DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Righto enough of this bike stuff, back down in deepest Devon something stirred and it was El Stevo banging away at a bit of tin for my wee beastie. With all the 2.4 engine and 901 gearbox positioning well sorted what was left was a large hole where the little rear seat squabs are usually located. Steve fabricated a neat panel to revert the rear section of the car back to virtually what it was like before we started chopping it up to get the new motor and trans in. With it painted front and back it is securely attached and should take the original seat bases. Sorry pics are back to front and stupid small . . .

I'm still filling my hole and limited to the amount of pics I can post so here is part 2, riveting stuff init

Here we are again and with my hole suitably filled Mr K. got busy with the Dynomat and covered the whole area in this wonderful stuff that does a brilliant job in sound absorption. Being in lock-down Steve sent me these pics and rather worryingly if you look closely at one of them you can see the three stud wheels of a Citroen which is I think either a camionette or an H van. Both equally horrible and should not be sharing space next to all the lovely Porsches in Steve's workshop. Oh gosh maybe I'm being a little hasty, so alors, c'est la vie and all that.

And the first pic of my last post showed the big hole where all the greasy bits are going to go. hopefully, and don't those 7" Fuchs fit the wheelarch nice. The rubber is Toyo Proxes if you are interested which I doubt. So with the gearbox just about to find its way home it was time for a bit of brake line work and nice and neat it is too. The brake calipers plus all the rear brake hardware is new.

With all the major engineering work well behind us now there are only smaller detail type jobs to be completed. There is the gear shift linkage, throttle cable and bracketry, a small amount of wiring to the rear, painting and installation of the engine lid brackets and catch. OK not so small after all, but nothing involving heavy machinery. It is hoped that the engine and trans can be installed by the end of next week so with fingers and toes crossed this wee beastie might just taste the tarmac around Easter time. There is one item I hadn't figured on and with the rear section returning to something like a stock configuration with the 2+2 rear seats in their original position I might just have to stump up for some tasty leather interior just to keep the standards up.

Looks great, really coming together now.

Finished in time for the summer?

I really do hope so as it would be July this year which will be three years since I last drove the car. It was hit on the 1st July when returning from a classic car meet and then went to Classic Fabs for repair and subsequent engine conversion. The only curve ball it might throw my way is the gearbox, the engine has been running and it all sounds good plus I have dyno sheets on it, but the trans is an unknown quantity with only the sellers confirmation that it is all fine the only guarantee. Whatever, if it is a bucket of bolts I'll just get it rebuilt as quickly as possible, it's only time and money.

That was a nice bit of work on the rear seat area. All these jobs take time and thought to get correct. Well done!
Roy

Thank you Roy and thank you to Steve, Kerti that is of Classic Fabs who has really been getting on with my wee beastie, actually I think he is just fed up with looking at it and wants it out of his workshop. A minor recent hick up was with the rear disc brake shields that were missing a particular flange. Couldn't get the correct ones so a return was fabricated and neatly welded on to the existing pieces. Also the machine shop that Steve had been using in the past for more involved engineering jobs suddenly packed up sticks and moved away without a by your leave or anything. This was a major problem as my driveshafts needed shortening, resplining and sizing for O rings. Fortunately a new crew was found and the driveshafts were correctly machined and finished. I had previously bought all the many pieces that make up the rather fiddly handbrake mechanisms and this lot was all brought together although linking it to my 911 floor mounted handbrake has yet to be completed. Here's the ridiculous 3 allowable pics

So the driveshafts got finished and installed and it's looking nice and tidy underneath. I shall be running the Koni coil-overs in conjunction with the torsion bars but finding a suitable spring rate for the Konis will take some experimentation.

As I mentioned previously Steve is really cracking on with the car and the most recent report I received was that he had re-installed the gearbox and engine with some electrical work left to be done and hook ups for the clutch cable and throttle linkage to be completed. I think the engine looks absolutely awesome sitting in the back and the time cannot be very far off when it can be taken out onto the Devon lanes and be given a damn good thrashing. Bang on!

But it does need to be a bit lower

That engine looks well in there! Fantastic

Looking cool Graham - would be great if you had it back end May!

Looks awesome