Archive for year: 2024

You are here: / / 2024
,

4 Speeds and Drum Brakes: Large & Small Fixes

Winter in New England has always been a time to fix things if you’re a car enthusiast. We call them projects but the fact is that with the race season over every driver needs something to keep them busy in the colder months. I had pushed the Puddle Jumper into the corner of the garage back in Sept after it ate a pressure plate on the way to  the 356 Registry Holiday in Blowing Rock NC and had to be dragged home (thanks Cliff). The engine came out back in Nov so that I could get to the damaged pieces. Taking things apart is always the easy part, putting them back together is the hard part.

The engine is held in place with only four bolts and two of them are a little tough to reach. They have been in and out so many times that once a wrench is in place they practically fall out. It’s getting that wrench in place that is the contest. Like every big job, the secret is to just do a little bit at a time. Since I’m the only one in the garage, when I set something down like a tool or a part, it is still there when I get back to it. An hour at a time works just great at my age.

Once the engine was out, the clutch cable and housing was easy to replace since I finally had the correct length cable. The clutch fork and throwout bearing also had damage and had to come out. It took a while to get the replacement pieces together (thanks to Vic, Jeff and jBugs) as the car is 67 years old.  Of course “while I was there” (famous quote) and waiting for the big brown truck I had plenty of time to replace the fuel filter, rattle can the transmission hoop where it had been scraped on something and replace the paper heater hoses. The final adjustment on the clutch cable was done at the pedal cluster under the dash and that required that the drivers door be open as far as it would go. That was a problem since the left side of the car was tight up against the wall in the garage so I can get 7 cars in a 4 car garage.

I overthought that for a few days and decided that the best way would be to put the rear wheels on the wheel dollys so that I could push the rear of the car easily. That worked great but did require that the Big Dog be moved out of the garage and that Blackie scoot up close to the door. A good reason to take the Turbo out for a spin.

The tough part of this final adjustment was just getting to the end of the clutch cable. Back when this car was younger I think there was more room under the dash or maybe I wasn’t as wide. To put wrenches on the end of the cable that was at the end of the center tunnel meant that I had to lay  across the door opening and seat base with my head near the brake pedal. Getting into position also required that I had the tools needed to clamp the cable in the down position, a pair of needle nose vice grips, 2 10 mm wrenches to lock the end nuts  together and a couple of lights to be able to see it all. I also needed to install a new pedal buffer (see “while I was there” above) and  adjust the pedal stop. Part of the problem is getting all the tools and parts needed within reach, a reach that is pretty restricted. I only had to get in and out three times. Thank goodness for Aleve, but I should’ve taken them before the job not after. It does seem to take a lot longer to get things done. There are four small barrel bolts that hold the cables and rods in place for the heating systems on these old Tubs. It’s always the last thing to hook up under the car and usually to takes just a few minutes. That’s if I have all the tools needed within reach. Of course this time I needed a 10 mm open end wrench, a 9 mm wrench, a pair of needle nose plyers, a long screwdriver and a long narrow punch to line up the hole on the barrel sleeve for the cable end to go into. Nothing wanted to just “fall together” this time. It took 4 trips to the tool box, two pairs of gloves and nearly an hour to be able to say I was done. Good thing my hourly repair rate is low.

The big part of that job is done and a test drive will have to wait until the weather is better so it was off to Pearl (the Audi RS4) to fix a dead fog light. I have been driving Pearl for 20 years and have had a variety of fog lights in place. It was delivered with just regular 55w bulbs in place and as LEDs came to market I have tried a few. The lights seem to last fine but the electrical connections get old and corroded and need attention.

The wiring and ballast units are down low in front and get wet a lot. When one goes out I just pull off the small grill and inspect the plugs and they usually come back to life. This time there was no power to the right side light and since I didn’t have time to check the connection on the left (the source) I just put it back together and left it on my “fix it list”. I don’t like to drive a car with a light out so I just didn’t use them for the daily ride to the train station. One morning I just hit the switch without thinking and both fog lights came on

I know that the cars talk to each other at night but I have never had them get together and fix one. That is not a complaint but maybe I should print the “fix it list” where they can all see it better. It was a small fix but a fix none the less.  Be thankful for little favors.

Tom Tate – KTF

/by

Volunteer at NER!


Welcome to the Porsche Club of America’s Northeast Region!

If you have ideas or questions for additional events we could plan or would like to volunteer for existing activities, please feel free to email us at [email protected].

We can always use help keeping our members connected through varying ways, ie communications on our website, writing articles for us to publish, event planning, or if you have technical expertise, we welcome any and all perspectives to ensure members are getting the most out of the club!

