In The Garage - Albert Blue 911T - Part 2
The list of things to do on Albert Blue is about 80% completed. Fuel hoses and final check over on the service items. Detail work, some interior items and the re-upholstery of the seat inserts. Just so you know, we don't stop and take photos of every single thing we do or find, but we try to capture images when we can or think about it.
Pedal Assembly
The pedal assembly in these 911 are common wear out. The bushing in the pedal assembly are the first to go with many years of use. There was one surprise in this car. A leaky brake master cylinder. Even though the brakes had good pedal feel we drove it, that didn't mean the brake system was in good condition. Once the pedal assembly was out, there was a lot of cleaning and reconditioning. The pedal assembly got new paint as well as the floor board under and around the pedal area. This job can take 1 to 3 hours depending on the condition of the pedal assembly and the floor/footwell. This is also an area where rust can start is left uncared for.
The Shifter
The Porsche 901 transmission has been not been a favorite of many Porsche owners, mainly for the vague or unsure shifting. The dogleg pattern makes shifting into first and from first to second a more little interesting than some like. In our opinion, the key is to not think and just move the shifter with a positive natural throw of the lever. It can take some getting used to, but if the bushing are worn out or basically gone it's not something to enjoy. We knew some of the bushing needed replacing and some could have been replaced, but the best direction is to replace all at the same time. We wanted the shifter to feel good and correct for the car. So we replaced all of them. In the first photo below, you can see remains of the black bushing next to the new white bushing. This black bushing could be original. All of the other bushings had been replaced, but they were showing wear. Now the shifter feels completely different than how it felt when we received the car. The owner should find the shifting easier and tighter.
The Underside
Okay, cleaning the underside of your can be seem like a crazy or extreme thing to do, but having a clean underside is a good thing for many reasons. For example a clean underside chassis will give you and/or your mechanic a clear visual of the condition of the body, suspension parts and engine. Clean fender wells and underside will also help with reducing the change of rust (especially in the dirt trap areas). This 71 911T wasn't too damaged from the lack of cleaning. There was some surfaces were rust was just starting, but nothing serious. Since we were not restoring the underside to show condition, we will just treat the bare metal areas to stop any future rust.
How to clean the underside of your car could be a challenge, and there are too many different scenarios to give suggestions on how it's best for each car and individual. We would recommend one very good cleaning, and depending on how you drive your car, a good rise once a year could be enough. In the following images, we are sharing a mix of the before cleaning to get a better idea how dirty the chassis was. After cleaning we were very pleased to see a large amount of factory rust protectant (cosmoline) product. Cosmoline was used by the factory and applied on pretty much everything on the underside. The cosmoline is the brown in color. Seeing cosmoline on the engine and transmission can look more like dirty greasy oily, but for a Porsche nerd like me it shows that the engine and transmission have never been heavily rebuilt or recondition. Keep it original when you can. This car was also treated to even more anti-rust protectant in the fender wells at some point in the vehicles life. The paint like undercoating was used in the more common rust prone areas. No telling when the car received the additional rust protectant. Overall the underside is in amazing condition.
Exterior Polished
Everyone likes shiny paint, and after spending some time of polishing the paint (light to deep polishing) the paint was revived. For this car, we also spent some time touching up the larger paint chips and removing some brown interior house paint speckles that got on the car. We also thoroughly cleaned and treating the rubber trim and polished the brightwork. Albert blue looks great.
Surprise find
There wasn't a lot of surprises with this 911. Some interesting finds, but no surprises apart from finding a hidden sticker. Since this car spent some of it's early years based in Germany, the owner must have felt it was a good thing to join the ADAC. A German road side assistant program, like AAA here in the USA. We found this hidden sticker while cleaning the windows. You can see the ghost image in the photos below. The owner of the car would like to see a replacement sticker to put back on the window.
