WHEN
YOU HAVE ELIMINATED THE IMPOSSIBLE, WHATEVER REMAINS, HOWEVER IMPROBABLE, MUST
BE THE TRUTH?”
By
Arthur L. Cunningham
“Dear
Members of the 911T Registry.
As some of you might know the
The 911T Registry will
also be there (and) we are planning: A
Tech session that will cover a topic pertinent to the early 911 with Ed Mayo,
the PCA early 911 guru as the featured speaker and a
Tech quiz with prizes awarded and a Prize for farthest "T" driven.
We are
trying to reserve a block of hotel rooms. Hotel information will be forth
coming.”
Upon reading the above
I was pumped! I thought
of tooling along in the new-for me-Sports Seats just installed in my 1973 T.
A big drive was what I needed to lighten the future on that cold January
evening. Indeed, I had taken
“Midnight Blue” to
Further, Mary, my trophy wife of 35 years, had promised that if I
didn’t replace my special driving companion, a boxer dog named Gabby—who
recently moved on to the Domicile of Hourly
Dog Bones and Incessant Varmint Chasing—she would go anywhere with me on 911
road trips. Ah, this would test of
her commitment to that oath avowed--placed, don’t you know, atop my huge copy
of PORSCHE,
Portrait of a Legend by Ingo Seiff.
I got in touch with the leadership of the 911T Registry and avered
my intentions, (by email, he responded to my questions of where he lived and
whether he was driving his T to the swap meet with something akin to, “I’m
in Minneapolis and there was no way in hell that I’m
going to drive a 30 year old car as far as Hershey”).
Mary was being unusually acquiescent too, inasmuch as she was
cranking up for a bathroom remodel and some bedroom re-carpeting—all to be
completed before we left. She even
called an aunt and an uncle to warn of visitations along the way to the Hershey
and back. Cool!
But I kept putting off the last bit of commitment--that of booking the
hotel reservation. With that date
fast appeared on the calendar, Mary was chagrined and even expansively indignant
(a great show!) to hear my meek reply why, “I
just have this feeling. I can’t
explain it other than: I’m
indigently indecisive. Though the
remodeling and carpeting is supposed to be done, easily, by the day of
departure, I have known the vicissitudes and exigencies of life, plans, and
working with people in my time (I demurred any
comment on the attributes of 911 hard parts!).”
And she dropped the subject too
easily me-thinks!
You have no doubt guessed that my extrasensory omen projections were
correct. My calendar shows that one
week before we were to be off to Hershey, the
fuel pump on Blue died. I
replaced it with the original I kept in the parts cache in the trunk and all was
well—being very glad this didn’t take place at the side of a road
somewhere!. (Yes, I had replaced
the original with a new one in 1996 when my son and I rebuilt the engine
thinking it would go another 20 years before it died, and, after
I died—but kept the old working one just in case). I
also learned from Ed Mayo (PCA tech guru for our vintage) that the number on the
newer, now-dead pump, though physically the same, was a different pump.
Indeed, several supply houses list it for the car.
I ordered a new one to keep as spare.
Five days later I checked the gross tell tale grease on the front wheels
of Mary’s A4, finding front outer constant velocity boots were
broken (of course that could have waited for some time but then, I had
already waited too long even!) And
on the day before we were to leave, the month-delayed carpeting came to be
installed. (Don’t even think
about the mess inside the house with that and the carpenter still working in the
bath—or of Mary coming home from Pennsy to that).
On
the day of the World’s largest Porsche Swap Meet,
I started the day by jacking the rear end of the 911 to trouble shoot the just
dead starter motor! The
solenoid was indeed gone and, upon disassembly, I found the brushes to be very
minimal. I put in my spare starter, the original now rebuilt.
The solenoid just went click-as it did when I put it back in after the
engine rebuild aforementioned. Of
interest here; at that time I guessed the compression was so great that the
original starter couldn’t spin the “new” engine.
Coincidentally, a fellow working with a blacktop road crew on the street
saw me in my garage and came over on a break.
I told him of my dilemma. He
said he had a HI-Tork starter he no longer needed
for a 911engine he had in a kit car he was building.
I went over to his garage after work; saw his project and bought the
starter. It has worked fine until
the day I was to be in
Holy Zuffy, Rats and skunks! The
original-rebuilt one worked fine on the bench before and after installation--but
just a solenoid click when mounted. Something
must have happened to the ground. No,
the ground strap from the body to the transmission was solid.
I took both ends off anyway, and wire brushed them.
I checked for voltage from the yellow wire from the switch.
Another starter seemed necessary.
I called Fabson-- they were working late and
on the way out the door--and the one they had on hand was sold.
So, I figured I was overlooking something simple.
I looked at the engaging teeth of the starter and saw some marks on the
nose and a couple of teeth from trying to mesh with the flywheel teeth--which
told me that there was an engineering problem.
With it being a beautiful week-end, I was unwilling to leave Blue’s
rear end up in the air, so heroic treatment was in order. I
got out the Dremel and started grinding the spots of
the metallic clashing and smoothed out a larger “V” on the shaft at the
front edges of the starter teeth. Putting
it in, It tried to engage.
More grinding.
It would engage but would not withdraw running with the engine.
More grinding.
On the fourth or fifth try (I was getting pretty greasy and pretty good
at this replacement process by now!), it worked just swell.
Well, except for every fourth or fifth time I would start the engine.
Then I found that if I would turn the ignition on and off about three
times (solenoid clicks again) it would move or turn enough to engage the
flywheel and start (whew!). Recently,
Mary said, warily, that that was not good enough.
I had to agree. I decided
that I needed to make a gasket to place between the starter motor and the bellhousing
to move it farther away from the flywheel for reasons I still don’t
understand. It has worked every time since and leads me to believe that more-or
less shims?-than the originals should have been placed behind the flywheel after
it was resurfaced at the rebuild time in ‘96.
I do recall radically readjusting the clutch at the time too.
All of this brings to mind a Sherlock Holmes statement: “How
often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever
remains, however
improbable, must be the truth?”
Our Bath Remodeler came on Sunday afternoon
and still needing faucet parts and tile sealer, I found my self hieing it to the
hardware store, thanking
the extant power within and without that I was not 1000 miles away.
I am sure I would have gotten help, but there’s no place like home (and
your own garage)!