Here are some examples of events where you can also volunteer this year:

Social Events:

  • Summer Party
  • The Annual Gala
  • Newcomers Meeting
  • Porsches & Coffee

Driving Events:

  • DE (Driver’s Education)
  • Autocross
  • SIM Racing
  • Tours
  • The Ramble

We look forward to hearing from you and cheers to another great year at NER in 2024!

  • The 2024 NER Board
/by

Four Speeds and Drum Brakes: The Big Show

In spite of a very mild winter so far the warm breezes of the Arizona desert called my name again last month. That and the sound of the auctioneer yelling “SOLD, SOLD, SOLD”. Of the auctions held in Scottsdale every year the largest is Barrett Jackson. Mostly Hot Rods and vintage American iron, this year had a few cars that seemed out of place. The first Big Dog was a steel bodied Mercedes 300SL Gullwing . It was silver with tan and fully restored, included fitted, matching luggage. In the Porsche world we just hope the engine and transmission are matching, in Mercedes Benz circles the luggage counts too. The total rang up to $3.41 million, far exceeding the market value of less than $2 million.

There were a couple of notable P cars, a 2015 918 Spyder in Acid Green and a 2005 Carrera GT Fayence Yellow (?), both with very low mileage (1500 miles and 2535 miles respectively).  My guess is that they are scary to drive.              

The Carrera GT brought $1.87 million and the 918 $1.78 million. In Mass, the sales tax alone on these two could start a new school lunch program. Both were easily 30% higher that expected. Even average P cars brought good bids. A ’55 Speedster (driver), white with black interior brought $255k. The owner said he had the car for 20 years but didn’t know the five digit vin when asked. That is the one thing that long term owners always know by heart. Seemed strange.  A 1970 911T, the only other vintage model we saw brought $155k, strong money but not off the chart. 

After that the numbers really started to get silly. A Restomod ’63 Corvette split window coupe had been done over with a new chassis, new drive train, new brakes and new everything. It reminded me of George Washington’s axe. You know, the one in the museum that he had used to chop down the cherry tree. The metal head had been replaced due to rust years ago and the wood handle was new because of termites but it was the original axe that he used. The display sign said so. The sign on the Corvette had a similar statement. Doing all that work and parts replacement could easily run up the bill to low six figures but the gavel fell at $1.1 million.

If there is a Chevy C10 pickup Club out there somewhere and I’m sure there is, they’re all drinking Champagne this month. There were a bunch at the auction, most with lots of horsepower and air bag suspensions. Four of them brought over $200k each with a blue one at $258k.  These are pickups built between 1967 and 1972 most are driven to the dump with the dog up front. You can buy them off Craigs List all day for $20k and that would be a nice one.  Throw in a big engine, some paint and even if you overpaid you wouldn’t drop another $60k. I just don’t know how the bids get to the present level.  My guess is that buyers just don’t want to go through the restoration process and they have the money to avoid it. It takes a few years to really restore or build a restomod and from the looks of it most of these bidders don’t have that kind of time left. They would just rather write a check for a car that was all done and drive off into the sunset. At a very high rate of speed.

The vendor area did not disappoint as all manner of products were offered. Those huge displays must work because every year the exhibits get bigger. What started out as just car parts, garage lifts and vibrating loungers now include  everything from signatures of  Presidents (both dead and alive) and famous baseball players(mostly dead) to a life size brass moose (free shipping) and bucking broncos.

Even boats have started to drift in. How about a 700hp pontoon boat for you and 25 of your best friends? That’s enough power to also tow a couple of skiers at the same time.

We did get into the car buying spirit of things and grabbed a BMW 330 off Craigs List for one of the grandsons. He had just flipped a Mercedes CLA 250 that was my ride for a couple of days so I needed something interesting to get around in. It was high mileage but solid and cheap ($2500) and with the headlight covers replaced and a good cleanup it looked like  $6k ride. We’ll see what the latest used car dealer in that family can do.

Arizona weather didn’t disappoint and sunny with 75 degrees was easy to take. There still isn’t anything like the change of seasons in New England so it was back to the big blue jet and off to Boston. I hear that Spring is coming.

-Tom Tate, KTF

/by
,

Four Speeds and Drum Brakes: Off to the (Rat) Races

For generations, teenage boys always got their drivers license on their birthday. For some it was 16 years old, down south it was 15 years old, when I was a kid. While different states had different age criteria we all looked forward to the freedom that a license allowed and couldn’t wait for that special day. We could run errands for the family, drive ourselves to school and Rat Race with our friends.

I had the advantage of riding with an older brother for a year and a half while he threw our father’s Studebaker President around the dirt roads of Kissimmee, FL . It was a low slung two door V8 that was pretty radical compared to classmates’ Fords and Chevys. The car came with us from, CA when we moved, had dual exhaust and dual antennas on the rear fenders. Bill got really good at “dirt tracking “ that car and I got good at learning how to steer in the direction of the skid.

