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Marky's 996 ownership thread.

Mornin' Neil and Y2K,

Thanks, collecting the seats later today. :D

Y2, I think the car is a keeper. :?:
I certainly wouldn't be pouring money into like I have/am if I thought I'd be selling anytime soon.
Having said that if I came into a load of money then I'd probably be back in a GT3 or sorted 964. However (and I've said this before) even when I had my GT3 and drove Craig's c2, I always questioned how much extra cash I had sitting in the GT3 given the low usage my summer cars get.

Money no object the GT3 is a cut above, but my C2 offers everything I need from a 911, classic 911 steering feedback, responsive engine with a great soundtrack and pretty soon the looks I love.

Aerokit parts are at the body shop with the car. I ended up getting a full respray. All will be explained when I cover it, but mainly it was to avoid trying to match 20 year old metallic black paint.

I should be collecting it this weekend but it will be a good month or two before it's done as my back garden is going to take at least another 4 weekends. I'll move onto the car whenever rain stops play on the garden. :wink:

I'd love PPF but as Neil says it's as much as the respray again. I may get the vulnerable areas done (about £1500) or I may just leave it and get bits redone in a few years.

I'll weigh it up when it's back in use. :thumb:
 
Liking this thread :thumbs:

Especially the affinity with the 996 and R1 - I've got a 996.2 that's slowly getting there thanks to the help,advice and the odd few parts sourced on this excellent forum. Also onto my fifth R1 (with odd Ducati's Aprilia and S1000's inbetween). Started way back with a blue 98, now onto a 2017 anniversary in yellow - There's a chasm in power, electronics and outright speed and handling spread over the 20 years but the DNA is the same.

Loving the Porsche but when a lack of outright pace starts to bug out comes the yellow peril!
 

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Seats look stunning mark. Very envious of those and actually think they stand out for being grey (in a good way). Your car sounds like it is going to be near perfect in my eyes pretty soon - well done.

As for the bike itch, it's one that I've never stoped scratching (currently have 3)

To be honest I normally sell a car before I even think of selling a bike as they are my main hobby. I have one to commute on, one for track days and one for looking at :lol:

Relatively speaking you can spend a very small amount on a bike for mind blowing performance which you will never find the limit of whereas you would be talking serious £££ to find that in a car. Just stay sensible and safe.
 
Cheers BHZ et al.

Seats collected today and every bit as good as in the pics.
Gear lever is great too. Left a tequipment handbrake grip to be done too.
That's a story in itself that bloody thing. :grin:

Legz that thing is awesome. My favourite paint job on my favourite current bike. That's the type of bike I'd just go and sit and stare at in the garage whilst having a beer. :thumb:

Gixxer - Too right. Even an old £3000 R1 would blow most people's minds if they hadn't been on a bike before. Nothing like that feeling of hanging on while the thing is trying to pull out from underneath you when you wind it on in 2nd gear. :D
You're hardcore for commuting everyday though. :thumb:

Thanks for the comments, I hope you get sorted with yours, either by getting it sold or continuing to bring it back upto scratch.


Good old pic Craig. Where's yours though. Happy times eh, before life got all serious.
Not the R1s best angle that but the GSXR looks good.
 
Random intérnêts threads have directed me towards this page Marky911, I found at tea-time, put the kid to bed and eventually pored a dram and sat down to enjoy.

Nice to see some old 911uk/PH usernames coming back up to reminisce but better than all it's nice to see your car being enjoyed (in it's own way). Funny how the old air cooled characters are now looking at 996s eh?

Thoroughly enjoyed the read :bye:
 
Hi Craig, long time no speak. I hope you're well and life is good at your end?

Yep, I enjoy whatever time I get on the car, with the bias heavily towards tinkering since buying, but the aim is actually to regularly drive the flipping thing at some point. :wink:

I enjoy bringing things back up to scratch almost as much as I enjoy driving though so no rush. Once it's done I'll be bored so I'm enjoying the journey, as it were. :grin:

What you in these days? Are you fancying some Pork?

-------------------------------------

As for my car. Some decent work happening soon. Can't wait to get stuck in.
 
Right, gonna get things updated a bit. Where did the last 2 months go eh?

I'm struggling to decide what order to put it in as the car went for paint months ago but still isn't fully reassembled. Partly due to having no time since April but more so due to moving onto the suspension and brakes. 
After all there's no point fitting freshly painted, perfect bumpers to then risk marking them whilst working in the arches.

So things may jump around a bit as I half sorted the arches before the respray, leaving the top coat until it came back. 

So anyway, I'll start back at the pre respray stage. 
I'd painted all my front arches last year during my radiator and condenser fitting. 
I still had the rears to do though and I also wanted to check for corrosion in the sills before the respray incase any remedial work was required. 

As usual though it was a last minute dash the weekend before the car went to the bodyshop, hence not many photos of the work, or the bodywork strip down either, annoyingly. 

