Just purchased an 81 SC .. a few questions...

[Harv]

Well in a moment of madness we have bought an SC , 80k miles and sat for a little while ,but with new tyres decent brakes and a sound engine , however there are a few issues to sort .
First question , the upper coloum bearing has failed (i assume at the moment as i have not got the car home yet) is this a full dash strip or a reasonably easy area to access ?
The idea is ,to get this car back to mint original condition as its not a huge mileage car and has a decent history and was bought for a very reasonable price ,ok it needs some work ,but its mainly cosmetic (ok again till i actually get it home and start to sort through it [] ) one thing i noticed was that its obviously had the whale tail removed at some point as you can see the holes where it was fixed as they have been filled and badly painted , is it the preverbial hens teeth to find one to take the car back to its original spec?
I snapped a few quick pics of it in the link below , but think i'll enjoy getting this back to its former glory .

many thanks and in anticipation of you replies .....
http://www.harvsport.com/porsche%20web

 

[Guest]

Harv,
Good luck with the new car, she looks good in the photos.
You might want to think about buying a workshop manual from the club shop, a bit pricy (something like £85 from memory) but well worth it. Also have a look at Pelicanparts.com web sits for technical write ups.
For rear spoilers try Porsche Apart car breakers.
Cheers
John

 

[bones]

Good luck from me too Harv, before you make plans for getting the car back to 'mint condition' have a good look around for serious rust problems, start with door jams, kidney bowls, sills inner wings and head light bowls. You might find real problems, SCs of this age are rarely rust free. A breaker will have a whale tail, if not you'll find them on ebay or other 911 forums 'member's for sale ads'. Also back of PP. I'd recommend the Bentley manual for DIY work. A Porsche parts pdf is available on line.

 

[Harv]

Thanks for the tips guys , and the manual is a must have in my book to start finding my way around it .... , bodywork is covered already , have seen a few areas of rust one under the headlight on o/s and some small scabbing on the area under the o/s rear window , and in the o/s door shut , everywhere else seems sound , however bodywork isn't my thing and thats left to a very good friend who do runs a bentley approved bodyshop and also does some very very nice resto projects and has done work on many occations ,
What is the correct rear tail to look for for this age of SC , and how could i tell if it had the smaller spoiler or the larger turbo tail originally as i want this to look as original as possible .
I need to get some articals together and start to understand the car really as i didn't research this but knew it was one of those opertunities not to miss.

 

[bones]

I've seen three different wings fitted to this year car. The favourite option for me would be the Turbo tail as it is the most stylish IMHO. It was an option , the standard one is similar to the later Carrera 3.2. I have also seen the earlier all rubber wing fitted, though I don't think this is standard for this country. I'll try and post some pics.

Rubber wing

 

[bones]

Optional Turbo wing

 

[Harv]

Looks to me like the optional turbo wing looks good as you say , so i guess i'll start looking for one , i guess get some membership sorted and then place a wanted advert .....

Also be interested if there is a favourite wheel refurb choice in the south east , hopefully more to the west of london ?

 

[usermjg]

when i brought my 911 it also didnt have a wing attached, but i managed to get one from CMS Porsche, which is a scrap yard based in Telford. I cant for the life of me find the Phone Number at the mo, but will post as soon as i dig it out of my paper work.
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j280/usermjg/911pictures/insert2.jpg
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j280/usermjg/911pictures/100_1047.jpg

I guess its personal taste but i prefer the car with the tail. I decided to go for the 930 turbo tail, as i think it just looks the best.

 

[SJW BASIRE]

The all rubber tail was the standard Sport Equipment tail until some time in 1981 when the 3.2 Carrera style tail was introduced as on Peter Bull's mint original late SC Sport.All the books are pretty vague on exactly when.The turbo tail became an option at about the same time as so many people were asking for it.My car is an 80 model and when I saw a picture of the 1980 Weissach Edition SC released in the US with a fibreglass lid with whaletail as on the 74-75 2.7 Carrera I decided it was just about original and fitted one of these on my car as I never liked the look of the 3.3 turbo tail on the narrow body.Just a matter of taste I suppose.

 

[Harv]

well i have it home now and have found a few more niggles to fix , gear linkage feels sloppy and the throw feels very long (guess thats how they are) speedo is playing up so need to find where its driven from (electronic ? ) we gave it a wash as this was basically a car that had sat for 4 years and tbh was really bought blind but i offered money to relect this
so its the start of making a mint sc .......

for the 6k spent i am impressed how well it drove and how good a 26 year old car can be .

