Intro from Montana: '73 2.0L rustoration thread Options

[bbrock]

Gettin' Wired

Here's an update for the last week and a half. Progress is still slow due partly to the holidays, but mostly because I slipped on the ice on the steep part of our driveway last week and busted a rib. That has me moving a little slow... like Uncle Joe.... at the Junction. Sorry, couldn't resist. And if you got that bad joke, you're OLD. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/slits.gif)

While waiting on welder diodes, I pulled the main wire harness out of the shed to start the restoration. It's not a lost cause, but needs some help. First steps were to clean, assess, inventory parts needed, and taking lots of reference pics to put things back together properly.

Here's how the harness looked coming out of the car.



There are two main areas of damage to be addressed. First there is the bundle running from the 14-pin connector in the engine bay. Sorry for the blurry pic.



This brought back memories. It was a warm spring day motoring along I-70 in the middle of Kansas when all of a sudden... she quit. The sweet smell of burnt insulation wafted into the car as I coasted to the shoulder. The tach wire has shorted out and fried almost every wire in that bundle with it. Only two wires survived that meltdown. I spent several hours roadside that day wrapping burnt wire with electrical tape and splicing things back together enough to get the car going. I never did repair that damage properly so now is the time.

The second big problem spot is near where the harness passes through the bulkhead to the front trunk where a rodent commandeered several inches of the harness for nesting material. Only one wire survived this assault.



The rest of the damage is dispersed. Lots of missing spade terminals, wires snipped by rodents here and there near the terminal ends. A few insulation knicks, The instrument illumintion harness a good example of the random damage.



and lots of overspray left over from a PO's cheap paint job.



It seemed daunting at first, but like anything complicated, once it is assessed and broken down into bite-sized steps, it isn't bad.

First step was a good cleaning. I started by removing removing tape and zip tying wire bundles together to keep the groupings organized. As I removed
tape, I noted the size and type and ordered new stuff. There are actually 3 types of tape in these harnesses. There is the 9mm Tessa tape that has been talked about. It measures about 7mm on the harness but I think that is because of a combination of the stretch put on the tape during wrapping and shrinking from age. There is also vinyl tape approximately 1/2" inch wide used to band the wire bundles prior to cloth tape wrapping. They also used the wider 19mm cloth tape in a few spots, but those are buried so deep you wouldn't know it until you removed all the tape. I'm anal, but not THAT anal, so I just ordered the two narrow widths.



With the harness stripped down, scrubbed every inch with a nylon brush and simple green. Then everything a good rinse and let it dry. Next I wiped everything down with 303 protectant. It is starting to look new again. I forgot to mention that I also downloaded both '73 and '74 schematics from Jeff Bowlsby's site and printed them out large. The '74 diagrams include wire sizes which I can't find on the '73 diagrams. So they are handy for sourcing the correct replacements.







Here's a before for comparison.



There was still the matter of the overspray. Most of this was on the tail light bundle and the one piece of black cable sheathing in the front trunk that is split. That was lucky because it could be easily removed. The painted sheathing and taillight section of harness got an overnight soak in brake fluid to loosen the paint. Then it was easy to remove with the green side of a scrubber sponge.

[bbrock]

Gettin' wired continued

Now that the wire was nice and spiffy, I made a complete inventory of parts needed. I ordered a bunch of proper brass, open barrel spade terminals, a few right angle spade terminals, new brass bulb holders, contact cleaner, and an assortment of colored heat shrink tubing. Of these, only the bulb holders have arrived.



But that was enough to fully refurbish the instrument lighting harness. This consisted of splicing several broken wires using a lineman's splice, followed by flooding the splice with solder and sealing it with heat shrink. I have plenty of black heat shrink which was the right color for this wire. Finally, I soldered on new bulb holders where needed and followed with heat shrink over the joints. After a cleaning with contact cleaner, this should be good as new.



More importantly, I made a complete inventory of wire and jacketing needed to repair the main harness.





