I bought my '74 S Targa in 1999 or thereabouts. Can't remember the exact date as there was a lot going on in my life at that time. The purchase itself was a bit of a travail....as the seller turned out to be less than stellar in the honesty department. He was a fellow I worked with at a historic building restoration contractor in Oakland. Odd guy. Swore up and down the car had clear title - but not so when it came time to register. Had $2500 in unpaid back fees due. I had to threaten to sue before he'd come clean. I'll have to look through my old archives to see if I've got any old photos. That was pre- iPhoto days....
So, the previous owner was a painter - that's what he did for the contractor - and had sprayed a few cars in his past. This one more than once. I don't mind the light metallic blue - at least it's not the loud purple of the previous re-spray. For years I assumed the original color was root beer brown, as that's what color was inside the gas flap door - but it wasn't until I ran the paint code in the door jamb that I found out it was originally metallic silver. Probably my favorite of the Porsche colors from that era... and boy howdy there were some ugly colors in the '70's...
I also didn't expect the engine to have trouble right off the bat. Car never ran well, and I finally broke down and took it to a shop in Alameda for a consult. When turned over by hand you could hear compression leaking, so the suspicion was the usual 2.7 malady of pulled head studs. After they pulled the top end apart they found the studs had been timecerted and a quick refresh done. The leaking was probably due to inferior assembly and the heads were leaking where they seated against the tops of the cylinders. We'll never know... We also discovered that the head work done previously was not up to snuff. There were a handful of exhaust valves replaced and the rest either left as is or re-ground. I had the heads fully serviced with new valves, guides and mating surfaces dressed. The pistons and cylinders all checked out okay, so new rings, top end seal kit and back in business. I added a Carrera tensioner kit while it was all apart. Since it was all apart I had them take a pass through the transmission. Gear wear was minimal, so syncros and sliders were replaced and the whole thing buttoned up. A fresh clutch went in and we were in business.
I drove it that way for a few years - running strong - but very iffy in the suspension and brakes department. It creaked and groaned under cornering load and didn't stop well at all. I finally took it off the road until I had time to get it to corner and stop properly. Around about then I met my now wife and we decided it was time to head for a new town. We shopped around in Northern California, but soon realized we couldn't afford anything we could see ourselves living in, so we widened the search. In 2005, at the top of the "bubble" we sold out and moved to Portland OR. The Porsche got trailered up and sat in the driveway for the next 7 years while we worked on our new to us 100 year old house. I started the Porsche every month or so to keep it from locking up, but it never left the driveway. Finally in 2010 or thereabouts a friend offered unlimited use of his lift so I had it towed to his shop and tore into the front suspension....
What I found was a predictable mess:
It all came out, apart, blasted, rebuilt, painted and re-bushed:
All the hard brake lines re-made and master cylinder replaced
Shocks re-built by Bilstein
And back together we go
Calipers re-built by PMB performance - I chose to switch out the original cast aluminum "S" calipers for later model iron "SC" units. Although the S calipers are higher dollar value, the SC ones stop better.
So that's enough storytelling for today... next I'll tell about dipping my toe into the world of driver training on a racetrack...
Cheers!
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