Going to look at a fantastic 1973 911S tomorrow. Need a bit of advice.

[Chuck Miller]

Beautiful job Ravi ....

[NorthernThrux]

A few updates between dodging late spring snow storms.

Spectacular Key Card reproduction from our very own Carl Bauer.




Hildegard got her first outing on new CN36s (N5 version). Dry, cold roads, but they handle quite nicely. Didn't do anything crazy in terms of driving till they get scrubbed in a bit, but I do like them. 5 tires mounted and balanced at the dealership, along with an alignment. They couldn't quite get the front caster and camber to hit spec, despite being a more or less stock height. Of well, drives just fine, stays centred and the wheel dances as it should. It's all the tire I need on this 222 hp car.



cheers,
Ravi

[Jens]

A beautiful car, Ravi, truly.

[NorthernThrux]

This week (June 14th to be precise) marks 10 years since I pulled Hilde out of a shed in Uxbridge Ontario. Hard to imagine. It was quite the journey, teaching me a lot about life, and of course it's never finished. Today's work was getting the door pocket bungees to work properly with the right routing and ordering a bunch of Kroon wiring harnesses in the engine compartment after having some intermittent tach and starting issues. Now that the car is getting regular high rpm use, some of those suspect 49 year old wires need a bit of TLC. Rather than try clean and redo every connection, I took the lazy (and expensive) way out and ordered 3 new harnesses for the engine, regulator panel and CDI.

Happy Father's Day whether you have kids, fur babies or a Porsche family.

Ravi

[frederik]

Happy to see that you're enjoying your 911 now! I've also got some intermittent tacho issues but for now, cleaning contacts is easier than installing an entire new engine wiring harness. And I've also got a set of new CN36's, they are great tires. More progressive when losing grip than the P6000s that I had before, and they look just perfect.

[NorthernThrux]

My harnesses have been gone through. But there are a number of kinks and broken insulation bits that are wrapped in electrical tape and I have a bad habit of occasionally hosing down the engine or driving in the rain. My electrical issues seem to link to these episodes, though I've never been stranded until last weekend (albeit that was a rotor failing). But as someone who works with electronics all the time, I'd rather replace the stuff and be 100% confident in it over the long haul. The car is going to be with me for a long time I hope. And if the UPS tracking is correct, the Kroon harnesses I ordered on Monday will be here tomorrow, as will a new distributor cap, rpm limited rotor and a few other sundries.

Ravi

[NorthernThrux]

I know it's 2022 and things are all modern and stuff and Amazon same day or next day delivery rules the world, but it still amazes me that I can contact a company in the Netherlands and my own dealer on a Monday morning and have parts at my house on a Thursday afternoon. Especially exotic parts like the 3 engine harness pieces I ordered from Kroon that are indistinguishable from my 49 year old harnesses.

The benefit of my distributor rotor blowing up was I also took a close look around the engine and noticed an oil leak from a big bulge on the left cam oil line. Original 49 year old line. So I ordered one of those as well from the dealer. Handy timing as I'm going to have to pull the distributor to clean out any small shards that are still in it and you need to pull it to replace that oil line.

I think this is all going to be a full day job this weekend.

Ravi

[davep]

Nice looking harnesses Ravi. Looks very close to the ones I recently made. They will keep the engine going for a long time.

[frederik]

That exact cam oil line bursted on my T in 2020 when I was on my way to Austria and Stelvio for the ESR Euro 2020 trip. Luckily a local shop in Belgium was able to fix it within a day so I could still join the group the next day. The Porsche dealership in Liege had it in stock which is also quite amazing for a random part for a 50-year old car. You dodged a bullet there!

[BOYER73S]

Well, the goodies are back from Tony Eugano. Then I discovered that the mechanicals in my ignition switch/lock were binding. What to do? Drill out the cap on the switch/lock assembly and try repair an almost 50 year old part, or ?

I had bought a complete lock and key set (ignition, doors, glove box and targa handle) with the aim of putting those in my car, expecting it would be years before I were heard from Tony based on this thread. https://www.early911sregistry.org/fo...6-Tony-Euganeo . However, after a lot of chasing and phone calls, I did get my locks back with new keys cut and everything working as the Porsche Gods intended.

So instead of messing around with the old assembly, I drilled out the pin that holds the lock cylinder in the new one, pulled the lock cylinder out from the new one, and inserted my original lock cylinder instead. Rather than try to put a pin in the hole I drilled out, I just drilled a new hole, pounded a nail in as a pin and cut the protruding part off with a Dremel. So now I have a chrome lock cylinder in a 964 assembly. Once it is in the dash, no one will know the difference as it looks original and I will have a far more reliable part (see below as to why I believe this). For those who don't know, from 1974 the lock cylinder face was black and that's the only way Porsche has sold replacement parts since AFAIK. So if you see a black cylinder in your early car, you know it is a replacement. At any rate, Hildegard will have proper master and valet keyed doors, ignition and glovebox this weekend if I can find a day to get it done.

Attachment 572181
Attachment 572180

As to why I think this will be more reliable. Well the older 911 part has a Rube Goldberg spring, pin and slip ring assembly behind the lock cylinder that controls the start/run lockout that fails after many years. Also the details of the internal mechanicals on the steering lock and how the cams link it to the lock cylinder are prone to wear. The 964 part number incorporates the start/run lockout and the steering lock mechanism in a visually similar external housing, but an internally somewhat different approach which is more robust. But bless Porsche's frugal heart, the lock cylinders are identical between the 911 and 964 part numbers and are completely interchangeable** despite the different internal mechanicals.

**Subtle mods needed. You have to pry a plate that rides on the sliprign off the back of the cylinder with a screwdriver. Trivial.

Good to know Ravi as I do have a replacement lock in my 73E at the moment with a black centre and asked about a new lock and as you advised can only buy the 964 part now
also with black centre

I was wondering if I got the lock cylinder out I wonder if I can polish the black off the face to reveal an original looking lock cylinder?

Did you try that on the cylinder you removed?