Monday, August 20, 2012

They don't make them like this anymore

Progress continues on the Legacy project car. The suspension is done, and I'm into tune-up items now. At the moment, I'm knee deep in the timing belt. If not for limited time to work in the evenings, the car would be done. At least, I can now say it will be done soon. With any luck, the car should be on the road for the end of the week.

But, that's not why I'm writing at the moment. This past weekend, I had a unique opportunity to visit the Porsche East Coast Holiday 2012 event in Massachusetts. There was a lot of vintage road candy to ogle, but one car stood out from the rest.


Up close, you could see little dents and ripples all over the car. To the untrained eye, it might look like someone rolled an old sports car out of the junkyard and gave it a good cleaning. But, in actuality, this car was something very special. Nobody is 100% sure, but this car was the third (or more likely fourth) Porsche ever built.



Currently owned by a famous TV comedian (I'm a fan, but withholding the name, as I want to keep the focus on the car), this car has been restored as closely as possible to its original condition. It's my understanding that the ripples are hammer marks from when the body was hand-formed out of aluminum.

It was truly a unique opportunity to see this car in person. This car, and other early Porsches, set the stage for what was to become a truly iconic sports car marque.












Saturday, August 11, 2012

Vanagon running and Legacy not. At least... not yet.

Work has been moving more slowly than I'd like. As per my last blog post, the Vanagon is running and on the road. I've been ironing out a few final quirks, but mostly because I'm not driving it every day. Overall, it's running well. We took it camping a few weeks back, and I've been driving it locally on weekends. I still don't trust it well enough to take it on a long road trip, but I think that will change in the near future.

I'm still working on the project Legacy, too. I finally finished up the front suspension and am cracking into the rear suspension. Weather has been getting in the way, though, and keeping me from finishing it up. With a bit of luck, I'll have that done tomorrow and can then move on to tune-up items. The rear struts, like the fronts, require me to crack the brake lines when changing them. When I replaced the front struts, the first thing I did was make sure I could remove the bleeder screws. Unfortunately, one of the rear bleeder screws is hopelessly seized, meaning that I'll be replacing the caliper on that side.

When the Legacy is on the road, I'll finally get started on the 240D. MercedesDieselGuy will once again be working on a Mercedes diesel. It'll be nice to be back into a project that's just for the fun of it and not so much out of necessity.