First off, serious and solemn thoughts to all in Los Angeles and SoCal. My first two years in this country, 81-83 we lived in Pasaden and I still have great friends and family there. It is one of my favorite places and I take any opportunity to visit, albeit that’s still infrequently. Seeing the damage and destruction is wrenching and deeply disturbing. I’m guessing we’re all bracing for the aftermath and will learn that many of our P-car friends and their kin will have suffered terribly.
Back to the 82 SC: as mentioned in my last post, we all know that much of the labor required when doing something on an old machine involves cleaning stuff, just loads of it. This continued today as I gave the 915 a relatively quick (about an hour) going over: scrape off any thick stuff into the nozzle of a waiting shop vac, apply a degreaser, scrub and rinse; dry with compressed air.
When I got this car, with 183K miles and the engine apart, it came with an incredibly detailed service history. One of the items was a 1-2 synchro replacement at a Boston area shop maybe 15-20k miles previous. But once I got the car assembled and ready to drive, the 2nd gear shift, up and down was just awful. But this was my first 915 experience and I knew the 1-2 synchros were already done, so it must be something else, right? Wrong, although it took me some time and the advice of someone with more knowledge to get me going in the right direction. I took the car to Auto Associates in Canton, CT and they found that the 2nd gear slider was the culprit; with that and fresh synchros, it’s been a sweet shifter ever since. Their painted notation remains.
BTW, as a guy who works in the auto business, I’d like to make the observation that Auto Associates is one of the greatest shops I’ve encountered; they routinely turn out the highest level restorations and race prep, along with the most routine repairs on a wide variety of German cars. And they do this is a warren of pretty humble buildings - no palatial mausoleum to communicate their greatness. Total mensches to deal with and no gaffing the customer on price, no haughty attitude. A rarity!
I also gave the engine bay a quick degrease, rinse and compressed air “lift and fluff” (Bob Ross reference). Now I’m working on the rear piece of engine tin; more to come.
Best, John
