1987 3.2 Carrera Backdate project - Sladeys hotrod

[RobFrost]

OK to wrap up this part of the car’s story I got it all back together
And switched the cars round in the garage



I drove it to work 3 days last week - it’s going to be my daily driver for the summer.

I absolutely loved driving it - it’s like putting on a pair of your favourite old shoes or a favourite jacket. The rebuilt suspension is really nice - much better damping over some poor road surfaces. So that’s all great but the shocker to me is how good it is in the real world compared to the GT4.

I’m very lucky to have been daily driving a Cayman GT for the last year. It’s an awesome car, very very fast and very involving. But in real world terms the old car is quicker. Let me explain.

I like to have a nice drive to and from work so use country lanes whenever I can - they are the only roads on which we can enjoy ourselves now. Country roads are, by definition, narrow.

There is one stretch of road I often take on the way home. If it’s empty it’s a joy, but frequently you’ll get a dawdler pootling along at 30 mph (it’s a 60 zone). In the GT4 there are only 2 places where I can pass someone, and even then I have to hustle my way alongside them. If they aren’t paying attention it can surprise them that I am alongside and close to them.

In the old car, it’s so much narrower that I can nip by in half a dozen places - all with plenty of room to spare. Because there is more space the overtake is less confrontational and there is no ‘hustling’ involved.

So yes, for me and my driving routes, the old car is faster.

If there was no other traffic the GT4 would undoubtedly be quicker. But it wouldn’t be as much fun.

Add to this the sense of connection you get with the older cars and I’m happy as a pig in shite

Finally there must have been a dozen people who reacted to the car in a positive way on my commute - a double-take, pointing at it, or just giving a thumbs up and a grin. All of which makes you feel good about the car and about life in general.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

It's lovely the feedback i get in my black 3.2 backdate. People nudge each other, point, take their phones out for photos, thumbs up... and if I go to a car event, the photographers, instagrammers always go for it. And it's wonderful to drive. Terrifying, but wonderful.

Sent from my SM-G988B using Tapatalk

[BILLY BEAN]

That picture of your car in your Uber garage gives me a semi which, trust me, unaided, is a very appreciative state these days

Blimey. You are a youngster so a bit early for malfunctioning. Perhaps it is the water in Norfolk or the beer?

Great write up Sladey particularly the GT4 v Early 911 comparison.

[sladey]

OK it’s probably time for another update.

After the last lot of work I joined some mates for an epic trip around the Austrian and Italian alps (Dolomites?). It was utterly fantastic and the car behaved brilliantly.

A couple of times I heard some sort of chuffing sound - it was really hard to track it down and it didn’t seem there all the time (i.e. when the engine was screaming at 7000 rpm you couldn’t hear it)

I looked all over for the source of the noise bunt no joy. It didn’t seem to affect anything in relation to how the car drove so I put it down to ‘character’

Fast forward a couple of months and I really enjoyed a trip to CLM with mates.

The picture below was at a lunch stop on the way back and was taken before the noise got louder and I had to pull over and look under the car




There I found one of the handbrake cables dragging along the floor. I jacked the car up in the street and after a minute or two someone came out of the front door I was next to.

After a brief conversation he went and got me a few big cable ties and I was able to tie up the handbrake cable and continue my journey home - handbrakeless. This wasn’t such a hardship as the handbrake has been crap for the last decade.

So this was the next project - replace the handbrake cable. This was new territory for me as it’s one of the few things on the car that I hadn’t yet worked on


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

So a few weeks ago I started the strip down/

Initially it wasn’t too difficult - but things were looking more than a little grubby



And



Now you see that castellated nut? You see the threaded bar that it screws onto? That is one end of the handbrake cable - it’s meant to stretch all the way back up tot he handbrake lever between the seats

Mine didn’t quite stretch that far



Yes the cable had sheared off near the end. The cable itself is pretty stiff and strong, and consequently the pieces of wire sticking out are like little knives, ready to slice through something


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

What could they slice through you might ask?

How about a cv boot?



Mission creep has started…..

New half shaft ordered.

Then I set about removing the rear hubs. These basically drifted out - I found that a large socket put upside down on an extension bar made the perfect tool



And it drifted out fairly well. Once it was out you can see that the outer part of the wheel bearing was still stuck onto the shaft.

