Carrera backdate!

[Doug&Julie]

Originally Posted by porschenut

Actually the wheels will be RSR finish. I think that will look great against the blue.

That will look awesome against the blue. I was only thinking a lot of RS cars have wheels that match the graphics, and since you were going black with the graphics to go black with the wheels. I'll again add my personal opinion for the RSR finished wheels and no graphics, but I'm sure it'll look sweet no matter how you finish it.

Cheers!

[88 Club Sport]

Come on Dave......we need MORE UPDATES

Are you still shooting for Keystone? PCA asked me to show the Club Sport in the "Heritage and Historic Car Display" so I'm going up Monday, displaying Tuesday and then heading home. Let me know what your plans are.

[porschenut]

That's pretty cool about the historic car display - I wonder how many other Club Sports will be there - probably none.

Unfortunately the car is still at Apex. Progress has been slow in general, but the last hurdle to get over now is the window/door trim. Not all of the pieces can be bought new, so we decided to send all the trim to a place in California called King of Trim. They'll strip the anodizing off, then polish and bright dip anodize the pieces. I expect to get it all back within a couple of weeks, then the glass will go back in the car and I'll take it home.

Needless to say, there's no hope of getting it done and presentable in time for Parade. I'll be bringing the 997 up there instead.

[88 Club Sport]

Understand. I have a friend in CA who is having TRE in S. Ca do a backdate on a '74 and they estimate 5 mos from start to finish so what you are experiencing does not really surprise me.

Its a real bummer that you have to drive the 997 up........to be read in a very sarcastic tone

[speedo]

Save yourself the time $$ and trouble. Hand sand the black anodizing off and polish the aluminum....its on my thread for the R clone. I doesn't take long, and is exactly what you are looking for. If you question the logic...look at the quarter window trim in my pics...looks like factory.

Speedo

[porschenut]

Too late now Lars - KofT is already finishing the trim as we speak.

Everything I've read indicates that if you don't anodize it, you'll have to re-polish it a couple times a year. I don't know if that's true, but I'd guess the anodizing will also add a lot of durability, which might be important for the windshield trim.

[porschenut]

I guess I need to update the thread! It’s been a while and…things have been moving at a snail’s pace the last couple of months.

I’ve had one medium-sized disaster and one near-disaster.

First, the medium-sized disaster

Before taking on this project, my headliner had been replaced by the previous owner just a few years ago by the finest upholstery shop in the Denver area (Auto Weave). And it was still pretty much perfect when I delivered the car to the body shop for the beginning of its longhood transformation. I did not want to have to remove the headliner and have it replaced again since it was fine already. I had not had any experience with body or paint shops before, and I assumed they could properly mask off the edges of the headliner and the rest of the interior.

They probably could have, but they…uh…didn’t. Here is the result:







Before you ask, YES I ripped the body shop owner a new one over this. He admitted it was his mistake and he offered to replace the headliner and pillar trim, but I had no confidence in him at this point and didn’t want him touching the car. So, I told him I would do the headliner and vinyl pillar trim myself.

[porschenut]

I ordered a new headliner from our host, and as expected it arrived all folded up into a football-sized brick. I let it hang over a shower curtain rod for a few days to see if the wrinkles would hang out, but they didn’t. No matter – off we go to install a new headliner. This was my first attempt at doing one and I was a little nervous about it – might screw it up. I read about the procedure in Wayne’s 101 Projects (a 5-little-mechanic project!), and read this thread over and over -> insert thread here. That gave me a little confidence. I bought about 150 binder clips at OfficeMax (small and medium), and a big tube of 3M Super Weatherstrip Adhesive (black, not yella). With a big wad of headliner and the other supplies under my arm, I went out to the garage to wrestle with it.

I’ll be danged if it didn’t turn out bleedin’ perfect! I spent about 12 hours on it though, positioning, stretching, binding, cutting and gluing.

