Time to dig in...softie conversion

[merbesfield]

Just did this to a couple of wheels myself. Does your wheel require the horn ring mod or is it good to go? After a blasting and some Wurth paint they look great. I even took the time to tape it off to look like the factory paint.

[speedo]

But need to get done. The 914 wheel is good to go with the turn signal cancel ring modification. Once sandblasted, the occidation at the ends of the spokes was deep, and left some pitting. After a few coats of primer and sanding, I realised I needed something more. I used a very light -fine filler


This did the trick. Several finer and finer grits, plus a couple more coats of primer and we are ready for the black satin

And batwing done...horn puck and trim ring are excellent

Out with the old and in with the new...JB weld that is



This front turn signal housing has seen better days. PO had a hard time with the light aluminum screw holding the backing plate. Couldn't get the screww unstuck and punished the housing in the removal. I need to stabilize the carnage and recreate one of the screw poles on the back side.

No JB weld is not part of my diet, and I am not sponsored...it just works in a lot of places. What can I say. If garage monkeys over the years were/are able to do stuctural repairs with fiberglass and bondo...I can use JB weld when I want to for non structural repairs.

[speedo]

One of my recent 2.4 grilles is becoming a donor to repair my 2.2 grill. As we know, the vanes are numbered, and I was missing numbers 4 and 8 (polished).

These are annodised, but will work

Sorry Dude...feel like I ripped it's teeth out

Decent screens will get painted black

These will need to be cleaned up in the sandblaster

The vanes and verticals cleaned up easily
Verticals and screens will be painted black and riveted back together

Eye candy...fresh heads


Hello in there...

Seats dash and crank get picked up tomorrow. Wheels and rebuild kit arrive sometime later in the week.

Speedo

[Macroni]

Tremendous.... Thanks Lars....

[merbesfield]

Lars, you have quite a stash of parts there. Great job.

[speedo]

...when it looks like this at 4:45 in the afternoon. I hate daylight savings time.

Good news is though, on the 21st...in two short days, winter solstice happens and we gain 2 minutes of daylight per day...whoohoo

And in ten short days that is an extra 20 minutes of daylight...in one month, an extra hour.
I had errands this afternoon..."honey, I got the dry cleaning"

After 16 short months and two flip flops (to sneak in a political term) of material color...my seats are done. Started life as E21 BMW sport seats if I remember correctly. Frames, sliders and tilts are stock, but we changed a lot before we reupholstered them.

The slight wrinkles in the back material will smooth out with some use. Basket weave centers and perforated bolsters



Details...they really came out nice...almost worth the wait

He does excellent work....but moves at his own speed, which seems like a reverse gear most of the time. You just can't "need it badly" when you take something to him

[merbesfield]

Looks like he does very nice work. Those a great seats from a comfort level.

[speedo]

Granted that while these were a sport seat, they were produced a few years after the last Porsche sport seat came out of the factory. When the weather clears and I have more afternoon daylight hours (minutes), I will show a before and after picture of the seats. I have another set to go to him to get reupholstered. It will be interesting to see them side by side. There were several changes we made to the basic seat once the old upholstery was skinned off. Just an example of the modifications...the bolsters are much taller than original on both the seat bases and sides


And the headrests which used to be quite tall and egg shaped got "cropped" and look much more like the "D" headrests.

I am glad once I decided on black and the perf/basketweave that I stuck with it.



Proof of the pudding is how they feel...and they feel great. Not too deep, but snug. I look forward to breaking them in...very comfortable. If someone needs more details, feel free to PM me, or if local you are welcome to check them out in person.

Speedo

[arrivederci]

They look great...was talking to Stefan about basketweave and perf'd for my seats. It'll be nice to see how it looks in person. I'll see them on Friday?

[Duckworth]

______________

[speedo]

Actually I have been pretty busy, so I never fell off track. I hate getting halfway through a project and running into something that has issues and needs to be repaired (sent off) or replaced (ordered and shipped). The last two engine items I needed to get back...although they were for the outside of the engine...came today. Air filters and my fresh cooler.


Looks like Christmas


Disassembled Zeniths got dishwashed and I soda blasted the float bowls which were grungy

Nice clean bowls

Ok...ready for liftoff

Crank build first, then case

[speedo]

Theses are becoming more and more expensive as the cars age. The pot metal degrades more quickly than "real" aluminum...so repairs or replacement are becoming more and more of a requirement. PO alerted me to the problem with the rear cap on this one. I started by repairing the damage done when the cap was forcefully removed.

