News 2000

12/21/02

My brother Rick and I took a field trip to Emeryville today where we visited Easy - a Porsche salvage yard and Fantasy Junction which has a very nice collection of vintage European automobiles including some interesting Porsches.

12/18/02

We've purchased a spare 912 engine. It is supposed to have about 3000 miles on a fresh rebuild. My thought is to use it as a spare, initially installing it to be sure it runs well, then either slowly rebuild mine or just fix the oil leaks and put the new one in storage. The decision rests on the condition of both of them.

12/13/02

Took a couple of pictures and added them to the page describing the rock damage to the hood and the additional painting I'm having done to the car. Now we see the fenders and door being prepped.

11/29/02

We spent a very enjoyable day with John Thornton and his 912 racing car yesterday. There are many interesting details on this car. It is not your normal 1967 912.

11/24/02

I stopped by the body shop to inquire about the repair for the damage from the rock. The hood is not in good shape as was discovered after stripping the paint. A new one has been located in Germany which will be here in a couple of weeks. I also found that after market hoods are available. A new rear window was located in the Porsche Atlanta warehouse. Most of these have embedded rear window defrosters, a feature first seen on the 1967 models as an option. We managed to find one without the defrosters. German glass is preferable to American because the dimensions are metric rather than in inches. This means that the OEM glass is slightly thicker than the local variety. As a result it fits tighter in the rubber seals and is less likely to leak. Leaking front and rear windows are a common cause of rust because the water enters areas that can not be seen. Water from rear window leaks often end up in the rear seat wells, a common area to find severe rust problems.

11/10/2002

Updated the CV joint page with a new picture and suggestions on reassembling the CV joint.

11/9/2002

A rock hit the hood of my car on the way to work. I was planning to repaint the hood before summer. It will now be done sooner than planned.

Added some pictures of Warren Eads RSK, Dean Watts' Abarth, Bruce Canepa's 959, Jerry Seinfeld's 550 and Bruce's 935racing cars.

11/7/2002

Added some pictures of Bruce Canepa's 936 racing car.

11/3/2002

Craig Norton sent some pictures taken while rebuilding his ignition switch.

Added a page summarizing Porsche at the 24 hours of Le Mans 1951-1998, the year the factory stopped competing at the highest levels.

10/31/2002

I see by the log files that a number of viewers have discovered my latest project, collecting the pictures of race cars and other unusual Porsche models and their stories under the Porsche Models link in the navigation pane on the right of each screen. Unfortunately, I have quite a few pictures of old Porsche racing cars not yet posted, so the pages under this heading are far from complete. I keep adding a bit on most days. There are now over a 1000 total pages on this site. They got here just a few at a time and that is what is happening with these models pages. I am going over the text time and again, checking for accuracy. If you see any errors please let me know.

10/19/2002

A group of Bay 912 friends got together to remove a 912 engine.

10/7/2002

I've started to use Mobil 1 in the engine since the oil change before Solvang. It is interesting that since then the gas mileage has gone from 22-23 mpg to 24.2 mpg. I believe this improvement is attributable to the lower friction available in the synthetic oil. The down side is oil leaks. The rear seal is leaking and the Mobil 1 has just aggravated that problem but it is not bad enough to pull the engine yet. The first oil change used 2 qts of Mobil 1 and 2 of Castrol. The last one used 3 qts of Mobil 1 and 1 of Castrol. The reason to use both is to reduce the cost a bit.

9/21/2002

I've added some pictures taken at the Monterey Historics and the Carlson Concours and Swap Meet. The latter is a PCA Zone 7 event.

9/13/2002

See the disclaimer to know why you should ignore all information on this web site.

8/18/2002

For some the Weltmeister Short Shifter handle is too short. Mike Klein added an extension below the bend.

8/12/2002

There has been sever access problem with the site since Saturday morning because my ISP is upgrading his network gear. We've updated the DNS entries twice since then and hopefully now have a stable and static IP address again. So sorry for the lost access.

The 912 Rendezvous is over. You can find a bunch of pictures of the event at the Rendezvous Gallery We had a wonderful time - except when I backed off the edge of a road in the dark after the BBQ dinner! A bunch of 912 fanatics came to the rescue and picked up the front and then the back and put it back on the road. To say that I was embarrassed is a big understatement. There were about 50 912s and I got individual pictures of over 40 of them.

The car ran like a watch down to Solvang, the tour and home. And since then to work every day.

7/30/2002

The body shop told me that my installation of the quarter panel molding was all wrong. I used glue and should have beat it with a hammer! They are correct and I've updated the page.

7/23/2002

We got an email and pictures from Matt in the UK showing his very nice '68 912.

7/5/2002

Will from the Bay Area sent some pictures of his Pertronix installation. He did not have to modify the rotor to get it to fit on the distributor shaft the way I did.

