Werk Crew | Bob Tilton | Blog

Enjoyed an afternoon walk along the grounds of the clinic with Bob today. The doctors have stopped sedating him as they feel his primary mental condition, the others are less concerning at this time, cannot be treated with modern medicine. Preliminary consults with the catholic church have begun and there is talk of Old World treatments. I managed to skim through his pocket notebook that he always keeps and there was handwriting I didn’t recognize in regards to having seen both the truth and the lies and an unwillingness to change his ways. Bob keeps talking about voices and wanting noise canceling headphones.

During our visit, he did show me some pics from Solvang and wanted me to post them along with his notes.

“This is Ray’s superb black 911 with R Gruppe side scripts. It won the coveted GT award this year. Well deserved Ray – congrats!”

“I had the pleasure of meeting Mark “MOMO” Morrissey. I nicknamed him MaMo.”

“Mark wore his best wheel to the event.”

“Rich’s slimmed down and less-is-pure ’66 911 all the way from the PNW being reflected in Dave’s RHD real ’73RS (with a rumored $60K paint job).”

Bob created those side scripts for Rich.

“Lee on the phone with his West Coast team of financial advisors. I overheard part of the conversation involving moving funds so that he could make an offer an a certain silver ’68L. BTW, that is a genuine ’68TR, owned by Stephen, next to Lee.”

“Papa Smurf hanging in the parking lot and smurfed off his ass by noon. He was cut off an hour later after offering Spike to me for lunch. Papa Smurf knows I’m half Vietnamese. Much love Mr. Aines!”

“Spike, Dave’s dog, bored off his ass and wanting to take a ride in a certain silver ’68L then eat Papa Smurf.”

“Despite the “Reserved Parking Event Signs” some civilian cars parked in the lot. Later found out they were R Gruppe members. Thought that was…lame. So many potentially good pics with rows and rows of early Porsches ruined by the occasional civilian cars. Oh well…they probably had good reason(s). It’s a “me” world after all.”

“At least this parking lot shot was not ruined by “civilian” cars.”

“A real RS in Jade Green owned by Scott. Striking color on this icon.”

“A walk back from lunch at the local brewery. One set of legs belonging to Jack who had been missing from the scene for several years to start a family. His Black Beauty is an icon. It was good to see both again.”

“Sunset dancing barefoot on a old 911. Heroin.”

“One of the four or five mules…I mean cars brought in from south of the border. The owners flew in on a private 747. They had to leave early…something about having to deal with 40-plus bags of trash on the side of the highway.”

Bob says he has lots more pics and plans to keep post processing them once all the medication has passed through his system. Apparently, the only medicine, nicotine and caffeine, that Bob feels are helpful are frowned upon at the clinic.

This is Sinnerman…again. I have taken over bogging duties for Bob while he remains “under observation” at one of the finest clinics in all of Northern California. During my visit with him today, he asked me to bring to your attention Chris’ site – digitaldtour.com for some great coverage of R Gruppe’s Treffen Solvang. Bob had the pleasure of meeting him at the event and wants to thank Chris for the kind words and sharing his passion with the world.

Have good a thought (or two) for Bob.

To whom it may may concern,

Please excuse Bob Tilton’s absence. He has not been well since spending last weekend in Solvang, CA with his Porsche friends. He neglected to take his prescribed medication for his mental condition. When he is not properly medicated, he tends to be very “foul” and spends most of his time in dark places. We expect him to recover to his normal or “less foul” demeanor soon.

signed,

Sinnerman

Project Cockpit Revisited is…done! I am going to take pics of the completed interior with my good camera and properly present it after Solvang.

Meanwhile, please go to this link here and read on.

Right now I am totally hummin’. I mean stinking. Really. My BO is so bad I could get a job as a clerk at the local convenient store. The last long day spent in the garage and I celebrated by firing up a fag, pouring myself a stiff Red Bull on the rocks and pressing track 11 from the new Black Keys CD…then a nice drive.

