Back in beige

[jamie]

Aside from the window carnage, the car is looking pretty cool now:



I have two big issues to overcome:

1. the front headlamps do not fit and will not fit. I think the headlight bowls were either fitted badly on the new wings, or I didn't shave the skim-coat of filler back from the front edge of the wing. Either way, it's looking a lot like the wings are going to have to be fettled and repainted - a total pain in the arse.

2. The exhaust J-tubes (that route from cylinders 1 and 3 to the silencer) came without heater boxes. Having once owned a 911 with rotten heat exchangers, I know want heat in this car. The Dude kindly removed the original heater boxes from the original exhaust J-tubes, and between us we enlarged the in & out holes to accommodate the larger bore of the exhaust.

The problem now is that the new J-tubes are also a different radius than the originals, so the heater boxes don't fit. They can be made to fit, but then they don't join up with the flapper boxes that are mounted below the engine. You can see the offset in the distance between the bracket and the exhaust flange in the picture below.

Not sure what to do about this other than cut them about and add a pipe to bridge the gap. I suspect I'll leave this for ages and then just resign myself to running the car without a heater.

[jamie]

After smashing the windscreen, I decided to try something that stood some chance of not descending into another shitstorm of abject failure.

A long time ago, my dear friend Gray sent me this box of Fyrebraid spark plug wires. These are the Hurricane Katrina wires that I mentioned earlier in the thread - the ones The Dude said were stained with turds and dead people.



Gray had half-assembled the wires, leaving the distributor-ends to be cut and joined by me. He also included a bunch of clips and nice, thick heatshrink. The plug ends had nice rubber grommets which are 100% correct for a 912. I know they're 100% correct because he sent me three massive emails over a period of weeks in which he described, in typical Gray detail, how he had scoured all four corners of the United States in search of the correct part. The final part of the quest involved a four-hour-long seance with several long-dead Porsche engineers - an event which culminated in every window on the front of his house exploding out into the street. Installing the wires today, I really appreciated the effort, since the grommets fit the engine tinware beautifully - much nicer than the stiff plastic crap that was on the engine when I bought the car.

This whole job took an hour or so. The result almost makes up for smashing the windscreen (but not quite, at least not right at this moment).



I love this view of the engine - the bay looks almost empty compared to a 911. I read somewhere that the 912 engine is almost exactly half the weight of a 911 engine. I don't know if that's true, but it certainly looks it here.

[hot66]

Jamie, where have you located the oil filter ?

[jamie]

Not sure yet, but The Dude fitted a CSP bypass (on the bottom of the block, under the tinware) which I will route to a standalone filter. Much better than the original strainer pot, apparently.

Haven't yet decided where to mount the filter yet. I think just behind the driver's side bumper quarter, but out of line with the wheel, for obvious reasons.

[jamie]

***Breaking Windscreen News***

New screen, clear, no mirror or antenna, fitted - £148.80 + VAT from National Windscreens.

I'd consider that a bargain.

[911hillclimber]

BIG improvement, leave it to the experts, that's what I did back then.

You can't be far off now?

[jury]

***Breaking Windscreen News***

New screen, clear, no mirror or antenna, fitted - £148.80 + VAT from National Windscreens.

I'd consider that a bargain.

[Gary71]

Sounds like a plan

It was the same plan I had with the RAC to fit my back screen. They even turned up with two 'old school' windscreen guys with string. After a couple of hours they gave up, didn't charge me and left me to fit it myself with my wife later that night!

[jamie]

Darren very kindly offered my his old screen, but for the sake of having someone fit a new one, and him having a spare screen, I'm happy to pay this. There's also something quite nice about new windscreens - they always look massive and bright.

I'm satisfied that I can fit a windscreen OK - I've done it, I got it right, then I smashed it because I was being fussy. I should have left it alone.

[Darren65]

Darren very kindly offered my his old screen......and him having a spare screen, I'm happy to pay this......

Mongrel's screen is heated and the E's has a built in arial as I couldn't bear drilling the front wing, I don't need a spare.

Tinted, no marking where the RVM sticks on, in good condition and free from major chips and with the correct Sekurit logo........you sure you want to buy a new one?

Up to you!

[Darren65]

Btw....thanks for the reminder and sending me out to the garage......just opening the door brings a huge grin to my face, first time I've smiled all day!

Cheers,

[jamie]

OK OK OK, I'll take your f***ing screen.

So persistent.

[jamie]

You can't be far off now?

I suppose not. Still feels like masses to do.

At the moment I'm struggling with the exhaust. In short here's where I'm at...

When I started this project a friend of mine offered to make a custom 4-into-1 exhaust. He began making it once the engine was assembled, but it never progressed beyond a couple of tack welds.

I ended-up buying a beautiful ready-made exhaust from DDKer NickT.

Nick's exhaust didn't include any provision for heat. The 912 uses a heater system like the 911, except the heater boxes are smaller, and fit around the J-shaped tubes that exit cylinders 1 and 3 on the forward-facing end of the engine.

My original heater boxes were in good condition, and The Dude managed to remove them from the original exhaust and split them in two so they could be used on the custom 4-into-1 exhaust. The entry and exit holes from the boxes were enlarged to accommodate the larger bore of the 4-into-1 exhaust.

The exhaust I ended-up buying from Nick is the same bore as the original - 38mm diameter. If I try to fit the heater boxes, two things happen - 1. the entry and exit holes, which were enlarged for the 4-into-1, aren't tight around the 38mm pipe, and 2. the radius of the 180-degree bend in the J-tube, which is larger than the original, means the boxes won't sit in the right place to mate with the rest of the system.

This evening I tried to fettle the boxes to fit, but it's not a nice result and it was only going to get more ugly, so I stopped.

As such, I'm faced with three options:

1. Spend about £600 on a set of stainless J-tubes with stainless heater boxes.
2. Run the existing J-tubes without heater boxes.
3. Fettle the existing heater boxes to fit the existing J-tubes, which I'm not sure they ever really will.

Once I'm past this bit, I can get the engine started, and that will be cool. Until then, I'll ignore it as I ignore most other stumbling blocks.

[jamie]

This said, I have a grand's-worth of wooden steering wheel sat on my office shelf, doing nothing...

Also found the tubes available on German eBay for £450 for the pair.

[neilbardsley]

Very nice Jamie but in addition to James question where is the coil?

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