The Jedi 911SC

[TeeJayHoward]

First step, apply new hoses. These are CEET hoses. Supposedly good to some sort of high temperature. Silicone. Wire wrapped. A hell of a lot nicer to deal with than the paper stuff.


Next up, I decided to try and figure out where all the carpet pieces went. Some of them are obvious...


Some of them less so. My car looked like this for at least an hour:


Once I had it all figured out, it was time to apply the adhesive:


And glue the parts down. Some relief cuts were needed. No instructions were given. I ended up cutting in the wrong place. Damnit.


After the transmission hump, I applied this "hidden" piece of fabric that's supposed to cover all the gaps:


Then the rear quarter. And yeah. It really DOES look that bad. Behind this piece of felt is a lot of juke. Any time I'd try to stretch it and smooth it out, the juke would shift and screw it up. After much time spent trying to get it perfect, I gave up and told myself, "Anything is better than what you have." I might end up re-using the factory rear quarter panels if it bugs me enough.


Flipping over to the other side, the other hidden piece...


Then the backing for the rear seats.


Then the bottom of the rear seats.

[TeeJayHoward]

(cont)

Then the side sills.


Then the tunnel. Many, many cuts needed to be made here. In this pic, I have just finished chopping it up.


And in the pic, gluing it down.


Passenger footwell...


Then my shiny new aluminum replacement for the passenger plywood factory kick plate.


Followed by the passenger footwell carpet.


Driver's footwell...


Driver's kick plate.


Driver's footwell carpet.


And finally, seatbelts! First the passenger...

[TeeJayHoward]

(cont)

Then the driver's.


And as a bonus, a bit of bling.




And here it sits.



All in all, a MUCH nicer place to be. Even if certain aspects of the carpet kit (and my install skills) irritate me. You know... Now that it LOOKS like a nicer place to be, maybe it's time to actually MAKE IT a nicer place to be. Let's crack open that Classic Retrofits box!

[TeeJayHoward]

I've got a problem. See, despite being a bit of a project, this IS my daily driver. And right now there's a big "fresh air" hole that dumps into the hood area... And my vents connect to said area. So, at about 35MPH, you get a nice little breeze. Not too shabby in 65-75*F... But this is ALSO going to be my daily in 10*F weather. So I need to block up that hole. Hell, I spent a ton on a new A/C setup. I figure I can install part of it (the blower motor) and just do the rest later. But before I can install the blower motor, I need to get the flapper boxes installed, since the cables route behind the blower motor. And before I can install the flapper boxes, I need to attach the new cables to them. These are the cables I purchased. The ones you CAN still get new. So...

Here are the boxes.


Remove the little clips and replace the old/rusty cable:


Reinstall the clip:


Repeat three times (even though I have four cables, one of them is still good):


And before I connect half the cables to the other box, I think I'll test it...


Aah... So THAT'S the problem. It's not just that the old cables were rusty and semi-seized... The box itself is broken. Well, let's see what a new one costs. PET guide says it's part number 911-571-049-07, listed as a "Control Box". Aaaaand, it's no longer available. Naturally. So, 3D printer to the rescue! I started by removing the top part of the housing that points to the defrost vents. It had a clip like this on one side (the other side being broken... Of course):


Then four of these little rings. I can already tell they're gonna be fun to reinstall:


And just like that, the flapper box separates...


Revealing the busted flap itself:


made up a model:

[TeeJayHoward]

(cont)
Which I then printed sideways because I was impatient and didn't think about the torque on the piece trying to separate the layers.


Fresh off the 3D printer:


Sans supports:


Compared to busted original:


Installing...


Top part of the box installed:


There's supposed to be a little clip that holds it in place like this:


I don't have one, so... Safety wire? Safety wire.


All reconnected, let's give it a go. *SNAP* Fuu.....

[TeeJayHoward]

(cont)
OK, 3D printing isn't going to work. Especially if I don't lay it out right. But what if...




