As my 911 is going to be a bit of a 'hot rod' I wanted to get rid of the none essentials.
Stuff like sunroof, electric windows, electric seats etc, but there was a line beyond which I was not prepared to go.
The car needs to be useable to an extent.
I decided that the things I can not live without are;
1,Glass windows.
I know they are heavy but at least you can see out of them. If they invent a plastic which does not scratch then I might re think.
2, Carpets.
Maybe lightweight carpet or rubber mats but some semi civilised floor covering. (BTW, I hate checker plate unless it is on a truck/landrover, where it belongs.)
3, Heater
I live in England, not California and I am getting on a bit and don't like getting cold.
4, Central locking.
It is already in, doesn't weigh that much and it is a pain walking away thinking did I lock the passenger door?
5, Can't think of anything else.
The trouble with 911s is that it is easier to loose weight off the front and totally ruin the balance.
A lot of the stuff in the back is kind of handy to have, such as the engine and gearbox for example.
And it happens to be quite weighty.
If you could re distribute some of the weight, that might help.
All air cooled 911s are dry sumped.
Though they are called 'air cooled' the oil does quite a lot of work in the cooling department too.
That is why they carry circa 10 litres of the stuff.
I have not weighed it but 10 litres of oil is quite heavy, and the tank which carries the bulk of this is situated behind the off side rear wheel.
If we could move this forward it has to be a good thing, I think.
Now, if you were building a racer you would put the tank in the front and be done with it, but I wanted to retain a bit of luggage space.
Comes in handy when you go to Le Mans and suchlike.
Back in 1972 Porsche themselves thought that the oil tank was in the wrong place too, so they moved it infront of the O/S/R wheel.
It was filled through a flap in the rear wing.
It looked like a petrol flap, which was it's downfall because by all accounts people filled their engines with petrol.
By 1973 the tank was back where it started.
Porsche always knew that the tank was in the wrong place so when they introduced the 964 it was back infront of the wheel.
This time it was filled from inside the engine bay, via a pipe which ran to the tank through the chassis leg.
Perhaps I could adapt some 964 bits to fit my car?
Only one way to find out, and that is to get the bits and try.
I bought 1/4 of a 964. (you can just see the tank in there)
The filler is here (and dip stick).
And when I started cutting it up you can see where the pipe goes through the chassis.
I was quite keen to have a go at this, but the more I thought about it the more I fancied having the filler flap in the wing.
I printed off the page from the '72 parts list which covered just the filler flap parts and gave it to Porsche and said 'I want what is on this page, please'
They came up with this.
It cost an absolute fortune
and I didn't get everything that was on the page.
On this (not mine) car you can see a pushrod and latch mechanism.
Well those bits are no longer available.
I searched the world, had scrapyards in California emailing me pictures of junk that they had for sale for loads of dollars.
All to no avail.
One day I called in at a mates for a cuppa and was telling him my tale of woe.
'Hold on a minute' he says, and disappeared into his secret stash.
'If these are any good to you they are yours'
If I wasn't strictly butter side up I could have kissed him.
He also gave me an old tank that I could cut the filler neck off to modify my 964 tank.
What a bloke.
When I finally had all this stuff I thought, 'I don't really want to be welding hundreds of pounds worth of filler bowl into an old rear wing, I'll get a new one', so I ordered one.
That was over a year ago, it went on back order from Germany.
The whole project ground to a halt.
I spent my time re building my Peugeot and the Porsche just languished.
Well, the rear wing is now there, it is paid for and ready to collect.
I just need to tidy the shed and get my motivation back.
Ax GTi Turbo