Two screws hold the cap on...this one lost one of it's studs

I took some aluminum tubing and cut the stud to the correct dimension and filled it with my buddy JB weld

Now it needs to be postioned and afixed

And done

Drilled and the cap is now able to be secured correctly


While I am at it...I have some plastic air horns with either burned or cracked edges...lets see if my JB weld can bring these back to service

Hopefully engine starts to go back together this weekend.

Speedo

[speedo]

I never checked my rebuild parts (hardware and gaskets) when they arrived...note to self, in the future don't assume. Performed the perfunctory "time to make this a clean room" ritual and really cleaned up that side of the shop. For whatever reason, the sandblaster, the wire grinder and polishing wheel all ended up being "team buddies" on that side of the shop. So basically I had to de-debris ...everything. It's really like having company over for dinner, gives you an excuse to clean the house. If you don't have children...that last statement won't make any sense. So I mounted the crank to the flywheel, and cleaned it 4 or 5 times with wipes. Same for the rods which were refaced and had the pin bushings replaced. Grabbed the new rod bolts and nuts...assembly lube, and checked the rod bolt torque settings. Opened the new box of rod bearings and...gulp..wrong size. The box was for a 66mm crank. I thought I was clear that the bearings needed to be for a 2.4-2.7 crank, oh well. In a breif moment of desperation...I realized that I did have a fresh box of rod bearings for a 70.4 rebuild, but those were for a 3.0 ...different size. Ok, it is Saturday afternoon on New Years eve...I'm doomed. There is no way anybody is open with some Glyco 2.4-2.7 rod bearings. Suck it up...engine isn't going to get anywhere this weekend...these can wait.

Need to go to plan B. Hadn't planned on a plan B. I guess I need to dive into the Zenith carbs before I forget how they go back together...which may have already happened. They are mostly cleaned, but I still could use a couple hours with a metal wire tooth brush and warm soapy water to attack the sludge that didn't come off in the dishwasher. A couple hours of elbow grease later and we are ready to try to remember. I have a really good weber book, but nothing on zeniths, and the lame parts diagram with the rebuild kits labeled each of the parts in the badly zeroxed exploded diagram with arrows and numbers, but no coresponding list of parts included, what they were called, and where they went. On my own. Kind of sort of ready to go...

Sheesh...seems like twice as many parts as webers

Started with the cores and built out. Find a threaded hole and then something the correct size that you can screw something into it...just kidding
Halfway home...

Butterflies feel nice and tight but move freely

These cold start mechanisms (which I understand I need to ignore)...I still split (with some difficulty) and rebuilt...need more knowledge here. Feel free to PM me or gently weigh in.

Complete...well lubricated and only one washer as an extra part. I actually found where it went, so technically, no extra parts.

And with the benefit of some period K and N cleaner covers thanks to one of our fellow board members...and some new cleaners. Voila! Damn...they look pretty good! I couldn't resist bolting them up temporarily to my fresh powdercoated manifolds for a photo op...


Nicest (cleanest) set of zeniths I have ever owned.
Correct bearings are here tomorrow...let the reassembly begin. Happy New Year everbody. Hope everybody has some sort of a project to look forward to...keeps us sane in these crazy times.

Speedo

[mikeferg75]

Paint progress??

[speedo]

Well...I would like an update too. Having the typical painter-communication problem...I don't want to talk about it
The good news is the progress I am about to make on the engine. I had a couple "speed bumps" thrown at me...but I think I am ok. It is amazing...I called several shops (that are friends) and asked the clearance question...and got several different, and I mean REALLY different answers. Here is the link
This ought to be good...
End result, I will do a clay clearance test first on the one cylinder, then mount them all up and do the same crank rotation test for interference. I judged that I have 3.5mm clearance between the piston skirt and the web in the case, but want to make sure I am clear on the rod bolt nuts. If I have no interference when all the cylinders are bolted up... from the counterweights...I should be good under normal conditions as expansion (from heat) of components will work in my favor.
Pics ...when I get them.

