Wot, not another '79 Targa resto thread

[coomo]

Thanks for the ongoing interest and support guys.

Not sure If I read this right.If you are getting scratches in fully cured paint, its not the 2500 flatting paper thats causing them.Either the substrate is not flat(has marks) and those imperfections are showing though, as the paint fully cures, or your not keeping the panel clean (plenty of clean water & washing liquid) as you flat it and your introducing rubbish which is causing scratches.Use a rubber block to remove water as you go.You will be able to see if youve flatted enough/removed imperfections.Dont rely on compound to remove imperfections its job is to polish an already perefect surface.
If you are seeing random scratches "appear" as your mopping.Its due to the heat your generating causing the primer to "move about" Its not fully cured.Dont believe tech sheets that tell you its cured in 24 hours (presuming 2k ) I always leave 4/5 days before blocking primer and same again for top coat.That also should negate the chance of burning top coat when you mop it.Great thread.Really well written.

Thanks Coomo for the suggestions, but pretty sure it was the sandpaper, as when I changed from 2500 to 2000, my issues went away.

I'm using clean water with washing up liquid and the paint had cured for several weeks when I was experiencing issues. Happy with the surface finish now, although I still have to polish a few specks of dust out of the new finishes.
Peter

Glad your sorted.If you have dust specks only,use a small block (wood rubber etc) Dont be tempted to use a finger.Its too soft and will skate over the mark.Its also easier to see if the mark has gone(now flat) used dry.Once its out, then add some water and re flat a tad.

[PeterK]

Cheers

[jtparr]

Good stuff Peter...
Keep the updates coming....

[PeterK]

Front wings painted, sailing course suitably instructed, so some time to play again.

In what is hopefully not premature, considering I still have to colour buff the paintwork, I removed all of the plastic sheeting from the walls and garage. I looked like a snowman with all the dust. Then I brought a selection of boxes down from the loft, ready for cleaning and reassembling into the shell.


I’ll pause a moment so that you can play spot the parts ……..







OK, that’s long enough.
Top left is my doors box – the window mechanisms, etc. Just on front is the Boxster washer water tank to go in the FLH wheel well, just behind the wheel. Brackets, wiring, etc from Jonny H.
On the left is my shiny oil tank, with the windscreen wiper motor bottom (more later). Next to that is the old air box and the ClassicRetrofit ECO electric cooler (well the airbox containing blower and evaporator anyway). The carboard box has (most of) the air routing pipework and plastic parts, with a couple of new pipes poking out from behind it.

Order of play for the day was windscreen wiper, alarm wiring, then air box & assorted pipework and ducting.
In went the wiper motor for a test fit. BTW, I’ve managed to lose one of the nuts that holds the wiper blades onto the spindles, so I’ll have a hunt around but maybe after a replacement. Best approach seemed to be to lead with the spindles and rotate the wiper motor into place.
The electrical connections (separate spade connectors, not a plug) come in at the rear, but the loom is too constrained to attach before fitting the motor, so I pushed out the two left clocks from the dash. Having managed to pull the connections off before I could record what wire went where, a quick Google found a sketch on Pelican of the connections. It was a bit of a challenge to get the wires on to the terminals, but probably would be quite simple for an advance gynaecologist. Turned the ignition key and blew the 5A safety fuse I have in my battery earth. Silly me – installed a 15A and the wipers made a nice swishing motion, with very fast, a pulsing fast, slow and slow. The keen eyed will notice there is no stop in that lot. A quick check of connections made no difference, so there followed about an hour of checking, stripping and cleaning the switch, ensuring that the springy fingers in the switch were good, but all to no avail. Yes, I know that the spring fingers are usually the cause of not parking rather than not stopping at all (unless the ignition was turned off), but there was a straw so I was clutching it. In the middle of all of this the 15A fuse cried foul, so I fitted the 25A (which I should have used in step 1, but couldn’t find my bag of them, cunningly hidden while I was painting).

Much Googling followed until I found another wiring sketch that was completely different to the one I had used. Rewired it (see above comments about gynos), and voila, everything works as it should, including self-park and intermittent wipe. Happy days. Shame about the lost hour or so.

[Gary71]

Looking good Peter. Remembering where everything goes is always fun!

[PeterK]

Finding where I put everything is the first issue

When I painted the front wings again, I wanted to paint the fuel flap. Guess that will have to wait, as I couldn't find it anywhere

[PeterK]

Next order of play – more wiring, specifically the alarm and heated front window relays. STOP. Bl00dy doors are a nuisance without the latches fitted, they either keep swinging open or I have to remove and reattach masking tape to keep them closed when not in use. Remember the wipers – keep them in mind.

Diverted and refitted door latches (no door seals at this stage).



