Dan i am subscribed man!!!!

 

Subscribed! Cant wait to see final results!

 

Nice project you got! Best of luck with it.

 

Very nice. Love the color!

They handle much better than a 911. Lots of fun to pitch it into a corner with your right foot to the floor and left-foot brake to control the slide.

 

I posted this thread up on a bunch of Porsche forums, and recently finally posted it on the big one (912bbs.org). The replies I got were all different than the other forums.. I don't know why I waited so long to post it there.

Anyway, one of the replies said,I had not thought too much about the steering wheel, but assumed since it was covered with this ugly $1 wheel wrap that it was probably worn out. I also assumed it was rubber like most of the 912s and older Porsches I see, and from glancing through the wrap when I first bought the car, it looked like the rubber had worn out and was down to the inner metal wire. I assumed it was much worse UNDER the wrap than the wrap itself.


Curiosity got the best of me, so I went outside and removed the wheel wrap. As I began untying the nylon, I felt like an archeologist unveiling some great artifact. I peeled back a little bit and I was shocked: it was indeed wood! As I carefully untied the rest over the next few minutes, I unveiled more and more of the wheel. By the time I removed the whole thing, it was clear that the wheel was not only wood as the guy had suggested, but nearly in perfect shape. The cover preserved it very well over the years! It even has cool grooves for your fingers that I couldn't feel before.


.


.
.
.


.

.



.

.



.

.


.

.


.

.


.



.

.


.




I looked it up and sure enough, a wooden steering wheel was a factory option back in 1968.

This car is just full of surprises!


before:

 

Best thread in a long time. Thanks for sharing.

 

Awesome restoration.

 

Subscribed! THis is awesome! Keep us updated!

 

It's been pretty hot here and we were very busy on our new Project Gallery, but I did manage to make a few changes over the last couple of weeks.

The most obvious problem when driving my 912 now was that its tires were very old and cracked. They were so hard, that I'm not sure they were made of rubber anymore. I think they were more like biscuits. I would lock them up driving into my driveway even. There was simply no traction.

I ordered five Good Year Eagle GT tires. I ordered the 5th for a spare. The tires were 195/60/15s, about the biggest you want to run on stock wheels from my understanding. I did a bit of research and read that these tires offer good performance for the price and I liked the tread pattern versus the other brands such as Michelin or Yokohama.

I also reached a point in the project where I would take a turn -- and I know some people won't like this. I looked at 911s and 912s for months to decide how I'd want mine to look, and something about the Fuchs wasn't doing it for me. Maybe it's because they're common, or maybe I just don't think they "fit" on the car, especially with this color. I am not a big fan of chrome/polish, so I couldn't do the hubcap. I took a slightly different direction.

I bought 5 steel wheels. I had no spare before, so I figured I may as well have a matching one. These are actually spares from the later 911s, so usually they're in pretty good shape. They're also cheap - the cost of these wheels plus tires is about what my Fuchs will sell for, so I'll basically trade my Fuchs without tires for steel wheels with brand new tires and gain a spare. They are quite a bit heavier (6.5 lbs per corner!), but since I intend to make this car a cruiser, I don't mind the extra rolling mass for now.


Most of them looked decent, but had OEM stickers on them:


I removed the sticker with Brake cleaner first, and cleaned and degreased all the wheels.


The roughest wheel had some surface rust:


The stack of the tiny wheels next to Cayenne TT tires ():


After brake parts cleaner and wire brushing...


Here's the paint I opted to use. It's the Rustoleum "Hammered Finish" silver. This is the same durable paint I used on my homemade gaming seat.


I love this paint because of the finish it leaves, but it's also very strong for "cheap" spray paint.

It started raining minutes after my first ultra-light coat was applied to each wheel, so I had to wait 2-days to apply more paint.



Picking up where I left off, the final coats turned out exactly how I wanted them. I applied 2 very thin coats and 2 heavier coats.



The biggest problem was that they're now -too- clean and shiny, and the rest of the car isn't. As I am putting on some miles they are getting brake dust and road grime, completing the look I was going for.

Most recent pictures with the steelies, now with steel blackish lugnuts instead of chrome/aluminum caps. I still need to paint or clean up the centers though, which I'll do soon when I work on the brakes:



The car's running awesome. It seemed pretty fast on the way to work today with nice cool weather. Starts right up and idles fine, and now with these tires I've really been chucking it around some corners!

 

Love this car so far, can't wait to see how it turns out...