Yup, that'll do. I mean, it's supposedly a heat-set insert, but 750*F on a soldering iron didn't melt the plastic, so I used a vice instead.


Ready to be reinstalled.


But I needed sleep at this point, so how about I swap out my steering wheel real quick first?



Oddly, I'm not a huge fan of it. It's a bit too modern, too... Gas station knife. Plus, it's not dark enough! I might need to pick up a simple round wheel with none of these fancy thumb grooves. I believe they're called Prototipos? In a nice, big size, too, so that I can see the gauges!

Unboxed blower:


Not all of these ports will be used. Need to cap a few.


Cap printed:

[TeeJayHoward]

(cont)

Cap installed:


The blocked port goes to an optional "clock replacement" vent. I'm keeping my clock. Right now, I'm printing up two more caps, for the side vents. Although I'd like to keep them, the backdated dashboard doesn't have side vents, so I'm increasing my air flow through the center vent instead.

I'm gonna need clamps on these side vent caps. Apparently the connector is tapered down a mm or two. My design is simple, with a small guide inside to ensure even seating and hopefully a bit more grip to prevent it from blowing off... But it doesn't look like it's enough.


I don't necessarily need A/C to work, but it'd be nice to have some sort of airflow when I want it, and a lack of airflow when I don't. I'm using my fancy-schmancy new electric A/C system for that purpose. But I don't want to install it the right way, because that takes a ****-ton of work. I just need something that I can jam in there for now. Here's the problem. This little T-piece.


It's supposed to have a tube on one end that goes to the blower, and a tube on the other that goes to the flapper valve.


Problem is, the flapper valve occupies the same space as that T-piece. The instructions say to hack up the T and somehow make it work. Instead, I'mma give myself heat to the floor/windshield, and fresh air from the center vents. That hose routing is MUCH easier. I started by installing the flapper valves:


Then the blower motor:


And... That's that. I'm done. As soon as I reinstall the control unit, I should have fresh air. But the control unit would look so much better in the backdated dash, so...

[TeeJayHoward]

I started by drilling out the rivets on the panel:


Then it's a quick job to slide the three levers into the new faceplate and tighten everything down:



But I gotta have somewhere to PUT it. That means removing the blanking plates...


And all the foam around the blanking plates...


And the glovebox door...


Then the lower trim:


And all my knobs and doodads:


One of the knobs I needed to remove was the one you pull to open the fuel door. It's a simple knob connected to a cable. You have to unscrew one end of the cable and pull it out through the inside of the car. So, I popped open the door and started taking stuff out of the way.


Unfortunately, I didn't have a good enough grip on the little cable stop, and the freakin' cable snapped. Oh well, I'll jury-rig a quick fix in a bit. Lemme finish the dash first. More foam removed:

[TeeJayHoward]

(cont)

I tried to route the cables first, and then hook them to the control panel. That didn't work. So I took off the cables and attached them to the control panel:


And then ran them into the frunk... Where I discovered that all three cables are too short. Well, balls. I'mma have to jury-rig something there too. Once again... Later. Here I'm test-fitting the lower dash replacement:


Yeah, it's interfering with something in the steering column. And I can't see what. So...


Off it comes. And now the lower dash sits snuggly:


The lower dash manufacturer sent a bunch of self-tapping screws to hold the dashboard in. I substituted M4 nuts and bolts.


And here I'm mocking up the trim:


Said trim was NOT made for my car. Here's my hazard switch. The hole's too small.


I've got something for that...


