The wife and I have been talking about a rather radical idea...since I just fixed the electrical issues I had been having, and I love to drive my 912 as much as possible, and my job location will soon include both numbered/covered parking...I might make the 912 my daily driver, sell the Escape, use that money for other things, but take $2000 of it and put things back into the 912 to improve the daily use of her.

I realize I don't even let her out in the rain, and I rub her down after every drive, but this could potentially lead to (in a year or so) the purchase of another Porsche to then use that as my daily and keep my 912 in the garage.

Anyway, I was up early this AM, and figured I'd spec out what all I needed to buy, so I made a list. On my list for the replacement items was the Front Cowl Vent Grille:

Screen - 902787 - $27.95
Frame - 902786 - $44.95
Screws (4 Req.) - 902795 - $.95

As I was looking at the car tonight I figured I'd take it off and see just how bad it was. It wasn't. All it needed was a good cleaning, paint removal, and it could be good as new.

Like I said, it wasn't in bad sahpe at all. Very straight, no kinks, little rust around the screw holes, but nothing a wire brush couldn't take care off. When I was done cleaning and polishing it, it looked brand new.

The screen was a different story. I cleaned it, and cleaned it, and dried it, and cleaned it, and wondered if I should just drop the $30 to get a new one...till I looked up and saw the can of Flat Black Rustolium spray paint. Couple coats, both sides, good as new.

Now, the screws could use a little help. They had been painted to match the color of the car, but I wanted them silver again, so after I removed the paint I could see why they might have painted them in the first place. For $4, with my next big purchase, I'll prob just get a new set and toss these.

So, there she is, back in place and looking brand new (well, almost). So I saved myself about $75 on something that just needed a good cleaning. Now, I realize you might be asking "what's the big deal, this is not a major item that he'd need to make this a daily driver..." I know. I was just trying to find ALL the things that needed to be done, and this just happened to be one of the smaller cosmetic items.

Anyway, looks good to me, and I'm sure I'm the only one who cares or will notice, but then again, that's the idea, isn't it?

So, the difficulty came when I thought I was smart enough to remove the old amp without being extra careful (see July post). I was searching eBay today for a daily 911 driver, anywhere from a mid 80s to early 90s. I found a really nice 1990 911 Carera C2 for about $15000. My wife isn't totally opposed to the idea, but would rather I wait. I guess the only reason I've been looking is due to the fact that I've been dead in the water, and just not sure of how to solve the problem.

It hits me.

As I watched my wire diagram fly out the window yesterday, and I'm looking at the PDF online today, I realize that the problem stems from that last rouge wire and the fuse box. I complete the circuit and I'm golden. So, I attach a new length of wire to the rouge one, feed it though the hole into the trunk, and find the right fuse. I touch it, and I see a mild spark, and my interior lights flicker. I remove the fuse, unscrew the retainer, feed my wire in, and tighten.

I now have my interior lights, my break lights, and a free pass to get my baby to pass inspection so I can drive her anywhere and anytime I want without issue.

I'm not going to even go into how mseed up my lights are. They USED to illuminate the tree tops, but after some creative bolting, they now face forward and allow me to SEE at night. Amazing concept, I realize. I some point, on my short list, I'm going to have to weld some new pieces onto my body behind the headlights. If I want it back to stock...

My engine right after it got a once over at Imagine Auto.

My engine after I installed my new K&N filters. Wow, they just look cool as hell, don't they? Yes, I know, most of you already have them, so this is how it's suppose to look.

Next on the engine department is a major cleaning. It needs it, and some new noise reduction as well.

So, the car came with this, and I wanted it out, so why not take care of that while my father and I get the old wiper motor out and get the new motor in. As you can see, I also have a crack in one of my tubes. I'll be taking vare of that in the coming weeks.

So here's dad hard at work with the new motor, which we just couldn't seem to get to work. Oh, there was power, but we couldn't get fluid out. Turns out the heads were cloged, so we cleaned them out with a needle and adjusted them to hit the glass, not shoot over the car (which it did at first).

You can also see that the old amp is now out. ONE LITTLE PROBLEM...my interior lights, turn signals, and break lights now do not work. Mystery? No. I must have cut something, or when I removed the wires for the amp, they must have wired that circuit though the amp wires...anyway, so I get to have loads of fun tying to figure that one out since I NEED my breaks lights and turn signals to WORK so I get pass inspection.

Now, this isn't the stuff Dave suggested I get. He suggested I get the 3M version, which took me 3 stores to find, and when I did, it was about $15. This, which chemicaly is made of the same stuff, is about $5. It did an ok job, but I'm still looking for the 3M glue Dave suggested.

Like I said, it did a pretty good job. You really can't tell from this picture, but most of the glue is off, as is a lot of "gunk" and whatnot. I'll take another stab at it, but in all honesty, the new dash is going to cover it up, so who really cares? I've prepped it, so it's ready to glue.

My dash pieces came today. SOOOOOOOOO, I might have been wrong about the wooden dash being not stock. With my new pieces (which I actually like better, thank the good lord) they are WAY too thin to just glue on. When my dad gets here tomorrow, we'll trace and make a thicker undercoating to then attach to the dash. It's going to look awesome.

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