Speedo

[speedo]

No word from painter man...no returned calls. I'm not worried. Just because he has my car and a "hefty" deposit...why would I be worried
To cheer my self up...these arrived. All the parts I ordered from Home Depot to finish the restoration

As usual, a beautiful job. Four of these babies...15x7s


The clay test...part deux. I am fortunate in that where I roam in the Rockies, there are several good shops, and a number of people that are engine builders in their own right. So my resources for info when I have build questions...is good. Probably just the same as if I were in North Dakota, or Hawaii. My dilemna was that just like calling the IRS and asking tax questions...everytime I asked the question, I got a different answer. Intially I was only concerned about clearance between the sides of the piston skirts and the webing in the case. By the time I had finished asking my sources...I should now be concerned about these things:
1) rod bolt to piston skirt
2) counter weights on crank to piston skirt
3) piston skirt to webs
Great, be careful what you ask for. In addition I learned that the distance from center of rod pin to piston top edge is not different between 2.2 and 2.4 pistons (thanks Henry). Apparently the skirts are shorter on the 2.4, but longer on 2.2...thus my concerns. I have never been a fan of pre-assembly analysis. Like most people, I would rather just organize, prepare, prep and assemble. In this situation, I realize the need to do whatever is necessary to give me peace of mind in this build. Little frustrating after all the stories of the "trick" builds using 2.2S pistons in a 2.4S engine. Sounds like everthing just "bolts up".In Waynes book this was one of the "favored" builds...but I did not see any mention of clearance issues. Nor in Andersons book, did I see any discussion of clearance concerns.
So, armed with this vast array of non-knowledge I proceed. The case is still bolted up from my previous one piston "depth" experiment.

I will perform two tests...the clearance test with all pistons and cylinders bolted up, and a clay test on holes one and two.

I think an orthodontist tried to do this to me as a kid with pepermint flavored clay to see if I needed braces..I puked (on the assistant) everytime she tried to put this stuff in my mouth. It was the assistant that finally decided that I didn't need braces. Open wide...

[speedo]

So with all the pistons attached...

And the cylinders installed...

I now cross my fingers and hope that when I rotate the crank I have no interference. Yeah...the gods like me ...at least until 12/12/12
Very smooth with zero interference. Maybe I had nothing to be worried about Passed the first test...now I need to disassemble and see what the clay tells me.

There is only one noticible area of clay contact...a very small area of contact on the clay on the right side webing on number 2. Hard to see, but the clay was pretty thick there...

From my earlier depth test, I determined that the web-skirt clearance was about 3-3.5 mm which translates to roughly 1/8th of an inch. The clay was at way more than 1/8th at that point...so I should be good.
I had the pleasure of attending a Carquip function on Sunday am. There was a discussion of oil leakage caused by blow-by. The discussion was focussed on 356engines. Learned some... in fact alot of interesting stuff I can apply to future builds.
So here were two very nice builds I saw at the event...


Goal this week is to either get the painter to respond, and/or provide him bail.
And get this dang engine build going...finally

[mikeferg75]

I almost made it out to Carquip, but bike ride went long. I would have made the effort if I knew you were going...

Fingers crossed on painter

[rennch]

What's the update, mad scientist?

[speedo]

Car has now been at the painter for 2 1/2 months. Same thing...infrequent answered or returned calls. His shop is a good hour away, so I am not inclined to saddle up and pay a surprise visit. He has a guy who created a novel webpage that I can pull up and check progress on a daily basis if I wanted to...and/or if there were actually pictures and progress. I am reluctant to post the link in the thread...simply limiting the disappointment to me. If there ends up actually being movement forward, I will activate the link on the thread. It is really winter here...cold and snowy, so we need the water, and the snowpack. The shop is cold...but I have to keep the energy up by doing small things. I have been doing a lot of ancillary stuff that seems to lame to post. The "getting ready" for the car to come home things. The engine build is underway, but that in and of itself has been fraught with issues...some of which have already been mentioned. My parts supplier didn't get the part about stroking the 2.2 using the 70.4 crank. As a result, many of my parts need to be returned and replaced. Main bearings, rod bearings, connecting rod bolts etc. Hey...expectations right? My choice of oil pump decided to bind noticeably after I disassembled and rebuilt it. So did the second pump. : Thanks to Haycait911 who sent me a third pump as long as I promised not to disassemble and clean it. So the case is together after much frustration...the clay work proved that the components were compatible. Crank turns freely, and I am looking forward to getting it to long block status.
Here we are...


I have been doing some work on this little guy


Stay warm

Speedo