Looking for some history.
The car came with little history. A few bills from the previous UK owner, the original SA Registration document and a couple of pictures. A picture of the car next to one that had "Kopke" on it was the starting point. I traced Kopke as Dave Kopke
who had a small garage and recognised the car as he had worked on the engine and stored the vehicle. I asked if he knew who were the people that generally worked on early 911s and he said I could try Tim Abbot.
As you can see from the last post Tapatalk has a life of it's own!
Tim Abbot was most helpful. He remembered rebuilding the car into an "RS" from an accident damaged car that had been left to the mercy of the elements for many years. He provided invoices for a period of 10 years that he had and the names of 8 previous owners. Unfortunately, non of these owners could be found. Tim also told me that his uncle John Abbot had also worked on the car. The Abbot family are well known in SA and Tim is still actively involved in working on Porsches.
A SA watch dealer brought the car to the UK and sold it at auction. He was traceable but did not respond to letters or emails. Two brothers purchased the car at auction and fancied their chances at historic racing. They failed to get an FIA registration and gave up at that point. They took the car to a "specialist" to have some body and mechanical work done but after fairly substantial disassembly of the car were daunted by the task and the costs involved. It was at that point I purchased the car.
Last edited by BILLY BEAN on Tue Jun 02, 2020 12:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Not really as they all started in the correct orientation. One was rotated 90 degrees anti clock wise and one rotated 180 degrees. So the situation is not even consistent.
Parts.
I took on the cleaning and restoring all small parts and fittings and trying to find 'period correct' parts necessary to build a reasonably faithful ST.
Living in the arm pit (being polite) of the West Midlands finding people to media blast, plate parts and powder coat is relatively straight forward. Harder to find are people who can polish and anodize window frames or wheels without knackering things. For these items I had to venture south.
Finding some parts turned into a long term effort. 1971/72
7 x 15 and 9 x 15 Fuchs took time. Indeed the early 1972
9 x15 took three years and came from Germany. Early Recaro seats were sourced in the UK from fellow DDKers. Stretch provided the correct oil console to run the two front under wing oil coolers. The coolers made cheaply by a local guy. Collecting parts and restoring them was the most enjoyable part of the whole build. People talk about "enjoying the process". Having built several cars over the last 40 years with greater or "lesser hands on" I have not really enjoyed the journey. The end product and using the vehicle are the enjoyable parts for me.
This is Peter Ratcliffe's old car isnt it? I remember (vaguely and drunkenly) talking to Abbott snr and junior about it at classic le mans many years ago. I hope its not been too painful but I suspect it has been...
scalino65 wrote:This is Peter Ratcliffe's old car isnt it? I remember (vaguely and drunkenly) talking to Abbott snr and junior about it at classic le mans many years ago. I hope its not been too painful but I suspect it has been...
Yes he owned it for a very short period of time and did not do anything to it at all as far as I can see. He brought it to the UK. Ratcliffe is the guy who does not respond when information is requested.
As I have already posted I never enjoy this sort of project. The pain was dealing with the slow progress made at Fenn Lane and other "specialists" who over promise and under deliver.
Has that other "specialist" giving up now? One of teh chaps on here used to work there as I guess you might already know.
I remember that he took it apart for the brothers as they thought it would make it an easier sell. It had coil-overs on the rear and needed either 12 plugging or de-12 plugging to get fia papers after marcus pye inspected it. Russell Lewis did that work from memory. Was it this car that had a grp tank support/front crossmember... I probably have some pics of it from CLM 2010 if i can find the bloomin external drive thingy
scalino65 wrote:Has that other "specialist" giving up now? One of teh chaps on here used to work there as I guess you might already know.
I remember that he took it apart for the brothers as they thought it would make it an easier sell. It had coil-overs on the rear and needed either 12 plugging or de-12 plugging to get fia papers after marcus pye inspected it. Russell Lewis did that work from memory. Was it this car that had a grp tank support/front crossmember... I probably have some pics of it from CLM 2010 if i can find the bloomin external drive thingy
Thanks for the post. The "other" specialist that I refered to was in the South West near Exeter and has not been in business for some time.
