Yet another - slightly less epic - winter 911 roadtrip

[daniel911T]

It's that time again. The Navy has decided it's time to send me somewhere far away again. This will be move #16 in 17 years. I still hate it, but I'm becoming quite a pro.

I just finished two years on the good ship NIMITZ, our second, and now oldest Nuclear aircraft carrier. We just spent the last 9 months in the Middle East playing the role of proverbial "big stick" used to scare Syria. I'm not entirely sure if it worked or not, but at least we're done, and I'm reunited with my car after leaving her with a friend back in March.

I'm taking a short break in Whidbey Island, WA where the Navy has an AMAZING auto hobby shop. I've got a shiny new set of Danish SSIs, a tune up kit, and some new strut cap bushings. I'm going to install the SSIs, tune her up, change the oil, then I'll be hitting the US101 to go to my new duty station: Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.

There will be a brief pit stop in Corvallis, OR. Gotta visit the old college. (Go Beavers!)

This grand old girl has been my daily driver in all weather, year round, during my two years living in Everett, and has seen some very significant upgrades. They were all actually quite minor, but they were the difference between a pleasant daily driver and a cranky old car. I retrofitted a 70A alternator, solid state voltage regulator, and a wiring mod that became standard in '87. That totally cleared up all my battery woes. She got a headlight relay - (highly recommended), and a replacement rear window defroster, some new shoes, and replaced all the rubber bits in the rear suspension. Less important, but equally nice, was the money spent on a very good set of speakers, a nice Alpine head unit, amp and self powered underseat subwoofer.

Even better, the friend I left her with seemed pretty ambivalent when she was dropped off... turns out he's driven her exclusively for the last 6 months! His car is a early 90 something Saab 900, which he's loved, but the Porsche totally won him over. A significant guilty pleasure of these old cars is how extroverted they are. He became addicted to the smiling and waving kids, the old timers who remember when that was a new car, the bikers who love anything air cooled, and everyone else who is somehow made happy by the mere sight of a classic sports car. He was sad to see it go.

I'll post pictures of the SSI's. They look great and I can't wait to see them under the car. I'm also REALLY looking forward to eliminating the many tiny exhaust leaks I've endured because of beat up muffler flanges.

She also has had something happen to the steering while I've been gone. There is no "on-center" feel at all. There is nearly a half turn worth of dead zone in the wheel. I'm going to have an alignment shop look at that tomorrow... feels like it's somehow developed some positive toe or negative caster. In any case, it's pretty damn scary to drive right now.

Once sorted, I can't wait to take by beautiful old girl down the Pacific Coast Highway! This is going to be GREAT!

-Dan

[porwolf]

Dan,

god luck on your new road trip. I still remeber the one from Washington DC to Sealttle in January/Fedbruary. I followed every post and became a passenger, vicariously.

[vtdriver]

Great post.

How do you deal with salty road/rust issues with the car?

[redridge]

seriously, thank you for your service...

As for the steering, the rack may need rebuilding.

[daniel911T]

Originally Posted by vtdriver

Great post.

How do you deal with salty road/rust issues with the car?

Lucky for me, they don't do much with salt down along Puget sound... it's pretty frequently cold, but seldom spends a lot of time below freezing.

I passed through two short salty sections while driving from Virginia to Washington two years ago. The first time I was under the car after that I could barely believe how severe the effects of the brief salt exposure had been. It was especially obvious on my freshly rebuilt transmission that was now covered in a white flaky corrosion. That thing had looked like new only one week earlier.

Since then I've been pretty hard core about frequent washing and going places with undercar blasters. There's a lot of rain here, so she gets frequent freshwater rinses.

Sadly, she is going to need a serious strip and paint sometime in the next 10 years or less... the underbody coatings are flaking off and are not in good shape.

For now: I'm going to enjoy every moment I have with her.

-Dan

[fasterlaster]

Very cool Dan. Looking forward to some photos of the trip.

[daniel911T]

Originally Posted by redridge

seriously, thank you for your service...

As for the steering, the rack may need rebuilding.

You're welcome! The Navy has been quite an adventure...

I was initially concerned that my steering rack may have come loose or something. It's good and tight and there isn't any play in the tie rods (they are turbo replacements and about 3 years old) I also gave all the wheels a very hard shake/jerk. There is some up and down play in the front wheels, and I was surprised to find that there was no play at all right and left. The ball joints are also only about 3 years old... really, I changed out the whole front suspension at the same time.

I am holding out hope that it's just alignment. Perhaps her caretaker curbed her too hard or something. I've got an appointment with a trusted local shop here in Oak Harbor, WA in two hours. That should answer the questions.

