DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Day two at Francis Tuthill

Jane from Tuthill made reservations for me at a lovely B&B in a nearby village, and after a well busy working day, i took the car there, and got a very welcome reception i might add: 'Superbe Monsieur' 'c'est mangnifique'! The people at the B&B saw the belgian numberplate, and thought i spoke french, and tried their best to welcome me I had a great night of sleep (very welcome after a hectic weekend in London), and the following morning, i drove the little Porsche through the beautiful winding roads of Oxfordshire. Francis had given me orders to do a hefty testdrive, and warm the cqar up properly before coming back to the shop; this way, they could tell if the oil-leak-fix at the crankcase breather had worked or not. It was better, but still not quite 100%. The testdrive itself was great: the car ran much better with the freshly oiled distributor, and most of the misfires were gone.

Lee and Carl started working on the protection sheets in the wheelwells, and they had a pretty tough time with it: these cars are almost handbuilt, and thus not symmetrical at all. The curvature of the 911 is also very complicated, so the guys had to adjust and refit the sheets numerous of times before they got it right. The sheets are bolted on brackets that are welded to the chassis: one guy welds, the other one looks at the other side of the metal plate, and shoots 'FIRE' when things got too hot.

Meanwhile, another mechanic removed the rear drive-axles, and swapped the old crusty CV boots for a brand new set. This will prevent dust and dirt getting into the bearings, and destroy them in the process...

The guys then mounted the mudflaps behind the rear wheels, and Richard - son of the boss - testdrove the car to make sure everything felt good. The play in the steering column was fixed too by the way: one spacer was put in the wrong way and caused the excessive play. When he returned he said all was good, apart from a little adjustment to be made at the clutch cable. I thanked the guys, paid the bill, and took off to Leicester.

I made a couple of wrong exits, and made it a little late at Tim's house in the suburbs of Leicester. He's the man who has tested and fixed our CDI unit. We drank a cuppa tea together, and talked about our joined passion for old Porsches, but soon i had to be on my way. I had another meeting that night: Mick from www.openpitlane.co.uk - another proud sponsor of us - also lives in the area, and so i really wanted to say hello to this kind man. While i was waiting for him, i noticed a strangely familiar sound nearby, and yeppp, a few seconds later a magnificent yellow Porsche 993 RS turned into the street, and parked behind our little car. Mick bought me a couple of drinks, and we talked about the cars and the trip. He is really excited about the whole adventure, and it was great talking to him. He showed me to the local Hilday Inn, and the two yellow 911's said goodbye to eachother. I dived into the gigantic bed in my overly luxurious hotel suite, and fell asleep in a minute. I was knackered from this long long day.

Grantham, Lincolnshire was next on my list, and after a lovely breakfast i rode to my host there: Paintshield. Tom Wakeford and his people welcomed me, and after a couple of good laughs - Belgium is an easy target to laugh with, rightfully so - they started working on the car. First up was a nice bath, and then into the workshop for a testfitment of protective film.

After a great night of sleep at Tom and Ann's home, we went back to the workshop. I got a treat, because Ann took me there in her gorgeous bright orange Porsche boxster! It's a lovely little car, with plenty of shove, and an amazing amount of grip, as i found out on the roundabouts near Grantham! It really reminded me of a ride i took in a 914 a couple of months ago...

Now's a good time to add a little bit of background about Paintshield: After a long carreer in consultancy, Tom started this company 6 years ago, together with his wife Ann, and they built up a strong business since then. It is hard to start up your own business - i know that because i did it too - but once you get rolling, there's nothing like being your own boss, and trying to improve and grow something you've created for yourself. Paintshield is a professional outfit, with lots of high-end customers over the past years, and rightfully so. The product is really clever, and the way it is applied beats the competition: there's no cutting to be done on the car, so there's no danger of damaging the paintwork. The film is cut - from a digital template - before it is mounted on the car. Whenever a new car is covered, the template is saved, and can be used over and over again for similar models. Our car is the first old 911 they are covering, so it takes a little while longer to get the film fitting perfectly. Our adventure will be a fantastic test for Paintshield, because the protective film will have a really hard time: it will see snow, hail, rain, salt, sand, mud and rocks, and it will encounter temperatures from -15°C to over 40°C. We might throw in a little crash or two, but let's hope not!!! We will keep a diary too of how well the product holds up to all these attacks.

Anyway, back in the shop, Joe had started to work on our car. It is not easy to mate the clear protective film with the abundancy of roundings and curves on our old 911, but patience is the key here, and about an hour later, i saw a perfectly covered right frond wing! It is almost unnoticeable, except when you look right at the edges, from a very close distance. I don't notice any colour difference at all. In the meantime, i get to play on my laptop, read magazines, and play xbox games in the visitors center. I almost forget the rivers of coffee and tea that are flowing towards my stomach.














Day three at Paintshield: Joe has started working on the final parts of our car: rear decklid, roof, and the bumpers. In the previous 2 days, he has covered the front wings, the front hood, the doors and both rear wings. To design and install the complete car in three days is a testimony that these guys know what they are doing. The protective film is almost invisible, and fits the car and all its curves like a glove! I'm really impressed.

As i experienced a little fire under the dashboard in England, i thought it might be time to take a closer look at the wiring of our beloved yellow sportscar.

