Project Mickey Mouse - Build thread of 79 SC I bought on eBay

[Mark Salvetti]

That looks great. How did you prep the fan and housing? Soda or more glass beads?

Mark

[Jonny042]

Great work!!

[Focker]

Fan and housing was fine aluminum oxide.

Jb weld to fill the pits and corrosion, hand sand, cerakote

[Focker]

My gauge bezels had some corrosion from the moisture that was sitting in the car.

I disassembled all the gauges, cleaned the glass then very carefully media blasted the bezels in my small blaster at home with fine crushed glass.

I then used the same cerakote as the fan blades to coat the bezels.

I'm leaving the dash painted, so this is close to the installed look. The flash on the camera makes the colour look much more bronze then it actually is.

[rokemester]

You are a brave brave Pelican. Isn’t it amazing how lovely 911s look despite all that nastiness lurking underneath! I agree with previous post, best post so far in 2022. Thanks for the browsing pleasure and Porsche fix!

[Focker]

So moving into the interior, after much research, I ordered an RSR carpet kit from Lakewell in the original black sliverknit material.

I've come to realize that some of the higher end/more respected suppliers aren't always the most DIY friendly solutions. The carpet kit from Lakewell was just such a product.

The quality of the material is excellent, but the instructions are non-existent. None of the pieces are labeled and none of the instructions are provided. I followed up with them and they told me to watch the videos on their Youtube channel.

2 problems with that "solution":

#1 - The video is not of an RSR kit, so the tricky parts that are around the rear seat area was not helpful. Their RSR kit does not contemplate retaining the rear trim panels.

#2 - The video quality is so poor it is basically useless. The lighting is extremely dim and it looks like it was recorded using a 1980s offbrand camcorder.

See for yourself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLCUjCgsWQw

I had also ordered a full interior from Carbone, including new Nurburgring seats, rear seat bottoms, dash trim, front RSR door panels and reupholstery of my rear side panels.

This was another headache. I fully paid in March of 2021, order was completed in December of 2021.

The door panels took a few months to arrive (3 IIRC), problem was that the pull strap was the wrong colour and they didn't put a hole in the panel for the lock circle thing. So, pack them back up and send them back to Poland. Customs aggravation (not their fault) ensues.

Seats are backordered at BF Torino, but the seat bottoms and fabric trim were not included in the first order or the replacement shipment when the fixed door panels arrived.

Several follow-ups later and the seats are being completed and get shipped. Front seats show up and they are the Lemans and not the Nurburgring. FRUSTRATED. Time to box the seats up and send them back to Poland. The seat shipment was also missing the rear seat bottoms.

Customs clearance chaos ensues again.

December arrives and the custom seats, seat bottoms etc. all arrive. It's been an 8 month aggravation, but OMG is it ever worth it.

Carbone posted some pictures of my seats etc. on their Instagram. I haven't installed seats or doors yet as the rest of the glass needs to go in, but this interior IMO really brings home the gentleman's hotrod theme for me.

[Focker]

Seatbelts and hardware are all brand new as well. They were ordered from Seatbelt Planet. Really nice product and product support. The door pulls are matched to the seat belt

[Focker]

So folks, that pretty well brings us up to the current state of the project. I've replaced the min tunnel, front trunk and lighting harnesses with new harnesses from Restoration Design.

The execution on the harnesses is very nice, however there isn't any labeling like Timmy does on his or instructions like Kroon. It's nice to support a Canadian company, but a more user friendly approach would have been nice.

Dennis, who is an absolute pillar of the Porsche community went out of his way to help me out with my wiring. Turns out the issue was simply pushing the wire through the wrong hole (that's what she said).

In what was a big achievement for me, I got the car to crank for the first time in 17 years. I wanted to make sure that the car would build oil pressure and that there weren't any preliminary leaks.

To ensure I wasn't relying on a 43 year old pressure sending unit, I installed an analog oil pressure gauge in its place.

Much Success! With the lower plugs pulled to allow the motor to spin over a bit faster, it took 4 seconds of cranking for the needle to start moving (less than that for the light to go out) and after 8 seconds of cranking the motor had just over 20psi of oil pressure.

It was a pretty good day.

Next is to finish the fuel system which is all stainless braided PTFE lines and AN fittings. My plan is to let it circulate bypassing the carbs so I can ensure no leaks and that any debris in the new tank is caught by the filters before it gets to the carbs. I'll clean the 2 reusable filters before hooking the carbs back up.

[timmy2]

Nothing like the satisfaction of the sounds of the first crank.
Especially when all goes well.
Guess we’re all going to have to wait for more installments of this journey….
And yeah, finding the right hole is important.

[shadowjack1]

One hole is as good as the next.

[Focker]

Short video of cranking the engine over. This is no lower plugs and an IMI Hi Torque starter.

https://youtu.be/y_mqsku9pvg

If you see something, say something! My first rebuild!

[Focker]

Originally Posted by shadowjack1

One hole is as good as the next.

According to Kevin Hart, even a crease will do...

[jac1976]

Great work.

[Solamar]

Coming along beautifully!

Also, I have to second your comment about Dennis, he is a huge asset to this community, saved my bacon numerous times during my rebuild 👍

[Alan L]

BEST engine/car rebuild thread ever. And there have been plenty of top shelf stories on here. You obviously do have some skills, and total kudos to what you took on and have achieved.
Looking foward to the final chapter - the purring of a sweet engine in a newly rebuilt car.
You won't be parting with this anytime soon.
Alan

[75 911s]

The RS carpet needs a solid modern tutorial. I agree the Lakewell video is ancient and a different carpet set. Great work as always. Need more pics of the carpet install if you have any.

[Focker]

Still working on the carpet!

I've also converted from the badly corroded throttle rod to a marine Teleflex cable. Just working on bracket at engine side.

[stormin48061]

What a journey. Thoroughly enjoyed the time I took to read it... obviously you're more than the stereotype bean counter.... and fellas he's gots an excellent wife...he only mentions her once. How many of us used the oven or washing machine when they "run an errand"? LOL. This one is up there for nomination for the yr of the rebuild. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it being an ebay buy... I wanna hear the story when you told you wife you bot it on ebay... I can hear the "you bought what on ebay for $23K while you were what? drinking???" I know when I bought mine 30 some years ago while I was on biz out in southern Cali, and came home and told her what I bought, she said "no you didn't" hahaha surprise! I'm pregnant! I too agree this type of posting after the fact makes for speed reading... kudos and nice job Focker and thanks for sharing.

[911SauCy]

What a project!!

Beautiful work

[Hulley]

Please forgive the dumb question,

1. What's the reason for doing a carb conversion as opposed to EFI?
2. How difficult was it to do the ignition upgrade?

I ask because I have a 79' SC also and A) want to do an ignition upgrade (cop) and B) want to do a modern fuel injection or carb conversion myself.

I cannot stand how cluttered the engine bay looks with the CIS, heater blower motor, etc and I believe a better ignition/fuel system would really wake up the motor in terms of response.

Your engine bay looks amazing, really loving this build thread!

Thank you,