[porschenut]

And the near-disaster:

Shortly after getting the car delivered via flatbed back into my garage, I decided to trial-fit the horn grills and see how they fit with the hood position. Right side first – perfect. Left side…..panic attack. The hood gaps and door gaps are all perfect, but yet the left fender is about 3/8” further forward than the right fender. Not good. I knew the car had a very hard impact with a guard rail a few years back (nearly totalled it), but the doors and hood were hung so poorly before this project began that I never noticed any difference in the fender positions. My guess is the car isn’t quite straight. I can’t move the fender back without ruining the fender/door gap.

A quick look at the problem:

The right side is just right -




But the left side is too far forward -



I was afraid I might have to do some fender modification (shave some off the back end?), or worse, live with it. Neither was acceptable. So I studied the flange area where the horn grill mounts to it, and I decided to see what Mr. Dremel can do with a cutting wheel.

The edges of the metal frame are folded over in an “L” shape, and it seemed I could cut one leg of the “L” off to allow the horn grill to sit back further inside the frame.







It worked! After fifteen minutes of cutting and grinding, it was perfect. This was a huge relief as I knew that if it didn’t work, I probably had ruined a $500 fender and a paint job, not to mention still be stuck with the same problem.

It fits so well on the left side now, that the right side no longer looks as good as it did.

[porschenut]

And now, for a little coolness, here’s what I did with my fresh air intake grill – painted the screen with some chrome paint.





Looks pretty cool, eh? I thought it would look nice with the rest of the polished window trim on the car. I can always paint it black again if not. Also notice that there are no windshield washer nozzles. I removed them and had the body shop weld over the holes. The entire washer system (all 3 systems, actually) were removed, but I kept the wipers in case I get caught in the rain. Removing the washer nozzles makes it easier to polish and wax in that area, and looks cleaner.

I completely removed the central locking system and replaced the door latches with ones from a non-CL car. Installed the chrome door handles I bought, and everything works great. I also removed the cruise control system, factory alarm, radio, rear window defroster, A/C system including duct work, and about 5 other accessories, along with all related wiring harnesses. I procured a non-defroster rear window which will look better than the defroster one it came with. The only non-essential accessory still left in the car is power windows (which the M471 RS Touring model came with anyway, so I don’t mind). The power window motors only weight a couple pounds each, so no big deal.

[porschenut]

Here are the Sport S repro seats I bought from GTS Classics (headrests included but not pictured):





Next up for the weekend is to put in the sunroof and reinstall a bunch of dash parts. Hopefully I’ll find the time to do a couple more thread updates before this thing is finished.

[porschenut]

Oh, and by the way...

King of Trim has had my window trim since May. It's now late August and they say it's almost done and will ship back to me next week. It's bad enough they're charging me $2,000 to bright dip anodize the formerly black Carrera trim (including door frames), but to have it take 3 months is pathetic.

I've heard KofT does great work, but be prepared to wait a LONG time for it.

[AFCuk]

Hi
Done the same sort of thing, BBII inspired but a Targa.



Your car looks stunning

[ibmiked]

It was a pleasant surprise when I got the email update to this thread. Looks like you have everything well in hand, but if I could ask, why not go with the period-correct beige headliner instead of the later-car black?

[porschenut]

ibmiked, did the RS not come with a black headliner option? I was under the impression that the early headliner could be either beige or black.

At any rate, the interior is going to be mostly black/charcoal, so I think the black headliner would look best. My car is more of a personal interpretation of an RS, rather than a period-correct replica.

[porschenut]

AFCuk, that's a very cool looking targa you have there. Later on I'll have to hit you up for some advice on how to mount the RSR rubber hood straps.

[AFCuk]

Originally Posted by porschenut

AFCuk, that's a very cool looking targa you have there. Later on I'll have to hit you up for some advice on how to mount the RSR rubber hood straps.

No problem mate
not hard at all, out of all the other things i had to do

Paul

[red964]

looking good.
too late for me to suggest a color (see sig link)

[speedo]

She is going to be ready for the drive next weekend? Looks like you have a busy week ahead of you

Looking good

Speedo

[spence88mph]

Great project, I'm not sure what your wheel choice is but I can never understand why people go to the effort of backdating then put 16 or 17s on, they just look wrong IMO, 'to each their own' just my 2 cents... A low longhood with 15s, nothing better, just throwin that out there...