Yes I know they from different doors, but I was too lazy to walk around. I was stood on the RHS, so I took photos of the latches on that side and across the car for the inside shot.

Back onto relays….. and first decision was where to mount them. The inner wing is a bit of a no-no, as I don’t want screws poking towards the tyres. Nice flat and out of the way panel on the bulkhead, but where does all of the ventilation piping go ??. Only one way to find out, so relays down and pick up the blowy bits.

Firstly I laid out the main air diverter parts, and worked out which cables went where. It became easier when I put the diverters on the correct sides.


As this was a complete refit of the ventilation system, I had all of the cables to reattach, along with the slider mechanism in the dash. This was verging on a 3 man job at times, but we got it done. One cable is so stiff that it wants to bend rather than push, but it’s getting easier. Then I mounted the piping and looked at my Classic Retrofit ECO cooler blower unit. Step 1 in fitting – remove all of the existing !. Bu$$er - I knew that, but had fitted the original stuff anyway. No matter, take it out and start over.

I had Alex, the Garage Bitch, with me for the day. Some of the instal definitely requires 2 people, 1 in the froot and the other upside down in the footwell. We played around looking at several ways to instal the pipework. In the end, what worked best for us was to fit the new 40mm pipework and route it under the dash vent tubes (BTW, this is a ’79 SC, other models have different piping and vent options). Disconnect the control cable that runs between the air diverters, nearest to the front of the car, then remove all of the 60mm pipework from inside the car and build up each air diverter (complete with new t-piece supplied with the ECO kit) like this


The diverter valve assemblies were then fitted (2 man job to screw them in place) and the 60mm piping routed like this (a later in the process shot)


The blower was then ‘rotated’ in, pipes connected (well most of them, as I was short on pipe clips) and gasket and mesh placed over the inlet.



After Alex, the Garage Bitch left, I had to refit a starter to a Kia Picante (in my defence, it belongs to the friend of SWMBO). I had bought a starter online from ECP but it wouldn’t spin the engine, just locked up. Having removed and refitted 5 times without improvement, I called ECP to check the part number and they asked ‘does it have Stop/Start ? Turns out they are different. Anyway, went to fit the new starter just as the thunderstorms hit. Lying on my back under the car, I had rain on my face coming down through the open bonnet. I was lying on a rubber sheet (stop that tittering at the back there), but my legs were in the rain. I was using the rubber sheet for comfort / protection against the stones on the drive. It should have kept me dry but no, the rain ran off the car, pooled on the sheet and I suffered a lot of rising damp in places we don’t need to linger on. Anyway, starter in, and bingo, everything working as it should. God job jobbed.


Back to more serious matters, I plugged the blower fan in and tried it. Very fast, fast, slow and what’s that strange noise in stop ?. The controller light in the heater panel came on when the fan was switched on and went off when it wasn’t, but the noise continued. Played around and checked the switch (memories of the wiper motor again), but all was as it should be. Turned off the radio and listened again – not really a fan noise, more of a continuous but slowly pulsing noise. That’s when I realised that the Garage Bitch had placed some cloths over the dash and scuttle to minimise the risk of us marking the new paint. Turns out that what I was hearing was not the fan at all - the wiper switch had been knocked and the wipers were in slow mode. The spindles were hidden under the cloths otherwise I hope I would have noticed somewhat more quickly !

Overall quite a simple instal, once you know the order to build things up and fit. Refitting the screws to hold the air diverters in benefits from 2 people, especially if you're replacing the 'air directing' bits underneath at the same time.

Anyway, need to refit the gaskets around the t-pieces as they pass through the bulkhead and refit the shortened pipes from these to the in-sill pipes (once the new pipe clips arrive). Then I can get back to relays, which can't go on the bulkhead, as I can see it anymore, now that the piping is installed. Good job I checked first

[The Garage Bitch]

"That’s when I realised that the Garage Bitch had placed some cloths over the dash and scuttle"

Oh, it's my fault now is it?

"After Alex, the Garage Bitch left, I had to refit a starter to a Kia Picante (in my defence, it belongs to the friend of SWMBO)"

I did think it was really cute that Mrs K was taking an active interest in your fettling hobby but then the £0.01 dropped she was checking if the starter motor had arrived at the Motor Factors so you could repair her friend's car. Thought it was too good to be true

[PeterK]

Not much to show you, but a quick update on the electrickery anyway.
Alarm in (mainly – just two final connections), central door locking in (almost – the solenoids operate with the remote, but as I haven’t fitted the door locks yet, they don’t do anything useful), radio in and main front speakers in (used the rain guards from a later model 911). Stereo works – I can even get DAB in the garage, although only Absolute Radio, not Planet Rock. Front speakers are mounted to the doors themselves – only the covers will be mounted on the door cards. Still need to work out where my tweeters are going (on the dashtop or in the doors) and fit my rear parcel shelf (with speakers).

