Words of motivation

Well Im to the point where I wish I would have never started this project, running low on project funds and just flat out tired of seeing my car taken apart in the garage. Any words of motivation out there from the ones who have been down this road...

Tom
72T Cabriolet/RS conversion/I wish it was put back together.

Tom,
My '76 Carrera was totally apart for 2 years. The bare, acid dipped shell was sitting for 6 months before the body shop started anything on it, and the repairs made it look like going backwards..
Still, after 3 years of restoration, the car started on the first turn, and the pleasure is even greater now as I drive my own creation.
Rest assured that when done to YOUR specification, the car will be unlike any other.
Just try to stay focused, and don't start anything else on cars before this one is finished.
Keep the faith, GeorgeK

As a guy who's in his third month of having a 911 that just sits, waiting for parts, soaking up money, I sympathize. But I'll let Porsche's marketing experts handle the encouragement. Just click on the P-car and wait for the sound to load:




[This message has been edited by JackOlsen (edited 09-25-2000).]

Tom

This all sounds very familiar. My project is on it's way back together. It all started over three years ago with a blown clutch, I just decided to rip the whole thing apart and redo it. Three years and many dollars later I still working on it, the body has been at the body shop for the last 7 months, repair all rust spots, blast off the 7 layers of paint and respray in original yellow. To make matters worse the rest of the car is at my shop so i get to see it every day. Just take a step back and visualize what your car will look like when its done, trust me it works. I'm workin on the little things now which don't cost much money like rebuilding brake calipers, cleaning trim and the like. Just don't get discouraged.
Craig

Tom - you've heard the old addage "if it were easy everyone would do it". It ain't easy and it ain't cheap but what you end up with will be uniquely yours.
I looked for over a year before finding a suitable donor car. Took it completely apart at a friends shop. Got the car down to the shell and added the bodywork. Then a flood came and ruined the interior and rusted a lot of freshly cleaned parts (all out of the car). Then the bodyshop dicked me around for over a year, then my mechanic ran into personal problems, etc, etc. Ended up having the painted shell and all the parts trucked to my garage. Got the car running and found another P-mechanic to do the interior and farm out the body fitment and suspension adjustments and alignment. Total time around 3 years and cost - we don't talk about that around my house. BUT, if you've seen the pictures I've posted it was all worth it. Then you hit the key........
Keep the faith!

There's a lot of things life can be, and it's our call. You can get on a kiddie ride - you know - duckies on a merry-go-round thing. Or you can get on The Beast, or some other big coaster.

Sometimes, from the big coaster, the duckie ride looks pretty good. Duckies don't go up and down.

But in the final analysis, not very many people really prefer the duckie ride. Most folks tolerate the lows, because life is LIVED on the coaster and the highs are there too. Scenery is not the same all the time.

I apologize for getting wacky on you guys again, but there is a point I'm trying to make. Every time I have done a major car repair job (and many minor ones too) there has been a point where I was either scared, or tired, or overwhelmed, or something. I know, as I start a project, that this feeling will hit me. Sometimes I wonder if I take on big projects (and do stupid things) just to scare myself.

This scared or overwhelmed feeling makes final victory taste sweeter. And life is lived on this curve. Seriously. This is the ride. Go to the ducky ride for a while if you're feeling woosy. You'll see.

Besides, do you wanna say "here is the car I built from the ground up." Or do you wanna say "here is my 996." ?

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'83 SC



[This message has been edited by Superman (edited 09-25-2000).]

tom,

After a couple of years with a down car, due to botched machine work on the trans, a body shop that went out of business (getting the car back in a basket after nine months)......a long, long story. Then life just getting in the way with other priorities. I am thinking about just getting the car bronzed because it is more of a statue then a car or I will get to it next month.

Try and hang in there and remember that it never really ends ...... I guess that is part of the fun.

s

I hate to sound like a killjoy Tom, but you are now experiencing a very common pitfall of restoring/modifying cars.
The easy part is ripping into them with big ideas; the hard part is having the patience and funds to carry it through. There are a lot of half finished projects out there, for similar reasons you are now experiencing.
I suggest you get methodical: work out some realistic time frames for completion of tasks that are attainable given your current level of commitments and cashflow- and stick to them. The only real way to keep your morale up is by getting something tangible back for your efforts, like eg, getting your cabrio conversion working sweetly before thinking about pannel and paint. Try to concentrate on one thing at a time.
Car restoration is not easy. It can and will be very hard work. Lots of people will attest to this, but the rewards are there if you are patient and thorough AND realistic to your own abilities.
Good luck.