Start -

Usual muck behind the mud traps that are the rear arch liners. 




Generally fine in there though. A tiny bit of rust on the arch liner mounting studs which I sorted with the wire wheel but the rest of the arches just needed a spray with Tardis and a wash down. 




So I moved onto inspecting the rear areas of the sills/front of the rear wheel arches. I was fearing the worst having seen some horror stories on the forum.
All good really.




There was a bit of surface rust and loose underseal at the bottom which responded well to a pass with the wire wheel. 
I also cleaned up any areas of split under seal around the edge of the lip that runs round the inner arch and I also cleaned up the inside of the actual wheel arch lip. 

I then used this on all the treated areas. -






Then I gave them a coat of black over-paintable spray on stone chip. 




As said I'd apply a top coat of gloss black once the car was back from the bodyshop. 

Next I removed the rear bungs and front vents for the sills. 
Again I got off lightly compared to some cars out there. 

Inside the rear outer sills were perfect -




Rear inners were fine bar an area of light surface rust on the bottom of the sill, just inside.
Hard to get a decent pic through the little hole. -




Fronts were pretty much spot on.




Gave everything a coat of wax -




This is the cavity wax I used. It's ok but very watery. Dries as a sticky film though so I'm confident it's doing its job. I used a tin for each sill. 




The wax comes with extra long 360 degree nozzles. By the time you've gone in from the front and in from the back, there's only about a foot or so in the centre of the sill that hasn't been treated. 
For that I just removed the 360 end bit and aimed in. 
The pressure from the spray just made the nozzle tube flail around though so I had to deploy my NASA spec nozzle reinforcement system. 
:grin:




With that done it was bungs back in and onto the stripping of the car for the bodyshop. 

Given the summer use the car gets with me, I think it's good for another 20 years no problem. :wink:


The bodywork strip down was a mad dash and I don't get any enjoyment from working like that. I'd promised to drop the car off on Sunday afternoon and Craig could only help on the Saturday so like I say, hectic. 
We got it stripped anyway and dropped off at the bodyshop. 

I'll cover the body work in a separate post as it's still currently not complete. 
We got it assembled last weekend and as I type the car is back at the bodyshop for a final flat and polish. 

It's better to assemble it and take it back than have the painter try to polish bumpers and things on stands with them flexing and moving around. 

Anyway boring post over. Fun stuff next. :thumb:
 
Brakes and suspension.

So once the car was back we (Craig and I, as usual) got it into the garage for the big tear down. 

I'd removed the arch liners prior to the respray and sods law it was awful weather on the way. 
So when I got the wheels off I was well miffed at the state of the front arches and coolant pipes etc. Much cleaning to be done. 

NSF wheel well -




NSR -




OSR -




OSF -




I then removed the exhaust boxes and heat shields ready for top-coating the inner arches. 






We then stripped off all the old suspension.

75k mile old M030 shocks and more recent -30mm springs along with all 4 droplinks. 




Then we stripped it all apart as I wanted to reuse the rear top mounts and the strut washers. 










Those washers are £28 +vat each!
I have an even better example of the Porsche tax than that later!
8 washers per car. I had caught 2 with the cutting blade and one was missing from a previous "technician". 
I found a guy selling some for a tenner each but he done me 4 for £30 so I have a spare one too. 

Turns out though they actually foul the inside diameter of the KW spring hangers so I had to reduce their diameter a bit then refit. 
Much more too it than that but we've had a few issues like that. You always do I suppose. 

So some more strip down pics -

Rear coffin arms put up a fight. Bolts seized into the metal tube they run in, so a bit of careful angle grinder action was necessary. 




Front hubs  - 




Brake calipers -




Brake flexi's, warning wires, etc -




Pads, pins, shims, spring clips, etc -




Old bleed nipples. The replacements are another current problem. More on that later -




Rotten rear disc backing plates. 
Annoyingly the main dealer sent me fronts last week, by mistake and I had to get the car built back up, so I'm going without them for now. They only trap moisture onto the disc anyway but I'll have to monitor the brake dust going onto my suspension etc without them. 
I'll fit them over winter either way.




Brake pipe flexi brackets. There's a one missing in that pic. 




Old discs that were mint actually. No wear at all. I'll clean them up and keep them as spares. 




After all that we were left with this -




Once all that was off the car I had access to the suspension turrets where the strut tops sit -




A quick whizz over with the drill wire wheel, then a couple of coats of zinc primer -




Then the top coat -

Rear -




Front -




Rear sill area -




So then it was onto sorting out what I was going to keep or bin and cleaning everything up. 

Washed all brake pad shims, pistons, rear top mounts and front top mount bearings - 



I had planned on painting my calipers but once I began prepping them I realised there was hours of work involved, so I put them in the pile for my powder-coater.







Next, reassembly....
 
Now for the fun bit..


Reassembly


So with a load of new parts ordered and a lot that I'd been gathering since buying the car, we could begin reassembling it all.

