Euro H4 Swappout

As quite an afterthought, the previous owner of this car threw in a set of Euro-style H4 headlights.

They were pretty beat up.  Lots of road wear, a visible crack in one of the glass lenses, and entirely the wrong color (guards red trim... very wrong).  I appreciated the gesture but didn't think much about it at the time, as I figured these were just headlamps and wouldn't be difficult or expensive to upgrade from the odd looking U.S. spec "sugar-scoops" when I was ready.

Euro H4 Headlights.

I later learned that these lights cost well over $300 a piece to buy new, and vintage were at least that much, so I decided to have a hand at restoring the included freebies.

The metal trim rings were red and pretty dinged up.  I knew first thing that I would either have to change the color, or rethink the direction I wanted to go with the car entirely.  And after some sanding, I quickly learned that the soft metal trim rings were beyond my skill level when it came to patiently working out dents and imperfections, of which there were many.  I rough sanded and put a couple coats of flat black on them, shelved the project, and forgot about it for the time being.

A month or two later I found a set of nice and straight, dent-free cosmetic trim rings in "gris argent metallic" (aka: silver) for sale on ebay.  One $50 snipe bid later,  I had them shipping to my door.

So this cosmetic trim ring solved the problem - they cleaned up well and I was able to get them fitted and primed without issue.

I also had to work out the issue of the pitted and foggy glass.  After much polishing and sanding, I gave up on the idea of buffing out the glass - there were simply too many pits, and most were deep enough where it would be next to impossible to work them out.  I instead decided to try 3 wet layers of gloss clear coat.  Damn if it didn't work like a charm:

BOSCH!

I managed to completely strip the adjuster screws that stubbornly reside in the inner trim ring.  They are held in position via a thin metal clip, and undoing them turned out being their undoing, as they were rendered completely useless.  Impossible to find substitutes, I resorted to buying some more common 64 mm M4 pan-head screws from my local hardware guy and got to work grinding them to the right shape/size to fit the recessed dimples of the inner trim ring.

The clear plastic concave "washers" that fit around the adjuster screw heads were also completely shot, so I quickly fabricated a set courtesy of an empty Poland Spring bottle and a Dremel tool.

Re-assembled with fresh stainless adjusters and shiny glass.

Installed!

fuchs wheel refinishing

It is a widely known and accepted belief that wheels and tires make the car, a notion that Rob Dickinson of Singer Vehicle Design sums up nicely in this really amazing video by Chris Harris (a video I have personally added several dozen ticks to the total-view-o-meter, and will probably reference throughout this blog as it comes up...).  And living in Brooklyn, I have witnessed first hand the attempt of many would-be car guys bolting up outrageous rims of every description to the most unassuming of cars in an effort to "make" their car.  It's not always trans-formative, but I always appreciate it when I see a Camry with a nice set of wheels - whether it works or not.

For my purposes, I wanted to keep the time-tested factory look of the car intact but modify it a bit to make it my own. Being that this car is a daily driver spending much of it's time pounding the streets of Brooklyn (which definitely pound back), I decided to use the streets as my palette.  It helps that the paint already on the car is the exact shade of beat-down asphalt... 

street palette - gotta work in the white somewhere...

So, here we have rusty metal, UV damaged asphalt, and some cracked crosswalk paint... Beautiful! Now, on to refinishing the stock 6" and 7" Fuchs Wheels...

Scrub Brush: check.
Degreaser: check.
Whirlpool Tub:  Check?!?!

I have read about other Porsche guys using chemical strippers, but I currently live in a 2-bed condo with 2 kids.  Using Aircraft Stripper in that environment is akin to living next to Chernobyl in the late '80s - so I went with the elbow-grease method of hand sanding, and by "hand" I mean  5" random-orbit palm sander and a Dremel tool (it's fair to say I did a fair share of finish work by actual hand...).   Still required some precautions (ie: dust mask), but I think I got through it with my current brain cell count largely intact.

almost stripped. fuch.

