Time to dig in...softie conversion

[rennch]

Good to see you back, lars.

[speedo]

What could be better than two fog lights on an early bumper?

Exactly! Four lights are way better. So rather than just surface mounting them, I am going to recess them just like the original cutouts

Wait...the holes are way too big, and a little off center
Just kidding.
I should back up...for starters, I am not a fan of foglights. Just something else low to the ground that is bound to get "taken out" by a rock. I do however like foglight openings for directing air to oil coolers. As this car will end up with a "built" 2.2, I will not run a front fender cooler. I already had a "cheesecloth" front bumper that was going to require a lot of work...ugh.

I picked up a better bumper recently at a local swap meet. I stripped the hardware off of it and determined that while it was better...it was not great.

The worst problem appears to be the foglight holes which are somewhat "jacked".

The end supports are also in need of attention

Yeah, it would be easier to just buy a good solid bumper and bolt it up. I'm just not that way for some reason...besides those foglight openings bug me. I have plans on those...

[speedo]

The brackets for the fogs has already been hacked out on both sides. I will clean up the remainder of the brackets and flatten out the flange


This is where I steal the solid steel from the old perforated bumper

Shaped and being fitted to the flattened flange

Ready to tack in place

And there we go. I'm kinda psyched...I have wanted to do this for a while. Not sure if there was ever a factory non-foglight bumper. Lots of fiberglass choices, but steel? And pretty much done ready for the flapper when and some finishing.


These need to go on next.

[speedo]

This was a bear...t-bar married the adjuster end. Inseparable to say the least.

I soaked it for many days. And in the evenings...tapped gently, then harder as days passed.
Finally I was pounding on this, with zero luck.
I drilled a hole in the cap and soaked with penetrating fluid from the inside of the cap.
I took a punch and tried to hammer it out.



No movement at all. I didn't get (too) discouraged. Few more days of soak and pound...voila!

Patience and pesistence pays off. Splines actually didn't look rusty at all
So welded up the end, and away we go



Last call for CAD plating...heading to sandblasters tomorrow. Josh?

[mikeferg75]

Nice work as always Lars.

You coming out to coffee tomorrow?

[speedo]

So I am rolling the dice and going back to a good painter...who had some personal issues. Hey, my call. If it works out great...if not, I have no one to blame. He will be given 4-5 weeks to get the job done. Plenty of time for me to rebuild the stock 2.2 and add some secret sauce. My long list of what can be done pre-paint has gotten shorter...vs what needs to be done. I absolutely hated scrubbing the rear inner fenders to prep for paint. Yuch! Forty years of oil grime and road debris. And it is so close quarters it has to be done by hand. If the car was on a rotisserie, and the quarter panels were off the car...it would be easier. Still the job sucks. I had some issues getting the rear torsion bars loose, and I wasn't going to undercoat around the spring plates. It all needs to come clean to do a good job.



Finally released the tbars and cleaned the rear inner fenders well.

Several hours of scrubbing and I am ready to shutz the inner fenders.


Just remember to cover the bushing cavity and fill the bolt holes...don't want to go back and clean the shutz out .

[speedo]

I am sooo glad I bought the gun. Makes life much easier than the rattle can and water cleanup...what could be easier. Well if you are in the inner fender well in addition to a respirator...and have hair on your head, wear a hat. Ask me how I know. I now have "undercoating shutz dreads". So this is how we end up...very clean.




Looks pretty good for 40+ years old.
I needed to decide what to do with brakes...cleaning them up I mean. It was suggested that trying to break them apart to sandblast or dip would potentially break the through bolts. I wanted to clean the calipers and either powdercoat them aluminum, (or some other non-descript color) or plate them. Decided to completely dissassemble them amd dip them to clean with the rest of the parts I am having zinc plated. They were nasty...and although they will go right back underneath the car...everything deserves a shower once every forty years.

Ripped apart an old inner tube to create the sleeve I needed to blow the pistons out...

[speedo]

Piece of cake...everything came apart easily.


The bodies will get acid dipped, cleaned and zinc coated. Hardware will get refreshed black, the internals will be resealed...and shortly these will be installed with fresh bushings.

