More Rust to Attend to (Sep 08)

The episode with rust causing the recent MOT fail (see earlier) brought it home to me that despite popular opinion, these cars can suffer from rust as they get on in life. Although galvanised there will be problems in certain places and these problems need to be addressed. So a couple of weeks ago I decided that it was time to stop ignoring what looked to be a few little rust spots on the NS rear quarter panel and get them sorted. As you will see below it was not before time because little spots are not always as little as they appear.

First was the rust around the NS door mirror. This was there when I bought the car and had never got any worse according to the PO. Rust had set in under the base of the mirror before the newer mirrors had been fitted.



All gone now (ignore the paint on the seal as that was there before and is not overspray from the repair)



All the other rust problems were on the rear quarter panel. It was pretty messy inside the light cluster. When I got the car the original tail light was still fitted (see earlier in thread) and the seal design trapped moisture inside the wing. The light design was changed later so that the wing is vented but the damage had already been done to mine:



All the rust had to be cleaned out and some nifty welding done to repair it. Then it got lots of coats of paint and waxoyl to protect it from the elements:



Associated to this there was a problem in the engine bay. What looked to be light rust on the gusset plate turned out to be extensive when I prodded it with a pen. I was pretty gutted when I found this:



The rusty panel was duly cut out, replaced and painted. Again some waxoyl was applied behind the new panel and a smear on the surface that you can see when the engine lid is open.



Finally there was some signs of rust just above the plastic sill cover:



When I took the sill cover off, 18 years of road dirt came out and it was a lot worse than I thought!



This required some extensive welding to repair it and the whole area behind the sill cover was cleaned and coated with waxoyl to prevent future rusting (I'll need to waxoyl it every couple of years). I haven't got a photo with the cover off but the repair is stunning. Here it is with the cover back in place:



Here are a couple of shots of the newly painted rear quarter and door:





I also took the opportunity to get a new headlamp ring painted to replace the old NS one which had always been a bit rusty and in constant need of touching up:



All the work was carried out by a small local body shop (who had been recommended to me and who had already done the front tub repairs). I let them have the car for a couple of weeks so that it could be fitted in between any urgent jobs that came in. This kept the price down a little and I felt comfortable that it wouldn't be a rush job. The price which including much welding, prep and paint came to £500 + VAT (on top of this I supplied them with the new headlamp ring and rubber seals for the sill cover). I would summarise the work they did as a superb finish on the exterior panels you can see and they were very thorough in the repairs and protection applied to the bits that you can't.

Harnesses Fitted and Trackday (Aug 08)

A trackday at Oulton Park was the first chance to try out the new seats. Prior to the day I fitted 4 point bolt in harnesses and a guide bar. Strapped into a racing shell is a completely difference experience. Not only do I feel more secure behind the wheel but also more connected to chassis and what it's doing. You feel like you can really lean into a corner and find out how much grip there is. In short I'm very pleased with what they have done for its on track ability.





Prior to going to the track I swapped out the Pagid sport pads with Pagid RS15 (grey) race pads. These have taken the brakes to another level. I got no where near their potential on track and ended up taking off too much speed before arriving at the corners. I'll need to re-assess my braking points next time out to make sure I get the most out of them.

I think I'm pretty much done with mods for this year (wallet could do with a rest) but I'm planning on doing something about the suspension and geometry next year to tackle some of the understeer that I like to get dialed out. This is illustrated quite well in the video of me from my friend Tony's Boxster S - you can see how much wider I go on the slow corners compared to the 'camera car'. Saying that, in the very last session I drove the car a lot harder through the bends and found that there was a lot more grip underneath me than I thought there was. I caught up with an Exige and followed it round for 3 or 4 laps without losing any ground on it. So maybe it's me that causes some of the understeer.

First Major Rust Problem (July 08)

The old girl failed her MOT at the beginning of last week (July 08) due to some nasty rust at the rear of the front tub. Grounding of the front and general erosion of the underseal over her many years had created a water trap where the plastic undertray butted up to the un-protected front tub. The floor of the tub is a welded in panel and had rusted through at the rear. It was regarded by the MOT guy as structural rust and therefore a fail. Consequently it was sent down the road to a body work specialist for diagnosis of what could be done.