-Dan

[porwolf]

About driving under road salt conditions: I remember when I drove in Germany it was common to take a car to a gas station before winter and have the underside sprayed with old engine oil. Then the car was to be driven over a dirt road to catch as much of dust underneath as possible. That oil-dust caking was a pretty good protection against road salt spray. The proof is that parts around an older oil leaking engine are never affected by road salt.

[daniel911T]

Originally Posted by redridge

seriously, thank you for your service...

As for the steering, the rack may need rebuilding.

Curse you.

The alignment is perfect. All the joints and bushings are tight. However, there is about .25in of vertical play in the steering rack input shaft. The rack needs rebuilt.

I was about to tackle it today, but I'm missing one critical thing... the special tie rod wrench. It's locked safely in a tool box in Florida. There aren't any local shops that have the wrench... even if I could afford a $1200 New rack. Oh well... future project.

The alignment shop swears it's safe and recommends fixing it later. Now I know that the wheels won't fall off I feel safe driving it.

Working on the SSI install now.

[redridge]

Originally Posted by daniel911T

Curse you.

The alignment is perfect. All the joints and bushings are tight. However, there is about .25in of vertical play in the steering rack input shaft. The rack needs rebuilt.

I was about to tackle it today, but I'm missing one critical thing... the special tie rod wrench. It's locked safely in a tool box in Florida. There aren't any local shops that have the wrench... even if I could afford a $1200 New rack. Oh well... future project.

The alignment shop swears it's safe and recommends fixing it later. Now I know that the wheels won't fall off I feel safe driving it.

Working on the SSI install now.

sorry to hear, she is an old gal... but she'll be newer when you get done with her.

[daniel911T]

Originally Posted by porwolf

About driving under road salt conditions: I remember when I drove in Germany it was common to take a car to a gas station before winter and have the underside sprayed with old engine oil. Then the car was to be driven over a dirt road to catch as much of dust underneath as possible. That oil-dust caking was a pretty good protection against road salt spray. The proof is that parts around an older oil leaking engine are never affected by road salt.

I'm always slow to fix oil leaks for this exact reason. (At least that's what I keep telling myself!)

[4flyboy]

Eloquent.....can't wait for more. Pictures of the trip/ride please.

subscribed

Scott

[pavegeno]

Details on the under seat subwoofer when you get a few moments pls...thanks!

[kerthunk]

Dan,

I have the tie rod wrench if you want to bring the car out to the island.

I still fondly remember dropping and ripping apart that transmission with you. The corrosion on it WAS nuts.

Shoot me a PM if I can be a hand before you head off.

John

[daniel911T]

Originally Posted by pavegeno

Details on the under seat subwoofer when you get a few moments pls...thanks!

I got the Kicker Hideaway. I paid quite a bit less than the $300 list price, (I think $200, but it was a while ago) and so far it's worth every penny. It has an amazing presence for any size, but it's especially striking for how small it is. It fits fine under the passenger seat and is secure enough that I didn't need to drill mounting holes or anything.

It's also designed to be removed easily, so it comes with a wiring harness that you'll have to splice in. My only complaint with this design is that you can't simply connect the RCA sub out without having to get a bit creative. I was still able to wire it in without incident by simply cutting off the ends of a standard set of RCA cables and just butt splicing the bare wires. It's fine with a signal level input, but is designed to handle a high level input if necessary.

It's self powered with a integrated 150A amp and requires a direct connection to the battery.

I'd rate it as highly recommended, just remember that wiring isn't going to be quite as easy as it should be. Other side of the coin is that you can throw it in a track car and pull it out for track day with a single connector.

Hideaway | KICKER

Enjoy!

[daniel911T]

Originally Posted by kerthunk

Dan,

I have the tie rod wrench if you want to bring the car out to the island.

I still fondly remember dropping and ripping apart that transmission with you. The corrosion on it WAS nuts.

Shoot me a PM if I can be a hand before you head off.

John

I'm going to sleep on that... It would be GREAT to get the steering fixed before any long road trips. Especially before attempting to drive the PCH! I've read up on the steering rack job and it actually looks pretty easy so long as you can get it out of the car!

I was already considering getting boring and just doing 5 all the way down because of lower risk while driving with a 20-30 degree steering dead zone.

Right now I'm struggling with the SSIs: I can't get a wrench on the #5 outboard flange, and of course my tools, the ones that installed that nut, are in storage in Everett. I've spent about 4 hours trying to get a single nut off the damn car. I ran out of desire and time at about 7:30. I'll be reattacking tomorrow morning.