And we are off to paint Wait what color are we painting this beast
I really am in a paint quandry...OEM Gemini Blue metallic. black, or red. Never used one...but maybe a poll would be in order. I can go black or tan on the interior. Truth be told...my uphosterer is so slow, I could change the interior color tomorrow and he wouldn't be upset.
Really...the last call for plating. My box goes in to be dipped tomorrow. Some of what comes out gets powder coated, most gets zinc plated.

Speedo

[millarg]

Great project, looking forward to seeing the progress

[speedo]

I should know by now to get the stuff done (over which I have no control) before I am ready to move on...plating for example. Should have been done long ago. Now, I have to wait to bolt the suspension back on to make it a roller for painting, and I can't do that until the parts are back from plating. My excuse is that I kept getting deeper into the disassembly....and the further I got, the more parts I decided I should get "renewed". Some of that is good, especially when you find worn parts that REALLY need replacing (and otherwise might have not found during a "cosmetic" resto)...but more often than not, it becomes a fetish. Just need to remember, we're dealing with the underside of the car. It is only going to look nice once...and after that even though it is maintained, it will only get nastier with time. So...in the interim, I get to clean 40 years of road grime and debris off the suspension. Thought I was done when I finished the inner fenders...heck, I still have plenty of laquer thinner, time to go to work. These look pretty knarly.

broken e-cable guides need to be replaced

I'll remove the stub axles to really get-in-there

I will go after these guys too. Start with a putty knife and work my way down to sandpaper before repainting

Better part of a day...and several coats of paint. We're back in black...and white.



So this is weird. Steering damper on a LWB car.


I learned through a local friend that these were common on SWB cars from 1965-?? But these early racks were considerably different that the LWB racks. And guess who made the damper? Koni of course. Well as I don't need the SWB rack, it will need to find an owner that does need a rack with a damper. Whoever had the car prior to me, obviously liked the SWB components...steering rack, complete front 3 bolt suspension...not sure what else I will find. Good thing I did remove the rack though, as the cloth covered fuel lines from the tunnel to the tank fittings dissolved in my hands. I need to source a later SC rack and u-joint.
To close out the Sunday afternoon, I cleaned up the aft end of the tunnel and everything that comes out towards the rear...throttle cable, clutch cable, e-brake lines, brake lines, heater valve lines, tired fuel lines and the larger cloth covered lines to the charcoal cannister up front.
I am tired of cleaning. I want some nice hardware to begin bolting things back together. Next up is restoring/rehabilitating the fuel tank.

Speedo

[speedo]

Picked up the parts from the acid dipper. Should pass muster at the plater. Rule of thumb for Frank (6'5" 250lbs Italian with a long ponytail) the foreman dude, is no paint, grease, undercoating or flaking rust. Slight oxcidation ok. You don't want to make frank angry. We dropped the parts off a week ago and expected them to be done yesterday to be available for bolting the suspension on this weekend...didn't happen. Told that he "takes care of his regular customers first". No problem. That must mean that industrial business in Denver is picking up...it will help the economy. I'm ok with that. Well, I still can't bolt the suspension on without the plated hardware, so I need to find other small jobs to do...gotta keep the momentum up. Front bumper still needed help. Outer attach points were rotten. I stole solid mounts from the "cheesy" bumper. Rusty mounts were ground off


Trimmed old mounts are fitted

And married up


Front bumper is pretty much ready for paint guy...like the chassis.
After getting these back from the dip, I realized that their useful life as front A-arm covers/ toe brackets had been somewhat compromised by their alterior life as skid plates protecting the front bumper from unfortunate driveway/street angles. Not paper thin...but getting close


Yikes...these are not too expensive to replace, but the rest of the cover is in decent shape. We can make these a bit more robust.
Yeah...the welding is all done...it is... except for this

[speedo]

Or a lot of material. The tank is full and I just put a new spool of wire on the welder.
It can't be any worse than this

Build them up

And take them down...much more substantial

Now they get degreased and painted.


I have new brake lines ready to install, and since the steering rack is waiting for plated hardware ..."while were in there"...lets rip apart the master cylinder.
Most master cylinders I have evaluated were spotless. No debris inside whatsoever. I have heard however that the "old school" method of bleading the brakes with two people...one pumping the pedal and the other releasing the air bubbles from the bleed valve on the caliper can cause debris to build up in the chambers in the master cylinder. Well, I guess we will find out. Dirty and nasty as usual.