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'72 911 TE

Well I might as well throw my $.02 worth in also. I started yarding my car apart late spring of 1999, it was painted August 99, most of last winter I was to busy at work to mess with the car, now it's about done. I hope that the interior guru will get the car sometime next month and will have the car for less than a month. Then the motor guru wil have the motor for a month. Then the purple monster (Iris Blue Metalic) will be mine, all mine, just the way I want it. Pure "Hot Rod" non stock go fast PORSCHE. My goal and I have promised to be at the R Gruppe North-South get together in May at Cambria,CA. Come hell or high water I'll be there. Yea this has been a pain in the ass! Will I do it again, NO! Once is enough, at least going this deep into what I started calling a paint job. I just keep thinking about tooling around in "MY" car and trying to stay focused on that thought. Varoom, Varoom.

Randy Jones
1971 911

Tom,

I am quite certain you had a vision before you started your project, and whether it came from the pages of a book by Frere, Ludvigsen, Donohue, or Barth is not really important. There are many sources out there for such inspiration, and you have more than 35 years of history to delve into for fun and justification of your quest for the perfect car that may have never been built quite like you wanted ... but it can be put together from selected parts or options over the years! The 911 is one of the few cars extant that can have its' owner/mechanic master every system in the car with factory-supplied manuals and parts catalogues! You have it within your power to become as familiar with your car as you want to be. The thrills of building and working on your car are only exceeded by the rewards of driving it after you get though with this ultimate project not likely to be understood by drivers and owners of other makes ... but nonetheless admired by many who do not understand it!

... but, WE UNDERSTAND !!!

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Warren Hall
1973 911S Targa

Well, I've actually owned my 912 for 10 years now. I drove it exactly ONCE-home after I bought it. The engine had a slight miss, and I thought I'd pull it out to see what the problem was. It hasn't run since. The car sat in my parent's driveway for a year, then sat in a storage shed for 3 more when they got tired of seeing it. When I bought my present house 6 years ago, it assumed its place in half of the garage, where it's been slowly (and I mean SLOWLY) coming apart as I find time (and motivation) to work on it while also raising 2 kids, switching jobs, getting addicted to the Internet, etc. "Life is what happens to you while you're trying to restore a Porsche". My project's become somewhat of a family joke-everybody bets my 5 year-old will be driving before I get the Porsche done. Maybe-but he'll have the coolest ride at his High School! It's hard to work in the garage when it's 110-112 degrees outside when you get home from work-and the neighbors (and the wife) get cranky when you wait until it's cooler-(like 9 or 10 pm.) You work around it. When I try to look at the car as a whole, it appears as if no progress has been done-but, then, I see the powdercoated window frames and trim hanging from the walls, ready to be put back in place. I notice the stack of plastic storage boxes in the corner over by the water heater full of cleaned, painted, rebuilt suspension, interior, and chassis parts resting comfortably until once again they can work together as a team. I remember all the hot, sweaty, repetative hours of stripping, priming, wet sanding (and sanding, and sanding) as the glow from the garage flourescents reflects off the now mirror-like surface of the fenders, hoods, front bumper and doors as they lean against the far wall, needing only the bare shell to be finished before they can reassume the classic, timeless, Porsche shape. In other words, it's been an awful long, dark, hard tunnel--but wait! Is that a light at the end I see? Can it be? Reassembling all of these new, clean, shiny parts back together into an actual, running vehicle is within sight. I can just picture that first drive-it's a warm, sunny day, the roads are clear, the curves beckon. My car-MY CAR!-no longer a scattered collection of parts, but a CAR-rolls smoothly down the road, responding to the slighest touch. Heads turn, jaws drop, women swoon as I drive by. (Ok, maybe no swooning-but I can dream.) All this time, all this money, all this work-it WILL be worth it.

Also not to be a killjoy, but here is an honest opinion.

I think I remember reading your posts when you first bought that car. It seemed to have lots and lots of problems. Your rationale was, "well, I got it for only $5000."

Well, in my opinion, your situation shows the "perils of the $5000 911."
Its now months (a year?) later, and you still have a 72 911T that never seems to be quite right. It seems like you are constantly throwing money/time/effort into it, and its questionable as to whether its now worth any more than the $5000 you paid for it.

For $10K up front, you could have bought an original, solid, "no-stories" 911T. You would be miles ahead of where you are now, and probably have less invested in the car.

Now, I know we all like to work on our cars, but no matter how nice a 911T you buy, there will still usually be plenty to tinker with!

No flames, please, this is just an honest, good faith opinion. I've always thought that the $5000 911 is a sure sign of trouble and financial and emotional heartbreak ahead.

Note: The above is applicable to the 90% of potential 911 buyers that just want a good fun car to drive and tinker around with. It does NOT apply to those few that intend to do a full, strip it to the frame, rebuild everything restoration. For those few, it is not as impt what you start with.

Just an opinion, YMMV. And, best of luck with getting your car together.