Perry Kiehl is checking his inventory of sheathing material to see if he has what I need. I'm working on sourcing the wire now. I forgot to mention that I'm going to eliminate the original fuel pump wires in the engine bay and relocate it to under the fuel tank. This will require running a new black w/ red stripe wire from the 14-pin connector up to the front trunk area, and a ground wire to a terminal somewhere up front, but yet to be decided.

I also decided to start re-wrapping sections of the harness that don't need repair or new wires strung through them. Not looking too bad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)







And now for something completely different

In other news, the diodes for my welder arrived last week. It took about 45 minutes to put them in and the welder was hissing like a viper again. Unfortunately, in the process of bolting up the diodes, a lead on one of the capacitors that protects them popped off. I replaced it with the closest thing I had on hand, but I'll need to tear in there to put in the right value capacitor.

But in the mean time, I was able to mod the pickup tube on the blasting cabinet. Luckily, the cabinet already has a 3/8" hose and gun. So the mod cost nothing since I already had a piece of tubing on hand.



Boy what a difference that made! I can now blast away without clogs. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif) And that meant I could finish walnut blasting my heads. Finally! A task on this car that didn't constantly shoot pain from my busted rib.



No signs of cracks on either head. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/monkeydance.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/monkeydance.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/monkeydance.gif)

These will go in for rebuild soon, but for now, they already make the engine look nicer.



It will be nice to have those done so I can start bolting stuff onto the engine where they are out of my way.

[barefoot]

With the welder down, I turned my attention to the engine. The heads are the only things that weren't rebuilt back in 1989. You know, back when Madonna and the B-52s were making me weep for the musical arts. Even Neil Young was putting out crap. Why Neil... why? Anyway.... I disassembled one head. Some of those valve keepers didn't want to let go. But I got the valves out. Everything looks good so far, no nasty surprises.

Please don't re-use 40 yr old sodium filled exhaust valves, here's what one of mine looked like after a short rap with a mallet to verify valves not stuck prior to teardown

[bbrock]

With the welder down, I turned my attention to the engine. The heads are the only things that weren't rebuilt back in 1989. You know, back when Madonna and the B-52s were making me weep for the musical arts. Even Neil Young was putting out crap. Why Neil... why? Anyway.... I disassembled one head. Some of those valve keepers didn't want to let go. But I got the valves out. Everything looks good so far, no nasty surprises.

Please don't re-use 40 yr old sodium filled exhaust valves, here's what one of mine looked like after a short rap with a mallet to verify valves not stuck prior to teardown

Roger that. I just had this same discussion with Mark Henry on another thread about my cylinder heads. It was a question I had because this engine is 40 years old, but it sat unused in my shed for all but 15 of those years. But... better safe than sorry. I've already had exhaust valves snap on two different engines in an old VW bus I used to have. Might as well have dropped a grenade in the case. So new valves all around for this one.

[bbrock]

Well Goodbye Dolly

I put the car up on jack stands yesterday, and today I cut up the dolly and made a good start on turning her into a rotisserie. She played her part well. Hardest part of today was dragging those long pieces out with a broken rib. Every time I pulled, I could feel my rib grinding. Had to called in the wife for help. After that, it was downhill.

[raynekat]

Bummer on the bad rib. Heal quickly.
Looking good on all the wiring harness work.

[bbrock]

I had high hopes of having a chassis hanging upside down in the garage by the end of the weekend. Those plans fell through when a quick brake pad replacement on my Pathfinder turned into an unplanned trip into town to buy new calipers, followed by an extended cussing session getting the system bled. Shot the whole day, but I'm glad my work truck/snow plow has new brakes.

That left just today to work on the Porsche. I made good progress om the rotisserie, but didn't quite make it to mounting the car. There is probably 2-3 more hours of work before the magic moment.



The new diodes in the welder have it hissing like a viper. Running .035 wire for 1/8" wall square tube. Working well.