Probably as expected, it was a bit of a palaver though. Ran my cables inside trunking / plastic pipe / whatever the proper name for the black plastic stuff is. I planned and sorted out which alarm cables went forward and which went across the car. Cables going forward needed some holes with grommets, and I neatly routed them all. This is of course when I realised that I had forgotten a second set of wires that were awaiting lengthening , so had to un-route the loom, add my forgotten cables and reroute to loom. Luckily I hadn’t yet added the crimps to the ends going to relays. Changed my mind on where I was terminating some of the cross-car wiring, so pulled a few wires back out of the wrap, then realised that I had pulled the wrong blue ones , so had to read thread them and pull the correct blue ones.

Heated front window wiring is in, although I can’t find the wire from the switch that will trigger the relays, so I need to pull my aircon blower out again .


We have visitors over the weekend and apparantly I’m not allowed to keep the froot and front wings behind the sofas - they can be so unreasonable, these wimin . Anyway, need to tidy the garage (again), and put away all of the wiring paraphernalia, so that I can put the wings on trestles.


Not quite sure where to go next. I’m trying to get rid of big boxes of stuff out of the loft, so maybe the sound insulation, or I could always colour sand the body and then bolt the lower wings and bumpers on. That would also use up a lot of the seals and bits & bobs. Maybe I should refit the oil tank, pipes and front oil cooler. Way too early to start thinking about rebuilding the targa top though.

More excitingly, I’ve got an engine to build – part of me wants to leave that as late as possible, but part of me is worrying that I have a crankshaft sitting in the study, and the longer it sits there the greater the risk of some surface rust. Maybe I should clean my bottom half bits (oh, err, missus) and get the crank & rods assembled into the case. Decisions, decisions.

[Phill]

7 days and no update. You OK Peter? I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms.

[PeterK]

Sorry Phil - sailing again, but back in time for the weekend. Will it be the engine next .........

Maybe I’ll do the cleaning of the case, etc and then .......

[PeterK]

Just so that Phil doesn’t suffer further withdrawal symptoms and he can focus on his brakes and clicking noises …….

Having got back from sailing and found the end of the garage flooded, I needed a quick sort out. The wings went into the loft (still think that it was unreasonable of SWMBO to make me move them from behind the sofa, just because we had friends staying ), but that required the wing and bumper that are sold, pending collection, to be brought out of the way. It’s a bit like a game of solitaire at times – you need to shuffle lots of things but there’s only one free spot to put anything down, so a bit of a logic puzzle.

Anyway, bumper gone and wing being collected shortly, but the shuffling is done. Decided to move the oil tank off the floor, and what better place to hide it than where it belongs. BTW, that's the old oil filter just there to keep the cr@p out - 'onest guv.


In all of the shuffling (garage loft looks considerably tidier now, and lots of empty cardboard boxes have gone to the bin), this was left over. Anyone know what it’s for ?


Needs a good clean, including the gallery plugs removing, so maybe I might have a play with this for a while ……. The machine shop balanced my rotating parts with the old big end bolts fitted, so I also need to weigh both the old and my new ones and see whether / how much I need to 'adjust' the new bolts. Although a man on the phone said that it doesn't matter when you change rod bolts, it does seem slightly wrong that you balance a crank and (end to end) rods to within 0.1g, but the rod bolts don't matter.

[PeterK]

I’ve spent almost no time in the garage since my last update. Sailing instructing has been taking half of my time since July, and then despite supposedly being retired, a few days work here and there, plus SWMBO inviting folk over has eaten most of the time between. However, I did finally manage a couple of hours the other day and about 3 hours this weekend.

Having been lent a pair of door mirrors to steal an actuator to replace my broken passenger door mirror, I started by stripping these two plus my originals to check what I had, and that they were all the same version.
My SC originally only had an electrically operated driver’s door mirror. Even though the broken passenger one was electric, the SC was missing the door and cross car looms, although as you will of course remember (or maybe not, as it has been soooo long since my last updates), I’ve already built a cross car loom. I now needed more wires to run to the driver’s mirror, so started by pulling the plugs completely apart

and starting again.
Unfortunately when refitting the new motor assembly into my passenger mirror, I noticed that the outer housing was bent. I already knew that the passenger door had been replaced (with a bodged LHD driver’s door), and can only assume that whatever misadventure befell the original door was responsible for the state of the mirror.
So, with a little bashing, it is now resembling the correct profile, although as I was a tad scared that the alloy would break, I’m close but not perfect. A little rubbing down and we’re ready for primer.

Both mirrors will get repainted when I next have the spray gun out. Still not completed the door looms yet though.


