Wot, not another '79 Targa resto thread

[Gary71]

Looking good, finally getting parts back on!

What’s the plan for final paint?

[Bootsy]

Yes, looking great. Super thread

[PeterK]

Thanks, guys
Final paint will wait until the spring / early summer. Got plenty to keep me going until then , including getting the panel gaps on the front wings & bonnet sorted, plus everything still needs primer filler and blocking, then another sealing coat. That can be done over the winter, in between the wiring, plumbing and engine rebuild. Doesn't sound so bad if you say it quickly

[jtparr]

Take your time Peter and enjoy the build....if you rush it we won’t have as much to read and savour...

[PeterK]

Well some things go to plan and others don’t. But (tease ON) exciting news to follow (tease OFF).

So, my plan was to sandblast the parts of the pedal box, flapper valves and handbrake, then paint them today. Sandblasting went well, and today I did manage to clean, phosclean and then de-salt them.


However, SWMBO decided that today was to be gardening day, and verily, it was so. Now it’s too cold to spray the various bits, although the paint is nice and warm as it has been sitting next to the AGA all day.

So to the tease / exciting bit - well it was exciting for me, but simple things please simple minds .
I took delivery of a new set of oil lines today, but there was quite a dent where I assume a jack has been mis-placed - the pipes were almost squashed at the rear.

Having fought like a Trojan, I finally managed to get the lines separated from the oil cooler and stat. I have a set of fittings to connect air to the lines (sorry about the photo quality)


Unfortunately, having stripped the lines apart, I realised that the cooler end needs a female connector, whereas I only had male. So, thinking quickly I reconnected the oil cooler and away we go. Only not so fast – I couldn’t get the male fittings to seal properly on the other ends of the pipes. Having removed the oil cooler again, the fittings were placed in the vice and the spanner swung to tighten enough to seal. Then I could refit oil cooler once more.

The airline was connected


And pressurised to just over 100psi. Then a liberal addition of heat and you can see the oil pipes just restore themselves to their original shape. Magic.

All done





If anyone would like to borrow the fittings, just let me know

[sladey]

Impressive stuff - smart thinking

[Phill]

That's very clever - impressed.

[PeterK]

Well SWMBO has been loaded onto a plane and so the garage beckoned.
All my ‘bits’ have been panted, but where do all the bits go ??


First off, flapper valve rebuild / reassemble. Remarkably simple and now nice and pretty

Very pleased with how these turned out.

Next came the handbrake lever.
First I screwed the switch that detects handbrake on or off into place and fitted the handbrake lever itself. Then I realised that I couldn’t get the handbrake latching pawl into place with the switch in place, so removed everything and started again.

Apart from deciding which side the heating lever needed to go (thank goodness for a photo from dis-assembly), it was also very straightforward.

Shame that the 'Defrost' lever end piece looks so shabby.

Then onto the pedal box, and here life got a little bit more complicated.
I had Wayne’s 101 projects book, the Porsche workshop manual and the Bentley manual, all of which showed only part of the assembly and were LHD. My pedal box was in a very poor state of repair when I got the car, with several bushings missing, so even though I had photos, I was missing some big clues.


So I started with these bits, shuffled them around, and tried them a few ways until I was reasonably comfortable with them. Fitted bushings and assembled.



The clutch pedal spring seems to pull the pedal the wrong way, so I assume that is just keeping tension on the linkage, etc. Time will tell when I try and connect the gearbox !. Also, I fixed everything together, but looking at the car, I may need to remove the throttle linkage extension to actually fit the cluster into the car. That can wait while I finish routing the wiring out of the tunnel and into the froot.

Hopefully a bit more time to play today, but then sailing again. Why do people want training when it’s freezing cold, blowing a gale and near to the biggest tides – especially when they are most likely just getting a refresher before jetting off somewhere warm, without tides or wind !

[PeterK]

Well all in all, a bitsa day today – I did bitsa this and bitsa that.

Started by cleaning and reorganising some of the furtniture in the garage. Then added the brake pipe protection, where it runs through the tunnel. Porsche sell some expensive bits of protection pipe – I just bought some cheap rubber tube, cut it to length and split it to fit over the pipe. Looks proper standard.

Then I attacked the calipers. Starting with this messy lot



I removed the pistons and seals


And now have a dilemma (well 2 actually)

Firstly, I would like to get the calipers replated, then paint over the plating. However, do I need to split the calipers, and if I do, are there seals between the halves and if so, where can I get some ?

Secondly, the front pistons have marks around the top.

