Well I suppose this is entirely my fault.
Life, as many of our members know, can get in the way of properly enjoying one’s SWB 911. (That, and buying a one owner 1989 944 Turbo S and entering it in the preservation class at the Parade…)
It being July and with the schedule freed up a bit I determined to pull ‘065 out of storage in the Fortified Barn and have a drive.
Restarting the engine after sitting for over a year was a simple matter and I had good oil pressure within seconds of turning the key. Once oil pressure was established I connected the ignition and the car started and idled like a top.
However, on the road it was different. For some reason I am getting a profound ignition stumble at or around 4000 RPM. It might be the advance weights sticking, although the advance should be all-in by that point, or it might be that I am using a Bosch Blue coil. (As I have bored everyone here with previously, the Bosch Blue coil has high primary resistance which means that it charges more slowly, and may not be delivering enough energy at high rpm. I will look into replacing it this weekend with one of my many coils from my collection.) I'm using the Blue coil because I'm lazy-- I have a complete original 1966 ignition system for the car-- ballast resistor, NOS coil, original straight bakelite plug insulators. . .and the insulators go open circuit when they warm up and the ignition breaks up, which is why the Factory went to the right- angle version in 1968. When you replicate ancient systems you replicate ancient problems. Anyway, when I took the show stuff off after the last show, I put the Blue Coil on just to get home. . . I have, variously, a Red Coil, an MSD Coil, an original coil, a MSD 6AL-2, a complete Bosch MFI setup and a Hot-Spark (copy of the Pertronix Ignitor II Hall-effect igntion). I think I'll try the Hot-Spark with the Bosch Red Coil-- at 1.5 ohms it should draw about ten amps, this will be a fun experiment.
More disconcerting is this: for whatever reason I cannot maintain a firm brake pedal. I have bled the brakes three or four times and the pedal still is soft. This happened coming out of storage: I do not know whether there is a leak caused by mice, doing what mice do, or whether the seals on the master cylinder have dried out, allowing air into the intake, or whether a caliper seal is somehow admitting air.
I ordered a new ATE master cylinder (none of the URO bits where brakes are concerned) but will try one more bleeding with the pressure bleeder to see if I can resolve it. I replaced the flimsy 7.5 mm bleed valves on the front calipers with Russell speed bleeders having an 8mm ATF hex wrenching feature, these are a lot easier to use. Maybe the bore of the master cylinder rusted due to disuse and tore up the O-ring, this is all I can think of (but maybe this failure mode is a apocryphal and never really happens)
In any event I was able to get the car to go around the block and was rewarded with dense oil smoke coming from the driver side defrost vent. An oil leak from the valve covers has put oil into the heat exchangers which is burning off and causing a cloud of smoke worthy of the invasion of Normandy.
Of course when I restored ‘065 I insisted on using the original six bolt cam towers for originality. I do not suppose I can claim undue surprise given that the precise same failure mode which resulted in the cam towers going to 11 bolt in the late 1960s is now visiting itself on me. If you replicate ancient systems you replicate ancient problems.
Did I mention that my cheap flare wrench Gave up the Ghost? I have ordered a HAZET which will be willed to my descendants, that's the only way to amortize the cost. Maybe that's why people give their HAZET stuff to their grandkids, just to justify the initial cost of ownership?
I drove a friend's 2020 992 Carrera S the other day, all 443 horsepower of her. And while a fine machine in all regards, I wouldn't trade it for Butzi's original, pure design, which still puts a smile on my face every time I drive her. Plus the 911 has a bigger engine compartment.
So stay tuned for the repair photos here!