Re: Winter storage (more)

[ToToogood@aol.com]

I just came back from a Porsche Club tech session where they had some very
interesting guest speakers who addressed some questions receintly raised on
this mail list (seems Porsche owners have the same problems we Jaguar owners
have).

John Paterek, head of the Porsche Club of America Technical Committee for
exteriors and interiors gave an excellent presentation on restoration.  He
recently displayed a 356(?) Porsche at the Louis Vitton show in New York and
took second place for his class.  The Louis Vitton show stressed originality
and restoration.  Points were deducted for over-restoration.  

John advised against dipping to remove body paint because he has never seen
an example where all the cleaning agent has been removed.  Months or a couple
of years after the vehicle has been repainted, the chemical dip will find its
way out of the seams and destroy your new paint from the inside.  Repaint,
and it will happen again, and again, and again.  John recommends (and
demonstrated) the razor blade technique for removing paint.  For most
Porsches, he recommended removing the paint only, not the undercoat.  It
seems the factory undercoat is better than anything that can be duplicated at
an aftermarket bodyshop.  (John identified a couple of model years when this
was not true.)  After his presentation, I asked John if he would make the
same comment about Jaguar factory primer, but declined to offer an opinion
due to his lack of knowledge on the process used by Jaguar over the years.

As for removing old bondo, John demonstrated a technique using an industrial
heat gun and putty knife.  The heat gun softened the bondo, and the putty
knife made very short work of lifting it off of the metal.  If more than a
1/4 of bondo is found, John recommended an air-chisel to remove the panel and
start again.

A tech rep from Yokohama tires was also there.  He recommended two methods
for storing vehicles.  First, inflate the tires to 65 psi and leave the
weight of the vehicle on the tires.  65 psi?  :-o  Modern tires will accept
65 psi for storage without damage.  You just can't drive on them at this
pressure without damage.  He did caution, however, that old stamped steel
rims may not be able to take this pressure with out damage.  His second
recommendation was to keep the tires at the proper inflation pressure and to
remove the weight of the vehicle from the tires (ie. put the car on jack
stands)

The tech rep stated the reason for these two alternatives was that all tires
contain nylon (typically, the nylon covers the steel cords and keeps the
steel cords from working their way through the tread).  The nylon will
develop a flat spot.  The colder the temperature, the faster and more
pronounce the flat spot will be.  Jag owners in Edmonton, Alberta, and
Bismark, ND should have first hand knowledge of this.

A final recommendation from both John and the Yokohama tech rep, store the
vehicle in a dark, well ventilated, cold room.  Light (specifically
ultra-violet light), temperature, and moisture will damage the vehicle
finishes and rubber over time.  Neither John nor the tech rep recommended car
covers due to their adverse affect on ventilation.

Just as an aside, if the 220 was made by Porsche, I am certain there would
have been two or three of them at the tech session.  Porsche owners have no
trouble dropping a couple of hundred thousand on their passions.  The tech
session was held in a beautiful personnal garage, complete with hoists and
engine assembly room.  There was also an amazing bi-turbo Porsche driven in
for the session.

Oh yes, the reason I atttended was Davie Jones was scheduled to appear (Davie
dove Jags for many years).  Unfortunately, Davie is recovering from a
significant accident and was not able to attend.

Phillip 
Nashville

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