We have been busy lately, but I had a little time to work on the 912 which required immediate attention.
First, the turn signals stopped working. They were pretty rough in the first place. They didn't shut off automatically when finishing a turn, and the right signal was becoming hard to engage. Finally last night, right stopped working altogether. Then left this morning. I also broke my driver-side window roller this week, so I couldn't easily roll down my window to perform those cool hand signals.
So I took off the steering wheel and disassembled the column slightly. Luckily it's all easy to move, just requiring a few screws. While I was in there I cleaned everything nice and pretty. I couldn't find anything damaged in the signals, but it was definitely stuck. James suggested contact cleaner, and after a few sprays (and dirty paper towels later) the signal started working. I continued to clean up the little cluster of complex gears and finally sprayed a dry lubricant on when I was finished. Now they work like new!
I reassembled the wheel but somehow lost the horn in the process. I will have to fix that this weekend.
I also mentioned before that the lack of mirrors was making the car pretty dangerous to drive. The car came from the factory with only the driver's side, and I plan to keep it this way. Here's some ugly plastic aftermarket mirrors the previous driver had installed:
They looked tacky and actually were really bad mirrors, constantly moved around etc. Shown also is the stock mirror. But I realized this was from a 66-67 model, so I swapped out for this larger one:
I purchased the small one on Craigslist for $30, the bigger for $45.
One of the most unappealing things about the car was the rear deck lid grille. This piece is notorious for being warped or damaged (look at 68 and 69 911s, 912s and you'll see what I mean). Mine was missing a couple bars and many others were bent (this is after I tried straightening them out):
I popped into Parts Heaven in Hayward and saw this one on a 911E, so I quickly purchased and installed it:
Big improvement eh?