83 911 targa resto intro and so forth

[krm944]

hello everyone,

i just picked up my 911 from the shipping dock. i was stationed in hawaii for 4 years and while i was there it i started my resto.

i thought long and hard about what i wanted the look of my car to be. i settled on the yellow bird kit (front/rear bumpers) from vertex auto in miami. (great guys in my opinion.) i didnt like the smile, the bellows or the bumperettes on the 911, and the fact that those were super expensive to restore replace, i thought the yellow bird would do perfectly.

there was some confusion with exactly how the front fits up and it took some cutting and testing and long hours for the body shop to discover that the front bumper is removed and you need to fabricate supports behind the fiberglass.

at this point i still do not have any support behind teh fron bumper cover. i am waiting on getting friends in place with access to metal and tools to fabricate this piece. i noticed that betterbodies has a drawing on the website of what it should be.

the rear bumper cover was a bit less pain, i think that the edges of the bumper was cut and it may have been ripped lenghtwise for a better fit.

after all the body work was done, we installed a new dash if you havent priced one lately ouch! but it does make the car look better. i also added aero style mirrors.

all new seals were installed and a new windshield as well. seats were recovered.

it took a bit longer to tidy all the loose ends and i left hawaii before the car. as it was about to be shipped and was being driven by my mechanic he noticed a leak and broken head stud..........motor job!!!!

so during the tear down they find that one piston and cylinder are pretty bad so i bought a new piston and cylinder kit (again yikes! $$) and while they had it apart i asked him to reinvestigate my 5th to 4th shifting problem. i never liked the way the tranny shifted from 5 to 4 and i still dont! must be me. we installed a factory short shift kit and the synchro on 4th and 5th were replaced.

so finally i have my car and i get it from the shippers with a scratch, 30 paint chips, a scratch in the wheel and a scratch in the rubber that runs under the door!! happy happy joy joy!!

i drive it home and it runs great, but the next morning i took it to get some fuses and it seemed to skip a bit under load at about 2200 rpm......it cleaned itself up after a mile or two when the car warmed up. i drove it abotu 40 miles later in the day with no problems.

the next morning i followed my wife to the mechanic, her beetle needed an oil change and i luckily the mechanic was only 6 miles away. i was afraid i wouldnt make it there!

we replaced the plugs, wires, cap and rotor and that seemed to cure it.

so now im slowly getting ready to work on interior. i pulled up the old carpeting and rubber sound proofing material (about 40 pounds so far if you wondered!)

i have tons of pictures before during and after.

im working on finding a site to upload my photos to and show everyone the pics.

tons and tons of questions to follow.

and anyone in san diego id love to trade sundays working on our cars!!

kyle

[krm944]