6/9/2002

I've added a search capability to the web site. Several keywords are better than one, it appears. I've limited the number of hits to about 25 which will probably be increased. It seems fast enough for more. There are some additional hints that can be added as documentation. There are over 690 photos on the site and I'm having a hard time remembering what is here.

6/6/2002

Check out the pictures of the swap meet and concours at Parts Heaven on Sunday.

6/4/2002

My car went to the shop yesterday and will be there for several weeks. I will visit it periodically to take some pictures.

Added some pictures to the Fresno Concours after getting the next roll of film developed.

5/27/2002

We've spend the week bringing a new computer on line so have not spent much time on the site. Todd Miller sent some more images of his extensive restoration. Lots of welding has been done on this project since the first of the year.

Added some more pictures to the Fresno Concours that took place on May 19.

5/20/2002

The server was down last night because we lost power at the house. The UPS is only good for an hour. It had been up for 200 days since the last time this happened. I keep thinking of a better cheap UPS using a deep cycle storage battery but interruptions longer than an hour have only happened twice in the last year.

5/19/2002

Todd Miller just sent some more pictures Showing dozens of patches in his restoration effort on a '67 912.

5/14/2002

Cary Dunn sends us some pictures of his soft window 912 Targa and 993 C2.

5/5/2002

I have started a new page on some paint and restoration work. The work is extensive, repainting the nose of the car, repairing some rust damage found in the cowl, repainting one door and repairing some rust damage in the passengers door jam and rocker panel.

5/2/2002

Updated the gallery with some new pictures from George Poulias, and George Vaccaro

5/1/2002

I lowered the ride height on the front of the car and found a problem rubbing with the new tires over the week-end.

4/22/2002

A couple of days before leaving for Australia the noise level on my 912 moved up several DB mostly in the higher frequencies. Yesterday I finally had a chance to spend some time on the problem. I had concluded it was probably the fan interfering with the shroud and it was aggravated by the shroud being a bit loose. Using the same process as when I replaced the generator, I pulled the generator and attached fan off the car and carefully inspected the fan to see if there was any sign of rubbing on the shroud. With a lot of imagination, maybe, but the marks where so tiny they could have been made by bumping the fan during assembly. In spite of no obvious problems I sanded some imaginary 'high' spots off the fan and tightened all the screws holding the sheet metal. When re-assembling, I was very careful to check for any drag on the generator. Pulling the generator brushes free eliminated any thought that the bearings on the generator might be bad. During reassembly I carefully again checked to feel if there was even the slightest bit of interference between the fan and the shroud. Well, after fixing no obvious problem, I'm pleased to say the engine in now quieter than I ever remember. It seems that there is very little clearance between the fan and the shroud and this can be a significant noise source with just the slightest of rubbing.

4/14/2002

Asha and I have been in Australia for the last few days to the wedding in Canberra of one of Asha's nieces and then in Melbourne for 3 nights on the way home. While there we managed a visit with a couple of 912 owners who have show car quality examples. Thanks to Joseph Armstrong, our host, and to Maury and Peter Swanson for a chance to visit their shop which has no less than 5 of their Porsches including an outstanding 912, a 1955 356 Continental, 2 914 and a very original '69 911. Check out the pictures of these cars.

3/25/2002

We spent a couple of hours at the Classic Sports Racing Group race (CSRG) at Sears Point and took a few pictures of John Thornton's new 912 race car.

3/23/2002

Bill Walence and his son have started on a '68 912 restoration project.

We have some shots from John Thornton preparing a 912 for racing.

3/20/2002

Wrote up a new page on tires after upgrading to 195/60HR15 Yokohamas mounted on 5.5 in rims.

3/17/2002

George Vacarro from Cupertino sent us a picture of his '67 912. His is one of the few one owner 912s in the area. He bought it in Germany just like the PO of my car.

Some new fatter 195/60HR15 tires mounted on some used 5.5 in. steel rims that were picked up from Parts Heaven at our Bay912.org get-together will be ready from the tire store tomorrow. The new rims need to be re-plated and it was a bit of a decision on where and when to spend the money. This is the cheapest way to see if it all works well. The old 4.5 in. rims and 165HR15 tires will be backups depending on whether to have these new wheels reconditioned or to get some alloys which were not original equipment for '66 cars. We seem to keep the tension alive between keeping the car original and a comfortable daily driver.

3/16/2002

Harald Berge from Oslo sent some more pictures for the gallery showing the engine and new interior done in black leather of his newly restored 1966 912.

3/11/2002

It seems that many early 912 cars (including mine) have lost the washer bottles for the windshield washers. At the bay912.org get-together at Parts Heaven on Saturday I took the opportunity to take a picture of Patrick Sidun's washer bottle. You can see the pump tucked between the bottle and battery. The battery tie down is not factory issue.

A West Coast 912 Rendezvous has been announced for the week-end of August 2-3. If you can possibly come please consider it.

