DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Can i ask what you decided to do with the oil tank? I am just about to do mine, seems like they were painted over the top of the copper so i may just paint mine??

BD55 wrote:Can i ask what you decided to do with the oil tank? I am just about to do mine, seems like they were painted over the top of the copper so i may just paint mine??

I'm having mine copper plated, which will then be obscured by the paint. But I will know it's copper plated under there, and maybe one day a bit of paint will rub off and (if I have my head under the rear wing for some reason) I will feel like a restoration genius. Not like a weirdo at all.

If not plating, and I could quite understand not doing so... I guess you'll want to have it acid dipped (... not blasted...) before paint? They can be pretty cruddy and can rust inside. The feed from the tank goes straight into that lovely rebuilt engine (filter is on the return leg, obvs).

Cheers, Richard.

I had a1972 oil tank soda blasted on the exterior. All orifices were liberally taped up with a good quality masking tape. The interior was cleaned by putting petrol inside and swilling it around. No rust evident on the inside. The outside of the tank was then painted.
Not sure of the internal structure of pre 1972 oil tanks: my tank had a mesh screen inside it which did not look too robust. Damage to this, which is to de-airiate the oil, would be an issue.

Yes i have cleaned mine with fuel and it looks ok to me, it wasn't rusty at all...it's odd that the black paint is directly painted onto the copper.....back to the 70S
Cheers Simon

Oil and Fuel system refurbs are in progress.

For the oil lines, the original fittings are all fine, and I think look much better than modern crimped versions. The old fittings are easy to work with and reuse. So what we see below is:

• original aluminium fittings, just vapour blasted. These are quite nice because they have the '69 date stamps
• original steel elbows etc, plated. Shockingly I have deviated from the original finish. I started by yellow zinc plating, but they looked pretty awful (surface finish not good enough). So these are now plated in satin nickel, with a base coat of copper, similar to the standard chrome plating process. A bit blingy, but I like it.
• New hose, obviously. Cohline 2633.

Nice job on the oil system Richard.

Regards
Dave

Very lovely indeed.

hey richard, am just sorting out my oil system as well. Did you find any of the dated fittings difficult to remove from the old cohline pipe. I have 2 fittings that steadfastly refuse to part company.

Am currently trying to dissolve the cohline tube in acetone but after 1 week, not much has happened so am assuming that isnt going to work. Am trying to avoid using grips on the fittings as i dont want to damage the surface markings - i did have 2 smooth surface L shaped pieces of ali cut to try and form a tight 'box' around the fitting, that didnt work either.

Someone mentioned burning the rubber tube out with a blowtorch.....

If you found an alternative way of releasing stuck fittings, am very interested to hear.....

Also, my metal elbows are aluminium rather than the steel you have. This meant a couple of the locking nuts cracked when trying to undo them but i have sourced replacements from the US. I need to now find someone who can reliably cut the elbow, add the new locking nut and then weld the elbow back together......

Hi Andrew,
Yep, the pipes changed to aluminium by 1972.
From your question it sounds like you have successfully unscrewed the elbow, but the hose is stuck in the aluminium collar? I didn't have that problem. Some of the elbows took a bit of persuading to part from the collars, but after that the hoses came out easily.

With apologies for asking - I'm assuming you know that the hoses are left-hand threaded into the collars, so need turning clockwise to unscrew...

For gripping the collars I ended up needing something pretty frictional. Rubber oil hose is pretty grippy - I used a spare bit slit open and put around the collar, then into the vice.
But if my only problem were hose stuck in collar, I would burn it out or just cut it from the inside.

Regarding the elbow - Barry is pretty handy with a TIG welder too. He sorted out an errant bracket on my front oil cooler.

Cheers, Richard.

I originally was trying to unscrew them the wrong way but got that sorted

Never thought of using an old bit of hose as a grip, will try that and a last resort, burn or try to drill out the old hose.

I think your car is at Garry's sometime after mine? Garry fitting screens, finishing off the wiring and trimming except for carpet as i have still got some work to do inside the car - fitting handbrake, gearstick etc.. Aiming to be on the road in July - wife's birthday and am planning a weekend away in the car.....

Andrew,
The nipple (ball nipple or olive) on the fitting is brazed on rather than welded. Theoretically the nipple can be sweated off and the hex nut put on and the nipple brazed back on. I think the wall of the fittings is too thin to be successfully welded after cutting through it.

Thanks! will look into that.

Another tip is to push an old bolster shaft in the hose then you can give it some welly with some grips.

Dougieboy1 wrote: I think your car is at Garry's sometime after mine? Garry fitting screens, finishing off the wiring and trimming except for carpet as i have still got some work to do inside the car - fitting handbrake, gearstick etc.. Aiming to be on the road in July - wife's birthday and am planning a weekend away in the car.....

Yep, Garry is doing headlining and screens for me. Although I do keep looking at the headlining and thinking "how hard could it be?"....

July you say. Which year? (I'm not aiming for 2019 with mine).

Very jealous of your skill Ricard and the ability to build the car. My shell is now finished and will be moving soon to my independent specialist (I have some reluctance here, on account if the money I have spent so far - it needs to be 100%). Irrespective, how nice is the early 911 shape, cant wait to enjoy this car.