[speedo]

Everyting came apart easily and surprise...there was a lot of crap inside. Hmmm, older brake fluid, or just somehow debris got into the system. I see no signs of oxcidation inside the master cylinder...but there was some silicone looking stuff, not good. I can only think how chunks of silicone in my hydraulic brake system would help


I will clean degrease and paint the master cylinder. The parts will be renewed and probably just clear coated, and the cylinder rebuilt. A start...

Based on the amount of nastyness in the master cylinder, I'm not unhappy that I tore it down. Surprise to find material in there.
Meanwhile, in anticipation of getting all the plated parts back...been prepping the caliper hardware for reassembly. Had planned on reusing the stock 19-23mm tbars, but may bump up to 21-25mm. Car will only be driven...no track, so no need for anything more robust. If we get back from autocross tomorrow in time, I will start on the gas tank resto. I have had all the "chemicals " for a while...just wasn't looking forward to the prep. I think I will spend some time refamiliarizing myself with the wire brush on the grinder.

Speedo

[speedo]

Picked up the parts at the plater today. Took too long, cost more than it should have and I was disappointed that they couldn't do my calipers. Said they ran them twice, but because they were cast...the acid from the dipping seeped out and didn't allow the zinc to "take". Whatever, I'm not a metalurgist. I was told to take them and get them sandblasted and bring them back. Great. Square one. I called the shop that dipped them while I was headed home, and the owner said to bring them by...so I detoured over to Golden. The owner of the shop personally grabbed a caliper and we headed to his blasting box. First one cleaned up well...he asked if I could wait while we did all 8 pieces...why not. Twenty minutes later I was on my way home with all the calipers "refreshed" again. Kudos to A1 Stripping in Golden for you Colorado guys. Nice guy, fair prices and didn't charge me to sandblast the calipers ...while I waited! So back to the shop with the goods. Plating is always exciting...hey, I live in the mountains, doesn't take much to excite at elevation
So the good/goods...


The bad...soon to get better

And the ugly. While in Denver today I had to pick up some custom fuel line from a local shop. They have a 6 ft tall front loading degreaser/dishwasher. The trannie from this car (911) turns out to be the correct type number for an S (911/01) but it was discusting. Layers of grime, crap, oil (maybe that is the same as crap), asphalt, and God knows what else...maybe tree sap. I have a 3000 psi power washer that barely loosened any of the hardened black shell covering the trannie. The shop let me soak the trannie for an hour while I ran errands. This is what it looks like after being power washed, and then steam cleaned for an hour! I still need to go after this thing with carb cleaner or oil eating microbes...


Ok...now I really need to get the suspension back on this beast. The painter is coming up for a pre-paint "evaluation" this weekend. With a bit of luck I could be at the painter by Halloween. I promised myself I would finish the gas tank before starting on the engine.

Speedo

[arrivederci]

Mmmmm. Plating looks nice. Shiny pieces...

[speedo]

Plating is done and I need to get this thing rolling. No excuses now. Starting with the front...

I blew the hard fuel lines out in the tunnel and connected the new 7 and 9mm lines as they are tough to get to without any crap in the way. Also known as a real pain to run when the crossmember and steering rack are bolted up. I cleaned up the SC rack and crossmember. Poor mans bump-steer kit.


The struts and Aarms are ready to go. I will use the later sway bars as the SC suspension came with them.


It is a little bit of a juggle to get the sway bars into the struts...but much easier than adding them after the fact.

[speedo]

With both struts off, the sway bar mounts much easier.

Front Aarm mounts painted and ready to go with nice fresh hardware




Button up the sway bar brackets...lot going on under here


Getting closer
Topside needs to be protected when it gets paint, but needs to be installed to make it a roller

[speedo]

Tie rods installed and secured. Everything fresh looks good




I need to get the calipers finished, and install the dust shields and hubs up front.
The rears will be somewhat easier...but I will have to deal with the tbar replacement and associated springplate adjustment. Going with 21-25mm bars.

Speedo

[CWeber911]

Did you end up making a spare set of bows?

Cal W
cweber911@cox.net

[Macroni]

wow busy boy......