I attached the trim securely at some point while messing around with the hazard switch. I decided to test it out, make sure I didn't drill into a wire or something. Unfortunately, I somehow shorted out my headlight switch, and I think I blew a relay, because now my turn signals don't blink. They're just solid. Well, the headlights are kinda important, so I decided to drill out the hole and use the plastic bit that the car was using before I swapped out the dash:

[TeeJayHoward]

(cont)

There we go. No worries about shorts now:


Now I need to attach the fabric that covers all this, and then one 10mm bolt holds the control unit in:


But about this point in time, I decided that it's time to get to the "I'll do that later" stuff. First off is the fuel filler door. That's pretty important. It's DAMNED hard to get open without the cable, and I can't just drive around with it open all the time. So, I looked around the garage for something to use. What caught my eye was some thin safety wire. A quick loop on both ends and I've got a short-term fix.


I came inside to see what the total damage is going to be. I need three cables for the control box, one for the fuel door, a new headlight switch, a new blinker relay, and maybe a new hazard light switch (mine no longer does anything, but that might be related to the blinker relay). All in all, an expensive day, and I didn't even finish putting in the dashboard.



...But I DO have a functioning blower.

[TeeJayHoward]

The parts for the fuel door pull came in.


Turns out I got the wrong size for the knob, so that's not getting used. Instead, I disassembled the original and am reusing that and the spacer. Which, now that I look at it... I could have removed the spacer and reused the "broken" cable as it would have given me JUST enough length. Rats.


Stuck the new wire through the hole and pushed...


Then attached the screw doohickey that prevents it from coming back out when you yank on it:


After that, it's just a matter of throwing the rest of the crap back in the fuel door cavity place thing.

[TeeJayHoward]

The turn signal relay... It's up here somewhere... (Behind the gauges on the driver's side)


Aah, there we go...


And here's the part I'll be replacing it with...


Two hours of troubleshooting later, I learned it's not the relay. I couldn't figure out why I could get the turn signals to light up with the fuse pulled out. Then I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get power to the relay socket. Tracing one wire after another lead to this...


That's where the hazard flasher goes through the... Is it still a firewall if it's on the other end of the car from the engine? The dash support. Whatever. APPARENTLY I had disconnected it at some point while installing the backdated dash. Fudge. Oh well, I guess I've got a spare, and it was only like $15. Next up is installing the basketweave material on the dash to cover up that ugly aluminum and make it actually look finished.

[TeeJayHoward]

Light scuff on the aluminum:


It looks like they didn't pre-cut the basketweave material:


I'll just glue down the bottom:


Then cut the top to size:


And repeat on the other side:


The surround for the ignition cylinder was a bit ragged:


So it got replaced with an aluminum one:


I used the recommended contact cement, and boy howdy was that a mistake. The material absorbed it and shrank/curved/stretched. The end result looks pretty bad. I decided to stop and think about the next step, and work on something else. Like the lug nuts.

[TeeJayHoward]

Replacing the lug nuts with the proper ball seat style. Here you can see the difference between the two:


And you can KINDA see the damage done to the wheels here.


All 20 old nuts:


Easy fix, now how about finishing up that tint?

[TeeJayHoward]

Using a scraper made a HELL of a difference. Well, once I modified a box cutter blade to fit in it, anyway - The blades that came with the scraper were so soft that the GLUE was pitting them. Ick. Never buy Craftsman razor blades! I used the steamer ahead of the blade to soften up the glue, and then scraped away. Anyway, here it is after a few hours of work.


It's about 98% done. I've still gotta get into the corners and take off the tiny bits that I missed like this:


Of course, I was greeted by this when I got home from work that night:


Looks like it's time for new wheels and tires!

[TeeJayHoward]

I ordered some fake Fuchs and some Blizzaks, since it was winter at the time.


I think they look pretty darned good.


Unfortunately, I need to design and print up some center caps, 'cause the 993 ones I have don't fit, and the ones on the BBS wheels aren't fitting either. Also because I think this would be a fairly cool little detail to have on my center caps:


(I mean, you DID see my license plate, right?)

This should be good enough to print up real quick and check dimensions with, if nothing else...


