DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

... as that old crooner Max Bygraves used to say (so I'm told ahem)

T'was the summer of the year 2012, and a man of our parish, one vwretrosteve, places a 'for sale' on this very forum with a '71 T targa 'for restoration'.
Being not of sound mind, and with an equally suspect suspect in tow, we go to his gaff in deepest rural Surrey adjacent to the busy A3 and buy, at what today would pass for daylight robbery money, said vehicle





.. thinking it would be 'fun' to do a targa

Back at the premises of the suspect suspect (classicfx - the man previously known as visualfx) we commence the strip and examine, and not too surprisingly a few things are not quite as good as they might have been ..





Nonetheless on we press.
Then in September of that year another of this parish, ivory1, pops an ad in the wanted section for a restored early 911 targa. I respond with a 'how quick do you want one' type reply, and after a bit of discussion and a couple of meets we come to a detailed contractual arrangement ..... along the lines of

1) I've given up the corporate world of schedules and budgets, so
2) It'll cost what it costs and it'll take as long as it takes.
3) Any hassle on these issues and the deals off
4) I'll do it as I think best for the final outcome, with consultation of course, and fund it accordingly.
5) Apart from a small deposit, you've nowt to lose, but once it has an MoT you have a month to pay the bill or it's mine to do as I will.

And up to now I think it has worked brilliantly for all parties I have to say!

More in a moment.

Great story so far
I am hoping for a happy ending

Sounds intriguing. Looking forward to the next instalment.

More exploration reveals that the car is matching numbers, with a few bits missing (engine lid/bonnet!) but with a few PO additions - a dodgy alarm set up



but the original (one year only?) intermittent wiper relay combo



but some 'interesting' electrics



and a few more holes ...






So strip it completely



Remove all that lovely underseal with propane torch and scraper




And off to 'Barry the Blaster' in Shepperton



It's unlikely to come back too bad is it .....

Maybe it will reappear in two small cardboard boxes...

Well like women of a certain age, there's always a few disappointments once they take their clothes off ...









Most were to be expected of a girl of this age, but the rear wings were the really big disappointment - they had to go, partly because the inner/outer sills and KB's has to be replaced, New Porsche ones ordered, plus 2 battery boxes, a suspension pan, tank support, targa bar supports etc etc. .... as well as a lot of MT fabrication and fettling. No floor though! Surprising (to me at least) the tags floor was in really good order, which would be a great help keeping the body structurally tight as the body was repaired.

So onto Dave's Celette (same as for my E, thanks Dave) and away we go .....





Metal repairs begin. New inner/outer sills and KB's are fitted.



...... and now time passes sllllllooooowwwllllyyy as it does at some stage of all restos. We both have other things to do - I rebuild Charles's engine, Garry decides he's had enough of the small time and he wants the Porsche big time. Sod this driving round the M25 every day, so he moves from his lock up, and sets up in leafy Surrey/Sussex as a Porsche specialist (Classicfx is born, but the targa is homeless!).
No problem, he is not far from my door, so we come to a great arrangement. I repair the car at his new fine premises (as long as I do not mark his new floor!), he dips out, and once it goes for paint it comes to me to finish the build.

So much (undocumented) metalwork ensues, and FINALLY in Jan 2015 we go off to paint ....

But what about the engine, suspension, gearbox and all the other $hite I hear you ask ....

... I hear you ask .....!

Well the suspension turned out mostly OK. Apart from the fact some noddy had replaced the RH front strut with a later 72+ version with later ball joint and pin. Worked OK but not OK by me, so I got another. You can just see the difference below ... maybe



The rest was given the usual treatment



Opened up the box and all looked good, very good in fact





So what about that minor component, the engine.....only done 96,000 miles, so must be ok, right?

Well when I say it 'ran' when we bought it, that would be in the 'fat boy in the 100m' definition of 'it ran'. There was a lot of coughing and farting and shaking, but little in terms of forward propulsion.
So 'we' agreed it would be a great idea to pull it apart and rebuild the whole thing, and who best to do that than that marque engine specialist ... me

MT wrote:

1) I've given up the corporate world of schedules and budgets, so
2) It'll cost what it costs and it'll take as long as it takes.
3) Any hassle on these issues and the deals off
4) I'll do it as I think best for the final outcome, with consultation of course, and fund it accordingly.
5) Apart from a small deposit, you've nowt to lose, but once it has an MoT you have a month to pay the bill or it's mine to do as I will.

I'm liking that business model....

So to the engine - a stock 2.2T with those lovely Zenith 40TIN carbs, don't you just love 'em?



A quick clean and then strip it down - all went ok actually



No surprise the front oil seal had been leaking



But I decided to start with something I had a bit of experience with - those lovely Zeniths. Wasn't too long before why I found it had been having a few running problems...



This is one of the 6 accelerator pump springs. 3 were like this, one other was very corroded, and the other two OK. If you have Zeniths that have stood for any time I'd start by checking these.
Also evidence of a carb fire (or three)



These are the diffusers, and a bitch to find replacements. Eventually from a guy on 911S registry. Not cheap!

So a strip, clean, new rebuild kit (£130!)



Good as new .... surely?
Anyway that engine needs rebuilding first.

The plan (agreed with the prospectives owners) was a stock rebuild, so after the basic strip, clean, and send the case off to Rob Walker Eng to do the oil bypass mod, fly cut the decks level, line bore etc. it was onto the (modified) Beetlejac engine mount and away we go per Mr. Dempsey's bible.

Check out the oil pump (all good)




Check out the rods and refit (new bolts and bearings of course). Plastigauge to check the bearing clearance with the old bolts!





Prepare the case



And refit the crank, rods, chains, pump, intermediate shaft, etc



And box it up




New piston rings in the original ultrasonically cleaned pistons, check the deck height with a bit of frozen blutack (not easy with these flat top pistons!)




