Dave Anderson buys his First Shark
Jan. 17, 2004, 62,570 miles:
It's Saturday Morning, 1/17/04. Last night I picked up my 1978 928 5 Speed Blk/Blk Leather, no sunroof, a car that I have wanted for a long, long time. I had driven it some 20 miles home from where I purchased it, with 62,549 miles on it. The handling is just... breathtaking. The sound.... oooohh, the sound... It's really a gorgeous car; some imperfections but I have always wanted one of these. I don't mind that it's one of the least powerful 928's. There's something to be said for finesse as well, and I'm a finesse driver so we'll see how it all works out. :) So this morning dawned, and about all I could do was drool on the car(um, near the car, actually), and take some pics. Here's the first one:
This is the last pic I got before my neighbors, a couple of nice ol' guys that live across the street(visible in background... they didn't want their pix taken up close... gotta love crotchety ol' men), came over and did some drooling of their own. :) The car does not look as good in the pics as it does in person; this is due to having been driven a bit in the rain. I've seen it clean, and it cleans up real nice. Oh, and there's my trusty old Ramcharger and Z in the background.
At about the time I was taking this pic, my good friend Brian showed up:
And as you can see in this pic, he promptly started drooling:
OK, enough with the drool already. Point is, I'm really happy to have this car. I managed to get him to back off long enough to get these two pics:
Here are a couple of views of the interior:
And of course the token set of "rear seats". I have a couple of nieces 11 and 14 that might be able to wedge their skinny asses back there, but these are definitely NOT adult seats. When the car comes back from the shop I'll first make sure that I have somebody handy to winch my ass out of there, then I'll see if I can fit.
Also, here is Brian drooling on my Quarter window:
Here is what the engine bay looked like at first:
And of course, being the nutcase that I am, one of the first things I did was start ripping parts off and trying to clean things up:
So after it dried out a bit, I replaced the plenum-runner hoses and all of the vacuum hoses that I was able(couldn't find 10mm, 20mm... didn't want to use inch sizes), gave it a cap, rotor, wires, and plugs. Interestingly, the plugs that came out of there looked REALLY nice... some light grey ash, all cylinders the same. The plugs were Bosch, made in India... I replaced them with Bosch, made in Germany. Still wasn't running right, but well enough to generate LOTS of tire smoke.... The guy had told me that he had just replaced the fuel filter so I didn't get one ahead of time and couldn't get one over the weekend, but every indication is that the dead spot starting out in first is caused by the fuel filter. You know the kind of dead spot where you keep pushing the pedal, saying, WTF? then suddenly... tire smoke.
Also, if you look at the headlights, they were dropping further into the fenders than they should. According to the records that I have, the radiator was replaced by some little no-name shop.... and it seems that they had to move the headlight motor to get at the radiator, and never moved it back. Also, the light pods have a little plastic ball-and-socket gizmo that is supposed to pop free when the light impacts something, to prevent damage. These had to be popped back into place and the lights are now back where they belong. I'll have a pic with the lights in the "correct" position later.
I didn't get to drive it much though, as with 62K miles on it it's due for a timing belt. I don't want to snap that & bend a valve(Note: That was a concern before I learned that this motor is non-interfernce and would not bend any valves if the TB broke). The water pump should be replaced, as well as the rollers for the belt. It's currently in the shop for timing belt, water pump, and cam tower recondition(oil leaks). Since all that has to come off anyway to get to the cam towers and fix the oil leaks, I'm having Reitmeir's Werkstatt take care of those. Also I'm having him power bleed the clutch & brakes, flush, check & fill cooling, and recharge the AC. All of the brakes looked good, but I found that they were a bit spongy. I'm going to have him inspect the brake pads and replace them if they are sub-par. In addition, I want him to get me a smog cert so there may be other stuff. The EGR was not hooked up and I don't know what it will take to get that all sorted out. Anyway, I should have it back by next Friday or the following Monday...
The Shark has the original aluminum ball joint carriers, which are known to fatigue and snap suddenly. Once I get the car back from the Reitmeir's shop, I'm going to get started on some of the small electrical gremlins, then it's going to Devek Performance the following Wednesday thru Friday for ball joints, 4 wheel alignment(I hear it's VERY tricky on this car) and a check of the corner balancing. I'm trying hard to get tires & wheels on it before the suspension work, but we'll see. Susan at Devek offered to loan a set of used but evenly worn tires for the alignment. I'm looking to go with the same Yokos as on the Z, AVS ES-100, only 225/45-17 & 255/40-17. For wheels, I ordered a set of these in chrome from 928 Specialists, which I expect to arrive around the 9th or 10th:
I also ordered a nice looking set of Boothe Locking Center caps
Anyway, that's about it for now. I've been trying real hard not to bug Reitmeir and Devek, but I can't help it. Big, Big thanks to Jeff Reitmeir & Susan at Devek for their patience with me! :)
More updates as they happen....
D
P.S. I heard from the shop... compression check I requested showed most cylinders at about 155, range being 2-3lbs either way.