NOP Blue’s new home

New Old Porsche (NOP) Blue has a new home. The 1974 Porsche 911 has been painted, everything but the front and rear bumper, and relocated to a spot out of the way from the busy activities at the shop. Warren found a patch of clear, mostly level ground and also arranged for a couple of five by twelve sheets of aluminum sheeting. Saturday we raked out some gravel to level things out and fill in some small holes, laid some plastic as a moisture barrier, followed that with some plywood, and then laid the aluminum on top. This will provide a good surface for working on NOP Blue, easily supporting jack stands, etc. and making rolling around on a creeper really easy.

I’ve ordered an enclosed canopy that will surround the Porsche and keep the moisture out in the coming winter months. This will be plenty big to work on the car. Other progress has been made: I’ve ordered a wiring harness from Painless Wiring. I’m sure this project will test the company’s name. Now I’ve got a list of “while you’re at its” including MSD Ignition modules and an optical replacement for the points.

Why NOP Blue?

If you look back in the archives you will see the inspiration for the Porsche’s paint scheme comes from Ducati’s “New Blue” project. Also, NOP is a computer science abbreviation for No Operation, which seems a perfect term for the car at this time.

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Test Fit for the Porsche 911

The 1974 Porsche 911 project is making progress with the recent test fitting of the major body panels. A few weeks earlier the inner compartments and jambs were painted and now the team at Ocean Paint and Body are getting the doors, lids and fenders placed to verify everything will go together as planned when the paint work is done.

You can see here that a test panel has been used to check the graphics scheme and colors. I like the look of the Porsche silver and blue and have decided to keep the looks simple with just the stripes. Once the car gets painted it will be a nice looking rolling chassis. After that, the real fun will start for me as I’ll have to try and remember 1) where all the pieces are and, 2) how to put them all back on the Porsche.

I also need to complete the work on the front and rear fiberglass bumpers. I’ve already fit the bumpers to the car but they require a fair amount of work to get to a finished state. The rear is not too far off but I need to have the engine back in the car to finalize the exhaust opening. The front bumper requires more work to get the openings for the turn signal and marker lights sorted.

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