The main component being Craig's rebuilt KWV3s. I've raved about them plenty of times and when Craig had them rebuilt and put back on his car a year or so ago I couldn't believe how good it drove. 
They ride bumps brilliantly whilst still keeping the car totally flat during cornering. 
Craig decided to move onto the new kid on the block that is Ohlins as he has far too much money to spend on that car of his, so he's just going around it revisiting areas that were sorted a while back. :grin:
So that left the KWs for me. 

Anyway, back to some pics -









New standard front top mounts -




Top mount bearings cleaned and ready to be greased -




Greased -




Strut top washers. Still a bit pitted but you don't see them once assembled. -




Front -




Assembled -




Rear -




Assembled -




New drop-links front and rear -




New standard coffin arms for rear with new eccentric bolts -




Replaced my adjustable camber bushed standard arms for Craig's old Elephant Racing camber arms. 
The jury's out on whether they'll stay, as Craig reckons he couldn't get less than 2 degrees negative camber with them. I'll get a geo done soon and see what we can get them dialled back to. 
If it's too much then I'll adjust my old arms to run less camber (as they were -2.5 degrees!) and I'll put them back in. 
The Elephant arms are a much better piece of kit though so fingers crossed I can get them to work. 
I could add adjustable top mounts to dial some camber out but for the money I'd rather buy the RPM arms Craig has just bought. 

Elephant vs standard (poly bushed) arm -




KWs fitted to the car. I'll do a load of "finished" pics at the end though. 




I also found a new heatshield. Still want one for the other side but the originals weren't bad anyway. 

New one - 




Fitted -




I'll save the money shots until the brakes are on though. :grin:
 
So next it was onto the brakes. 
I'm basically going for the GT3 look with my car. Totally cliched and unoriginal thinking but hey, I like that look. :D

With that in mind I'd been wanting to change my calipers from black to red, since buying the car. 
As I said earlier once we had them off I realised the amount of work involved in prepping them for paint, hence they went to the powder coaters. 

Here they are on their return -






Then I fitted the new, correct size decals, 74mm x 5.5mm.




Now the next stage I wish I'd left out. I painted the calipers with VHT lacquer to seal the decals in.



Well for some reason the lacquer didn't go off, despite baking them in the oven.
So when I went to flat it back and buff up it just rolled up. I had to spend hours removing it all. Aarrgghh. Nevermind.



Anyway, onto more reassembly.

I bought a load of generic stainless bolts and washers as the Porsche stuff is over-priced and rubbish.




I also bought a full caliper seal kit from Bigg Red. This includes piston and dust seals -




Along with a set of their titanium bleed nipples -




You also get new caps but the proper Brembo ones are much nicer. -




I've mentioned this on Mistercorns thread but basically they leak. The guys at Bigg Red have said this is very rare. They sell thousands of these but do very rarely get a set that leak on a certain car, for reasons they can't explain.

They've sent me some stainless ones which arrived yesterday but they are exactly the same profile as the Ti ones so I don't hold out much hope.

Difference here -




Anyway, on with the caliper rebuild. I didn't know at this point the nipples leaked obviously.

Stickered up with pistons and seals back in, oh, and all the lacquer removed. Grr! :grin:




They look a bit pink in the pics but they aren't, they're bright red.

I then fitted some 3M clear film to the most vulnerable centre area of the caliper, to protect from stones etc.
I had to touch up the chip in the one below. Some brake fluid must have seeped out during powder-coating and stopped a small area of powder-coat sticking properly.





With that they were ready to go back on the car.
Along with new discs and pads -






Reusing the old shims. It's fine and avoids yet more of the Porsche tax -




New flexi brake lines from Hel. Me old mate Craig got me these so thanks mate. :thumb:




Also bought new spring clips for either end -




Brackets back from powder-coating.




These clips turned up and I had no clue what they were. I have a habit of just ordering everything on the Porsche parts diagram.




Turns out Craig knew what they were for and couldn't actually find them to buy them so I gave him the part number in exchange for him telling me where they went. You see, teamwork. :grin:
They hold the pad warning wires out the way, by the way.




Callipers all reassembled with clean warning wires, retaining pins and spring clips powder-coated silver.




Also back from the powder-coaters were the rear cross beam and diagonals -




New rubbers for the above -




Before I could fit these I wanted to tidy up the jacking points and inner lip of the sills. The body shop had sorted and stone-chipped the outer side when they had the car




So I just scraped off any loose edges to the underseal on the lower edge of the sill lip, then zinc primered it, before brushing the good old fashioned thick black waxoyl on for protection.

Jacking point before. Still solid but the underseal had been worn away.



All done -






Not the prettiest but good to go for another good few years again.


Cross bars on -






I think I'll have to leave it there for tonight. All the finished pics to follow. :thumb:
 
Top job. I see what you mean about the lacquer, I can only think that it doesn't like sticking to the powdercoating. Your car is looking fantastic.

MC
 

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