To back-date, or not to back-date....?

[Trackrash]

Beautiful car, glad to hear you are keeping it original.

[RSBob]

I had planned to backdate mine until the value went up $10 K in two years. So I decided to make some small mods that are easily reversible. Removed about 165 lbs and made some hot rod mods to make the car a bit quicker and more responsive. Also personalized it more to my taste. All can go back to stock easily. Just a thought unless you want to keep yours strictly stock.

[RocketWrench]

I had planned to backdate mine until the value went up $10 K in two years. So I decided to make some small mods that are easily reversible. Removed about 165 lbs and made some hot rod mods to make the car a bit quicker and more responsive. Also personalized it more to my taste. All can go back to stock easily. Just a thought unless you want to keep yours strictly stock

I also noticed the jump in prices...

Mine will be slightly outlaw-ish, but entirely reversible...

[RocketWrench]

A few more odds and sods while on Easter leave....

Firstly I trashed thee rear 'Elf' speakers as A. The did not work and B. they were right in my line of sight in my mirror and looked awful. Once this was all out. the rear parcel shelf was looking awful, so that needed recovering.

On the subject of trim, I went to see the guys at Awesome Custom Interiors, which are helpfully only five miles from my house, and only five miles from my paint shop, so Ill save some money on transport costs.

Awesome 01480 461195, Custom Re-upholstery Service, VW Interiors, Classic Cars, Campervan Upholstery, Motor Home, Motorsport Seating, Caravan Interiors, Boat Re-upholstery, Aircraft Re-upholstery, Bus Re-upholstery, Fabrics, Sundries, Bespoke Project

I spoke to Glenn and Greg there and discussed the whole interior upgrade that I am planning, and as luck would have it there was a 911 Backdate in their shop being perfected. This will probably not be until August (after painting) and Greg gave me a bit of black vinyl to patch up my parcel shelf temporarily, until they work their magic in there.

First problem was that once everything was removed, it was obvious that water had gotten in the soundproofing and the horsehair was falling apart.




So this I stuck back on the rubber with using normal contact adhesive spray until it looked sort-of normal again.




No rust! Yay!!!!

[RocketWrench]

Then I needed to start on the temp fix for the rear shelf.

First rule of spray adhesive: mask off ANYTHING you don't want glued to something else. I learnt this the hard way.....



Then my amateur finished product looked like this, which will do until the Pros get on it....



Then as light was fading I switched out my sugar scoops for the H4 Euro versions... Much nicer looking....




I went for a drive and with the new bulbs and it was obviously brighter, so I think I will be ditching the front fogs as they are ugly and don't illuminate bugger-all...

[RocketWrench]

Then there was the final removal of the air conditioner inside the cockpit as the knee-pads arrived from Atlanta.



I enlisted my brother on this as he is more electrically minded that I am. He disconnected the power to the A/C and we re-used it as a source for the electric seats.

He was stripping, splicing and crimping while I was applying hammers, drills and grinders to the bottom of the Boxter Hardback seats. There is a great step-by-step on another site on making this work...

Technically minded hands at work:


Combat Engineer hands at work:

[RocketWrench]

Once that was all done, everything put back together:






The knee pads I think are the wrong ones for my model as they are not seamlessly curving at the ends, but as they are to be trimmed as part of the upholstery upgrade in a few months, Im not going to sweat this point out....

None of the tasks were particularly technically difficult, the majority of small irritations were trying to remove nuts and bolts behind stuff and wires being inaccessible. The A/C removal is an epic task, so make sure you have all the tools you need before you start. I still think there is a part in the front left wheel-arch...? Ill get to it...

Next task is to plug all the holes made by the A/C removal, and I am thinking of using perspex as it is flexible and I have an unlimited supply....!

More to follow, but any objections and/or tips are welcome!

[RocketWrench]

I suppose I couldn't have it all my own way.....

I've had a mishap with my headlight upgrade. When I took off the old sugar scoops something odd was behind the lights. On one, the bottom screw went into a U-clip, and on the other, someone had welded in a nut.

I put the new lights in, but the screws that came with them didn't seem to grip the side with the welded nut and it didn't feel secure. Yesterday I went to my mechanic for advice and he took the light out and screwed in my new screw to the end. I was a bit concerned that he might get it cross threaded, but he's the expert, right? I'm sure you can predict what happened next....




About a mile down the road it popped out. Mrs Wrench was then subjected to tri-lingual foul language from me as I watched my sparkly bright new H4 headlamp bouncing down the road in my mirror, fragmenting glass as we went along....

So, I turned round and picked up what was left of the light and kicked the glass off the road. I went back to my mechanic and he looked at the light and immediately apologised mumbling "I thought we had it...." kind of thing.

I asked him to source me a new light and I told him where I got it from, and we will see what solution he comes up with to cover the costs. I can't entirely blame him as the nut looks like it was added afterwards, but if a screw gets resistance, I tend not to carry on screwing it and he did. This is the second time he has messed up, so unless he at least accepts some responsibility, it looks like I will be looking for another garage.

Mrs Wrench though now thinks my car looks like a Pirate.... AAAAArrrrrrrghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

[RocketWrench]

No car update as such, but for those in the south of England, I am starting a meetup group in the Cambridge area for people with classic cars and bikes to come along and admire each other's machines, talk about tyre pressures and the like.

The first one is this Sunday at the Three Horseshoes Pub, in Madingly, Cambridge.

Inaugural Internal combusters meetup: Sunday 19th April 2015. Location TBC - Internal combustion and coffee... (Cambridge, England) - Meetup

Anyone wants to come along and tell me what I'm doing wrong on my car, please do.

[RocketWrench]

Sat: new headlight fitted and went for a drive in the sun...

[RocketWrench]

Sun: Lady-Wrench and I went to Cambridge and met with Ian and his Golden Bullet...


Coffee and cars, and countryside....

[RocketWrench]

Then before I get back to the service of Her Majesty, I thought I would tackle a problem that had been bugging me for a long time:

Before:



After:




The Hella fog lights were ugly, massive and didn't illuminate anything.... Its much cleaner now I think.

[RocketWrench]

Not a huge amount done, except a tidy up of the garage. The A/C is sitting awaiting someone to buy it, though the cockpit end has been reserved already.

The other major task was the storage of removed parts, like the sugar-scoops and stuff.

[RocketWrench]

My sun visors were very puffy and the foam had fallen apart, so I cut them open, extracted all the rotten foam and substituted it with some old roll-mat that we sleep on in the army. I sealed it up with demolition tape, which is a bit like duck tape.

I then put it inside some cheap leather visor covers that I got off ebay, which will do for the interim until the full retrim later in the summer.




Not perfect, but it will do....