It's Home, kinda

I received an email that the coupe was ready to be picked up.  It's been 3 years and 3 months since they picked it up for the restoration.

I got a ride down with a friend in his 2006 911.  I think that the last time I was in a 911 was 50 years ago in a 1972 911S.

When we got down there, the car was ready to go and even had a half tank of fuel.

They have driven the car 29 km during testing plus another ~100 on the engine and rolling dynos.

Only 600 km the odometer rolls over at 100,000 km

We went for a short drive and everything worked well.  I tried to fit the WA license plate into the rear frame like I do on the 330, but the curved plate frame prevented that from working, so it got tossed on the package shelf.

The drive home is about 50 miles on mostly 4 lane roads and everything went well for the first five or so.  Then it started backfiring from the left bank.  After running into traffic from an accident, I started worrying about overheating in the stop and go driving.  So we went off onto side roads (my friend was following in his Porsche), but that was almost as bad since I wasn't the only person with that idea.  Eventually, we got past the accident and back onto the fast roads.  When I got about 10 miles from home, suddenly there was a backfire and lot of steam from under the hood.  I was right at an exit, so pulled off to check what was happening.  The engine compartment was full of steam from everywhere as antifreeze was blown everywhere and steaming from the hot engine.  There was no sign of a water leak, but I notice that the radiator cap and radiator top also had antifreeze on them.  The radiator wasn't hot, so I went to remove the cap and it was loose.  At first I thought that it wasn't tightened down properly, but it turned out the the rubber ring at the top of the cap was missing.  I don't see how it could disappear completely, but it did seem to blow out as everything was normal until suddenly the water was spewing from under the cap.  This was very confusing and I didn't notice the missing ring until I got home.  Once we figured out that there was no catastrophic leak, we continued on at a slower pace, carefully watching the water temperature.  It hit a high of 91°C in the stop and go driving, but immediately went down to ~55°C once we were back up to speed.  So, in addition, I think that the thermostat isn't working properly.  The engine should run at 80°C in normal operation.

Anyway, I got it home OK and spent some time hosing down the engine compartment to wash off the antifreeze.  I gave a good rinse, including the wiring, coils, distributor, etc. as everything was covered.  I was surprised it started when I wanted to move it into the shop from where the hose is.

I talked to Butch Dennison and they are going to pick up the car on Monday.  I was going to wait swap it with the 308 in a couple of weeks, but Butch didn't want it driven until they determine the problems and get them fixed.  So, a short stay this weekend at my house, but hopefully it'll be back soon.

Here are lots of pictures as I went around the car checking on things.