Saving another '73

[frankc]

I have owned my ’77 Targa for a long time (decades) - and now that I recently finished its long (8 year) restoration, I am thoroughly enjoying it again. But, I have always also wanted a coupe (I only drive the Targa with the top off), and in particular, a longhood coupe.

So, a few years ago I started looking for longhood coupe project that I could start restoring once the ’77 was finished. I figured that if I didn’t make the move now, that I would soon be priced out of the market.

In the Spring of 2014 I saw a Craigslist ad for a ’73T coupe shell in San Antonio (the owner turned out to be a fellow Pelican). I drove down to take a look at the car and assess the amount of sheet metal work it was going to need. The car had been sitting outside, under a tree, for a number of years with the glass and interior out. Having the interior out was a good thing because we’ve all seen the pictures of what happens when water gets under the trim – it gets absorbed by the horsehair and then slowly rusts away the metal under it. Of course, the water had to go somewhere, and given that the car was listing such that the water collected near the pedal cluster area, that whole area of the floorboard and tunnel is gone (I’ll post pictures later).

Here is a photo of the car's "good side" as I found it under the tree – although I probably don’t need to mention that it was under a tree once you see the amount of leaves .



I decided to purchase the car, but needed return with a trailer to tow it home. I first needed to make the car into a roller - as you can see from the first set of photos, the car had trailing arms and control arms, but no struts, or wheels. With a quick email to the local 911 group, I was able to find everything I needed, rented a trailer, and brought the ‘73T home. There was some drama on the tow home, but I’ll leave that story for another time.

The ‘73T sat in my garage untouched for nearly 18 months while I finished the ‘77. I did begin a massive parts hunt for all the missing pieces during that time, including trying to track down the matching numbers engine and transmission. I should mention that this is a RoW ‘73T, hence the engine is a 2.4 with Zenith carbs (type 911/57), unlike the MFI or CIS 2.4Ts for the US market. My hunt for the engine dead ended in Australia – I’ll provide more details later.

Two weeks ago I finally started work on the ‘73T, and will provide an update of my progress in my next post – this post is more of an introduction. In case you're wondering, my plans for the car are to perform a mostly stock restoration, with a few practical changes/updates along the way.

A few more photos before putting it on the trailer:

[Trackrash]

That is an ambitious project. Looking forward to following your progress.

[Matt Monson]

Good on you for saving one. He should have paid you to remove it for him. Looking forward to watching it come back to life after that neglect.

[stewartjp]

Wow, good work mate. I can't wait to hear the full story of this car!

[jpnovak]

Frank. I can't wait to see it in its former green glory.

[frankc]

Thanks for the interest - I'll definitely be learning a few new skills as I tackle this one.

Jamie,
While you'll be measuring the completion time for Minne in months, I'll be measuring this project in years . I hope you won't mind me bothering you too much for your sage advice on this one - I'm going to need it.

[Wout_RS]

Damn, that will be a seriuos project!

I would love to follow it!

But great that someone is saving 911's from srapyard

[Mats W]

Looks interesting I sure want to follow your work on this one!

[wayner]

This is a scary sequel

Subscribed!

[Robert Adams]

Fortune cookie say" The quest will be worth every minute!"
Looking forward to future posts.

[impactbumper]

Frank you are a hero.

[stewartjp]

More photos and story please !

[RL technical]

Very interesting find, for further 901 details check out the 901 register located in Australia lots of good 901 connections there.

[RichardNew]

I can't even imagine.

Richard Newton
Gauge Restoration

[Quickstep192]

You are one hell of a man! I admire guys and guys like you that save these old cars.

[frankc]

Since some folks were asking, here's my story on the car (so far).

After purchasing the car, in addition to constantly monitoring the Pelican and Early911SRegistry sites for parts, I kicked off three tasks; request a Certificate of Authenticity from PCNA, try to find previous owner(s), and try to find the original engine and transmission.

Obviously requesting the CoA was the easiest of the three, and it revealed a nicely equipped ‘T’ (see below) with “Paint to Sample” metallic green paint, Sport Seats, S Trim, Sway Bars and Cookie Cutter wheels. The car came with a pair of 69/70 seats when I purchased it, so obviously the sport seats were long gone.