The car did have coil overs at some point but these had been removed by the time I got hold of the car. Evidence of the coil overs was still on the car. The car was all steel except for one rear RS flair so no GRP tank support. To be FIA compliant it would have needed MFI and turning back into a six plug engine and probably a capacity change back to 2.7 litres from 2.8. If you think you may have pictures I would be really pleased to receive them.
That seemed to work. Assuming it's supposed to be that colour.
Couple more...
I don't do this for just anyone, you know. But Kirk has been super helpful during the trials and tribulations of my build(s) so, joking aside, happy to help. Thanks Kirk!
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73 RS (Sold)
67 S
Mint T (Sold)
996 Turbo (Sold)
73 2.4E (home after 25 years) and Sold again
73T targa (signal yellow project)
1953 Vauxhall Velox
914/6
1963 356B https://www.mybespokeroom.com/
Thank you very much Richard for posting the pictures in the perfect orientation. Were you a milk monitor at school?
So back to the plot or build or sodding nightmare as I occasional called it. Dave and I commiserated and supported each other a great deal when things did not go to plan which was more often then any other build I have undertaken.
So how lightweight was one of the issues that needed to be addressed at the paint stage?
Principally how much stone chip to put on the shell given that lots of the panels as detailed above ( somewhere) are GRP or aluminium? Well the floor just got painted but some light stone chip was applied under the wheel arches to try to avoid paint damage. This decision may prove to be a mistake when the car gets on the road.
The shell is just one colour with no black anywhere. There is conflicting evidence as to whether the works, when building STs added the usual black under the car and in the engine bay. To save more masking I went with one colour Light Yellow which is the original colour of the car when it was delivered to SA.
If you know of Dave O'Connor's meticulous ST build you may know his car is the same Light Yellow. My shell was painted after Dave's at Retro Refinishers so we tried to track down the "correct" Light Yellow together. Dave and I looked at two Light Yellow expensively restored original cars: an ST and an RsR
( from memory). Both exhibited different shades of yellow. Glasurit apparently were not the original supplier of the paint in period when I enquired. To try and get a better fix on the "correct" colour I unearthed my petrol filler flap which had not been cleaned as it was not going to be used ( 100 litre centre fill tank). Careful removal of paint layers on it showed a couple of layers of orange and two layers of yellow over the original paint. The underside of the flap was used on the basis that it would have seen little of the SA sun or weather generally. The cleaned area was scanned and paint produced as a result which both Dave and I used.
I had mentioned previously that the front lid seemed to have a life of it's own moving about relative to the surrounding panels. This was eventually solved ( hopefully permanently) by using some PU to bond the panel's skin to the moulded inner frame.
I have used Retro Refinishers before for a full metal repaint of my Pastel Blue 1970 S so was confident that the final finnessing of the panels, panel gaps and panel surface alignment would be to a very good standard as would the paint finish.
The GRP panels sourced in the UK and ostensibly well made, have been a bit of a pain from first trial fitting and took many hours to get looking right. Whilst they provide an authentic construction and save purchase cost over steel panels I would question their use on anything but an "authentic" build as they eat up a lot of labour cost if you want a finish similar to a steel panel.
I did mention above about the centre fill tank. So by way of a post script: I purchased a regular Dansk 100l tank cheapest route), had the regular filler pipe removed and the resulting hole welded up. I did not buy a centre fill kit either as I did not think it was correct. Instead I had already purchased the proper Blau tank cap and collar for €12 and a piece of 4" pipe at a local steel stock holders. Fenn Lane provided a nice "dog bowl". Using a card board tube from the centre of a carpet roll as a trial, it was cut at an angle (lots of trials) and one half rotated at 90 degrees to provide a "cranked" tube to give the correct angle to the front lid and provide a little more clearance for the spare wheel on top of the tank. Making this up with a drain tube took a very long time to be accurately assembled as tolerances are tight. To his credit Jeff at Fenn Lane did a good job of knitting the whole thing together.
Would I go down a centre fill route again? No as it is a real pain.
Last edited by BILLY BEAN on Tue Jun 02, 2020 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I probably have some pics of it from CLM 2010 if i can find the bloomin external drive thingy
