one ran down, then swapped in to get me back to New York ( a six hour drive at least).

In near panic and despair I slid into Damon's 1963 Mercedes fintail to make sure it would start if I had to run to the FLAPS. . . after getting it running, I happened to look down in the center console. . . there was a spare Bosch voltage regulator, just sitting there. Now, what are the odds of that? Too long to be an accident. I silently recited Matthew 6:26 and installed the regulator in about thirty seconds. . . the system started charging again.



All this took until about 6:00 p.m., so I was hours behind the detailing schedule. But I had done it before, so it didn't take that much time, and the Meguiars two step system is really excellent and easy to use. I finished at 10:00 p.m. and went outside in darkness to drive to the local motel. . . the fintail wouldn't keep running, wouldn't go into gear. After fiddling with it I decided to give up and drive Damon's diesel Ford truck with Camper to the motel. I would not be stopped. I am not even making this up.



I met Damon at the shop at 6:15, he rolled up in the 959 Tribute sounding like it had ingested a bag of hammers, a loud hammering noise coming from the motor. Was it a rocker that had come loose? It turned out to be the power steering pump. . . we put the car on the lift and removed the cover for the power steering belt drive, then removed the drive pulley entirely. . . the car was engineered to drive safely without power steering, it's just low speed handling that is an issue. . . don't try this at home, but the car ran and drove fine.



Finally we launched. . . and the second electrical test came. Between the shop and I-89 it became clear that the original Beru connectors were. . .shorting out and causing a miss. . . the car wouldn't make it up even the slightest grades under load. . . no way was I making it up to Jay Peak like that. We pulled over under a bridge in the shade and I switched back to the Clewett wires, which immediately fixed the problem. . . we resumed the journey north with Damon leading the way in the 959 Tribute.



After an uneventful 2.5 hour drive, in which we met up with a nice guy from Boston in his silver 964, we arrived at Jay Peak. Damon's car drew a crowd like he was giving away free beer.



I set to unpacking. . . who knew you could fit all that stuff in an early 911? I jacked up the car and started cleaning underneath.



continued here... http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...779#post877779