Now the marks are above the sealing rings (and most but not all should polish out), and so should not impact use. However, having renewed so much, do I spend another £200 and get new pistons to be absolutely sure. The rear pistons are mint, although there seemed to be water behind them and a sludgy mess on their backs. That just wiped off. Brakes has seemed fine before I took it off he road, which is worrying.

Then the plating tank came out again


And after a couple of batches, we had



While the plating was cooking, I also spent time laying all the various loom parts on the car, in aproximately the right positions. Scary stuff.

I also removed a few insulated splices, quick connect terminals, etc and soldered joints with shrink wrap over. The main engine loom was in a very sorry state, with much of the loom wrap falling or fallen off, and strange wires joined on (let’s just rewire things with black wire, that will make fault finding easy NOT). Need to get some yellow with black trace wire, but the rest of the loom is a sight prettier now.


I appear to have thrown away the wiring that connects the in car autoheat sensor, but Phill came to my rescue. To remove his unused cable, he had to cut it, so a quick repair was made, and all is well in the world. Well it will be when I work out how to thread the cable back up the screen pillar .

[rhd racer]

Fantastic thread Peter, love the ingenuity with the oil lines and of course the plating tank!

Personally, I would do the pistons to be sure. Once the corrosion has started it will likely return and become a problem, whereas with new pistons you can be assured of future reliability.

Keep up the good work

Cheers
Wayne

[jjeffries]

I believe calipers have square cut rubber o-rings between the two halves, and the bolts (Riebe?) holding them together are special. Check out PMB Performance's website, great outfit in Colorado which does ATE caliper restoration AND sells parts to DIY-ers, too. John

[PeterK]

Thanks both

[PeterK]

A few steps back in the middle, but a lot more forward to report
The garage Bitch came a-callin’ again yesterday . First we had coffee (of course), then a slight diversion while he helped me cut the outside of the hedge. Despite a ‘hedge cutting’ sign, plus barriers there to protect us, drivers were still approaching at speed and forcing on-coming traffic to swerve out of the way – amazing at people’s impatience and/or stupidity considering we’re just around a blind bend and the road is barely wide enough to pass anyway. Then we hit the garage (not literally !).

We found all the parts and assembled a trailing arm and torsion plate.


Things of note include that Porsche, SuperPro and Powerflex do not list replacement bushes for the rear ARB drop links. That is a serious shame, as I had been sent drop link bushes as part of the SC ‘kit’, but they are for the front of an earlier 911. The wrongly supplied parts can go back, but when they arrived, I removed the original bushes from the drop links. Replacement drop links are about £100, but one side is NLA !!

Not sure where to go from here – if anyone has some good drop links I could be interested. If anyone knows a source of bushes that would be brilliant. Last resort will probably be to use rose joints and make my own, as I did on my Lotus Elan Plus 2.



Anyway, the SC then finally came off the cradle supports that attach to the suspension pick up points and onto wooden spreaders .

Today I had a play with the TIG – delayed while I got a new auto-darkening helmet, as my previous one didn’t like low power (less than about 50A) TIG welding. Great fun, but more practice needed.

Then back onto suspension and building up the second trailing arm/torsion plate. Went to fit them, and found that I need the torsion plates off the swinging arms, so took them both apart (the slight backward steps mentioned at the outset).

Fitted the torsion plate to the off-side and my initial placement of the torsion bar was spot on to give me 34’ (as mentioned in the Bentley manual).


A bit of bolting fun and


I know that the bolts don't protrude far enough through locking nuts - I didn't have enough new 1.5pitch nuts, so temporarily used the lockers. New standard nuts ordered last night.

The near side needed 2 attempts to get the inner spline location, but the first attempt with the outer splines, so not too unlucky.

I fitted the ARB – well the chassis mounts anyway, pending resolution of the drop link issuette. I have to return a set of rear ARB bushes – the parts list supplied suggested 2 types were needed. On inspection, one set was up to MY84 and the other for after. Clearly I only need one set, and actually I needed the post '84 type.

I then fitted the rear shock absorbers. Well, the top nuts anyway – need to look a bit harder and find the lower mounting bolts.


Starting to look like a car again

[The Garage Bitch]

Wow Peter

Quite a transformation after crawling around under the bare arse of the car yesterday.
What a difference getting the boingy bits bolted on

Well done matey. Looking good and a nice step forward

[PeterK]

…. nothing on TV, SWMBO is in NZ, so onto the front suspension…..

New bearings into front hub


Fix disc onto hub using new bolts, washers & nuts, then assemble onto strut. Dust cap will remain off to remind me that I have not set the bearing end-float or tightened the pinch bolt.


Add new bottom ball joint


Ready for next side, except it’s now after 10pm and past my bedtime , so that will have to with until tomorrow (with luck)