Porsche saga… take 1 or “On a quite night you can hear it rusting in the garage…”

Once again here I stand. On the cusp of the abyss. -This next story is not for the faint of heart.
I had been looking for a 1968 901 body styled Porsche for some time. I had come across over the decades, several –and been damn close. But there was always something wrong.
I fixed my sights on this year for me because as most know it is the last year of the 3” inch shorter wheelbase. -And I really had a thing for the originality of that 4-banger 356 engine, so I would be looking for a 912 which narrows the scope a bit.

Okay, enough about my theories. The rubber hit the road on this:
A 1968 912 with 66k ORIGINAL miles. ONE owner car from Westchester County New York.

Here’s our story: about 2 years ago I heard through another member of the PMCA that a neighbor of his had an old 912 that was sitting in his garage and he would look into it for me if interested. As always (and I always say the same thing) I said sure. Great.

About a month later he called and said he drove down to the guy’s house and had a cup of coffee with him. The guy brought him out to the garage and took the oily cover off. There sitting (and rusting) was his father’s 912. It seems his dad had it imported and bought it through his company back in 1968. –he had ALL that documentation, etc from Stuttgart btw (!). –this is the way it was done back in the 60’s, you worked through one or two importers to get your vehicle.
So my friend told him about me and my pursuit. The guy said he really didn’t want to sell the car. He had been planning on restoring it as it had belonged to his father (and his dad had passed away a decade earlier). He added he had it on the road last in 1989 and drove it for about a month or so. Nonetheless, he wasn’t interested right now. They said goodbye and parted ways. The owner added if he changed his mind, he would let my friend know.
So often when buying an older car it’s like a dance. You go back and forth.

So I let it rest for about 4 months. Then called my friend again and we chatted. It seems that the Porsche guy had been thinking about it and had a change of heart. But he wanted to know my intentions. Since my friend had an established relationship, I told him to tell the guy about my long standing PMCA relationship as well as Porsche being a client of mine. So after another month or two we finally agreed on a price. I sent the flatbed out to pick her up –and then she was mine.

First thing we did was bring her over to Frank’s. once there, we put her on the lift. She had some pretty bad rust, but we’ll get to that later. –she also had a really poor paint job done at some point in the 70’s.
We tapped the gas tank and the jelly-like gas came out. We then hooked up an air compressor and blew back through the system (and out through the tank) the remainder of the fuel.

Then we drained the oil, changed all the filters, replaced the destroyed fuel lines, new plugs and points (fun to say that word again!) sprayed the carbs with gumout and WHOLLA! She turned over! A LOT of smoke, but she was alive!

Stay tuned…

NEXT CARB REBUILD, BRAKE REBUILD and the new body parts..


Peace,

Joe

The Good, The Bad and The JAG...

at least once in every car guy's life he finds himself at that threshold of rational thought and emotional. advice: if you're feeling even a LITTLE bit emotional when you look at an old Jaguar, WALK AWAY AND TAKE A COLD SHOWER or do your taxes or something else that is a buzz-kill IMMEDIATELY.

i did none of these things.

i fell in love with the idea of this: my 1996 Jaguar XJS. did a TON of research, joined Jag forums, etcetc. and ended up with the idea that this, the last generation of the xjs made in '96 and primarily built by Ford was the highest quality for this model.


so i drew up the criteria: southern car, preferably east coast, though not from FLA. one owner, all books and records. -and any color but white.

took about 6 months to find this one:

from VA. one owner (guy bought it and lost it in divorce settlement, you'll catch the IRONY on this in a moment). it hadn't been driven in a while and was not my first choice, but i discovered the field is somewhat limited for these cars. -the paint had completely oxidized.

found (through Jag forums) a GREAT mech down there. actually wired the money to him and he bought the car for me.

took about 2k worth of work to get her road worthy for the drive back up north. had to do a brake rebuild, new rubber, new wires, new sparks, flushed al systems including the tranny (which can be dicey).

he had a great quote when i went down to pick her up from the guy that owned the repair shop. "you ever own a Jag before?" he asked. "no, but i'm pretty excited about it! i love how the xjs looks. sexy, you know? -looks a bit like a woman." i replied.

"i own a couple" he said. "what's ownership like? i asked.

he looked up from his paperwork and said "you ever been married?"

"yep" i said "-so they're like a wife?"

he looked at me and went on: "ever been divorced?..."

"uh, yep. so they're like an X wife? -got it." i said.

"an ugly divorce..." he added. "-...so...they're like an angry X wife?" i asked, my voice trailing.