I eventually got them down to bare metal, and that which I couldn't get off I figured was stuck on there good enough.  With a kinda-shiny alloy wheel in tow - I made haste to my "spray booth" for priming with duplicolor's etching primer.

I almost stopped the process here, as I really liked the look of the military-matte-green-ish primer on these wheels, but thought better of it and went ahead with the next steps, which for me was laying the base color: Duplicolor's Racing Bronze!!   

base coat dry and ready for masking

This wasn't as easy as I expected, but still pretty straightforward.  If you use this, or any metallic color via rattle-can, please make sure you keep the flow of paint perpendicular to the painting surface - getting off axis causes it to "dust up" which doesn't look very good.  You will have to sand and re-coat if this happens.

 curing in the "spray booth"

After four or five coats, I let it dry long enough (about a week) to mask off the "petals" and outer rim with 3M Vinyl Tape & low-tack painter's tape and proceeded to add matte black, also Duplicolor Wheel Paint, to the surrounding recessed areas.  Masking off the petals was definitely more art than measured precision as I allowed the contours of the wheel dictate where the mask should go.  I've seen others approach this area differently, but I like the overall size of the colored portion vs the black background on my set up, and it looks real consistent from section to section, and even wheel to wheel. Don't be afraid to play a little jazz here - you will know when the look is right!

The background painting process went very smoothly, and peeled off the mask after allowing 20 min of dry time before applying 3 coats of high gloss clear, followed by 2 thin, even coats of matte.  This technique provides an excellent sense of depth to the clear, but still reduces shine consistent with the quasi-race-inspired-hot-rod look I'm going for.

In the end, they all came out better than expected, and 7 months in still look like the day I mounted them up. I found the Duplicolor Paints to be a real decent product that yielded the results I wanted, and thus far has proven to be very durable.  All this took a little over a month (including cure time) and cost about $60 in materials...not too shabby.

AC Fix

We finally had a couple decently warm days over Memorial Day weekend here in Brooklyn, so I decided it was time to look into restoring what little AC this car has to offer (even as a new car they aren't known for cabin coolness - unless you do major upgrades, a la The Mister Ice Project.  I was on the fence as to whether or not I should remove the ac components altogether for weight savings, so I likely won't be making these upgrades - but it's an interesting read if you're into AC function and general geeking out).  As luck would have it, my parents were visiting for the long weekend and they drove their '03 BMW 325xi.  Their road-trip vehicle of choice isn't what I consider lucky in this case, nor is the fact that they discovered their car was suddenly lacking air conditioning while on this trip... what I consider lucky is that I went with my dad to the local Pep-Boys garage while he got the Bimmer's AC charged with a fresh dose of "nonfreon."

As dad was talking through the diagnostics with the Pep-Tech, I noticed they had a canister of 134-a refrigerant (make sure your system has been updated to accept 134-a before purchasing/installing) with a trigger release pressure gauge for DIY charging on a shelf in the front of the store. 

For $35 I had to try it.

Before I could take this step though, I had to install the belt which I bought at Pelican Parts earlier this spring.  So we left the store minus one BMW, and while we waited for the call from Pep-Boys, I popped the lid and had a look.

A pretty easy job all told - the compressor pump is mounted on a slider plate secured to a mounting bracket on the right side of the flat 6.  There are 3 screws around the perimeter of the slider plate, all easily accessible with a 13mm open end wrench.  A fourth nut is threaded onto a fixed post attached to this sliding plate which moves the whole assembly back away from the engine pulley to gain proper belt tension:  

bolts used to position compressor and tension belt.  4 on top plate are used to adjust fore/aft alignment

Loosen the three bolts enough to free the slider, loosen the tensioning nut, and the gap is easily closed enough by hand (and a little leverage) to work the belt on.  To get the last bit of belt over the edge of the compressor pulley, I used the handle end of a crescent wrench I had handy -  think of seating a bike tire on a rim.  

