Backdate / Hotrod Project

[dcottam]

I have always had a thing for the 911, and am lucky enough to own a few, including a 2008 997.1 GT3RS in Orange and a 1985 Turbo Look in PTS Silver with 20,000 miles.
I also love the early cars and the whole backdate/outlaw/Magnus Walker thing. I wanted to buy a car on which I could “get my hands dirty” doing as much of my own work as possible and learning as I go along (which will be a slow process – so this thread might not get modified very often).
My goal is to do things that I like, not to recreate a particular 911, as much as I like the R / ST / RS. I am sure that I will do things that some will hate (or at least disagree with), but hey – it’s my car.
Firstly: the car. After looking half heartedly for months, I found a car a few miles away that ticked all my boxes.
A 1988 Sunroof Coupe in white, with a few body imperfections (although seemingly no rust), showing 104,000 miles but in great shape mechanically with a few modifications done by previous owners:
3.6 non-varioram motor from a 993 with Elgin cams built by Autometrics
Short 2nd and 3rd gears
993 Turbo suspension and brakes
BB stainless exhaust
Ruf style front bumper
No whale tail
and crucially for me as I am from the UK and start to melt at any temperature over 65 degrees – Air Conditioning.
The car is great to drive, and feels properly quick. I love the stance.
My goal here is to do things that I can, but that can easily be undone or removed when/if I take the final step to backdate to longhood body

[dcottam]

Modification #1 – Wheels
As can be seen from the photos the car was fitted with Fikse wheels, which are very high quality and look good, but are too modern for my liking so had to go. I bought a set of 17” RSR finish Linea Corse wheels in the same widths as the Fikses fitted to the car: 7.5” and 9.5”.
As I have only 2 jack stands I need to do one end of the car at a time. Rear first.

Took the wheels to local tire shop to switch the tires. First one was fine.
The first setback (of many I am sure):
when the second rear tire was removed from the Fikse wheel, the tech showed me that a piece of the bead was broken and kind of folded over outwards and squashed against the tire by the lip of the wheel. He was amazed it had not leaked. The problem was, when the tire was mounted on the new wheel it would not not leak (it leaked). Nothing to be done but buy a new tire – which of course they did not have so has to be ordered.
Hopefully this will be sorted by this weekend so I can go get it, mount it, lift the front of the car and take off the fronts to have the switch done and this job finished.

[dcottam]

Modification #1 – Part 2
New tire sourced (the existing tires were almost new so thankfully I got away with only buying one new tire rather than a new set). I fitted both rears,



lowered the car, jacked up the front and switched both fronts (forgot to take a picture of that part of the process though).

The finished look:

[Josh D]

Looks like your off to a great start!!

[Craig_D]

Hot damn! Looks great, and the 17 Fuchs style really does look fantastic! I look forward to your progress. Have fun!

[911dean]

That does it for me. I'm staying with fuchs.

Dean

[will hung]

Great start. I love the exterior/interior color combination.

[daleflesburg]

I like it, and of course I like the RUF Yellowbird front shell. You will have to convert the rear as well. They look so clan compared to the original bumpers. I had a white 82 and am really partial to your car, especially with what appears to be a red interior. I also like the Linea Corse wheels.

[Elombard]

993 Turbo suspension? Is that typo. That is a big project to install. Cool car. Looking forward to the progress, Love white 911s.

[cajun]

If you decide to part with the Fikse, I may be interested. Those are on my list of upgrades for my 86

[Craig_D]

Originally Posted by Elombard

993 Turbo suspension? Is that typo. That is a big project to install. Cool car. Looking forward to the progress, Love white 911s.

Yeah, that must have been a typo, you can see the rear suspension is still Carrera. 993 is multilink and would require welding pick up points all over the place. Must have meant the brakes. 993 motor and brakes is a nice "little" upgrade though.

[dcottam]

Originally Posted by will hung

Great start. I love the exterior/interior color combination.

Thanks - color combo has grown on me, although I have a friend who refers to the car as "Liberace" and asks me when I am going to install the chandelier interior light.

[dcottam]

Originally Posted by Elombard

993 Turbo suspension? Is that typo.

Yep - typo - make that 993 Turbo brakes.

Another typo is that the short ration gears are 3rd and 4th, not 2nd and 3rd. The drop off from 4th to 5th is pretty big.

[dcottam]

Originally Posted by cajun

If you decide to part with the Fikse, I may be interested. Those are on my list of upgrades for my 86

I am not going to sell anything I take off the car immediately, but anyone interested in anything send me a PM and I will respond if and when I make the decision to part with anything.

Thanks

[Vin-barrett]

Looks like John's car ended up in good hands. Very clean 3.6 swap, congrats

[dcottam]

Modification #2: 10k Tach

I love the 10k Tach and wanted to fit one to the car. I found and bought a used original tach from one of the dismantlers online and sent it to North Hollywood Speedometer for conversion to a 10k unit. This only took a few days and looked great when it came back.
To remove the old tach the steering wheel and switches housing needed to come off:



Popped off the horn button, undoing the wire from the spade terminal at the back of the horn button.



I removed the Momo wheel by undoing the 6 allen head screws to allow access to the hub:



Hub removed:



Then undid the two screws holding the horn contact:



Then removed the switch housings by undoing the 6 screws securing the housing (4 in front and 1 on each side), enabling me to remove the upper and lower switch housings.



The using a spatula and my fingers I was able to wiggle the old tach out of the dash:



I then unplugged the old tach electrical connector (the big white plug), and removed the bulbs for indicators and high beam etc. (these are a bit fiddly, and you need to make sure you remove everything, which meant i needed to use a knife between the bulb housings and the back of the tach to start getting them out) This allowed me to completely remove the old tach. I then plugged in the new tach and inserted the bulbs.

Actually getting the 10k tach back in the dash took me a while took me a while. I tried really hard to simply push it in without success. The rubber ring would always give me an issue, either getting caught on the dash and folding over, or just rolling over the lip of the tach. In the end I asked for help on this forum and went with Vaseline, as suggested by one respondent. I did not really think this would do the trick as it seemed so tight, but it went in like a dream:



There is still Vaseline around the gauges in the last pic - I cleaned that off afterwards.

Reassembling the switch housings is basically the reverse of dis-assembly. I did not re-install the hub and wheel yet as I have plans for them also.

[Elombard]

Really cool, I have always been able to get my Tachs out with out taking the switch cover and wheel off. May be different on the G50 cars.

Ball park cost for that conversion if you dont mind me asking?

[dcottam]

I tried very hard to remove the tach without dismantling the switch housing. It was just impossible.

I really cannot remember the cost of the 10k conversion, which is worrying as it was not that long ago. NHS will tell you if you call them. The difficult bit was finding a used tach. in the end I found one at Oklahoma Foreign - but I cant remember what that cost either!

[Elombard]

Dave - I guess you forgot when you promised to sell me your car for $3500 :-)

No worries, I have been meaning to call them for some time.

[dcottam]

What car? Who is this? Where am I?