In the mean time, I've been working on the wire harness as parts arrive. Theer donated a chunk of old harness to the project and I patched in everything I could. Cary is sending a care package with all the pieces I haven't been able to source new. I wasn't happy with the spade connectors I ordered on Ebay. They were okay, but a little flimsy for this project. I tracked down the OEM AMP brand crimp connectors and ordered a bunch from digi-key. MUCH better quality and a perfect match to the originals.



I also ordered some 3:1 black heat shrink to replace insulators on spade connectors. I'll add a pic later, but it is a perfect match to the factory originals

Got an envelope of gray heat shrink in the mail, so this morning I finished patching in the gray wires. I don't know, is this anal? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

[mb911]

I need to do the same to my harness.. At some point and engine fire caused all kinds of issues.. Keep up the great work.

[cary]

Before you go too far. Your building your rotisserie the same as I did. As soon as Doug's car comes off were going to change it. I what more precision on where i can lock it down.


We're going to cut back the inner tub and weld a plate on the end with a nut welded in the middle behind a hole. Then we'll fabricate a lock down handle, maybe a 914 steering wheel with a plate and a long piece of all thread. We'll do both ends.
Kind of like this. But we'll still leave the 4 pin holes for climbing in the tub.


My .02c for the am.

[mb911]

What I have seen is a gm or similar flex plate welded on to the rotating assembly and then a starter motor gear welded to a handle.. Probably the easiest way to get the rotisserie to have a true stop..

[bbrock]

Before you go too far. Your building your rotisserie the same as I did. As soon as Doug's car comes off were going to change it. I what more precision on where i can lock it down.


We're going to cut back the inner tub and weld a plate on the end with a nut welded in the middle behind a hole. Then we'll fabricate a lock down handle, maybe a 914 steering wheel with a plate and a long piece of all thread. We'll do both ends.
Kind of like this. But we'll still leave the 4 pin holes for climbing in the tub.


My .02c for the am.

I'll take a look at that. The pin showing in the pic is just a safety pin to keep the swivel from falling out of the hub. These pics show more detail of what I have planned for lock down. 1/2" nuts and bolts.



But now that you mention climbing in the tub, I think I'll drill the spindle that hasn't been welded to the cross bar so I can drop a pin in the horizontal position. Should do both, but getting that spindle that is already welded in the drill press would be a bitch. Will think on that one.

Thanks for the tips!

[bbrock]

Saturday 12/16 - Rotisserie is Done
Finished building the rotisserie today. Took longer than expected because I underestimated how long it would take to cut and grind off all the brackets from the dolly so I could recycle the square tubing.





I'm a bit nervous about how tall they are. Everything looked good until I whipped out my big ten inch..... castors. I knew they would add height so I shaved the height of the center posts as much as I dared from specs I've seen online. I hope I measured right to allow enough clearance for the car to spin. Even with shortened posts, the hubs are about chest high. I'll see how it goes, but might wind up swapping out for smaller castors.

I tested out the locking mechanism. With the bolts cranked down, I'm able to hang my whole weight out on the end of the arms. I think with both hubs locked down, I'll be able to climb in the tub without spinning. If not, I'll drill a hole in each hub so I can drop a pin to lock them into the horizontal position.



Now I have to figure out what to use for cribbing to lift the tub high enough to mount to the rig. Everything I have is buried under snow. Might pick up some cinder blocks in town tomorrow.

Tomorrow is massive clean up, plowing snow, and catching up on some non-car related chores.

Dang I'm tired. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/yawn.gif)

[bbrock]

German Luau

I've dreamed about this for almost 30 years, and now it's done. Fine German steel slowly spinning on a rotisserie. But it wasn't easy.

First I had to lift the car. Verily did this pucker my anus. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/yikes.gif)





And even with the tub lifted as high as I dared, I still had 4 1/2" to go.



So I dropped two wheels off of each stand so I could dip the hubs low enough to engage.



Success! And those 1/2" brake bolts work like a champ.



With the wheels reattached, time to test the spin.



