I spewed the below in the Market discussion, but after a couple year hiatus, amended and moved this here to rejoin the community and announce my stupidity and ignorance with authority.
After a 14 year drought to support private schools and college, I am finally back in the game. I recently drove 997s, Caymans and watched BAT and PCARMarket sales make my stomach churn, but finally settled on 3.2 Carrera Targa. Will be picking the car up next weekend, and then let the misadventures begin.
I credit my wife for knowing me well enough that, even had a bought a 997 (which I really really liked) that I would enjoy, I would always be sifting the boards looking for an older aircooled project. I think she really likes the older cars as well as they are unique and come with the built in advantage of the easy button for birthdays, Father's Day, Christmas, and all of the other spare change in the house.
The car was laid up for some time, but gone through by a specialist shop and the current owner made some really good calls to do establish the driving baseline. Engine was gone through, fuel tank and system flushed, new pump, filters, cleaned injectors, all hoses checked, full tune, cap, rotor, plugs, valve job, sensors etc. G50 was serviced and checked. Every oil line front to back was replaced. Every component on the brake system, all hard lines, softlinks, booster, rotors, pads and calipers are new. New contol arm, new bill steins all around. New Yoko tires, and Audette LED headlights.
Car drove really solid - and to enjoy as is, I just have typical laundry list of 34 year old bits and parts that need to be refreshed over time. Interior is in decent shape, with a couple of areas that need minor attention. Will have a paintless dent guy go over half a dozen spots, and in the attempt to keep as much of the original paint as possible, will wade through options for chip and touch up in a couple of areas. Body is really straight, and no rust.
So near term, I will get her home, and spend the weekend, or two, going top to bottom with a thorough clean and detail. Then ID, document and prioritize near, mid and long-term objectives. After cleaning interior, engine bay, and bottom, will address the door checks first, and then engine and tranny mounts (plan to go with WEVO Black for those).
The items I am not looking forward to are ( in no order ): dealing with missing passenger door lock cylinder
(no idea what led to that), repainting the targa bar (wurth matte vs. wurth satin vs. rustoleum 777 decision ahead), and removing and cleaning the engine fan and shroud (creosote vs polish, paint, or anodize?). Most is just time and grunt labor - but the lock cylinder is making my head hurt - have not had any luck finding one yet.
For now, will focus on getting to know, and baselining the car, then driving it for 4-6 months to develop confidence - I expect the car will let me know what the priorities need to be. Depending on the cost of some paint touch up and interior repairs, the stock market, and my wife's patience - these will dictate the decision to leave it original or make some personal touches.
Mid and long-term, if I cannot resurrect the existing AC, will convert with Griffiths, and also sooner than later will add the Porsche Classic stereo with Airplay etc...Why not, getting soft in my old age. Will likely add a Prototipo well as well - not sure if I will just go with the Black edition, or more dish as I am 6'3" and the added dish might improve driving position.
The final stages will address stance, complete refresh of suspension bushings, and refresh of the interior. Have a good dash, but will interweave some Rennline (an others) bits and parts, and convert over to charcoal square weave with black RS doorcards, replace plastic with metal bits, and find some seats to recover with houndstooth inserts. When I get to this point, I expect we will be back to the beginning of the soundtrack and looking at top end or engine refresh.
Good Lord, what could possibly go wrong?
Since parting with my 70E, I have often cruised the boards like a lost soul over the years and really look forward to diving back in - cannon ball style. It is damn cool to see a lot of names that I still recognize, and many that helped me many many moons ago are still here. Anecdotally when I sold my 70E 14 years ago, I packed up a considerable tech library - all factory, tools, spare parts - all of it, and shipped it with the car. Yes, I am an idiot - so now I get to start all over again beginning last week when I shook the owner's hand to buy the Targa. Ironically, call it karma, but the seller is tossing in his Bentleys and a box of different parts from the car, and his pile of receipts.
So as an old newbie, I may as well get started by asking for help out of the chute
1 - anybody have a couple of door lock cylinders with the tumblers for a reasonable $$ so I can Jethro Bodine my way through learning to reset the lock on the passenger door?
2 - If anyone has manuals or tech docs for 87-89 cars serving as nesting material for garage critters, let me know. Not sure of my real needs given the vast amount of info online, videos and write ups, but I enjoy reading repair manuals to understand where all the parts belong
3 - I also will start to try and track down the toolkit from the original owner who is 20 miles from me, but no guarantees there. I am building up a traveling kit, but at some point will want to have a 3.2 kit, just because.
I apologize for vomiting words both in the Marketplace discussion, and then on this first post in years - but I am just so damn excited I cannot stand it!
Happy New Year to you all - I look forward to embarrassing myself, getting bashed, and learning a lot from this crowd in 2022.