904-068
January 12, 2007
Seems
like it's been forever...oh, I guess it has been!
We're doing these two 904's as quick as we can to keep the
cars within the budget. Budget...what budget?
These bolt action latches for the tail, just came back from
the platers. We had one original one and had to make all the
others.
The third set is for 904-119.
Bret and Andy pulled
the wires through and will start hooking them up in the near
future.
The duct
has been installed and the hole for the dash will be cut out
later. These are the metal wire straps which will be pop-riveted
in the body to hold all the wires in place. We made these
and then oxided them black.
These are the brake
lines that are used as a pattern. We made new ones and the
brake reservoirs are also new.
068 got
the racing Bilstein shocks. This car was raced by Peter Gregg
and he would have had all the latest trick shit.
Not that Koni's are bad, but Bilsteins were valved different.
One front brake disc is ready for installation.
The back suspension
has been installed. Remember, we had to make a lot of parts
for the control arms.
Here are the brake
reservoirs installed. The front suspension is installed, now
the brakes will get bolted on.
These
are emergency brake hardware. These brackets retain the cable
and brake shoes. We had to make a lot of these parts. I never
planned on either of these cars having emergency brakes because
they never had them. In America, they were removed for racing
purposes. Remember, both of these 904's have great pedigrees.
These are the emergency
brake expanders. We had to make most of these bits too. Here,
Bret is making the cable brackets.
Now Bret is machining
all the cable ends. These parts cannot be converted from 356
or 911, they have to be all made by hand.
Luckily,
I had one set of each part needed for a 904 braking system,
so we were able to copy everything exact.
The parts will be no different than new factory parts.
Here is a close
up of the suspension with the new rod ends that we bought
from Classic Parts in Germany.
Peter
Hofmann is a good friend and a great provider of some of the
really difficult parts needed for the 904 suspension.
Here are
more parts being bolted to the rear suspension. Ken Allison
re-made sway bars for 904's and this is one. Andy makes sure
that with the brakes installed, the alloy wheel still fits.
Sometimes, the tolerance with the caliper is off and needs
a little spacing.
In this case, both cars are o.k.
These are re-machined
356 rear discs, which are the correct part for the 904 rear
brakes. Remember, we went through the drill of polishing the
front hubs and then giving them a bath of phosphoric acid
to tone down the shine. Well, as it is, time is our best friend
when it comes to patina...the patina of these hubs now makes
them look new not California re-done (remember, I'm from California).
The color of these
Bilsteins looks like Koni red (especially in the pictures),
but the color is actually many shades different.
We ordered
a special rubber-delron compound for the stabilizer bars.
Unless someone out there has re-made them, this is what you
have to do.
We've been waiting
for this dash to be installed for 6 months. The gentleman
that does this for us does a fantastic job, but he's now retired
and it has literally taken us 6 months to get him back here
to finish the job.
Here's
Clark,"the maestro" at work. Andy will install the
gauges next.
Some of
these jobs are hair-pulling experiences,
but when they're finally done, and your hair grows back, it's
kind of fun hooking all this stuff up.
Here,
Andy is setting the gauges in. Of course, one slip of the
exacto knife and it's...oh shit! In the photo on the right,
there is a reflection on the underside of the dash lid. These
are not wrinkles. In the past, I have installed factory original
vinyl-formed dashes, and they look like shit, but they always
look like shit. These dash covers look really great, but they
don't look like shit...get it. I was just told that I used
the word "shit" too many times, but please remember,
we're the guys that "make chicken salad out of chicken
shit".
We will now start updating our projects every week, but only
one car at a time.
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