Finally resurrected my 1976 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.0 today. As I walked around the car while it warmed up on tickover, I noticed the road tax had run out in July 2011, so it had been parked up for more than four years. On the upside, it is now tax exempt.
Cranking the Carrera 3.0 back to life was easy enough. I had charged the new Odyssey battery up to full strength over a couple of days, swapped the terminals over from the old battery and then stuck the new one into the car, reconnecting the various positive feeds to who knows what (long time since I did all this stuff). Dropping the negative terminal on and reconnecting the battery disconnect made it ready to go.
Ignition on, fuel pump buzz, key turn, oil pressure light off. Then key off and turn – it started on the second attempt and soon filled the garage with smoke. Trying to drive it outside was an issue, as the clutch had seized on. Not ideal. I knocked it off and tried working the clutch a bit but nothing would free it. Cranking it out on the starter in first, the car started and took off for the bins. Brakes wouldn’t stop it on gravel, so I quickly knocked the key off and avoided a crash into the bins and my big trailer.
I rocked it backwards and forwards a bit in gear, wound it backwards on the starter, wound it forwards again, there was a burst of revs and the clutch was free. Saved me having to do anything brutal with a tow rope! Now the car was ready to turn a wheel, I put Ted in the 911 and took it for a quick spin around the village checking for seized brakes. All seems OK: I will book it for an MOT this week and we’ll see what it needs to pass the test and get back out there. Here’s some video:
As my small car collection lay mostly unused last year, I made “use it or lose it” my car motto for 2016. The little 1981 Porsche 924 Turbo has enjoyed a lot of attention so far this year (spent another full day on it yesterday), but this morning I finally pushed the 1976 911 Carrera 3.0 out of its corner and took a good look at it after a few years unused.
Porsche Paint Microblistering
I discovered some microblistering in the paint last year, caused by using a car cover (genuine Porsche Tequipment) in a relatively damp environment, so I expected to find a bit more on the other side closest to the wall. Turns out I underestimated the amount as that entire rear quarter panel is covered in tiny blisters – the car will definitely need a repaint. I am sort of OK with it as it will give Robert at Racing Restorations a chance to repair some other panel stuff I have never been happy with. It won’t happen this year, but I’ll have a budget for it in 2017.
The main aim at the minute is to fire the engine up and get it ready for an MOT sometime in April. Advice from Anthony at Tuthills is to pull the spark plugs out, crank the engine until the oil is up to pressure, then put the plugs back in and fire it up. I need a decent battery for that and my compact Odyssey PC680 battery is totally shot so I have a new one to fit. To fit the new unit, first I had to get the old one out.
Porsche 911 Battery in Smuggler’s Box (not RHD)
This little Odyssey lives in the smuggler’s box held secure in a tidy aluminium mount. I fitted this as a younger, more flexible person, so my 48 year-old self had a good curse at that idiot while trying to get this all out single-handedly. Whatever possessed me to stick it down here I do not know! Funny how it all changes in ten years. Anyway, half an hour later I had it out and in the boot of the Cayenne. I have a new Odyssey battery here so will stick it on the charger overnight and fit it later in the week.
A quick look at the battery showed my pretty aggressive boost charging of it last year to try and start the car had done the battery no favours: the centre is totally distorted. No big loss as it was not responding to a charger by then anyway, but it shows how little tolerance for misbehaviour these things have.
I do like the lightweight battery ethos in this lightweight 911, but am going to have to be more regimented about using a maintenance charger on it. Not leaving the car sitting around for years would probably also be a good idea. My nice bright damp-free new garage at home will help!
Just had this photo (below) from Jeff Gamroth at Rothsport Racing in Sherwood, Oregon. Jeff is the US distributor for EB Motorsport Porsche parts and the pic shows a package of EB Porsche body panels arriving at the Rothsport workshop in time for trailering to Rennsport Reunion V, which takes place next weekend at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, California.
Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway bills Rennsport Reunion V as “the world’s greatest gathering of Porsche race cars and the drivers who drove them to victory. Hosted by Porsche Cars North America, Rennsport assembles the widest variety of Porsche’s historic racing models from the nimble 550 Spyder of the mid-’50s through the mighty 917 and 956/962 of the ’70s and ’80s to the highly successful RS Spyder of the last decade. There are seven groups in which to enjoy the racing action as they navigate the technically demanding 2.238-mile road course and The Corkscrew.”
The previous Rennsport Reunion was held at Laguna in 2011, to coincide with the launch of the 911. I enjoyed the plentiful supply of great cars and catching up with Porsche friends from all across the USA, but the erstwhile presence of Porsche Cars North America’s marketing department and a few heavy-handed security guards was perhaps more pronounced than necessary, and there wasn’t much actual racing across the three days.
Consequently, I’m not feeling urgently in need of returning for this one, but Jeff will be there, ably assisted by EB Motorsport boss, Mark Bates, fresh from his top twelve finish in the team’s ’65 911 SWB at this weekend’s Spa 6 Hours. Make sure to say hello to Yorkshire’s finest Porsche pilot if you’re at Laguna: no doubt he’d love to say hello to classic Porsche fans from that side of the pond. 911 owner and race artist Nicolas Hunziker will also be at the festival: big boss Heather has organised a ton of merchandise to bring to Rennsport, so say hello to those guys also.
Rennsport Reunion V 2015 Schedule
Trucks will start arriving for Rennsport Reunion weekend on Thursday morning, but the event kicks off properly on Friday, with cars on track from 8am to noon as the seven race groups get their first practice sessions in. There’s a lunchbreak for track workers and plenty of VIP demo laps before practice starts again from 13:20-17:20.
Saturday starts with qualifying for all groups from 08:00-11:50. Everything on track is worth watching, but the groups most fans will aim for is Group 2 (the Gmünd Cup) for Spyders and 4-cam 904s, Group 4 (the Weissach Cup) for 906, 908 and 917 and Group 6 (the Stuttgart Cup) for 956, 962, GT1 and the hot works 911 racecars.
The first three races take place after lunch on Saturday, with Group 2 on track from 13:05. That’s followed by the classic 911s and then the first race for the GT3 Cup Challenge. Racing wraps up at 15:10, so there’s less than two hours of racing on Saturday. The day ends with a pit lane concours that goes on for two hours. This is longer than the racing, so make of that what you will.
On Sunday, the first of two races starts at 10:45 and the second is finished by 12:15. Lunch break follows, with the first afternoon race for the Weissach Cup group at 14:00-14:30. Then comes the Group 5 race from 14:45-15:15 and finally the Stuttgart Cup event from 16.05-16:35. When that final flag drops, the event is over, so it’s a long way to go for just four and a half hours of racing.
Everyone will have a great weekend and I’ll likely regret my decision not to attend this Rennsport Reunion, but such is life. Too much going on here with the builders on site and lot of work stuff happening. I note that I’m not alone in my decision, with R Gruppe friends living much closer than me also deciding not to attend. I’m heading out to Cali next spring, so I’ll catch up with all the post-event news at whatever EASY meet coincides with my visit!
Not had much time for blogging lately as I’ve been doing more building at home, continuing the office and garage extension (codename Porschehaus) that fell by the wayside when the original Ferdinand owners went bust, owing quite a lot of money to me and many others. It’s taken a while to get finances back up to speed, but lots of good things are now happening and the project is moving again.
I find building very satisfying. My Victorian house was built in the late 19th century, so part of the joy is in chasing materials: architectural salvage from hundreds of years ago. Unearthing a stash of two thousand bricks from the same kiln that fired my own house was a result, as was winning a truckload of blue ridge tiles for just 99p and paying the same for barn skylight windows (for parts).
