Yeah.. doesnt look nice to everyone ;) And probably not the next buyer either.. ;)

Well, luckily, I am building this car for myself and not the next buyer. It makes good sense to me with what I envision for the usage of the area. Besides, I think it looks nice, and will look even better when I get it finished up. I'm not building a concourse car or a racer, just a great, reliable, fun car to tool around in whenever I get the chance.

Good attitude.

Did you have fun with Dave today...okay, how could you not? That was my former SC you were stripping.

Yeah, I had a great time with Dave. Even though it's a shame to see what happened to his car, I was a great learning experience for me to poke around in there. It answered many of the questions I had in terms of obviously hacked together electrical stuff in my car. Got some good parts that I will be giving a nice home to as well.

I need to find more people nearby that will let me poke my head into their cars. ;)

It has been quite a while since I updated this thread. I have been busy working and such, but have made some good progress on the car.

Rich76_911s pics of the rust on his car inspired me to take the front end of the car apart to inspect and give a proper cleaning. It is amazing how much dirt gets caught in those fenders. Thankfully, after a good power washing, there wasn't any rust in there.

But, just because fate seems to want me to replace everything on this car, I noticed that the washer fluid reservoir fill hose had been rubbing against the tire and had a several inch section that was paper thin. And the tubing to the fuel vapor catcher thing was rotted with the smaller tube being completely severed (that explains the occasional smell of gas near the front fender). Luckily it was easy to pull it all apart, get some fresh tubing and reinstall with some new stainless steel hose clamps. BTW, that washer reservoir is the damn biggest one I have even seen, they must have lots of dirt roads in Germany.

I then got back to my main task of rewiring the car. I got out the trusty multimeter and verified all of the lines in every loom as well as the ground points. I had already pulled out the fuse panel for some cleanup and fresh paint. So, I took on the task of re hooking up all of the wiring per the Bentley schematics. That took several days. While I was at it, I replaced all of the fuses and relays. The PO seems to have moved a few wires around, and a couple others were simply not hooked up and tucked behind the panel. I'm glad to say that everything is working correctly now. I also picked up the headlight relay from our host and put that in for good measure.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1245949789.jpg

The only change I made was running a new 14ga to the cig lighter and giving it a dedicated 15a fuse. Seems that the old line in the loom was cut and a new 20ga wire put in it's place with a direct connection to the battery (no fuse). It was just begging for a meltdown.

I threw in new bulbs all around since I was in there.

My CEET tubing came in, so I was able to also tackle the fresh air blower system. I broke open all the distributor pieces and game them a good soap and water cleaning. They can get pretty nasty in there. I then cut up the tubing and strapped it all together with some stainless steel clamps. I also pulled the control unit and gave it a good cleaning and adjusted the contact points. Seems that it previously wasn't able to reach the fastest speed. This is what it looks like now:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1245950684.jpg

I'm still having a great time!

You know, this guy is good.

Very good!

And here you all had me believing that stock 911 wiring harnesses were supposed to be jumbled messes . . .

Some idiot hack did the same thing to my passenger side footwell area too...giant hole into the smuggler's box. I'm going to use some paper to make a template and then cut it out of a chassis we have lying around here and either weld it or silicone it in place.

It looks like you're having a blast repairing / restoring / customizing the car.

Those hoses in the driver side wheel well all like to be rubbed by the tires I think. I just pulled the washer reservoir and the associated hosing out of the fender completely so I can put something inside the trunk instead.

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Man what I would give to have that kind of time on my hands....... Looks awsome! You're making me want to dig in. Good luck with the rest and keep on posting.

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Thanks for the nice comments!

I thought about doing that as well (without the other chassis sitting around). When I got in there and gave it a good look, I noticed that it wasn't really a flat area that would lend itself to easily patching like that. So, I got myself a hunk of 20ga aluminum sheet from the hardware store. I put it down there and proceeded to pound the proper contours into it with about an inch of overlap on all sides. I then scuffed up the overlap areas and gave it some JB Weld. I fashioned some clamps out of 1" wooden dowels with lag bolts sticking out one end and used 6 of them to brace it into place while the JB set. I then hit all the smuggler's box side edges with some (lots) silicone sealant. It set up nice and solid and looks good from the inside. Here is the ugly side of it:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1245963079.jpg

Pretty sure it will be water tight now. I'll just hit the passenger cabin side with some black paint when I give it all a fresh coat. Most of it is covered by the floor boards anyway.