Print complete. Still with glue on it…


Does it fit the 16x6? Yup. And perfectly, too. The tabs hold a lot more securely than I had anticipated. So much so that I’m drastically reducing the size of them in the next version.


I wanted to be sure the 16x7s didn’t have a different center piece, so I unboxed one of them too. Looks identical.


Version 2 needed a lip to hold them in place - this test piece falls inwards. I had anticipated this, but I underestimated just how much the center cap relies on that lip to not get flung out. I’m also not happy with the bridging, but so can’t get the slicer software to put supports where I want them, so… whatever.

Oh, and since I had the wheels out, I weighed them. 16lbs for the 16x6 and 18.2lbs for the 16x7. Not too shabby

For v2, the Jedi logo has been scaled up a bit to fit on the new, bigger surface.


Costs $0.67 to print, and takes 1h45m. I can live with this

[TeeJayHoward]

(cont)
In fact, it worked so well that I don't think there's gonna be a v3.


However, by the time the third one printed, it just keeps getting worse. I decided to try printing them with supports, rotated 180*. (3h26m, $1.06 in material each)


The result was MUCH nicer.


Removing the supports IS a bit of a pain though.


I started the next day by paying Discount to mount and balance the tires. Nothing went wrong there. But on the way home, I dropped by my local hardware store to pick up some paint. That... Didn't go so well. I couldn't figure out a way to paint just the raised portion of the center caps. I tried a traditional brush, a foam brush, a paper towel, a toothpick (which worked decent but left a bad texture), and anything I could think of. I just wasn't happy with the end result.


The one that looks the best of these four not-to-be-used parts is the first one where I masked up and cut out.


I had JUST gotten done spraying it when I thought to myself, "You idiot. PETG comes in multiple colors. Just print the raised part in grey."

This spray paint is so gorram thin it can wick under the masking tape


These look like kid’s Christmas ornaments - Obviously unacceptable.

Now, that being said. Even though the application looks like poop, the theory? I’m enjoying it.


There we go. I'm happy with that. And only 15 minutes to remove the supports. I'm getting faster!

[TeeJayHoward]

(cont)
One down, three to go. Here's what it looks like installed in the wheel:


This is "Space Grey". It's the closest to metallic silver I could find in PETG. Not quite as good a color match as the metallic paint, sadly:


Winter mode engaged!


Just changing the wheels made it feel like a whole new car. And hell, look like one, too! Now if only the interior were as nice...

[TeeJayHoward]

First...


I have to remove...


The old...


Material...


There we go. Now let's print up a couple parts and slide them in...


More...


HVAC needs to go back in...


There we go.


Damnit, I was off by 2mm...



Oh well, reprints are cheap. However, ADD is real, so...

[TeeJayHoward]

One of the issues I'm currently having with the car is that the passenger's door won't lock easily. And if it DOES eventually lock, it's almost impossible to get it to unlock. Now, oddly, this was not an issue until after I "renovated" the door. If you take all the new parts off, it locks and unlocks perfectly fine. In fact, if you just remove the little lock indicator surround below, it works perfectly.


It turns out that the 10mm lock pin fits a bit TOO snugly into the 10mm hole in the lock pin surround. I guess 40 years of sunshine and heat shrank the rubber a bit. Now I COULD just go out and get a replacement, but there's no guarantee that it won't have the same problem. In my mind, it's better to widen the hole to 11mm, leaving half a mil on each side... So, since I'm bored and waiting anyway...



I'll hooked up some TPU and turned the detail as far up as it's ever been. 0.05mm per layer. Not because it's needed, no... Because I don't know that I'll ever print a piece this small again, and damnit, I wanna know if it's worth it! If I had tried this fine a setting for, say, the HVAC surround I just printed, it would be a 30+ hour print. For this little 20mm piece it's under one hour. Including supports. There was a big ol’ booger on the top of the print, but a Dremel took care of it. Pics tell the story.




Lock works now. So onwards and forwards, to the hood!