Thankfully it hadn't developed to the point where the boot floor had to be removed and replaced as this would have been horrendously expensive. Not to mention the car being off the road for at least a month. The repair involved grinding away the rust and welding it back together and then applying a new layer of underseal. I'm no expert but it looks a very tidy job to me. Oh and it was still a very time consuming job and a stab in the wallet at nearly £500 including the MOT!

Recaro Pole Position seats fitted (Jun 08)

Although the standard seats are in good condtion and comfy I wanted something more suitable and lighter for track work. After trying a few seats out I plumped for Recaro Pole Position racing shells in black leather with black suede cushions. To fit the seats I needed new double locking sliders and side mounts. Here's the mounting kit that was bought from Southbound Trimmers:



And here's the kit being checked out for fit in the car after removing one of the original seats:



I took the opportunity to give these areas a good clean out but was disappointed to find only a grand total of 7 pence that had been lost down there by previous owners. Once I'd worked how everything went together it was a simple case of bolting them in:





At the moment I've just got the normal 3 point seat belts installed but with a bit of luck a set of Sabelt 4 point harnesses will be arriving this week in time for its next trackday.

Fixing a buzz in the dash (Jun 08)

Over time 964s develop a lot of little quirks, one of which is a buzzing noise from the dash board. The buzzing starts as soon as you turn the key and carries on for 20 minutes even after the ignition is switched off. This is caused by an air sampling fan at the back of the climate control unit. So today I took out the unit (comes out like a radio) and took apart the fan.



After removing nearly 20 years of dust and fluff, the little fan know runs quietly and the buzzing is gone.

Evening track session at Silverstone (May 08)

To say it was wet would be an understatement. The circuit was effectively a giant skid pan for the evening and I learned more about the handling of this car in those 2 hours than I have in the year or so that I've owned it. Even on a circuit that I'd never been on before, the car behaved impeccably. Yes it wagged its tail a few times and yes it aquaplaned a few times and the ABS had real problems coping with standing water (being Porsche's first production ABS system it's a bit agricultural by modern standards). But saying all that the feedback through the steering wheel and chassis was remarkable. Measured use of the throttle and smooth steering inputs was all that was needed to make increasingly brisk progress around the circuit. It was great fun balancing it on the throttle and feeling the limit of grip.

The reduction in the weight (particularly the lighter wheels) have given the car a greater urgency out of the bends. It would quickly reach 100 mph down the hangar straight with plenty to spare before the braking zone - It wouldn't have been wise in the conditions to go any faster than that. Hopefully next time I'll get to do Silverstone in the dry because it's definitely one of those circuits that really suits a 911.









The morning after, still sporting the trackday numbers.

Sprint Day and Clutch bleed (Apr 08)

I joined the Lancia Sport club for an afternoon at Curborough sprint circuit. This turned out to be a great little circuit to test the agility of the car. It's not possible to go at high speed but testing the handling throught the sharp hairpins was great fun. A great day out in the company of a load of Delta Integrale fanatics.







However the car developed a problem with selecting first gear half way through the day when the car got hot (no problem when it had cooled down). I suspected this was due to very old fluid in the clutch slave cylinder. I'd had a number of goes before at bleeding the slave with no success. Simply because some prune had in the past rounded the edges of the bleed valve. The best of ring spanners (7 mm) wouldn't turn it and there is no room to get mole grips or similar on it.

I feared that I would have to replace the slave completely and that is a painful job to do with the engine/gearbox in place. Yesterday I found and bought a 7mm hexagonal ring spanner and thought I would give it one last go before buying a complete new slave cylinder and it worked. So now all the nasty, smelly old fluid is out and the clutch pedal is so much lighter than it's been since I bought the car. Persistence and a bit of patience has finally paid off.



There's some footage of the Curborough event and the car on Youtube:

In action at Curborough