I cursed a bit (ok, a lot) when I missed a round cast-iron Victorian window on eBay but have found a good skip guy, concrete supplier and source of steel beams not far from my house. Researching the best sources is all part of the fun when putting this stuff together, but it does eat time in the process. All this will sound very familiar to classic Porsche people.
Part of the fun of Porsche ownership has long been finding the parts to go with them, but as prices for cars have all gone through the roof, parts prices have soared, too. Gone are the days when a pair of Fuchs could be bought for £350, or a nice old pair of Recaros snapped up for less than £100. I sold quite a chunk of my parts stash for that sort of money to pay the mortgage when I first went freelance five years ago, but I still have a few bits remaining. Now that the Porschehaus project is back up to speed, I’m excited to plan for my parts to come home, as well as the cars, of course.
While dreaming of where this stuff will go, I had an email about a new Porsche-inspired lifestyle brand someone wanted me to look at. It made me wonder where the line was between gathering Porsche cars and parts with the odd bit of memorabilia, and adhering to the doctrine of a Porsche “lifestyle brand”?
I’ve made a few runs of Porsche-themed t-shirts and the odd grille badge over the years, but all that stops well short of defining a lifestyle. Friends often say my lifestyle is more pikey* than Porsche, which is probably fair enough, given the brick dust, Jack Russell Terrier, Irish accent and their lack of imagination (you know who you are).
I understand the attraction to branding, but the idea that people would define their whole lifestyle by the car they drive seems quite restrictive. I doubt that a majority of my classic Porsche friends would call their car a lifestyle choice: it is not about ticking each box in a catalogue.
Old-school Porsche boys got by without worrying too much about what t-shirts to wear when driving their cars. No doubt we are all bound by this cult, but don’t get bogged down in where “people like us” go or what we should be wearing. There are more books to read, more bricks to lay and many more cars to enjoy before our time here expires. Keep the faith, but don’t do it blindly.
* US readers, I don’t know what your equivalent of a pikey would be: perhaps a wheeler-dealer crossed with a hobo. Submit your definitions!
Our friend Thorsten in Germany has shared some cool throwback pics of his early 911 in driver training sessions with a previous owner and a certain Mr Bell. It’s sweet enough to find pics of your car on track in a previous life, but how much more delightful to discover Derek Reginald Bell MBE sitting behind the wheel.
One picture shows the pitlane lineup, where I spied another mate: Bata Mataja, with wife Rosa and his super-cool Porsche 356 race car, Blue Baby. Bata has shared umpteen tales from the Blue Baby archives with Ferdinand, so it was great to send him a previously unseen photo of the car.
“Running Blue Baby at Laguna would have been very early on in my racing days. I’ll have to think about what club it was with: it may have been a Porsche Club event, but not too sure. Great picture: I think I beat all these guys! 😀 ”
I am also pretty sure these are Porsche Club driving days. Asking Thorsten led to discussions on his car and where it came from – it is a very cool story.
“Well, I was fortunate to find the car I was dreaming to find at Dunkel Brothers in 2003. It looked right and felt even better. The seller was a very nice guy that knew his stuff: he had taken good care of it and it was streets ahead of the other cars I had looked at within my budget.
“A good honest car, we instantly clicked and I have loved my time with it to date. It is tied to many priceless memories: I drove it out in LA for twelve months on Mulholland, at the German Autofest, Palm Springs, getting hooked up with the RGruppe right away.
“Then it came home to Germany and has since done local rallies, trips to Gmünd, drives through France, Belgium, The Netherlands and to Classics at the Castle in England. It’s even been on the proving grounds in Weissach.”
It certainly proves itself in these pics. Thorsten thinks some of the DB shots were taken at Sears Point, but I know this DB pic was taken a few weeks ago at Collier Dade Airfield in Florida, where our Jamie recently worked with Derek again, this time on an official Bentley shoot. A well-matched pair of Porsche fans: the pic still makes me laugh. Perfect!
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