<bobbing head, deep throat burning drags cooled by pixie stick liquid>

I am such an awesome project manager. Since starting PCR two months ago, I anticipated this day to be my last day in the garage. Thank the Dark Lord below…

<the sound of scratching record followed by silence>

err…I mean, the Good Lord above for Reminder apps. Everything was completely planned out on my iPhone and it was constantly belting out orders. Like a good soldier I followed them. I am ready to take my leave of absence and road-trip to Solvang with days to spare. I cannot wait to enjoy the open road.

First, let’s back track to yesterday. Yes, the final pieces of the puzzle arrived yesterday. I added a NOS Fulton MX-991/U flashlight. It will of course companion with the military gear in the Rear Partition.

Also, as Paul guessed…the seats arrived. Not just any seats. 911R seats from Vintage Seats. But not just 911R seats from Vintage Seats – these seats were custom ordered so far off the menu that well…they’re the first of their kind.

Personally, I think Michael Eberhardt of Vintage Seats deserves a separate blog post. This is more so announcing that PCR is done. There’s a long story to tell that involves more than just the purchase of seats. So I am going to blog about it later. For now, I have to whole-heartedly thank Michael for having such a high threshold for “clients with special needs” (code for PIA). The service was absolutely stellar and the seats are beyond phenomenal!

Now excuse me while I go take a shower. Hit replay again on the track above.

Project Cockpit Revisited is getting close to done!

The 10K tach conversion from North Hollywood Speedo arrived on my doorstep, for the second time, earlier in the week. I had rejected the first version because the “default” white didn’t match my original tach. Apparently, color matching is a service offered at additional $85 which was willingly paid so that it would appear as if the car was ordered 44 years ago with a 10K tach and the entire gauge cluster would be unified. Additionally, I had requested to match the opaqueness of the original tach because the first version was a little translucent. I’m very pleased with the color match and have to thank Hartmut, owner of NHS, and staff! Color matching is something I do at work. I recently finished developing CMYK values for all the fabrics for The North Face’s 2013 collection. The catalogs are on press now. Anyway, if you’re having gauges redone, I would imagine there is a canister sitting on the shelf at NHS with my formula. Ask for it if you want to feel special. It’s called “PIA Tilton Off-White”.

Also, the roll bar wrap is done. I researched several period examples before making a decision.

I purchased some “special” three-inch vinyl tape from a 4×4 outfit but decided to pursue a more refined option as seen below.

I tapered the foam padding purchased from Jeg’s with a orbital sander then delivered the roll bar to my go-to upholstery guy Alex of Alex’s Upholstery in Walnut Creek. It was advised that I use the regular foam padding as opposed to the SFI-Approved material for a street car. I’m not going to get into the debate of roll bars in street cars as it has been thoroughly debated numerous times. BTW, the roll bar is from TRE and is their 911R version. I purchased this several years ago while at German Auto Fest in Ventura, CA.

Anyway, as expected Alex did a fantastic job – on time and on budget. It’s great to thoroughly discuss all the details of a project before executing just to make sure we’re both on the same page even if it’s just a simple roll bar wrap. I didn’t want any wrinkles around the bends or darts. Plus I requested a zipper rather than velcro. Not sure when velcro was invented but it didn’t seem period correct. No really. No wink-ee smiley face.

While the roll bar was in Alex’s possession, I decided to redo the radio delete panel. The previous version was short in height but not obvious until I removed the knee pad trim. Luckily, I had some left over door panel material.

So with the redone tach, redone knee pad, wrapped roll bar and radio delete panel all done and installed this week – the interior is nearly complete. All that is left is to install these two secrets that arrived today. They’ll twist you inside.

One. Two. Just like that it came to me.

One. I have a Rear Partition in my car. It is a “copy” based on the original Porsche part (901 555 085 00). John Goriup fabricated it based on access to an original. He did a fantastic…better than fantastic job. For the most part it has not been properly utilized since installed a few years ago. You don’t see these too often but at least one 911R had the Rear Partition (photo credit Cramer).