belted

Once on the pulleys, tighten the adjustment nut so the compressor slides away from the engine pulley, and voila - a tight belt, ready for coolness.  I don't know what the exact tension specs or v-stretch ratio (I'm making these terms up) are for this particular belt, or if it matters... I tensioned it so it was snug, and when pinching the belt together between the two pulleys, I was able to gain maybe 1/4" - sorry, trying to think metric here:  3 - 5mm of movement on each side.  Felt tight enough - I'll check it in a week or two for stretch, and re-tighten as necessary.  Check that the pulleys are straight relative to each other, tighten the bracket bolts, and you're done.  Easy Peasy.

good pulley alignment is key to non-shredding belts

Now that the belt is on and the compressor secure, I plugged in a random loose wire that was dangling nearby, and fired it up for a test.  Amazingly enough, when the AC knob is turned on inside the cabin, the compressor clutch engages and the compressor starts... compressing!  Time for the gas!

The kit comes with a bottle of compressed 134-a refrigerant, a trigger assembly with a pressure gauge, and a quick release at the end of a 12" - bah... 25cm hose.  The quick release is connected to the low pressure fitting, which is easily chosen out of the lineup wearing a blue cap - remove the cap, and snap on the hose:  

blue on blue for low pressure fitting

With the engine running and the AC on, check the gauge.  It should read at a minimum of 25psi.  Mine read exactly zero - so yeah... needed a charge.  From this point it's ridiculously simple as you squeeze the trigger, slowly pressurizing the system with brand new cold-making goodness.  The process takes about 10 minutes, and I checked every minute or two to see where we were with regard to pressure (the gauge goes flat while actually releasing refrigerant).  With an empty 18oz can (system purportedly handles 20oz max) and a gauge reading 40psi, I figured I was done.

almost there at 35psi

Preliminary testing proves positive, with significantly cooler air forced out of the tiny and rather useless dash vents.  System draws a lot of power from the engine, so I don't think I'll be driving around much with the AC blasting.  But - for hot & humid and/or rainy days, on open-road drives, I definitely think it will be a welcome feature to have running.  I am very impressed by the system, one that sat dormant for a number of years and performs perfectly well with an hour of work for under $50.

intro

 Sept 2013: 
'82 Porsche 911 SC as seen in classified ad

Humble beginnings.  I will get more into the back story of acquiring what is, to me, the culmination of several decades of daydreaming and literally years of adulthood pursuit. Is it exactly what I had hoped? Do I wish that I held out for something newer/older/slicker/awesomer?  No, this car is exactly what I wanted, 'er, needed: great mechanical condition, clean interior, decent paint in a color I simply cannot say no to. Minimal foibles, all told, but enough stuff that needed addressing to keep my desire to tinker satisfied.  What has surprised me the most is not that I don't absolutely love this car and everything it represents to me - because I do.  But rather that it doesn't fully scratch the itch... now I want another one. 

But I doubt I will chase that rabbit - I know how deep the hole goes, and it's exactly as deep as my funds will allow, which, with 2 kids living in New York City, is not very deep and an even harder thing to justify - and justification for something that has no practical use whatsoever is a tough sell in it's own right.  So I plan on using this particular example, a "schwartz metallic" 1982 Porsche 911 SC, as an ever evolving, rolling art project.  Think "Mr. Potato Head" as a '70's R-inspired hot-rod.  Why have two (three?  hmm) when you can reinvent one, over and over??  I think it's a great concept.  We'll see how long I can hold out. 

Owning one of these things must be a lot like keeping a horse: it needs constant attention, daily maintenance, and grooming to keep it alive and happy.  This blog will serve as a thread of documented projects for anyone curious to see how a life-long DIY'er figures out how to customize and maintain a 32 year old Porsche 911 on a shoestring budget without a proper garage (read: no garage).  I will probably toss in tidbits from other areas of life from time to time: music, fishing, outdoors-y stuff, occasional anecdotes about kids and family life.  But I dedicate this primarily to my passion for these amazing cars - cars that, 32 years after rolling off the production line, still feel modern, powerful, alive, and ultimately, completely satisfying.