Loctite 574 on the cam carriers, fit the cams (stock), sprockets and Stromski's manual tensioners for the timing check and it starts looking like a flat 6




Get the cam timing set



and the valve clearances



My thanks to Garry for the loan of his gear - makes the whole job SO much easier.
Fit all the rest of the 'gubbins' and voila!





..... but would it run, and if it did, would it leak, or make funny noises, or blow up, or ......
All would not sail plainly my friends .........

But before clouds would form and the Kraken awoke, there was now a shell freshly repainted at my favourite local bodyshop by my good mate 'what the f*ck do you want now Mick' Charlie.
Now I'd like to say before the originality police chip in, that I know the underside of a '71 should NOT be body colour, but both me and my 'clients' (never had clients before!) wanted it that way, so there.

First though POR15, then tie-coat primer (blue), then Shultz




then some paint (not the best phone photo I concede!



I also had to carefully chose the picture angle to not show the pile of bricks that is in all honesty still there from when the 'E' came home.



And rebuilding (my favourite bit) could begin. F&R suspension etc. Refurbished calipers etc






All the electrics, gauges (titivated by Julian Reap), blower etc




The dash had seen better days, but with some crack repair, filling and sanding and recovering by Mr. Hall it was looking ok




Refurbished tank etc



So now all we need is an engine (that works), a front and rear screen (that aren't cracked) and an interior (that looks nice). How hard can that be ?

Hmmm

If I knew rebuilds were this fast / easy I think I would have a go myself! Good job.

Now that looks a lovely trailer

Thankfully for Mrs. Whitehouse's descendants there is no record of the replacements of either the front screen (it cracked - a defect at the bonded rear mirror clip), or the rear screen (just a right fecking PITA) that required the use of a ladder, a ratchet strap, lots of lubrication and several 'periods of personal reflection'. By far the worst Porsche job so far. But the replacement front screen and the rear both went in eventually, and none of the chrome trim 'popped out' to add to my joy.

And so to the engine.....

As with my swb engine I decided I wanted to be sure it would run well, and be basically timed and tuned before I fitted it in the car, so after a couple of months playing the 'short, fat girl in the playground' with a local racing outfit that promised a dyno run closer and cheaper, but never got close to delivering because there were always better, prettier (and richer) girls to play with, I went back to a man I both know and trust from my swb, one Mr. N. Bainbridge.

Neil was as usual a gent to deal with, fitted me into his schedule, and one fine day in July I think it was I put the engine in the Discovery and went for a sunny day in the Oxfordshire countryside.

After a bit of rigging up, a coffee, and some preparation we went for main engine start ...




Well it started (eventually), and ran like a 80 a day man - farting and coughing and spluttering. I bit of timing adjustment helped, but still crap. Neil then starts to balance the carbs, and adjusts the front right mixture screw. Opens it a half turn, and ping, of it goes across the room. It had been holding on to the last few threads, but now these were gone. When I refitted them I just pushed in against the screw and turned to lock with a screwdriver, so I hadn't found there were only a couple of threads left at the bottom. Another on the other side was about as bad. Another reason the car had run poorly, but not found by me.

Butter! Good job I had bought a spare set of Zeniths back in 2014 from another DDK'er just in case, eh. So I set to work at Neil's stripping, cleaning and changing over the bodies. In the process I find that not one, but two, of the air correction screws have been bodged. Someone had ended up with the 'needle' end snapped off, or corroded into, the seat, but rather that address this, they had just refitted the rest of the screw. So you could screw the needle in and out, but actually the hole was blocked at all times. Great! so they were u/s as well. Neil then finds a couple of spares in his stash, and I try to get a couple of good ones out of this lot, but no joy. His had a similar mixture screw issue on the same side carb body, so we are snookered. Conference called, and I decide PMO's are the (expensive) answer.

Placed on order and I leave the engine with Neil till they come and I return from holiday .

Roll forward a few weeks, PMO's arrive, I go back, refit and away we go for round 2




They really are 'plug and play'. We were off and running smooth as you like straight away. Minimal tweaking of balance, mixture and timing and we are into a bit of run-in then some power runs.

End result from a stock 2.2T, with SSI's and PMO's - 150bhp @ 6250rpm, 140ft-lb @ 4800rpm, and a really lovely flat torque curve from 2500 rpm (it's at 130ft-lb @ 3000rpm).
One oil leak, quickly resolved (twonk engine builder didn't tighten one of the oil pipe unions)

Meanwhile back at the rebuild centre .....

What now follows is not how the marque specialists do the panel rebuild for two reasons:

1) they don't have to deal with 'I've done the shell what more do you want now' Charlie at the bodyshop, or
2) "Mick, I might have run over the corner of one of your panels' Charlie at the bodyshop.

This necessitates a certain flexibility in the panel fix and fit section of a restoration, but the quality of the product, the proximity, and the price make these merely minor inconveniences! All panels were fitted and fettled/gapped before the shell went to paint, but they got painted on an ad-hoc basis ...

So we start the panel fit:







All looks and fits well. Not Barry Carter standard, but better than when it left the factory I'll wager. Me modest ....

And in with the engine;



and the fuel pump (at the front)



Should be good to go .....?

No, despite checking the pump on the bench, and it being the original from the car, once there's fuel in and the ignition is on, petrol literally pi$$es out everywhere from around the electrical connector. A bit of online research reveals this is a regular problem. Dismantling the pump, also reveals a very dodgy connection, so we need another solution.
A post on this fine forum, and a quick reply from Chris Turner, points in the direction of a Webcon replacement.

Arrives in a few days, fitted in 15 minutes



... and away we go



Not far now ,,,