Panel List

In case it helps others, I'm going to be fairly open about costs (without disclosing information that is confidential to those working on my project).

Here's the list of panels I've bought, all from Porsche except a couple of repair sections from Roger Bray. Ordered well in advance of metalwork starting, because supply is not always perfect, but that also means pre-blasting. 

Total cost: 5721.35 British Pounds including VAT (our sales tax).

Hmmmm.

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry
Diversion

What have you been doing for 2 years?

Getting Sidetracked

I decided I needed better (more weatherproof and more secure) garage arrangements at home.

Long story short, I got a bit carried away, ended up with a 6m wide industrial door, and got a bit OCD about the cladding:

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry
Full Stockbroker Spec

What have you been doing for 2 years?

Researching History (continued) 

So, the car was Guards Red, Fat Backside, Whale Tail. 

I said it was the full stockbroker treatment. But luckily our unknown 80s Australian fashion victim was, seemingly, not a stockbroker. Or not a very successful one anyway. We can tell this because the update was, luckily, not very thorough. Not much money spent, lots of original parts survived.

The first item not-even-slightly updated was the engine:

MFI type code shown here. According to Michael Burgess' website http://911mfi.com/5.html, this is correct for the engine. Also note date codes on the cylinders: 6/69 so almost certainly original to the car.

In summary the original engine, MFI, intake system, oil union etc, gearbox survived. Some ancillary parts are wrong (throttle linkages, cam cover paint, fan shroud and trumpets painted, oil lines wrong, oil cooler has repair so probably scrap, etc etc). But basically it's all there.

Phew!

There's plenty of further evidence to suggest that our Australian forward-dating friend was on a tight budget. For example, as this pic shows, the red paint liberally hit the outside of the car, but in other places a black rattle can (with very little disassembly) seems to have been used.

Which is why (up to date pics below) there's still a fair amount of original orange paint to be found in the nooks and crannies. 

Might be useful for a colour match. Nice to see, anyway.

Last pic of the 80s legend.

Note
1) Vigorous use of the under-bonnet rattle can
2) The mod to replace the front-mounted oil cooler with a length of pipe. Maybe the cooler got damaged, or maybe it didn't fit with the new front bumper etc.
3) Front calipers are not correct - should be alloy of course.

2016 PreparationsRichard FryPorsche, 1970, 911, History
More History

What have you been doing for 2 years?

Researching History (continued), this time including a shameful past in Impact Bumpers

The Australian owner from whom I bought the car had intended to restore it. He made a good start and amassed some interesting parts. Along the way he took some photos which tell a bit more of the story.

Let's start with this one:

Yes, it's my 70S.
As was obligatory in the 80s, the poor thing was painted red. It also acquired fat rear arches and a whale tale. The full stockbroker treatment.

These pics give an idea of the bits the PO removed as part of the strip down:

Which left us with this:

Looks pretty awful on the face of it, but luckily it turned out that the unmolested parts of the chassis are in good condition. 

Also we've not yet found any accident damage. Unless you regard wide arches and a whale tail as an accident. Maybe more of a crime.

I know, I know, the 80s were different times...

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry
History
History

What have you been doing for 2 years?

Researching History

Most of the credit for this goes to the previous owner in Australia, who bought the car as a resto project. He was kind enough to share what he'd found out. Thanks!
Here's what I know so far:

Porsche Cars Australia and Porsche Cars Great Britain have confirmed that it was delivered as a Signal Orange right hand drive 911S in the UK. Production completion date was 1 December 1969. 
Ian at Porsche Club GB has it in his records. According to him it was first registered as CLK 92H, with the LK signifying London.

Three Signal Orange UK S-es were registered early in the 70 model year. Mine has supplying dealer "Porsche Cars GB" on the CoA. Demonstrators and press cars? The other two are fully restored.

DVLA says that my car has not been registered here in the UK since 1983. 
Australian Customs say they have been tracking incoming cars by chassis number since 1989 and it must have been imported to Australia prior to that as it does not show up in their system.
So it seems likely the car originally travelled from the UK to Australia around 1983.