They weren’t easy to separate. On one side a chisel helped to slightly widen the gap so I could get a hub puller in there. the other side took more effort - grinding the ears of the hub puller and eventually I got them off.

As the bearing had been separated it seemed sensible that while I was in there I should replace the rear wheel bearings - which is widely agreed to be a real bitch of a job.

More mission creep….


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[RobFrost]

Legend has it there is a pair of drum brakes lurking at the back of a 911 but never before have I seen photographic evidence.

Sent from my SM-G988B using Tapatalk

[Ian Comerford]

Mission creep, yes, but at least you are using that lovely garage as intended.

[sladey]

OK so that still left the rest of the bearing to push out. Now if you look online it is widely agreed that this job is a bit of a bitch. I wouldn’t dispute that. Basically it takes a lot of force to get the bearing out and it isn’t something you want to (or could) do by hitting it with a hammer.

A few people have put videos and articles about using M10 threaded rod and some cast iron plumbing fittings - 3” diameter. However when I measured mine carefully I realised that this wouldn’t work- I’m guessing for the G50 model they increased the size of the wheel bearing

So this is what you need to pull out


You’ve got to pull this out. The plumbing fitting wouldn’t work but I found a pulley I had made previously when I was trying to make a big sander. This had a hollow in it that was the right size to I combined that with some 30mm threaded rod that I had lying around (welded a bit nut onto the end and I ended up with this


It took some pretty high forces to wind it out. Also I got part way out and found the indentation in the pulley wasn’t deep enough so I had tp put spacers in and wind it some more.

Eventually I ended up with this

Happy days


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

I did the same thing on the other side - but look at the state of the old bearing!


Not nice.

I should mention in this that the nut holding the hub on on a G50 is torqued to 450NM - so before taking out the half-shaft that had to be contended with. I put a long crowbar across the wheel studs and used a big torque wrench. It move one of the studs slightly out of alignment but it tapped back fine.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

So now I had to insert the new bearings. I ended up ordering original Porsche ones from design 911 as I saw a comment in a thread that they’d used non-standard and were replacing them a few years down the line.

I put both of them in the freezer overnight. I then also made another tool to help me wind them in.

Here was the first go

It’s the bottom of an acro prop that I’d ground smooth.

So I started winding the bearing in. However…..

It started going in on the wonk. Never (well almost never) a good thing.

I wound it out again and tried again

Worse!

This was starting to try my patience so I went and had something to eat. When I thought about it, I reckoned that my acro prop base wasn’t good enough - there was nothing to make it sit in the middle of the hole and it could potentially allow you to wind it in at an angle

So after a bit of thought and welding I came up with this

The two welded nuts meant it was more likely to keep the bar perpendicular, and the fact that you could see around the angle iron meant it was easier to position in the middle of the hole.

As it wound in it started spinning the angle iron so I ended up with some extra clapping to stop it turning




This time it wound in straight. It still took a massive force to wind it in but it ended up seated nicely.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

Now I’d got the right tool the other side went in a lot easier - also probably helped by the fact that it was still cold when I was winding it in.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[rhd racer]

Nice work. Angus did my rear bearings for me, but the day before had broken the proper tool so had to wait for another to arrive. It just shows the forces involved if the proper tool breaks on you…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sladey]

Absolutely. When I wound in the first side there were a few aluminium shavings pushed through

Nothing on the other side which was where the bearing was still cold

[RobFrost]

Reassuring how well engineered these cars are.

Sent from my SM-G988B using Tapatalk

[sladey]

Looks like I missed out a bit. After drifting out the hub you are left with the brake holder (dunno if it’s called that) but this is what I’m talking about



All the handbrake stuff is mounted on this. It’s only held in by a small plate with 4 bolts. On the first side it came off pretty easily.

ON the second side it was a different matter. No amount of hammering, levering etc would budge it.

So eventually



Cutting discs in a grinder sorted it out. The steel and alu hub had bonded together. It left some bumpy surface behind which I assume was part of the galvanic corrosion(?) - you can see it on this pic - so I sanded the smooth again




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro