The tale of 2 911-Ts

[quaz]

Here is a tale of how 2 911-Ts were reborn recently. This will be a long story..........

Anyway, 6 years ago I bought a 928 S2. It was a nice clean low mileage car that I began to mod slowly. I was happy with this car overall. It was fast comfortable, looked great and didn't need much work. So as all good friends do I encouraged my best friend to get a Porsche. I was hoping he would find a nice 928, 951 or maybe even a 968 to compliment my 928. So he began searching for a car. However instead of looking for a nice well balance water cooled modern front engined Porsche he had me looking for pre 74 air cooled clunkers!

The budget was limited, but armed with a picture of some guys Black Beauty I had an idea of what a well prepared pre 74 could look like. These long hoods as he called them had charm along the lines of my dads MGs I helped him put back together, but not the sleek sportyness I was looking for. Anyway, the hunt went on.

[quaz]

We both searched all the usual places, autotrader, classicartrader, Rennlist, PCA classifieds and some site called Pelican Parts. Finally Jay found a car at the right price and in the right condition in New York. I talked to my wife and she agreed to go out with Jay, his wife and myself to get the car. We would kind of make a vacation out of it. Four weeks later we were out in New York picking up a 70 911 T.

It was all down hill from there.

[azasadny]

Kevin,
Congratulations! Welcome aboard!! Nice car!

[defcon65]

That is an awesome coupe, chrome trim 911s are classic. What is the color? Nice ride!

[jkap]

Man I look like a dork in that picture! (wait...nevermind...) So, Kevin gets a 928, and suddenly there is all this peer pressure to get a Porsche, only here's the thing, I love 911s, and not only that, I love the clean lines of the early cars, so, much to Kevin's dismay, I put him on a quest for early 911s, an idea he feels is both foolish and insane. I looked at tons of cars, cars out east, cars out west, rust...I mean "cars" in the midwest. Finally, I found a nice yellow 911 with a rebuilt 2.7 out west at Route 30 Classics, Stephen offers me a very good deal and of course.......I hem haw around a little too long, and someone from Washington buys it...DOH!!

[jkap]

After finding and passing on a few others, including a '73.5 from Stephen out at Route 30, and a '73 S second owner from IL (you can't cut up an S), Kevin finally finds this supposedly orange '70 T out in New York. The car has terrible paint, but a nice interior, solid floor, and a set of polished 6 and 7 inch Fuchs wheels. For $6.5k I figure, what the heck, how bad can it be? (somewhat of a mistake btw, the old addage buy the best car you can afford....yeah, that's good advice! More on that later, Kevin and I never learn....).



So, after 9 months of searching, it appeared the search was over. As Kevin stated, we coerced our wives into joining us on our "stupid car trip" this time, and the four of us headed to Buffalo, NY in a mamoth Ford Crown Victoria rental car, about half way there, the girls start complaining, big surprise, little did they know, the trip out was the enjoyable part for them. In no time, we have the car, leave the guys house, stop at a gas station and..........drumroll please!.......smell fuel! and soon, we see fuel too! turns out the top seal on the gas tank is rotted out, so fuel poors out of it and drains out the nose...nice! We decide we can live with it, simply dont fill the tank, and take off, next gas station (which turns out to be the next day in Pennsylvania, it occurs to us we left the gas cap on the pump back at the previous gas station!

Oh yeah, this was going very well....

You want to take this over Kevin?

[jkap]

Originally posted by defcon65
That is an awesome coupe, chrome trim 911s are classic. What is the color? Nice ride!

Thanks! I love the early cars. The car is Tangerine, or Blood Red if you prefer, though when we picked it up, it was some faded memory of its original color My wife immediately called it "Peach", she even claimed it looked "fuzzy"

Rule #1 of picking up a car sight unseen. Never bring your wife, or your friend's wife for that matter....this is another lesson I have still not learned, a mere 3 years after picking up this 911 I took my wife to pick up a VW Cabriolet in Ohio....that did not go well either

[quaz]

OK, well this 70 911 cleans up very well. Jay spent the next 6 months cleanning and sorting out this car. He was throwing bushings, shocks, tires, this kit and that kit at the car left and right. Every time I saw the car it was looking a little bit better. However, it was still a long way from what I would want.......so I thought.

Well one day the following fall we went for a drive with the local 928 guys. I invited Jay because all Porsches were welcome, but what happend next I never expected. When we got into the twisties that 911 hung with the 928 like hair on a Gorrilla. Every time the road opened up it was left in the dust, but as soon as it got twisty again it snuck back up to us and stayed plastered to my tail. I was impressed!

Here are some pics from that day.

[IROC]

That's a beautiful car. Congrats!

Mike

[mb911]

Ok not to ruin the story but where is stop by the guy down the streets house have him weld on flares, check his paint job repaint etc etc etc. Yeah that tha part

[jkap]

Originally posted by mb911
Ok not to ruin the story but where is stop by the guy down the streets house have him weld on flares, check his paint job repaint etc etc etc. Yeah that tha part

We can't jump that far ahead!!