Starting at the other end of its life (2010), the car was sold by Exclusive Cars in Perth (Tasmania) to a private buyer shortly before the PO bought it. 
It was last registered in Tasmania as SI2687 in 2006.
The car was brought to Tasmania from Melbourne, having been bought at a Fowles auction around 2001, after which it sat for some time in the workshop of Berry Motors (VolvWreck) before being transported to Tasmania. By that time it was in the red 'wide body' guise.

It was last registered in Victoria on 22 February 2001 as NMH695. Porsche Cars Melbourne say it went through their workshop in the mid 1990s, although they no longer have detailed records from that time.

To get some pics into an otherwise colourless post, here are the two sister cars. 

First one, owned by a DDK-er who has helped me out on many occasions - thanks! 
This one has a chassis number about 40 below mine, and an engine number about 50 below. We've also compared "build" numbers (the numbers stamped into the dash, near the ashtray). All seems in order...

 

Second one. I don't know the owner - if you're reading, please do get in touch.
This car is one chassis number below mine. Perhaps they were nose-to-tail on the production line.
Photographed by me at Porsche Classics at the Castle, Hedingham.

If anyone has any history of my car based on the registrations I mention above...
UK 1969-1983?: CLK 92H
Victoria, Australia 1983?-2001: NMH695
Tasmania, Australia 2001-2010: SI2687

... or any other info about the sister orange 70 S-es, I'd love to hear it. Please get in touch via the contact form on this site.

2016 PreparationsRichard FryPorsche, restoration, inspiration, 911
Orange Bruce

What have you been doing for 2 years?
Thinking of a Name
I don't name cars. But my daughter (now 11 years old) can't resist. 
This one is, apparently, called "Night Bug":

Midnight blue, looks like a smooth squashed beetle. I guess.
This one is, apparently, called "Buzz":

1969 car, the year of Apollo 11, so named after Buzz Aldrin. 
Also has no soundproofing, so does tend to be a bit loud. 
You could quibble over whether that noise is actually a buzz, but anyway. I learned a while back not to enter into debate with my daughters unless absolutely necessary.

And the car to which this blog relates, the 70 S, which came from Australia and will be back to its original colour of Signal Orange in due course, is, apparently, called...
"Orange Bruce".

...Badum-tissshhh.

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry
2 Years???

My car should go to Barry's house of fine metalwork in September.

In the meantime, in case anyone remembers who I am and what my car's supposed to be like, I'll do a few posts answering the question "what have you been doing for 2 years while failing to make any visible progress on your resto project?" 
Which is a more polite version of what my non-car friends say when they come round and see the car in the same old state. Friends who have restored cars don't tend to ask.

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry
Shell on to Dolly

I've put the shell on its dolly ready to remove the suspension etc.

I'm on the UK old Porsche forum, DDK: www.ddk-online.com . It's a great community in many ways, and in this case a fellow DDK-er helped me out by letting me have the DDK Heritage Dolly when he'd finished with it. I believe it's 10 years old and has seen a few interesting cars.

Provenance is everything, of course. The DDK Heritage Dolly has mystical ancient markings... so at least I know it's been welded up by someone who knows what they're doing. 
Hopefully the car won't fall on my head.
Thanks Jamie for the dolly (and delivery service).
 

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry
Engine and Gearbox Out

My welding slot is gradually approaching, so I'd better make a bit of progress on readying the shell for blasting.

This weekend it was engine and gearbox out, using the "gently lower them onto trolleys and lift the car off" method.
I realise this is not much of an achievement - the engine was only back in the shell for transit from Australia, so I had no issues of disconnecting linkages, fuel lines, electrics etc. But still the first time I've ever done it, so I felt unjustifiably pleased to have done it myself, without dropping anything heavy. And indeed without bending the selector shaft where it comes through the hole in the rear bulkhead.

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry
So... what do we have? Bad news section

The rear wings and rear door pillars have been replaced as part of the previous owner's partially-completed resto project. Barry proposes to take them off again, have a good go at the lower rear inner wing / torsion bar tube / kidney bowl areas, and re-do to his standards. 

Front wing closers have been done, but need to be re-done. There is some quite severe pitting to the front inner wings:

The front pan and slam panel have been repaired. Not well enough, so this area will all need to be unpicked and re-done (with new Porsche panels).

Final points: it looks like my front wings, door frames (need re-skin), bonnet, and probably bumpers are save-able. Roof seems fine.