In those days some of the roads were paved but there were no curbs, so chasing friends through neighborhoods meant cutting corners and driving across front yards. One course that we used often had an owner that would come flying out the front door yelling at us as we trimmed the edges of his Zoysia grass. One of our friends got such a charge out of the guy that he went back later in his ’49 Ford, rolled up by the front door and revved the straight pipe engine until the front door swung open. He dropped the clutch and laughed as the spinning tires left a pathway to the street. Halfway to the pavement he slammed the column shifter into second gear, popped the clutch and broke the driveshaft. When the police arrived he was still sitting in the car. It took him a month of weekends to repair the grass in the yard.   

Most of these runs were at night and we quickly learned some tricks to outrunning other cars. Cars were pretty simple back then and all the fuses for my VW were bolted to the panel holding the steering column in place. It was easy to just drill a couple of holes for toggle switches and wire them in line to interrupt power to brake and taillights. The license plate light was connected to one of the taillights so everything out back went dark when that toggle was thrown. The first advantage was to be able to turn off the brake lights. That way when brakes were applied the car chasing close behind didn’t get any advance notice that you were about to turn. My beetle got outrun by a lot of faster cars but because they spent time backing up to get turns they missed, I could usually get away. Another advantage was to eliminate tail and license plate lights. That made it easy to hide in driveways and alleys but still be able to see ahead. The real advantage was to have a set course with short blocks and many turns to interrupt the line of sight. I was always taking a different way home from school to find roads that were to my advantage. Roads that looked like they didn’t go through or even construction areas that didn’t seem to have more than one entry/exit were perfect for my Bug.

My best run was with a neighbor that drove a ’57 Chevy with a Corvette engine, hardly a match for my 36hp VW. Lots of smoke and noise but every time he got up too close I would turn off the brake lights using the switch under the dash, hit the brakes hard and turn right. He would go sailing through the intersection with all four wheels locked and I was gone. The Beetle outran the big bad Chevy for the better part of an hour. I stopped before he ran out of gas and we had a great laugh. Great fun and we probably never got over 50 mph. At least I didn’t.

While cars weren’t as large as today’s version, most everything was larger than my VW. I found a couple of dirt roads that turned into paths which were wide enough for me but not for a “real” car. If all else failed I could always bail on a larger car by just heading for the “Squirrel path”. In the process of exploring a dirt road one night, I came upon two posts that were pretty close together on the top of a Dike that I figured I could slip past. As I stared at the fender clearance and slowly let out the clutch, I was surprised the see the chrome strip on the front hood hit the windshield. It turns out that there was a black crossbar that was attached to the two posts that I didn’t see. It was at just the right height to contract the chrome strip without damage to the hood itself and push it up into the glass. I stopped, backed out, pushed the strip back in place and counted myself lucky as there was no damage.

A few years ago, I read a report written by the guy who bought the Volvo wagon that belonged to, Paul Newman. The original engine had been swapped for a Ford V8 to turn the grocery grabber into a real sleeper. The part I liked the best was the disclosure that there was a brake light cut off switch, under the dash that, Paul had installed. While the current owner was not sure how it was used, I knew exactly why it was there. Nice to be a member of the same club as, Paul Newman.

Too much traffic and too many curbs to do any Rat Racing nowadays but I still feel the need for extra switches. With cars following too closely, the cutout switch isn’t needed but a turn on brake light switch sure comes in handy. I have a small momentary switch that will turn on the brake light without ever lifting my foot off the gas. If that doesn’t work I can throw on the clear ( LED bright) back up lights. The Audi also has rear fog lights which are really bright.  It only had one originally but it was easy to add a second in the other taillight housing. Different countries have different regulations as to which side should be used, so most manufacturers have a socket  inside both taillights.

Modern cars are not as easy to modify since their wiring harnesses look like something off the Lunar Landing vehicle. If you can find the correct wire, the computer will trip you up and start lighting up the dashboard. It knows the brake lights shouldn’t light up unless the brakes are on and will send  a message that there is a brake problem. Don’t ask me how I know that. I think it notifies your local dealer, the police department where you live and your Senator in Washington DC. If you throw the interrupt switch  I think a voice comes on and suggests that you pull over and wait for AAA.  I’m not sure of that because I didn’t get that far.

(Actual image: Porsche Gold Meisters doing any work on a modern Porsche)

I’m just happy that I have been able to personalize (OK modify) my cars over the years and nobody cared. It has been great fun to tinker with cars and make them my own. Whether it’s exhaust systems, wheels and tires, stripes down the side or switches under the dash, each change makes it different and I enjoy being different. Isn’t that what the Muppets said on Sesame Street?

May the cars in your garage be as much fun for you as mine are for me.

-Tom Tate

/by