86 Targa - Atlanta Area Intro

[chrisk70]

Let me start off by saying that I suddenly realized that I've been lurking here on and off for two years, and have never introduced myself. Pelican is an absolutely awesome source of collective knowledge and wisdom.

I started down the Porsche route in early 2019 by knowingly breaking the pre-purchase inspection rule and buying a white 1986 911 Targa at a road-side note-tote lot in rural North Carolina. With a bit shy of 128,000 miles at the time, from the records it had, it looked to have spent the majority of it's life in far eastern California and Reno, with around the last 10 years parked in Nevada. Absolutely zero rust, but some obvious issues and a lot owner that just wanted to be rid of it after it had been sitting there for over 90 days and was starting to cost him.

This isn't my first forray into a car with heavy maintenance required up-front, but is my first Porsche, and I'm enjoying the experience immensely so far. Got it home and started in on the little stuff - shift bushings, engine/transmission mounts, brake calipers rebuilt and lines replaced, valves adjusted, new ignition wires, oil lines, Griffin AC lines and condenser, and radio/speaker replacement. It was eating a fair amount of oil (1qt every ~300-400 miles) that I decided was the valve guides, and figured I would put off dealing with for a while until I'd had a chance to drive it a bit.

Late last spring the oil idiot light sensor in the triangle of death started hemorrhaging oil, giving me a good reason to drop the engine and transmission and inspect everything a bit closer. Did a leak down test, and discovered #4 venting to the case. Picked up a cheap bore-scope to take a peek into the cylinders, and found scoring on the wall of #4, leading me to believe that it was a broken ring (confirmed). That made my mind up on a top-end, and as long as I was going down that road, I decided to look into a 3.4 conversion. Might as well run down that slippery slope rather than try to fight it. It also gave me a reason to have the transmission looked at by a professional as it seemed to need a new 1st gear synchro anyway (which was also a major negotiating point during the initial purchase). So far, everything has looked surprisingly good. A leaking #8 bearing forced me to break open the case, but it was amazingly clean and dry outside of that. Hopefully it'll all be back together in the next few weeks and I can start to deal with the normal little gremlins that always seem to dog me after having an engine apart.

This all being said, I didn't have much of chance to attend any of the local Atlanta area Porsche club events before the pandemic, but am looking forward to re-engaging once my work schedule stops interfering. For anyone in the Woodstock/Kennesaw/Acworth area, I have a two-post lift in my home shop if you're stuck and need to throw your car in the air for a few hours to take a look at something. As much fun as I'm having (this is 180 degrees out from what I do for a living), I can see even possibly keeping an eye out for an 80's vintage coupe in need of work. I seem to be accumulating enough spare parts for one, anyway, and now that I've re-read this, I realize that my girlfriend is right and I might have an issue.

- Chris
Acworth, GA

[Classic11]

Hello Chris, welcome and I konw exactly what you are talking about, the slippery slope plus the issue :-) I live close to you and we should connect when we are in each others areas.

[Pedro '84 Coupe]

Welcome! Nice car. Sounds like you're getting it sorted.

[gduke2010]

Looks good. Rust free is most important.

[tdw28210]

hey man.. welcome. I've owned about about a 1/2 dozen air cooled Porche's. Still batting 1000 for NOT getting a PPI. 😁You'll be fine.

[Bill Douglas]

Hi Chris, and welcome to the club.

[shadowjack1]

Welcome to the fold.I was just up in Woodstock this past June. My son lives there. You may see him on the road, he drives a 1990 C4 Red cabro.

[GAJon]

Welcome! The Peachstate Region is very active if you haven't checked out the website. Occasionally there is a Coffee and Porsches up north. https://www.peachstatepca.org/

I, too, bought my '76 911 Targa sight unseen and have been having "fun" fixing all the old parts. It's my first old car, but I'm used to doing most standard DIY maintenance on my newer cars.

I should have built up enough confidence by the winter to do an engine drop, so may have to look you up for any advice first. I'm south of you in Buckhead.

[chrisk70]

Thanks all for the welcome!

I should start to show up at some more of the Peachstate events soon - just need to find time and make it happen. Went to a Saturday morning Peachstate coffee at Atlanta Motorcar and Storage back in late 2019, as well as a swap meet up 400 around the same time period. Pretty sure I can talk my girlfriend into a DE event in the foreseeable future (she likes driving as much as I do...maintenance, not so much, but she will check in on me occasionally to make sure I'm still alive and ask how I managed to make as big of a mess as I usually do).

I am always surprised at the various models I see out and about during the week. Probably not as many as Southern California, but more than I would expect. Can't remember seeing a red 1990 cab specifically, but I wouldn't doubt it. Only so many roads in and around Woodstock. Hopefully he didn't see me the day I discovered the oil leak, because that was just embarrassing.

@GAJon - anything I can do to help, let me know. I read Wayne's book, built a checklist, and then only missed disconnecting one cable and had to saw through a fuel line with a frozen bolt. It was getting replaced anyway, so not a big loss. Took the better part of a Saturday, but I was going slow, making notes, and repeating the phrase, "Please don't let me break anything too expensive" a lot.

- Chris

[Joe Bob]

Hola! I live in the Cherokee County part of Acworth......you may have seen my white cab downtown. I do Lunch at Center Street Tavern. If you ever want to tip a few, send me a PM.

[chrisbruck]

I'm nearby too, on the other side of Acworth... Paulding County side... Granite Green coupe running around.

[rattlsnak]

Hey.. Welcome to the area!