Glad to hear you're protecting yourself Kristoph

FWIW My original factory hinges were finished in silver zinc and then painted satin black. I'm like Randy though, not so 'factory'... so mine are now body colour :)

My door hinges were the original sand beige and then sprayed over in the tangerine. I am going to go with body color during the repaint. I already have black gas tank brackets instead of the grey ones so I doubt anyone will care, especially not me!

Hi Obi Wan,

Before I blasted and did the wash with the muriatic acid there was kind of a light golden cadium plating type of sheen on several parts of the latches, especially where they had not been exposed to the elements. I will make sure to verify this. As always thanks for the advice!

Thanks Randy! I tried to find the thread but I am not a member over there so I cannot search. I will post the question here and see what answers I get. It looks like some of the new reproduction stuff is both silver or gold zinc plated in color depending on where you get it from.

it turns out to be SWB oriented; here it is:

When did Porsche transition from silver cad plating to gold cad plating on 911's?

Thanks Randy! I think that clears it up. I also looked around on Pelican and found the following parts which were listed for 65-73. Coupled with the tread you posted and the plating remaining on my latches in a few protected spots I think I have an answer.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348404934.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348404948.jpg

Day 55: I was able to fit the rear decklid and the trunk hood with the help of a friend Tom who also drives a 97 A4. We did a radiator flush (what is that? ;)) on his A4 and while it was draining/running we fitted the lids. I feel pretty good about the fit and am really glad I took pictures of how many washers fit under each hinge to get a good alignment on re-install.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348421400.jpg

Great to see the Rat with the hood on!!! I seam sealed all of the ares in the headlight buckets where the metal was thin and had any holes. All of this was blasted so there was no remaining rust. I just didn't want water getting back in. In an ideal world with unlimited funds and time I would have gotten new fenders or replaced just the headlight buckets. Some day many years from now I will probably wish I bought new fenders.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348421419.jpg

Smugglers box lid installed. I was almost able to get out all of the dents;)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348421455.jpg

Kristoph,
Looking good, as usual!

For the latches, I'm still of the opinion they were silver in color at least through '69 and maybe even into the 2.2 cars. I found the discussion Rwebb mentioned on the Early S registry. Quite interesting. Dealt with fasteners, not latches specifically. But the philosophy would have been the same. Porsche put on the cars whatever the latch manufacturer provided, and probably paid little attention whether the color was gold or silver. I imagine new latches from Pelican parts are yellow zinc because that's what the manufacturer provides now, but of course that is not proof of what was originally used in 1969. But I'm guessing you are really not too concerned about all this. :)

I noticed the post about the hood hinges too. These should correctly be painted body color, as was done at the factory Easy enough to bead blast them and send them along to the painter. But then the lower portions were painted black (with a brush no less) during final assembly of the car (I wonder if they did this on black cars!). The same goes for the rear deck hinges. Just one of those fine little details back when the cars were really handbuilt!

BTW, did you remember to fix the headlight retaining screw holes. I think the R side in particular was rather wallowed out. Would be a shame to get it back from the painters and find you still need to do a little welding here.

Beautiful day here in NM and I am on my way out the door right now to work on the '61!

DG

Looking great!

My 73 had silver latches, but no idea the history of the car. I can only assume that they were original to the car.

Remind me what your general "philosophy" is for this car? I went back to p.1 and reread for it there, but did not see it -- is it concours, period-correct, or ??

Must not be "no holds barred hotrod" due to no body strengthening nor extensive lightening ...

Must not be "just a decent driver" as you are way past that...

The hardware plating conundrum suggests a concoursey sort of approach - if so, it will be spendy and only worth it in a monetary sense if you can prove numbers matches on motor & tranny.

I'm not exactly sure what water engineering entails, but in terrestrial ecosystems, restoration ecologists often wrestle with whether to try and go back to sustainable extraction vs. total pre-Columbian vs. the "way the Indians managed the area."
- that might offer some guidance...

also, I hope you are keeping the rancher you bought it from informed - he might like to know the car found a good home

It's an engaging project and the 38,000+ views tell you people are interested!

Day 56: Today I was able to cut out and refit the fiberglass brackets. At the end of the day Peter came over and helped me fit the bumper. I am pretty happy with it but it is never going to be perfect. Peter and I shaved off the lip of the bumper as so many people have done during fitting and that really helped with lining it up for a satisfactory fit. Here are some pictures of the jig I built to line up the brackets and the final test fit before paint.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348445733.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348445832.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348445853.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348445872.jpg

The Rat and some flowers from one of our hibiscus bushes - Everyone else is doing "art shots" so I thought I would try to be one of the cool kids. Notice how the color of the hibiscus matches the lettering on the compressor;)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348445974.jpg

The Rat raised up for bumper fitting!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348445998.jpg

Cutting away extra parts of the attachment tabs that were catching on the body
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348446045.jpg

Day 56 cont:

Peter and I test fit the bumper for about an hour and were able to make some adjustments and get a good fit! Luckily the seal is pretty thick and will cover the gap that is currently there.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348446151.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348446215.jpg

The last photo of the night is Peter contemplating how we will drill holes to fit the S smile. Any suggestions other than really carefully? We decided to sit back and enjoy a few beers instead of trying to drill the crucial smile holes at the end of a long day. Overall, the progress was great this weekend and I think I can have the Rat ready for paint by next week. I still need to sand down the bumper past the gel coat and reprime so the paint sticks.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348446316.jpg

Day 56 cont: Here is a question for Grady!! After Peter and I got done fitting the bumper he mentioned that the Rat probably had an interesting history and would really like to know more about the engine since there is no engine number. I told him that earlier in the thread someone had mentioned getting the numbers off the cylinder heads. I had never gotten around to it so today seemed like a good day to crawl under the car and yell some numbers to Peter;).