The driver's side is installed and looks beautiful.

I'll get back with you tomorrow... let's see how much I feel like fighting with the rack after I conquer the SSI's.

-Dan

PS - Did I mention that Pelicans are AMAZING!

[dyusem]

The road trip sounds wonderful and I suspect that once you arrive at the NPS you'll enjoy living on the Monterey Peninsula!

If your adventure down the PCH brings you through Pt. Reyes Station, please raise your hand and if time/weather permits, we can have an impromptu parade.

Safe travels and as mentioned, many thanks for your service!!!

[daniel911T]

I had a crappy day yesterday getting my SSIs installed. It was all caused by one stinking nut: cyl 5 outboard. I had no problem pulling it and re-tightening it the last two times I've had the exhaust off, but I've had my tool kit, including an apparently required Snap-On 1/4" drive wobbler extension. I tried for hours with what the shop had in their stock and ultimately failed.

The next morning one of the guys who works there took pity on me and brought in one of his personal tools. Got the job finished in less than 2 hours.

A few interesting lessons learned:
1: The SSI special tool is a useless piece of garbage. It's designed to be used with something other than a normal 13mm nut. WTF were they thinking?

2: The reassembled jigs in Denmark are not set quite perfectly. The heater box where the fresh air tube connects is about 2 mm too big in diameter. Right now my heater is connected by slitting the paper tubes and using a clamp. The stock assembly requires no clamps and is tight while still fitting the standard tubing. I'm pretty shocked by the fit issue. I expected better.

3: As expected, the fit of the exhaust and muffler flanges were perfect.

4: The muffler bolts I removed were not original. I ordered the OEM stuff and think it was one of the better parts of the installation. The right stuff is pretty specialized and I'm a lot less worried about rusting solid in the future. The bolts have a very thick Cad or Zinc plate and are the right length to so that you can get a box end wrench around all the nuts when installed. The nuts are non-nylock self locking brass or bronze. Worth every penny. NLA through Pelican, had to go to Stoddard.

5: The car is noticeably quieter with the very slightly thicker header material. It didn't hurt that the old muffler flanges were beat up from being cut apart in the past. Nice clean flat flanges make for pressure tight connections. It also produces heat better than it did before. 12F out tonight and I couldn't stand to have the heater more than barely cracked on.



Without further ado here's the stainless porn:[



Side by Side






Installed







Out with the old. They're actually in pretty good condition - they'll be in the classifieds sometime soon when I have a place to send them from.

[daniel911T]

Went out to visit John today and get the old girl up on the lift and take a look at that spooky steering. We had a pretty tough time getting the rack out, but after we got the tie rods off, the steering knuckle disconnected and had disassembled everything down below, we pulled off the plastic dust cover and found this:




Yep, one of the bolts connecting the input shaft to the rubber puck was completely backed out. The free play was the steering shaft moving between the heads of the other bolts. That also explains the very pronounced "clunk" feeling I was getting.

I dodged a hell of a bullet there. I can't even imagine how bad it could have been as the other bolt backed out.

Anyway, we pulled the whole assembly out, gave it a through inspection and cleaning, and were amazed by how good the whole thing looked and felt. Somebody was in there and replaced the rack before I got the car. The rubber on the shaft coupler was soft and pliable with no dry rot; the rack still had fresh grease in it; and probably most indicative of it's age, the plastic "puck" used for adjusting tension on the rack showed no wear at all.

There originally were some soft metal pieces that went under both bolt heads on each side of the rubber coupler and gave you tabs to turn up to prevent the bolts backing out. The bottom metal piece with the tabs had rusted away completely leaving a pair of tabs attached to nothing on each of the bottom bolts. The top was rusty but intact. We replaced them with cad plated spring washers and blue locktight. I feel very confident in the fix. Somewhat strangely, there wasn't any rust anywhere else around the rack, only the retaining tab thingies. Even the bolts were pristine... go figure.

We buttoned it up, John sold me some great aerospace grade heater tube that fits over the SSI ducts, and I was on my merry way. It's a totally transformed experience. Wow. I wonder how long that had been bad or failing?

Thanks again John! That's the second time you've saved my butt with your very well stocked (but slightly cold) garage!

I hope I can repay, or at least pay forward, the kindness and help someday.

Tomorrow I may set out for Oregon... kinda depends on a couple of loose ends I need to tie up here.

-Dan

[kerthunk]

It was great seeing you again Dan, and I was happy to help you get back on the road (safely)! I'm glad you went with your gut instinct to check out the steering issue instead of accepting the word of the alignment shop saying that everything was fine.

Safe travels!