Overall I'm feeling very optimistic. As previous evidence shows, Barry can reconstruct a car from very little, so failure is not an option. But based on what I see so far, I think / hope we will end up with a lot of original metal in the car.

Time will tell.

2015Richard Fry
So... what do we have? Good news section

Evaluating the shell with Barry. 

I've been holding off posting pics and my ignorant opinion about the state of the metalwork. 
But now the shell has been seen by a few folk who know what they are talking about, here goes. 

Mustn't speak too soon, because it's not yet been blasted. But I think there's a fair amount of good news. 
Based on research so far, it looks like my car left the UK for Australia quite early in its life. No salt on the roads there, I'm told. It seems a lot less rusty than some UK shells I've looked at - see what you think of it from the pics.

Barry is optimistic we can keep the front inner wings (with localised repairs).
Bulkhead is good, no accident damage kinks, and we can see some original Signal Orange paint there. 

Moving inside the rear seat area is original and seems good. 
Surprisingly (to me) the floors are also original - new edge repair sections have been used to blend them into a sill repair, but the main section (and the floor boxes, central tunnel etc) is all factory metal.

Round the back, and completing the good news section, we have nice straight rails and the original rear slam panel.
No sign of previous accidents here and all nice and sound.

2015Richard Fry
VIP Visit

We had a VIP visitor yesterday, welcomed with mediocre coffee. 
At least the sun was shining. 

I've been on Barry Carter's waiting list for a while, but am now getting somewhere near the top. So yesterday was the day Barry came over to have a good look at the car and the motley collection of other panels shown in the pic. 
We had a chat about plans, and about the big pile of metal I now need to buy from Porsche.

Feels like progress. Other pics to follow.

 

2015Richard Fry
Barry Carter

Barry Carter is a bit of a welding legend here in the UK. He's done the metalwork for some beautiful early 911 and 912 restorations.

For example:

Studio shots above are by the excellent Jamie Lipman, and the Bahama Yellow 912 is his car. To see more of his work, click here: jameslipman.com

Also, Barry has never been defeated. No matter how hideously rusty the starting point. Let me illustrate: one UK car, nicknamed swampy, had suffered indignities including a workshop fire and subsequent period out in the rain. At its low point, it looked like this on Barry's jig:

Having seen a lot of his work, and chatted to him at length, I was convinced I wanted Barry to do my shell. At that time he was pretty busy, so I've been on the waiting list for over a year, but he's coming to visit and look at my car in the next week or two. Should be interesting.

2015Richard Fry
Inspiration

My Signal Orange UK 70S had two sister cars, same colour, seemingly all registered by Porsche UK. Demonstrators or Press cars perhaps. They were early in the production run. 
I was contacted by the owner of one of the other two orange S-es - he had recently finished the resto. It was a pleasure to be invited to see that car last weekend - thanks! - and to check out the fine details. It's been beautifully done. Something to aspire to.

2015Richard Fry
Parts - Highlights

The car had been stripped down by the previous owner, and came a stash of various parts. About 10 cardboard boxes full, plus various additional large bits. Some duplicate parts.

Overall the car was pretty complete. Highlights of the parts stash included:

Aluminium deck lid. Genuine Porsche, in the factory primer. An iconic "S" part, amazingly light. Very lucky to have this.

Front mounted oil cooler. These changed over the years - this type is correct for my car but the design changed to a simpler trombone style from '72 on, I think. This type is no longer available, so getting a New Old Stock one with the car was a big bonus.

Engine ancillaries. MFI pump and intake stacks all correct. Oil console (unavailable, difficult to find) also correct. In general the engine looks cosmetically good, turns over by hand, has not suffered excessive corrosion.

2014Richard Fry
Parts

Here's what arrived with the car. Lots of parts. It's a full size build-your-own-early-911 jigsaw puzzle! With some missing pieces and some extraneous bits from another puzzle.

2014Richard Fryporsche, 911, parts, 1970, restoration
Collecting from Southampton

This part of the import process was also very easy. Turn up at warehouse, bit of paperwork and id checking, winch car onto trailer, off we go. A van was also involved, for the many boxes of spares.

Thanks to Mel of flyingbluedog transport. Mel did the trailer bit while I was being Man with Van.

2014Richard Fryporsche, 911, 1970, shipping, import, Restoration