Not bad, but all is not bliss. Trying to keep this thing as low as possible, I shaved about 2 inches too much for the windsheild frame to clear the center bar for a full roll over. I could probably live with that but I'm afraid if the car ever got loose from me, it would swing around and make a really bad day. I'm thinking of two options. One is to cut the center bar under the cockpit and reweld it with a drop so the frame clears on a full spin. The other is to just cut the bar in half and add a small sleeve so it is removable. Then I would attach the center bar when I need to roll the chassis around. I can't decide. Opinions welcome! Overall though, this feels like a HUGE milestone.

[andrewb]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif)

Congrats Brent. This is my favourite thread at the moment - along with Tygaboy's. Makes for an interesting contrast.

30 years ? Hmmmmm I know the feeling unfortunately.

I would leave the long bar in one piece but weld a length of box section to the underside of each stand - and then slide the long bar into those. Same result - minimum effort. DAMM ! just realised there's a castor in the way. Never mind. What if you did the above suggestion and swapped the 2 inner castors for some much smaller ones ?

Good luck, keep it coming.

Andrew

[bbrock]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif)

Congrats Brett. This is my favourite thread at the moment - along with Tygaboy's. Makes for an interesting contrast.

30 years ? Hmmmmm I know the feeling unfortunately.

I would leave the long bar in one piece but weld a length of box section to the underside of each stand - and then slide the long bar into those. Same result - minimum effort. DAMM ! just realised there's a castor in the way. Never mind. What if you did the above suggestion and swapped the 2 inner castors for some much smaller ones ?

Good luck, keep it coming.

Andrew

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/thumb3d.gif) Yeah, contrast is an understatement. I refer to Chris'(Tygaboy's) build as "the rocket ship."

That's a great idea on he cross bar. I'm going to take a look at that. Might be a good way to go.

[mb911]

On mine I decided I really didn't want to risk something as you described so I just put stops so that my car will only rotate 90 degrees from sitting flat each direction. This allows me to still do all underside body work with out as much danger..

[bbrock]

On mine I decided I really didn't want to risk something as you described so I just put stops so that my car will only rotate 90 degrees from sitting flat each direction. This allows me to still do all underside body work with out as much danger..

Another good idea. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheer.gif) I won't be able to get a full 90 degrees due to the clearance, but it might be close enough to get underpan work done. I think I'll explore this option first, since it would be easiest. First, I need to get the frunk lid off. I learned it is a bad idea to try to spin the car with that still on. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

[mb911]

On mine I decided I really didn't want to risk something as you described so I just put stops so that my car will only rotate 90 degrees from sitting flat each direction. This allows me to still do all underside body work with out as much danger..

Another good idea. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheer.gif) I won't be able to get a full 90 degrees due to the clearance, but it might be close enough to get underpan work done. I think I'll explore this option first, since it would be easiest. First, I need to get the frunk lid off. I learned it is a bad idea to try to spin the car with that still on. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

The thing that came to my mind was how am I going to work on the car when its upside down anyway? Not much.. Just having it rotated about 90 degrees allowed me to do the pan and all grinding.

[bbrock]

On mine I decided I really didn't want to risk something as you described so I just put stops so that my car will only rotate 90 degrees from sitting flat each direction. This allows me to still do all underside body work with out as much danger..

Another good idea. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheer.gif) I won't be able to get a full 90 degrees due to the clearance, but it might be close enough to get underpan work done. I think I'll explore this option first, since it would be easiest. First, I need to get the frunk lid off. I learned it is a bad idea to try to spin the car with that still on. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

The thing that came to my mind was how am I going to work on the car when its upside down anyway? Not much.. Just having it rotated about 90 degrees allowed me to do the pan and all grinding.

I don't know what I was thinking. Of course I can get 90 degrees! It's right there in the photo. I just can't get 360, and like you said, who cares? Stops will be going in today. Easy peasy!

[tygaboy]

I'm right there with you on the pucker factor when trying to get the car high enough to be rotisseried. I'm thinking a nice mid rise lift might be justified!

Your car is coming right along.
(and yes, I'll get that window to you soon...)

MerryHappy! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/santa_smiley.gif)