"yeh." he said then paused before adding "-they're like an angry X wife. -who's WICKED hot and is a complete bitch about it."

great. and that pretty much sums up Jag ownership.

with that bit of info, i jumped into my hot, bitchy, angry future X and drove her back to CT.

-man, how UGY are those stock Jag rims btw? ...had the interior cleaned and repaired (including the rip) by the amazing Greg at Fairfield Auto Upholstery. wow, is that guy good. -there's a pic of that further down.

-ahhhhh, here's how she came out... click on these pix and see how amazing the paint looks. -nice job as always Peter.


then had some additional mech work done. really had trouble starting her up. after spending another 2k or so trying different things found out from Jag "yeh, sometimes we get that. might need a new computer. cost about 3k. might not fix the problem though. we've seen it go away on its' own sometimes..." now THAT'S reassuring.

anyway, with bringing in all the details, then gave it to the guys over at Coatling's. there they stripped her down to the bare metal, got the original paint from Jag and repainted her. -filling all the door dings with lead -and taking all the badges off.

i also picked up a set of custom rims and (again) new rubber.






after all that work, we did get divorced after all. i ended up selling her to my Dad.
-my X now lives in FLA and requires the same amount of attention... i really don't think she's angry.


















-sure is pretty though...

peace,

Joe

The definition of insanity...

in some Eastern religions it is said you repeat your life over and over until you finally get it right. -at least i think i heard about that from watching Groundhog Day too many times. -or is that the definition of some form of mental retardation?..

much in this spirit i hunted down another convert.

i looked at about 15 and made offers on 4 of them. finally on the coldest day in Feb i found my way to some remote part of Jersey drove home this: a 1991 900T with about 180k on it. sure she had some issues. but let's be honest here, so do i. she was a one owner from the Jersey shore, a corporate lease that he woman fell in love with and purchased outright after the lease term ended. all books and records from new (including ALL service) AND the original sticker. so, after doing all homework and finding it all it all checked out, i brought her home to begin her as the next Franken-saab winter project.

Here's what she looked like the day we bought her:


she was pretty rugged. she actually looks kind of nice here in the photos. -first off changed the oil, plugs, wires, fuel filters. then started with the brakes. changed the pads, then replaced the aging spent shocks with a new set of Bilsteins. then patched a piece of pipe that really just need a new clamp. new vacuum lines and sent her over to Frank, the guy who can work magic on my cars. -more about Frank later when we get into the Porsche Project.

he took care of a coolant problem and also a slight loss of pressure issue.

hey, remember those RIMS?... me too. so i searched around and found a set on craigslist in Ohio. had them shipped. put some new rubber on them and put spacers in the rear springs (VERY important btw, otherwise your car will bottom out over every bump).

turned to the interior next. i removed the old speakers, took apart the doors and replaced the really bad porn of the 80's Saab felt fabric with some cow skin the i picked up on ebay. and fit that in. then filled a syringe (we have kids) with black calking and filled the cracks in the dash. sanded and hit with a light coating of kryon FLAT black plastic paint.

then purchased some leather dye from World Auto Upholstery to re-dye the interior leather. THIS place ROCKS. i have been using them for like a decade ( 'www..worlduph.com'). again more about them later in the Porsche Project.

now i REALLY needed to find an SPG panel kit. so scrubbed the internet. looked on ebay for a while. but all of them were going for 1k+. -so i posted a personal ad on saabnet and struck a deal with a guy from St.Louis.

it took him about a month and half to send me the (almost) entire kit. one. piece. at. a. time. AND THE RAILS.

also located a boot on ebay. as original was destroyed.

sanded them down and purchased some SEM bumped paint. took like 7 coats with wet sanding. then used ULTRA flat hunting Krylon paint for the wheel arches.

i vowed to never again install a set of these... so this time i didn't!
got the guys over at Coatling's Auto body to do it for me. they're GREAT guys and Peter is a ROCK star. they painted the Jag for me, which we'll talk about later.

anyway, enough about this vehicle. she's pretty much done form the moment. couple more things need to be done, but she looks and drives great...AND she's an AUTOMATIC! :)

















peace,

Joe

SPG/Flooring

Here's an SPG that i came into in kind of a weird way. -i swear to God these cars just FIND me.

anyway, when we built our home, one of the guys who worked on the project did all the flooring. actually, all our flooring was what they call "saved flooring" which means it all came form an older building somewhere in New Hampshire.