The gas mileage of the last several tanks of gas has been over 22 mpg indicating the system leaks may be under control again.

3/7/2002

Todd Miller sent some more pictures of his restoration project on a '67 912. Although this is an ambitious project, Todd seems well equipped in experience to tackle it.

3/4/2002

We just created another local 912 bulletin board for Southern California. It has its own domain name www.socal912.org. It compliments our local BBS at www.bay912.org for Northern California. Also a west coast 912 rendezvous is in the planning stages for early August. More information on this event will be available in the coming weeks.

2/21/2002

The aluminum 'PORSCHE' logo on the rear deck lid is in two pieces on my car, broken at the S. The speed nuts holding the POR portion had disappeared and the piece was loose. These are called:

999.507.221.40 Mecano Speed Nut

and a near equivalent (999-591-423-03) is available at the dealer. We removed both halves of the logo, cleaned the deck lid and put it back using speed nuts on each side and a bit of 3M Fast Tack Trim Adhesive PN 08031 to secure the logo to the body. Original aluminum colored logos are very hard to find so I don't want it to fall off.

2/17/2002

Added a table showing the break down of chassis serial numbers by year for the early 912s.

We received a set of pictures from Harold Berge in Oslo that have been added to the gallery.

2/11/2002

I tracked down another gas leak in the fuel pump. The screws holding the pump together at the pump membrane could be tightened. This has to be done with the pump out of the car to get access with the screwdriver.

2/10/2002

Todd Miller sent some progress pictures of his 1967 912 restoration project that we've added to the gallery.

We also added some images of the transmission numbers to the serial numbers page.

2/9/2002

Some bay area 912 owners got together for breakfast today. We plan to meet again March 9, staging at McCarthy ranch, then a field trip to Parts Heaven in Hayward.

2/3/2002

I found a plastic pump good for transmission gear lube at the auto parts store.

1/21/2002

It was raining today causing Asha to clean off the bubbles when she got home.

1/19/2002

Here is a little portfolio that has nothing to do with the 912 but a 2002 Porsche GT2 was on our local dealers show room floor today. This is pretty exotic as cars go, and has been compared favorably to the million dollar McLaren F1 GT. The GT2 made the cover of the April 2001 Porsche Panorama "For the times when too much of a good thing is just about right" and the June 2001 Excellence magazine "Velocity Raptor". 456 HP, twin turbo, 4 valves per cylinder, 6 speed, 15 mpg city and 22 mpg highway. The rev limiter in 6th limits the top speed to about 195 mph. It is also a bit pricey.

1/17/2002

Here is a message from Craig Norton that will be of interest to California Bay Area 912 owners:

Bay Area 912 Announcement

Some Porsche owners have expressed an interest in starting an informal
Bay Area Porsche 912 get together in the San Jose area. This is an
opportunity to swap story's, repair tips, restoration info etc, etc,
etc. If there is enough interest this could become a monthly gathering
with a ride to follow after breakfast.

The breakfast will be held on Saturday February 9th at 9:00 AM at
Coyote Creek Golf Course. A post breakfast ride to Santa Cruz or
Monterey for that day can be done if you are willing and the weather
is cooperative.

Please send e-mail to p912s@pacbell.net if you are interested.  Please
include a return e-mail address where information can be sent
regarding any additional details of this meeting.

We'll be there. Coyote Creek Golf Course is on 101 south of San Jose and north of Morgan Hill. It has it's own exit off the freeway. Look for us in some corner of the parking lot.

1/13/2002

Added a page and some picture showing where to find the serial numbers for the 912.

Adjusted the heater flapper valves today. Like a full moon, winter sometimes causes people to do some strange things - like messing around under the engine on a chilly California day (65 deg F / 18 deg C).

1/12/2002

I scanned a roll of 35mm color negative mostly of shots taken at the Zone 7 Concours at the Wine and Roses in Lodi on July 1, 2001. The selection is a group of Porsche 356 in the process of being judged for the concours.

1/9/2002

It seems we will soon get another 912 WEB site from Sean Cowan. I am eagerly looking forward to it and will post the URL when it is available.

1/6/2002

Mark Collins is just finishing a 912 restoration in the UK.

For anyone who wants to make their own scripts for maintaining a WEB site there is now a tutorial that shows how I do it.

1/5/2002

While topping off the brake fluid reservoir I noticed the tubing from the gas tank vent needed replacing.

Ron in Tulsa just bought a 1972 911T.

Added a picture to the front suspension page.

1/2/2002

The notes on timing the car have been changed. There was a left-right ambiguity between the TDC mark and a pencil mark on the crankshaft pulley. I don't use the pencil mark because it is too hard to see and have deleted references to it.

1/1/2002

Happy New Year!

I've moved our Christmas picture off the home page and redid the mast-head (again).

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