Here are some numbers for the Rat:

Engine Case: 101 101 3R

On Cylinder Barrels: 901 104 306 2R

On Head? 901 105 11 OR

Could somebody please decipher these for me?

[QUOTE=Daves911L;6992863]Kristoph,
Looking good, as usual!

For the latches, I'm still of the opinion they were silver in color at least through '69 and maybe even into the 2.2 cars. I found the discussion Rwebb mentioned on the Early S registry. Quite interesting. Dealt with fasteners, not latches specifically. But the philosophy would have been the same. Porsche put on the cars whatever the latch manufacturer provided, and probably paid little attention whether the color was gold or silver. I imagine new latches from Pelican parts are yellow zinc because that's what the manufacturer provides now, but of course that is not proof of what was originally used in 1969. But I'm guessing you are really not too concerned about all this. :)

I noticed the post about the hood hinges too. These should correctly be painted body color, as was done at the factory Easy enough to bead blast them and send them along to the painter. But then the lower portions were painted black (with a brush no less) during final assembly of the car (I wonder if they did this on black cars!). The same goes for the rear deck hinges. Just one of those fine little details back when the cars were really handbuilt!

BTW, did you remember to fix the headlight retaining screw holes. I think the R side in particular was rather wallowed out. Would be a shame to get it back from the painters and find you still need to do a little welding here.

Beautiful day here in NM and I am on my way out the door right now to work on the '61!


Hi David,

It looks like my latches are going to be yellow zinc. The plater would charge me for a seperate batch to do clear zinc and I don't think it is worth the money. I have always liked the look of the gold letters on grey and I think the latches will be appealing in a similar fashion. I wish we would have talked about hood and decklid hinges earlier as I have already refinished mine. I think I did it in the spring before I left for Hungary. I hand painted both the upper and lower parts in epoxy primer just like the factory;) After the primer I rattle canned everything in flat black to match the paint in the trunk and engine bay. I am planning on addressing the final things before paint this week and that includes the headlight screws, drilling holes in the bumper for the smile, and sanding down and reprimering the front bumper (I sprayed the current coat onto the gel coat and it is not sticking). I hope you made good progress on the 61 and got to rock out to hard core metal in the shed!!:D

Thanks for the encouragement! I think I am going to go with yellow zinc latches as I cannot warrant the cost of running two batches. If I want to change in the future I can always "backdate";)

Hi Randy,

Thanks for the encouragement! I also think it is pretty cool that 38,000 people have checked out the Rat! My wife jokes that 37,000 of the views are me, which is probably true:rolleyes: I have not been in touch with the rancher because I don't think he uses the internet. If he did I would not have been able to buy the Rat for what I paid for it. I have sent a few updates to the Rat's previous owner in Taos New Mexico. In terms of the restoration I want a really solid daily driver that will last a good long time. The main point of this restoration was to prevent FL from rusting the car any further! In terms of water restoration I take a pragmatic approach. In terms of funding it is nearly impossible to restore things to their natural state plus we have no idea what the natural state was because even the Indians influenced ecosystems through hunting, farming etc. I like to think of my restoration strategy as sustainable compromise between human needs, money, and ecosystem/river health.

In that case, I'd not worry about the exact plating colors. I'd also think about powder coating suspension components, or maybe plating - whatever will hold up the best in FL - esp, if you will be near salt spray.

You could paper mail some pics to the rancher with a thank you note.

Looking fwd to your continuing saga...

oh yeh - check out paleo-ecology articles or texts sometime - they've done a LOT

Day 57: Got the nuts, bolts, and latches all packed up to ship to Electrolab tomorrow. To fit the smile I put the new smile on the old bumper to get some measurements and made up a paper template for the hole pattern using the old bumper for guidance. The great thing is that the T fasteners slide around so as long as the holes are at the correct level I am okay. I am planning on making the holes oval the same as on the original bumper using a dremel tool. That will give me some play when fitting up the smile on the freshly painted bumper. I am planning on drilling the holes tonight and fitting the smile temporarily to see how she looks. Here is a picture of my template.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1348572863.jpg

I'm not sure where my front bumper came from but in order to match the curve of the signal light area on my car we had to cut the bumper vertically, took out a slice and glassed it back together.

Its still not absolutely perfect, but better than it was. Some aftermarket fiberglass should really be considered to be a starting point I guess

Looking forward to seeing your next steps (especially the one where the cars becomes shiny!)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads21/hood11346251783.jpg