so, the guy who does the deal with us is to deliver "x" amount of flooring against a specific price. trouble was after we settle on a [rice, turns out that we're short some flooring -and the guy cannot get any more. long story short, instead of taking a refund, i end up with this. a 1991 (again!) saab SPG with about 100k on it.. nice ride, solid car. i ended up turning it over within a month or two to a mechanic in south norwalk. -turned a profit on this one... go figure.

peace,

Joe

Saab story... THE RIMS! -oh and the car too.

welcome back. -if you left.

okay, so remember those rims from the old toaster/covert 900T?

well, here is where they ended up/why i purchased them.

here's my next dabble into the topless arena.

she was a '91 900T in that kinda weird color green. NOT the goodgreen used on the legit SPGs. -hey! you can see our old G-WAG there in the garage in our




not-yet-but-so-damn-close-to-being-completed house construction... -but one blog at a time.

i picked this one up from a guy i knew selling/parting out his dealership. we made a deal on this old automatic that he had with (surprise!) a bad tranny.

so, we struck a price ( i wanna say like 2k?...and i wrote him a biz plan) and i went onto saabnet looking for a decent low mileage manual tranny. found one, had it shipped and replaced the old with the new(er). pretty easy swap from manual from auto.

added a set of aero skirts i found also i think on saabnet from a guy out in god's country mid-west. nice guy as i recall though. i think his name was Abe and he took them from his daughter's old rusted out SPG that had been sitting in his barn since she went out Cali, having gotten married -and left her old spent SPG behind.

man, what a PAIN IN THE ASS it was to put those skirts on. i'll NEVER do that again... (until my next one).

anyway, she was a GREAT CAR. but...we just had our second son. and Kells could not/does not -save for the practice time she put in on our 911 ;) drive a standard -and it really didn't make sense to keep her on with like 5 other cars already under our wing. so, rather depressed, i put her on the scalping block known as Ebay -and way she went...

*footnote: sold her to a self-proclaimed Saab FREAK from (gasp) Colorado. he flew out and drove her back. he then called me days later trying to scam me out some dough, claiming that the timing chain had snapped and the car was in the middle of a cornfield somewhere. REALLY? timing chain SNAPPED? -hard to believe on a car with only about 70k original...that i drove every day for about 2 yrs... NEVR heard of a chain snapping on a 900. neither had anyone else. be careful on Ebay...

**ANOTHER footnote to that footnote: found out the story was bogus about six months later when i was contaced by a woman who had just purchased the vehicle and was tracing the history of the car. she bought it. it is still running happily,. she was nce. i sent her any addnl info i had on the car. happy ending. :)

peace,
Joe

Saab story.. FIRST TOPLESS

i'm starting out the convert stories here. so this one pictured was a NOTSOGREAT example. i purchased form a guy up in Barnstable MA for about 500 bucks. i wanted the rims, but made a deal with the guy to BUY THE WHOLE CAR for about 500 bucks.

seemed like a pretty good deal to me.

anyway, i took my chances and decided to try and drive her home. she limped the long drive. -drinking anti-freeze like kool-aide on a hot summer day... but she made it.

i owned her about a year-ish and drove her (BONUS) pretty regularly. -tough to kill, those old 900's. she had a cracked head (kind of rare for a Saab) and about 300k on it, veyr sloppy tranny (-you know the kind where you have to HOLD IT IN FIRST). trashed the car but saved those rims/tires that were taken from a 9000. -we'll see those again later.

dunno where she is now. perhaps a toaster somewhere out west... ride/toast on old girl.

peace,
joe

A SAAB Story... the start.

okay, so it started out simple enough. when i was a kid, say 11 or so, there was a friend of mine in our small New England town of Madison CT whose older brother had recently come back form college out in Colorado. after 6 yrs of college he almost had his degree.

-anyway, his name was Steve and aside from being able to do this really cool flipping of his cigarette from his middle finger and thumb, he was the best skier any of us had ever known. when he came back with his many pairs of skis strapped to his roof rack on his Saab 99 turbo, i just knew... this was (one of) the only car(s) for me.

here's a couple of pics. -btw how f*cking cool is that snow rally pict?

so that i think is what started it for me...

got my first 900 turbo one junior year of college (1985) and have owned 6 total.

i'll post as i go.

peace,
joe

WELCOME TO THE GARAGE

Hi, glad you find the garage out here in the virtual universe. i set up this blog to keep a record of my ongoing obsession with certain cars -and my repairs to them. my wife Kelly indulges me on this quest... so stay tuned. THANKS!