My 71E Hotrod Project

[Ruby911]

Hi All - the stars have lined up for me to build my first long hood 911 hotrod. I raided the parts bins of a couple of local early car friends and was able to pick up a 71E roller that spent some time storming Sebring, Daytona, Road Atlanta and others. Other than a suspension pan that needs replaced, the rest of the car is very solid. Also having a racing history, it has a lot of nice suspension bits already included.

Additionally I was able to pick up a local twin plugged 2.7 with PMOs and headers.

I spend a lot of time on the various threads looking at vintage rallye photos and have thought for a while that it would be cool to build a car with the flavor of a well used rallye car. So, the end result will be a slightly rough around the corners hot rod that should be a lot of fun on weekend runs and maybe the occasional DE.

The car is currently red. The original color was Bahia red, but the current color seems to be a little brighter than I recall Bahia red being. I will stick with the red, but will have the hood and decklid painted flat black and will be adding some select vintage racing decals. I will also go with the standard hot rod inetrior - RS Door Panels, replica R Seats (already own them) and rollbar/harnesses (already own). Wheel choice will be 7 inch wide steelies to go with a nice aggressive/low stance.

Here is the starting point as well as what the car looked like today after I removed all of the current decals and front bumper.

more to come and feedback welcome.

[Aldo]

Farrell? This should be fun to watch!

[Mark Morrissey]

Great starting point Farrell... looking forward to your updates

[Cornpanzer]

sweet - can I have your 912?

[Ruby911]

sweet - can I have your 912?

Sure Dave. Come pick it up, the keys are in it.

[Ruby911]

So, I pulled the script off the decklid in advance of it being painted. The letters were pretty crummy and nasty, so I thought, 'what the hell, I will just throw them in the dishwasher with all of the forks, plates, knives and such and give them a good cleaning." Well they got a good cleaning alright - it removed all of the gold tone from the script. I dont know what my wife uses for dishwashing detergent, but it must be some potent s**t. It might explain my son's green glow that he has all of the time and my daughter's ability to fly.

Anyways, at first I was a little miffed, but then I started to think they may look kind of cool on my car and the rough-around-the-edges (RATE) look I am after. So I hit them quickly with the scotch-brite pad to give them a uniform finish and they turned alright. I am going to work on them a little more, shoot a clearcoat on them and use them.

So, if you have crummy aftermarket script and you dont want the gold to go away, don't stick them in the dishwasher.

[X-Faktory]

Farrell,
If you have access to a blast cabinet, you might try sand/bead blasting your letters...to give them a nice, uniform, matte finish. I think that would be kind of a cool look.

regards,
Al

[Ruby911]

Thanks for the idea Al. Unfortunatley I dont have access to a blast cabinet, so I will be wearing out my scotch-brite pad. I stuck the '911E' badge in the dishwasher a few minutes ago to see if I could get it to match. We'll see.....

[Fishcop]

Dishwashing soap is highly caustic (sodium hydroxide) and will slightly etch aluminum - they say aluminum pans shouldn't go in the dishwasher...

Sodium hydroxide is also called 'lye' and it is used to strip anodize from alloy pieces. You could probably go for a matte finish by dipping the letters in drain cleaner until you get an even finish.