 

[Guest]

Harv,
From the photos she looks very good, I have been working on mine for 5 years now raising the bar a little at a time.
I improved the shift on my 1983 SC by replacing the shift rod bushes located at the base of the gear lever, cost £15 for the two bushes from type-911.co.uk.
Can be done in few hours, if you need any advise let us know.
John

 

[Paul Fraser]

Looks like a good find. Always fancied a silver one with no tail...

 

[Harv]

cheers for the answers on that guys , will look into the linkage at the weekend , also hope my manual turns up (ordered the 700 page bentleys one ) i had to laugh as someone commented it was like the revoloution on the drive this weekend

from the french side we have the icon that is the 205 gti

on the german side that lovely iconic 911

flying in like a kamakazee we had the jap scooby (hey it has a flat 6 in so not all bad)

and then ... and it pains me to admit this one the british middleweight in the form of a S160 elise ,

 

[sailor]

ORIGINAL: Harv

cheers for the answers on that guys , will look into the linkage at the weekend , also hope my manual turns up (ordered the 700 page bentleys one ) i had to laugh as someone commented it was like the revoloution on the drive this weekend

from the french side we have the icon that is the 205 gti

on the german side that lovely iconic 911

flying in like a kamakazee we had the jap scooby (hey it has a flat 6 in so not all bad)

and then ... and it pains me to admit this one the british middleweight in the form of a S160 elise ,

[]With you on the German and French combination, Harv. I have two pocket rockets which complement each other nicely. Not sure about the others, though!

JohnC
993 turbo
205GTI with BBR extra urge

 

[usermjg]

The linkage can feel a little strange ( by strange i mean c**p). Changing the bushes can really help, as it did in my case. However compared to my 924s gear changing is still poor, once you get the knack you'll soon forget about it and enjoy the drive. It did drive me mad for a couple of weeks though as i would frequently miss gears which brought a wince to my face.

enjoy []

 

[ianfiat]

Why on earth do you want to fit a wing to such a gorgeous car ?

 

[engleflick]

Nice looking car Harv, looks to be good for 6k!

With regard to a rear wing it would look to me that it is likley it did have one previously as the 911sc badge lower than it should be for a non-spoiler lid, have a look and see if the holes for the spolier have been welded up on your lid. - I have just read the top post an realised that you have already mentioned that it has []

 

[Guest]

Harv

The speedo will be electric. If your speedo is playing up due to the gears in the speedo there is a gear supplier in the states that can send over the right one. Apparently it is comon for the gears to disolve (due to the plastic and oil used combined with the heat from the sun). I had to change mine last year. Far cheaper then replacing the speedo.

Let me know if you need the suppliers details.

Cheers and good luck.

My preference is for the Turbo option wing (thats what mine has from original in 1982).

 

[Harv]

Right heres the latest update .

purchased a turbo wing to take it back to original spec ,so next move on that front is a trip into the bodyshop to sort that out .
Sorted the upper stearing bush no probs , and thought i'd chance an mot , it sailed through ,with the tester taking me over the car and finding that underneath its truely solid , not even a single advisory, he was impressed ,as was i .
Today saw the first real drive , we took it on a 150 mile round trip to find out what would leak,fall off,break or just plian be a pain in the arse.
Gear changing !! ok the throw is huge , i have noticed that the bushes were changed at some point in the not to distant past as there is a bill for some , is there some adjustment to tighten things up ? also when hot 1st and second are a bugger to select .
On the theme of hot ,how the hell does the heater work ? , going to stick my head in the bentleys manual , but inside the car its either hot ..... or hotter , though the aircon does almost try and blow a little cold at tmes , i did notice under the car at the mot that one flap by the heat exchangers was open whilst one was partially closed , i assume again some sore of setup proceedure?
Speedo is obviously fubar so i would guess at this gear kit from the states to sort that ?? otherwise it drives sweet , going to stick it into camtune for a service i think before the paint gets sorted as they are fairly local in surrey , unless someone can recomend somewhere else ?? i was told camtune are ok .

 

[bones]

Glad your driving it. Make sure your clutch is adjusted properly. Your g'box may need rebuilding if it is showing faults in only a few gears, however before any drastic action is taken replace the bushes below the gear lever and in the coupling from the gearstick to the input shaft, access via the inspection cover between and behind the front seats. Change the gear box oil as you say the problem is worse when hot. Other than that there is not a lot else you can do. Heater flapper valves will either need replacing or if lucky you can clean them up fit new springs and adjust via the nuts on the cable ends. They should both be in the fully open position with the heating switched off so the heat escapes before reaching the cabin.