DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Hi Richard,

The 'Guest Words' of David Conklin in the latest issue of Classic Porsche will certainly resonate with you…….I think he'd approve of your project!

Yes - they did, I thought it was an interesting piece.....

And of course we used a lot of his photos of the 700 mile 70 S for reference in the painting etc....

Here's the link if anyone is interested - there's some great detail stuff here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80724421@N ... 169538658/

August the 19th was my last update - bloody hell, how quickly does time fly when life gets in the way? Had a massive few months at work and the car has taken a back-seat.

There has been some slow and steady progress since I last updated....it goes like this....

Pedal box in and gear-stick in along with coupler











New handbrake boot - I've never had one of these before....



And also I've put the front suspension on - this is all going to be checked by experts before it sees anything like a drive out on public roads....I really don't trust myself on all of this stuff up front

If you spot anything - holler...





Including turbo tie-rods - these look a lot more substantial and modern than the others. Frankly, I'm happy to upgrade this bit. I've kept the originals, so they can always be fitted back if necessary



And I've fitted the steering too








And our own Mr Parr re-stitched my 'new' 380mm wheel that I got with lovely patina on the leather. Jonathan has done an absolutely top notch job on this, really great work. This leather was quite difficult to work with. It looks lovely, very, very pleased with it.



you'll notice that I've not restored the wheel in any way other than the re-stitch. No paint, nothing. I'm going to live with it for a while to see if it feels it needs a repainting, but I'm liking the slightly 'lived-in' feel to it.





And with it's new cancel-ring and horn switch....in place and looking lovely....



On reflection, quite a lot has gone on the car, but it feels a bit glacial at the moment.

Got to get my finger out as I've booked the train for Le Mans....gulp. Putting a project plan together over Christmas to make sure I can get there....

Happy Christmas everyone, it's been a great year, some fantastic meet-ups with you and some fabulous cars built or being built. See you in the New Year.

R

Good to see the 'correct' approach continuing Rich - glad you've resisted the temptation to restore the steering wheel ...

Indeed, agree with that.
To re-stitch the leather and keep the 'life' of the patina I think will make the car very useable.
Keeping things from the past are important to me in the car being very old-skool, and my 911 of 25 years has lots of scars from my re-building , the 13 years of hillclimbing and DIY spannering.

Love it to death.

Richard, assume you are fitting a strut to lower ball joint tapered bolt ? Make sure you use one from Porsche as I found they fit better

hot66 wrote:Richard, assume you are fitting a strut to lower ball joint tapered bolt ? Make sure you use one from Porsche as I found they fit better

Deffo, got them already, and from Porsche....

So do I need a special tool to tighten the castle nuts? They seem to keep twisting round the ball joints on the tie-rods, so can't get them low enough to get the cotter-pin in....

Either give the ball-joint a 'gentle'(-ish) tap from below with a soft-face hammer to push the taper together, or use a clamp round the ball-joint and tie-rod to hold the two together while you do up the nut. Once it starts to pull the taper in, you're away.

Great advice- thx. BTW that article on Darren's car was a great story. Really liked it He was buzzing when I spoke to him earlier....in that super-modest way he has....

A bit more progress. Was due to have the Sage of the Lakes down this week, but due to 'a bit of a blowy weather' he was unable to come, which means that I was left to my own devices...

So I did the doors - which frankly was a walk away job.....many times. Certainly for the first door. Got the rods mixed up, got the plastic clippy things puncturing my fingers (don't ask) couldn't get the door lock out (till I discovered that if you click it 'shut' it slips out of the door like a dream). Forgot to put the rubber guides on and had to undo it all. Dropped washers inside of the door where you can't get at them when putting the quarterlights in.....so basically, just completely inept.

Anyway, perseverance made it look like this......and those newly chromed quarterlights look fab.







And that's one deeply tedious but ultimately satisfying job out of the way....

And then I fitted the fuel filler neck, with appropriate rubber and inner wing foamy grommet.

And to finish off, I bought one of these quite a while ago now. It's a NOS filler flap - even has 'Western Germany' marked on it...



And when it's in place, this is officially the first section of the car that I have finished

And then onto the oil system - I'd had the front oil-cooler vapour blasted by Alan and the sh*t shield powder coated (nice job too on both). I'd cleaned and sorted the connecting hoses and Alan had powder-coated the in-wing lines that attached to the through the sill ones that had been powder coated before being buried in the sills by Barry.

Took the front bumper off to get to it all easily - was thinking I'd need to take the wing off, but you really don't need to. I'd also forgotten what a pleasure it is to work on a clean car, with clean bits to bolt back on. It really is a great way to spend some time.

OK - So I've bought a new oil tank too, I'd like to call it an indulgence, but frankly my other one was shot, so I had to bite the (extremely expensive) bullet and buy a new one.

Soooooo - all it needed was for me to take the oil-level sender out from the old tank and put it in the new, which I'd done some time ago, so now just needed to refit. So forgive the stream of consciousness, but it went like this: First the grommet......(And that's when I got a bit cross) - the grommet didn't fit. Bloody hell - the tank's duff, those studs are in the wrong place. Never mind, I can alter the grommet if I need to......hang on, if the tank's out, I bet the sender won't fit either. Will do a test fit (upside down so I don't have to get the thing in and out as its a PITA) Nope doesn't bloody fit.

Phone call to Alan - Scott answers. "Scott, Tank's duff, studs are off, it's a critical piece, what can we do to get it right?" Calm as you like...."Can you send me some pictures of your old tank and your new one, I'll have a look"

Email grumpily. Lots of photos.

Phone call from Scott five minutes later...... "Richard, you do know that there's a specific orientation for the grommet and the sender? If you don't get it right the level would be wrong. It's designed not to fit in other orientations. Try rotating your grommet and sender around all five points till you get it....." (And all this without a hint of being patronising or sniggering in the background - true professional)

"Oh....thanks, I'll give that a go" *embarrassed face all round*

2 minutes later. The grommet and sender fall into place in the perfectly aligned tank.......Oops. Big thanks to Scott for bearing with me on that one....



Der.....

Looking great Richard ….

….love your hands on approach, good for you

Thanks Darren, but I'm just doing the grunt work - this stuff is really technically easy - hence me doing it when it comes to brakes, electrics, seals, suspension set-up, that's going to be left to the professionals.

My job is to make the bits not rattly....