I set out to redo the whole front wiring loom, including the fusebox, and inspect the wiring in and under the dashboard, and replace everything that looks suspicious.

As it goes with moost of our projects, i started with a little side-project to kick off the electrical repairs: i decided to give our VDO clock a closer look. Our clock worked only intermittently, and in the never-ending pursuit of a complete working car, i thought it would be nice if this beautiful little 60's clock would work again.

An article in the Pelican Parts technical knowledge base pointed me in the right direction: in 40 years time, a lot of crud and dust crawled it's way into the tiny guts of the clock, and jams it...i opened up the clock, and played with the gears a bit to understand the way it works. Every couple of minutes, the clock gets a shot of current from the battery, which loads one of the gears, which then gradually ticks back to zero, untill another shot of current gets things going again. I watched the cycle a couple of times, and noticed that the mechanism jammed up about halfway through the cycle. I sprayed the whole thing generously with electrical cleaner/contact spray, and saw a lot of filth dripping out of the guts. I blew everything dry, and started the mechanism again, and yepp, this time the clock would run through it's entire cycle. Easy fix!

A second little project was the install of our repaired CDI unit in the engine compartment. On my trip to England, i met up with Tim Bennet, who has a lot of experience in repairing these CDI boxes, and he was so kind to test our unit and change the faulty thrystor in it. Tim was so kind to do this FOC for us, and we will test the new type of thrystor for him. Thanks Tim!!!

I hooked up the CDI, together with an appropriate coil - designed to work with a CDI - and cleaned up all the wires in the engine compartment. It's very tidy back there again, and more so, the car started right up, and ran a lot smoother than before on the old-school kettering ignition. No testdrive just yet, because i had other fish to fry first.

Next on the list was the complete dismantling of the front wiring loom, together with the main fusebox. As you can clearly tell, the whole thing looked aweful, and was actually very dangerous too...i don't want our car to burn out!!

I carefully took all the wiring out of the fusebox, and made notes of what went where. The sight of a bundle 30 loose wires is a bit frightning at first, but i guess you get used to it. I compared everything with the 1969 electrical diagram, and to my surprise 99% of the wiring was still stock!

The front headlight loom showed it's age the most: insultion melted, wires corroded, bad connections, some stripped cables, etc...i decided to rebuild it. I kept the original round connector blocks, and connected a brand new self-made loom to it. Not the original colors, OK, but these are very hard to find, and i will just draw an updated diagram using my colors. I am very happy with The finished product (see picture): all the connections are neatly soldered and crimped, and protected with heatshrink. I even tested the resistance on all the wires before continuing.

With this project out of the way, i tackled the fusebox-problem: at first i wanted to convert it to more modern push-type fuses, but i wasn't really happy with the quality of the fuseboxes i bought, so i looked out for another solution. I found the perfect solution in the mounting of a mid-year 911 style fusebox. This box is much better protected, and looks so much tidier than the 2 old little birds' nests hanging from the chassis wall in the early cars...A big thank you goes out to Filip from FG Porsche (one of our biggest sponsors) who promptly gave me a midyear-box for free! Thanks Filip!

I cut all the original wires a couple of cms short, untill i found nice 'n' shiny copper, pre-soldered them, and hooked them up to the new fusebox. I put in an extra relay as well for the soon to be mounted Hella Fog lights. I also added one extra circuit for all our gadgets in the car (satnav, laptop, mobile phones, etc...).

In the meantime i also changed the worn battery cable with a brand new one, together with two brand new battery pole connectors. I will also look out for a more durable solution for the protection of the positive poles from shorting out against the chassis: a piece of bicycle inner tube with some duct tape over it doesn't look very safe to be honest

I was expecting some fuses to blow, or maybe a little bit of a burning smell here and there , but when i tried to start the car, everything went perfectly as planned, and the car fired right up, and all the electrics were working!

More to come in part 2 of the electrical works!

We got our first visa in! Pakistan and India are already OK.

Also, our Carnet de Passage has just arrived!!

Dear friends,

As you might know, we (Jan & Erwin) will leave on the trip of our lifetime on Sunday 30 November 2008.

You will be able to follow our adventures on our trusty website http://www.Carreratochina.com , and we will make sure the updates will be plentyfull and detailed!

We would like to invite you to our 'Car-Trek: Lift-Off' party, which is held the evening before our departure. Here are the details:


Where: NH Hotel Gent Belfort, Hoogpoort 63, 9000 Ghent, BELGIUM.

When: Saturday 29 November 2008, from 20u00.

Who: family, friends, supporters...everyone is welcome!!

Entry: Free.

What: meet the adventurers and the their little yellow sportscar...of course with some food and drinks, and a bit of music.

Dresscode: none (of course )


You are also welcome to wave us goodbye on our official departure, from the Sint-Pieters-square in Ghent Centre, Belgium, on Sunday 30 November 2008, at 10 a.m.

If needed, it is possible to stay overnight in the NH Hotel. Underground parking is available. Click here for booking info and details:
http://www.nh-hotels.com/nh/en/hotels/b ... 1660000000

In attachment you will find our official invitation!

Hopefully we'll see you there!

Kind regards,
Jan & Erwin