So, onto this weekend. The handbrake on younger twin’s BMW was more decorative than functional, and given the possibility of a local lockdown in her part of Kent, she invited herself home for a night so that I could play with it. This is when I discovered that my impact driver just exhausted air without actually doing anything useful, like rotate or vibrate. So job 1 was try to fix it. About three strip downs and an hour later, I can report success. The magical moment was when I stopped trying to fix it quickly and did it properly.


Next came the HVAC diverter valves. The red handled control on the heater panel (the lowest slider) would pull the diverter open but instead of pushing it closed, the cable just bent. I fitted a second-hand cable (without kink) but the diverter wasn’t playing ball. It took lots of lubrication (for the valve, not me), trimming the length of the cable to give the best routing and bend radius that I could manage, and finally, adjusting the position of the outer sheath of the cable in the slider mechanism. Originally the length of inner cable protruding out of the sheath was quite long, allowing it to easily bend. By adjusting the sheath so that the minimum inner cable protruded, offered more support and now the diverter is happily opening and closing.


Finally for this weekend, was the windscreen washers, as I needed to get them installed before I can refit the air blower. I’d acquired an intensive washer bottle and was going to use that as a light-weight screen wash system. Having bought one of Classic Retrofit’s washer bottle kits (uses a self-supplied bottle from a Boxster and fits behind the front wheel, just in front of the door), I intend to use the intensive as intended, with fairly neat screen-wash fluid. Anyway, now running the twin system, I needed lots of pipework.

Anyway, nett result is that the screen washer plumbing is completed, apart from the final connections to the water bottles.


I did, however, realise that the intensive system will not work very efficiently unless and until I actually connect some power. I’ll use a momentary switch, but not sure how much current the pump will draw, so need to check whether I should fit a relay.

Just need to plan the headlight washers now. The SC came to me fitted with the later headlight washer jets, rather than the stand-up type. All parts were definately not pristine, so I have a bag of new parts to fit. It had a washer bottle just inside the froot, and it’s a good job it didn’t sell at the DDK bring and buy as I need it now !

[PeterK]

Sorry that it's been so long, but back from sailing for a few days, and managed a sneaky couple of visits to the garage. Before my most recent playtime, I had to start clearing the stream alongside the house. This is an annual chore, to ensure that if & when the field behind floods, at least the water can get away down the stream. SWMBO had offered to help – ‘if we do a little bit every day, then it won’t seem so bad’ she says, so off I trapse. Firstly, she decided that today wasn’t the day, so I was on my jacksie here. Then, using the brush cutter attachment on the strimmer, I discovered how similar the blades are to a propellor, in that if you touch the water while trimming the bank, then a) the blades dive under the water, and b) they throw a rooster tail of cold & muddy water all over you. Deep joy.

Not a lot to show in picture form of my efforts in the garage though. I fitted a momentary switch to run the intensive screen wash. Whilst working out where I could place the switch, I discovered that the hole was already in the dash, just covered by the vinyl, so an easy peasy fit.


Two wires into a sheath (not that sort !), couple of spade connectors and the momentary switch end is done. Add an earth to the pump, one of the switch wires goes to the pump and the other is connected into a fuse, and yippee, whirring noises when I press the switch and silence when I release it. Job done.

Not sure what the big hole underneath was for, but the strange switch that came out was probably a front to rear fader or something. Anyway, not needed going forward, so a pre-cut hole ready for the aircon switch. Just hope that the switch fits snugly, rather than slopping about and falling out.


While I was there, I wired in the headlight washer pump. The main wiring was there, although the pump previously fitted had the 2 connectors at right angles to each other while the connector in the loom had them parallel. There was previously a small patch cable between the two. This is the point that I realised that the old connector that I repurposed for the intensive screen washer was, in fact, the patch cable for the headlight washers, so I had to get another connector and make a new patch lead.

Continuing the theme of washers, I then set to the task of fitting the Boxster washer bottle.

Using Classic Retrofit’s bracket kit, it was a simple job to get it roughly in place. I do need the wing on before I can connect the (currently vertical) elephant’s trunk to the original washer filler spout under the fuel flap. Also, until the wing is bolted on, I’ve left all of the brackets loose, so that I can push the bottle as high as possible into the top righthand corner, to maximise wheel clearance. I did know that I still need to trim the fluid pipe to length, but have just realised from the photo that I haven’t fitted the p-clips to hold the wiring yet.

The blower unit is now ready to go back in, although I am tempted to leave it out until I have actually tested all of the washer pipework for leaks. That said, it is a fairly easy job to remove it, and maybe it is less likely to get damaged sat in the car than plonked on the bench.

[The Garage Bitch]

Honest, I didn't laugh at the mental image of your shitty ditch water rooster tail

I now need to think about whether to "oops, sorry mate. I forgot my waders" when I come on my next visit