Using information from the Title, I was able to trace back three owners of the car, and upon finding some contact information, I reached out to him via email. Fortunately he responded and we had a nice chat over the phone (he is also a car guy). He lived in the area where I would be picking up the car, so I dropped by his house as I was trailing the car home so that he could see it in its current state. He mentioned that he started stripping the car himself for a restoration many years ago, but then ended up selling the car as-is to a guy that planned to use it as a father-son restoration project. Apparently that project never happened, and the car was finally sold to person from whom I bought it (either for parts or to turn it into a track car – I’m not sure). As a stroke of luck, while I was at his house, he gave me some photos he had of the car, and then he mentioned that he still had a box of parts from the car in the garage, and asked me if I wanted them. Yes, of course! The box turned out to contain all of the lighting, horns, horn grilles, seat belts, wood floor boards, and other miscellaneous items. Not all of the parts are usable due to the car being hit on the left front at the time it was disassembled, but certainly a nice bonus never the less.

Regarding the engine and transmission, they were still in the car when the PO bought it. He sold the engine to a local guy, who subsequently moved to Australia, taking the engine with him. He is also a fellow Pelican, so I reached out to him but did not receive a response until nearly a year later, stating that he sold the engine sometime around 2007 in Australia, but has no record of the transaction – so that’s as far as I got.

The transmission was also sold to a Pelican, but when I contacted him, he did not recall the transaction, nor did he have the bellhousing with the S/N I was looking for. So another dead end there.

This leaves me with a few directions that I could go on the drivetrain. I would like to keep a Mg case engine in the car, so one option is to go with a 2.7 with Webers & RS P&Cs– the same as my ’77 setup. The other option is try to find a correct year and type engine (1973 Type 911/57), but those are hard to find in the US since they were never imported here. I have found one for sale so far, and a couple others where the owners may want to sell.

I would like to find out more history on the car, e.g.; in which country it was originally sold, and when it was imported to the US, but I don’t know if this information is available anywhere. I requested a Title history from the Texas DPS, but that only went back as far as the owner I already contacted. Any suggestions are welcome.

Here is the CoA. Notice the “Porsche Script on Door – Green”. Since green script is not available as a one of the standard colors for the door scripts, I’m wondering if this was also a special order color like the paint.

[porsche boy]

Great story so far....will keep reading for future posts

[frankc]

The first order of business to begin working on the car was to remove the suspension and steering rack, and then put the car on the dolly that I built when working on the ’77 (I did this work two weekends ago). This will allow me to better inspect the chassis for rust and any other damage, plus move it around in my garage much easier.

I started with the rear suspension. The four bolts for the spring plate bushing cover came out without a fuss. I should note that so far I am very pleased that I have been able to remove all the fasteners without snapping off any (knock on wood). I was even able to remove the nuts for the heater control boxes without breaking those small studs. I have been spraying everything with AeroKroil every few months over the last 18 months in preparation for this day – so that probably helped . I was also pleased to see that, even though the heads of the bolts were rusty, the threads of most bolts still had the original Cad plating on the, so the water didn’t get far.

A few obligatory photos:

That is one crusty spring plate bushing cover. It came off without too much effort, as did the spring plate with the torsion bar.





There was not too much drama on the front suspension either. The only issue I had was that I was unable to separate the control arms from the front crossmember (rusted in place) with the crossmember still bolted to the chassis, so I removed all three pieces as a single unit and then used a hammer and chisel to separate them.

A few more photos:


Plating still on bolt threads:


I think the splash pan was home to more than a few critters over the years:


Control arms fused to the crossmember. I'm hoping all these pieces will clean up well and look nice after powder coating:


I'll clean up the aluminum rack and have the caps re-plated. And turbo tie-rods, of course.


And here it is on the dolly. The fenders were just temporarily bolted in place for a test fit (purchased from a fellow Pelican).


I know folks are wanting to see pictures of the areas that will need repair. I will start gathering those and post them after I finish the disassembly.

Next up - removal of the ventilation system under the cowl, and the dash pad.

[rennch]

Love me a good build thread! Are you going to strip and media blast it?

[frankc]

Originally Posted by wayner

This is a scary sequel

Wayner,
Thanks for the inspiration for the thread title

Originally Posted by emptyo

Are you going to strip and media blast it?

I have inquired about media blasting the whole chassis with the shop that does my blasting and powder coating, but I have not decided if I'm going to go this route yet. I want to get the car on the rotisserie first and will then decide. Besides, having the car on the rotisserie will allow the better access for blasting.