Two. I like military gear. It’s simple, rugged and functional. No garnish. Less is pure – something I firmly believe in all aspects of life.

Combining the two, I think, must have subconsciously started when I bought a military blanket over a year ago at the flea market – see here. I’ve kept it in the front trunk of the car. Also, I totally dig my military issue 1973 Hamilton watch – see here.

So I started searching “Vietnam Era Military Gear” and learned about M-1956 Load-Carrying Equipment. Hmmm…my dad served in ‘Nam…I was born there…what if my Dad bought a ’68 911L while in service and I inherited the car along with the M-1956 gear? That’s believable…except my dad only buys American made cars and all military gear was mandatorily returned upon discharge. Oh well, it didn’t stop me from going on an ebay spending spree (medical/compass pouch, small arms case, ammunition cases, medical dressing/compass case, deceased contents pouch, NOS duffle bag).

The deceased contents pouch was a clean way of containing all the glove box contents. I was undecided on deleting the glove box door until I could find a way to clean up the cluttered appearance. It is dated “1968″…very appropriate.

Taking in some of the details of an era long passed.

The M-1956 gear is a very functional and “period-correct” solution for holding all necessary tools and spare parts and now, finally, the Rear Partition is functional. One. Two.

John Gray was recently describing a project to me. Thought it was a very kewl idea and execution. I asked him to send me some pics with a brief write up. Check it out.

By simply vacuuming once a year or so, some of us have watched our interiors become ‘period’ in what seems like a very short time. As they say during this period, NP – it just means the opportunity to go overboard on other things, like this. It’s a Road Trip stereo bag I made so I can stream my internet stations on a drive Bob and I are making next month. If he ends up in my passenger seat because his car still isn’t together, it’s portable enough to go along so Bob can hear lots of music he hates.

Yeah, the music of the car is all you need, blah blah. All that is true. But sometimes you are just sitting in traffic, or on the freeway and bored. I hate earbuds while I’m driving. Having the ambient noise filtered isn’t safe and wires are always in the way. Besides, you’re listening to crappy compressed MP3 files anyway. I got this idea from a kid who put some battery powered speakers in his gym bag to carry around and use with his phone, I just took it a step further with the pieces in the picture.

The speakers are Altec Lansing Orbits. For being 3 inches and only $20, they actually sound pretty darn good if you give them enough power. They are meant to be a laptop speaker – as a single unit. A typical laptop has marginal output at the headphone jack for driving one of these, much less two. A smartphone, even less power. So the key to this whole thing is the little black rectangular piece. It’s a tiny amplifier that cleans up the signal and boosts the output significantly. Even better, it runs the MP3 format though a circuit and creates a three channel stereo emulation that it sends to the outputs. The difference is huge using the phone. Instead of having to run the phone at ¾ volume and sounding like crap, now ¼ volume produces the same level and sounds much better. It also eliminates the need for a separate splitter cable to drive the two speakers.

I ran the jack through the embroidery because the thread added some chassis rigidity for mounting. The solid patch to hold and hide the jack and the size made this gimme bag seem good for a tryout. I used a nylon washer and clip on the back to hold the jack in place. The holes for the speakers had to be carefully cut to hold everything well. I made good templates that would stick to the nylon from 3M lacquer tape, but when I started cutting with various scissors and razors, I could tell it was going to make a mess. Luckily, my wife was out of town when I came across her good Wusthof kitchen shears. These let me make surgical cuts easily and made the job a breeze.

The speakers run on 3 AA batteries, good for 24 hours of use or being on. The on/off button comes out on the outside, at the bottom of the speaker grille. Next to the switch are green LED’s bright enough to remind you, which also look cool at night. I put a foam bottom inside to hide the connection wires and amplifier, so it still works as a bag. In fact, you can get different equalizer settings based on what you happen to throw in it. A few extra wrenches adds that reverb effect, like an old AM Top 40 station. Want more bass? Move it from the seat to the floor. In fact, that’s kind of what it sounds like after all this – a good AM radio in an old car. With the sun out and the windows down and the right song on, this works just the same way.