"Baby Steps. Baby steps into the garage. Baby steps into the garage." Sorry about that. I'm a Bill Murray fan. But seriously. I think the advice from Matt is excellent.
Last year I bought a 72T. It had a motor rebuilt to E specs, no rust in the battery boxes or floor pan, new frt&rear window seals. It also unfortunantly had the rear flares cut off and a pair of fiberglass turbo flares riveted on with some bondo gooped on them. I originally wanted a 72S that I could totally restore but gave up after a year of searching.
First I started by pulling off the glass Turbo flares. I got a pair of original flares from Bob Anziano (nice guy) for $50 bucks each. He had them sitting around from previous conversions. He was to busy to weld them on for me so I went to another shop,that I won't mention, that proceeded to weld the right flare 3/4" lower than the left. I took it back and showed the guy. I said see the torsion bar hole doesn't line up with the torsion bar. He said, that's allright the torsion bar can still come out. I said your kidding. He said well what do you want me to do? I said I want it done right. He said well okay but your gonna have to come back in 2 weeks. Which I did. He said I can't take it today You'll have to come back the day after tomorrow. So I did. Finally over a month later he got sick of my face and he fixed it. In the interum days I found some projects I could complete to keep me from getting discouraged. How about getting that clutch fixed. So I pulled the motor and tranny. Pulled them apart and voila the clutch problem was gear oil contamination. No problem I'll just change that main shaft seal. Not so fast there bucko. Your the lucky owner of an early 915 tranny. You see the first half year of the 915 they made it so that the seal had to be replaced from the inside. Can you say transmission dissasembly. Ive rebuilt motors but I've never touched a tranny. I opted for a shop. Besides they just have to pull the differential unbolt the bell housing pull it off and slip in my $10 part. How bad could it be? Well can you say $400+. So while the tranny is in the shop I'll do some interior work. We'll start with carpet. I'm pulling out carpet and to my horror I see the result of the hack that called himself a body man. You see unbeknown to me in my cars life with a PO it had been hit in passenger side. Instead of being repaired properly it had been hammered out from the inside. Thus ended my restoration. By now I didn't even want to see the car. I got over it and moved to plan B. Got my tranny back. I put in the clutch. (worked great) Drove it to the guy to get the flare done right which he finally did. Then I prepped it for paint on the rear flares. No full repaint for this car. It's not worth it. Well I must say the car came out looking and driving great. I had to change my expectations for the car but it makes a terrific daily driver. I get a lot of compliments on it to.
So I had to kick. I didn't get a touchdown but I got three points. Which in my book is progress. You see my original goal was to lofty for that particular car. But after I resigned myself that it was not going to be "The Car" I could still learn from it and it would take me one step closer to "The Car".So now I'm looking for a good shell to start my next project. So how much do you want for yours? Just kidding. I am looking for a good early Targa shell though. I wouldn't feel right selling my car without telling the buyer about the previous damage so if I can find a good shell. Restore and repaint it. I'll move my parts onto it and ditch my shell.
You see your not alone. It's frustrating at times but if you can find some part of the whole project that you can tackle you will be rewarded.

Good Luck Bobby

I am really glad to see Im not the only one. Jim T, as far as my 5000.00 911 was concerned it drove pretty dam good, a little smoke a little rust but it always started and it got me to and fro. The problem did not start until I decided to take it apart and build somthing different. You are right in one respect, if I wanted a daily driver, I should have bought one, but I wanted a project and thats what I got.
Thanks to everyone for the motivation.

Tom

You definately did get a project!

good luck! I think you will start feeling better once you start putting parts back ON the car, rather than taking OFF the car.

and, the posters above have shown how efforts and $$$ can, in the end, result in a beautiful car.

Add me to the list. I bought my car after some other guy started the restoration. The car was delivered to me after the paint job with the drivetrain intact but the entire interior and exterior stripped and either in boxes unlabeled or missing alltogether. And it's my first 911. I've been on a two year mission of identifying parts finding them if they were missing and slowly getting this thing back together.

nick
1970 911 E

This thread is perfect! I am going to email it to my wife and Dad, both of whom think I am nuts when I get a new "project". Thanks Superman and Jim T. for most poignant responses. This embodies the feelings (fears) we all have! If we all lived in the same town we could have a 12 step group on Sunday nights.

Joe
68 911L Targa w/ Sporto!
Former owner of:
'73 MG
'73 VW Thing (cool but too goofy)
'63 Land Rover IIA (Damn thing NEVER ran!)
'75 914 2.0 (how I got into this Porsche thing)

KEEP THE FAITH!!!!!!!

"If you build it...you will"...(oops wrong movie!!!) "If you build it...they will come"! The smiles, the thrills, and the sense of total accomplishment!!!! Don't lose the faith. Dr. P. would be proud of you!!!

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Howie
79SC