I love the way you cleaned up the fresh air blower system. my car came with A/C and I have removed as much as I could. I always wondered what an SC that didnt have A/C should look like under the front hood.

excellent work btw...from the looks of your fuse area it seems you might have the Headlight Relay Kit in place too...

John, the hole in mine is actually not as tall, but wider. It's a flat area, but access is a b!tch because of the tunnel. I'm planning on tackling it next week, we'll see what happens. I guess if I get too frustrated, I'll try your method.

Good luck with your project. Take your time, enjoy the journey and after reading the posts I want you to remember a couple of key things. You bought an SC - giving you a galvanized body, the 3.0 engine has proven to be one of the best engines Porsche ever built and you got the rear flares allowing you 7 & 8's x 16". It has CIS injection it had a good torque curve and was a fun car to own and drive. The body style remained basically the same since 1966 - 1989 - so once you get yours the way you want you have a piece of history you can be proud of and enjoy for many years to come. Jim

Wow - those are big holes! You guys could've installed doors and used them as an emergency exit :eek: .

I hate when people do poop like that. Aftermarket installers - be it AC, stereo, or whatever - are the worst. Most of 'em will do anything to get through a job quickly and have whatever they installed working long enough to get the customer out the door (not all, there are a few guys out there who do good work - before I get flamed. I installed AC's for a while too...).

Very nice job on the wiring, kerthunk. I'm not a fan of the bedliner either, though, but it is your car and if you're happy, so be it. Do you still have the original felt - or are you planning on getting a set?

Nice work I don't think I have ever seen a wiring harness that neat and clean.

I think you have the right attitude John. Try not too start too many projects at once and you will be rewarded along the way with smaller victories (as you can already see).

Keep up the good work.

Tim K

Man, your work is looking good. I can't wait to start on my 81SC. I'm sure it will be much like yours before the work. Lol. Please take as many photos as you wish as I will be looking and learning as much as I can before I tackle the project. Looks good again and keep us updated.

It has been quite a while since I updated this thread, so I thought I would show everyone how far I have gotten on the project.

For the interior, I laid down a bunch of Dynamat Extreme for the rear shelf and seats and along the sides up to the front. I then installed a sliverknit carpet set, door panels and rear shelf that I got from AppBiz. Got everything cleaned up and put in pretty nicely (at least I think so). While I was at it, I decided to replace the seat belts with fresh ones (pricey, but I figured that I was worth it). I also have a bunch of other pieces bought from various folks here in the forums and from the last John Walker swap meet.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1277351483.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1277351497.jpg

I really tried to keep the interior pretty stock looking except for the controls (Momo steering wheel and shift knob) and the rennline pedals. I also pulled the ashtray out and mounted a voltmeter and vacuum gauge. The final touch will be some sport seats with a black/grey pasha center that I am having Stefan at GTS put together for me.

Probably the best couple of tools that I picked up have been a parts washer, blast cabinet and a powder coating setup. I've just been pulling part after part, cleaning, bead blasting and then powder coating. Works fantastic for things like rebuilding the pedal cluster, handbrake/heater levers and such. I've saved a ton of money with these things and they end up looking like they came fresh from the factory. Not to mention that I can pull a part and within 2 hours be reinstalling it looking like new. No more painting for me!

I also got all of the electrical stuff figured out. EVERYTHING electrical on the car is in good working order and functioning properly. Well, except for the lighter since I pulled the rusted heating element out and tossed it.

I have redone the front bearings/races. Rebuilt the brake calipers and dropped in some pretty cross-drilled rotors. Replaced a bunch of the old tubing and such. Just basically running around a cleaning/refreshing everything.

Anyway, all that I have left to do is the engine. Since I have no experience with engines really, I thought I had better get an expert opinion on the matter. So, I gave the engine a quick look over (fixing a couple of minor issues), threw an extinguisher in and fired the car up. The car was on the road again for the first time since the day I bought it and brought it home! Everything was working well. I drove around the neighborhood listening for any odd noises or smoke. Brought it home and looked over everything again and nothing had fallen off the car! So, I took it out again with the intention of breaking in the fresh brake pads. Over the next couple of days I put about 200 miles onto the car. Everything seemed to be working pretty well so I drove it into Seattle to have John Walker give it a quick look and run a compression & leakdown test for me. The numbers came out pretty decent but the engine is in dire need of some TLC.

So, I'm going to enjoy the car for a bit while I gather up the engine parts and the funds required to acquire said parts. Probably will have a fall engine drop and rebuild project.

I recently finished off a project for a client that also likes tinkering with cars. They were so happy with the work that they bought me a BendPak mid-rise scissor lift as a bonus. That thing is seriously cool!