In fact, Kevin has missed a bunch of the fun parts as well. Like realizing that one of the rear torsion bars was in two distinct pieces leading to all kinds of freeway fun! or the fact that the engine only really ran well at 3,000 RPM because the right side carb was frozen at about that RPMs worth of fuel, which nearly killed all 4 of us in the obligatory south Chicago traffic jamb (the chase car was of course BEHIND the 911, and the carb was still stuck, but now with crappy reformulated gasflowing through it). And then there is the ethernet cable story.....want to add to that Kevin? I have some pics, I just have to dig them up and scan them, they are not digital

[quaz]

Man Ben wants to get to the cutting and welding part and Jay wants to prove what a POS he started with........lets stay on topic! We will get to the fun cutting up of 2 cars soon enough.

Ahh yes the ethernet cable, I think that was an RJ-45....as in don't travel more than 45 mph with this cable holding down your hood.

So as Jay eluded to he poured a ton of money into his car to get it sorted initally while I kept driving my nice 928. However something was amiss. Everytime I saw Jay's 911 I became enchanted with it. It was just looking better and better. Then I made a final mistake.

I drove it when it was properly running!

As much fun as the water pumpers are, they just don't have the fun factor the early aircooled cars do. I was now sick with early 911 disease!

[jkap]

Originally posted by quaz
Man Ben wants to get to the cutting and welding part and Jay wants to prove what a POS he started with........lets stay on topic!

Fine! I only point these things out so that my car can hold a candle to yours when it comes to being a POS. For the record, I had to put in: new rear shocks, new torsion bars, clutch, rebuild the carbs, change the plugs, wires, points, adjust the valves, do a rediculous amount of buffing, install a new hood latch, and rebuild the shift linkage. I elected to install the Carrera chain tensioner update as well.

All that did lead to a 911 that actually drove like a car, and did lead to Kevin becoming mentally ill.....I mean wanting an early 911.

Off to wet sand the POS....wait, skipping ahead a bit too far here

[mb911]

what about my money pit?? Does it have any part in this tale?? Oh wait its all about me never mind this is about you guys

[quaz]

Originally posted by mb911
what about my money pit??

Isn't your money pit well documented enough! I haven't even had a ride in it. Until I get a ride in it, you keep your money pit out of this thread.

Now where were we......Oh yes Jays car being a POS and me being sick in the head. Yes so now I had contracted full blown 911 syndrome and had to have one for myself. So I started seaching Pelican and ebay for myself. I finally came across this peach.


The list of positives included it was $3K and had very little rust. It was formerly a California car so the only rust was on the inner front fender and around the glass. Also, the 2.2 was just refreshed.

On the downside it needed: carpet, seats, tranny rebuild, all new suspension, dents taken out on every panel, all the gauges rebuild, rear brakes fixed, headlights, turn signals, wheels, tires, trunk carpet, all door and trunk seals, targa seals, glass seals, heat ducts, steering wheel, door panels, seat belts, windshield, turn signal stalk, and many many many many other little things. That was without upgrading anything!

So I bought it.

[quaz]

The retreiving of my car was much less eventfull. I basically had it shipped from New Jersey to my door. Here is a picture of how it arrived. Not very exciting except the throttle was stuck and when it started it would just stay at 2K rpms. I actually purchased the car off ebay, but the owner was a Pelican head. He shipped me the car then kept shipping me parts as he would find them in his garage. It was like ordering a 911 kit. Some Assembly Required......LOL

[jkap]

The great part about Kevin's car, is that it was actually much, much worse in person than the pictures would have you believe. Despite this, we tried to take the same course of action that we did with my car....buff it out and piece it back together.

Neither of those tasks went very well for us, and despite a lingering rumor that Kevin drove the car from his house to my house once, about 8 miles at the time, the car was relegated to the position of "Ugliest Garage Queen in History"

I secretly believed Kevin either bought the car to punish himself, his wife, or both

However, this was not the first and was not the last stupid thing Kevin had done involving a car, so I had little doubt the car would drive again. The question was....when?? and perhaps more importantly, would he actually keep it once he got it together, or simply sell it again?? He is prone to doing that, it seems to be genetic as he has inherited a mild form of the early sell disease from his father

[quaz]

The car wanted to look good, but it was like trying to polish a turd. It got shinier, but was still a turd. That 8 mile drive from Jays house to my house was the scariest 8 miles of my life in a car. There were no front shocks, the doors rattled, the speedo didn't work (none of the gauges really worked), the bumper rubbed on the tire, and the tranny was making a noise that would wake the dead.

Here is what it looked like breifly after I tried to clean it up......

And here is what was making all that racket in the tranny!

[ruf-porsche]

Three letters guys!!!

PPI

[quaz]

Originally posted by ruf-porsche
Three letters guys!!!

PPI

Really though, the car was $3,000 shipped to my door. This is pretty much what I expected? I figured if anything on the car was fatal I would part it and make my money back. To get a complete PPI for $300 would have been 10% of the cost of the car. That could have bought me tail light lenses...LOL

There is an ending to this tail, so just be patient....and it involves a couple of really nice 911s at the end.