Making Some Progress, Rear deck lid, deck lid brackets, engine lid, engine lid brackets, 911 suspension Options

[turnaround89]

Just wanted to post some of the progress I've made over the past few weeks.

I had some issues with the engine lid that came with my car, it was twisted. Looked like someone jumped on. The engine lid brackets were also really poorlys welded on the car. Ordered an engine lid from Sergio(PCA7GGR), its absolutely awesome lookings. Welded new brackets onto the car and got the engine lid installed. Once the engine lid was lined up properly, I was able to install new rear deck lid brackets fro JWest engineering. Rear deck lid is now fiberglass, as the original steel one was in rough shape. After all that I started cleaning and painting the 911S front suspension I ordered a few months back. The winter project is rebuilding/cleaning/painting all the brakes and suspension components.

Welded in some plates to reinforce the area where the new brackets are going. After cutting the old ones out, the metal was quite thin from grinding the awful welds from the PO.
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/imgur.com-9067-1477814439.1.jpg)
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/imgur.com-9067-1477814440.2.jpg)

Used a 2x4 and some clamps to get the engine lid right where I wanted it. Went underneath and welded the brackets on while everything was clamped down.
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/imgur.com-9067-1477814440.3.jpg)

Engine lid latch in place and completely supported on the new brackets
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/imgur.com-9067-1477814440.4.jpg)
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.imgur.com-9067-1477814440.5.jpg)

Jwest Engineering rear deck lid bracket. These are incredibly smooth and were a simple bolt in solution. It looked like the stock brackets rusted out and the PO just welded them on again. Poor solution as the rear decklid didn't line up at all, due to the brackets being welded in the wrong location. The new brackets worked out really well.
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.imgur.com-9067-1477814440.6.jpg)

Ignore the red paint, this was how I marked the location for the holes to drill in the rear decklid to mount to the bracket arms.
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.imgur.com-9067-1477814440.7.jpg)

In case anyone is curious, the rear deck lid came from GT-racing.com. Really nice product, but didn't have any mounting holes for the brackets. I came up with using the below item. I cut off the little spikes as these are a woodworking item and epoxied them into the rear deck lid. I was able to find them in the correct thread for the stock rear deck lid bolts at Menards. Works out really well. I used the same things to mount the rear deck lid latch as well.
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.stack.imgur.com-9067-1477814440.8.jpg)

And finally, started cleaning up the 911 front suspension on the car. Before and after pictures. Its not exactly the stock green the bilstein struts are supposed to be, but it turned out better than expected.
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.imgur.com-9067-1477814441.9.jpg)
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.imgur.com-9067-1477814441.10.jpg)

Started cleaning off the brake calipers, you can see the portion that has been cleaned versus how they came to me.
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.imgur.com-9067-1477814441.11.jpg)
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i.imgur.com-9067-1477814441.12.jpg)

Next up is ordering the rebuild kit for the front and rear calipers from PMB, along with new pistons. Still need to figure out how to get these pistons out of the 911S caliper. I don't really have a good way to build pressure in the caliper to push them out at the moment.

Thanks for looking!!

[mlindner]

Great shots and progress, thanks for sharing. Best, Mark

[mlindner]

Calipers, I used PB Blaster inside and out, let set, then just a lot of compress air......wood block and rag inside caliper so does not fly out.......Keep rags over calipers so brake fluid spray does not fly all over. Mark

[turnaround89]

Thank you!

How were you able to attached the air line to the caliper? Did you use some type of connector and screw it into the spot where the brake line attaches?

[jd74914]

If they aren't too seized some penetrating oil and just an air gun with rubber tip pressed onto the threaded caliper port usually works. I've never met a piston so stuck this wouldn't work, but I've only rebuilt maybe a half dozen calipers.

Otherwise, some people buy grease gun hoses with the correct thread and use grease to push it out slowly. You could buy an adapter to NPT or barb and use a compressor too. I like the grease gun better since there isn't as much stored energy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[jd74914]

Your progress looks great BTW!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[turnaround89]

Thanks for the tip. I'll look into getting a fitting for the caliper and using my compressor to start with. Gonna start spraying the calipers with penetrating oi for awhile before I start.

[turnaround89]

Air compressor did the trick. Three of the pistons came out pretty easily with a burp of air pressure. I had one that fought it, but in the end, the air pressure worked great. Thanks for the tip everybody!!

Shockingly the pistons aren't as bad as I expected them to be. However, there is a small amount of pitting on the pistons. Planned on buying new pistons anyway from PMB, but still surprising as it sounded like every 911S piston has just rusted away.

Thanks again everyone!!