Remove paint, and put on jig, I suppose it should say.

As mentioned, my shell turned out to be less nice than I had hoped. To put that in context, I originally did an idiotic thing and bought it on Australian eBay. 
I then had a ton of luck when the vendor turned out to be completely honest and very helpful, so a matching numbers RHD S did indeed arrive at Southampton docks, unscathed, exactly as described on eBay.

I then thought I'd had another ton of luck because the shell seemed amazingly good - loads of original metal, not much corrosion, some half-complete resto work, some very neat resto work that Barry was even contemplating keeping (unheard of). No damage to the scuttle, which tends to be the tell-tale in the case of a front impact. Seemingly original rear panel, which tends not to survive a rear end bump.

But you don't find out the truth until the blasting / dipping is done, and the car is on a jig. So let's summarise what turned out to be wrong with it.

I should point out that the vendor made absolutely no warranties other than RHD S, matching numbers with CoA. So none of this is sour grapes against him. I knew I was in for a major project, but thought I had been extremely fortunate. I'm not complaining that I was only mildly fortunate.

Right, let's summarise the status.

When Jamie Lipman visited me the other week we stood around like old blokes in a shed and, among other things, looked at my shell. Pre-blasting. 
At one point, he said "what needs doing then, how is Barry going to spend x hours on this?" And, when it was in primer, I could see what he meant. Looked really pretty good.
.... didn't quite turn out that way...

Post-blasting, here's a photo of the rear parcel shelf area looking upwards, and some wise words from Mr C:

Barry says: This was a real surprise, as this area looked so good!

I think the shell does back up my repeated claim that once any repair has been primed, any photographs are meaningless. It's so easy to skim iffy repairs with a bit of filler before priming and photographing. ...

At the end of the day, I'm afraid photos have got to be in bare metal or aren't worth the pixels they are made from ....

Just an example. There are quite a few areas where the situation post-blasting, with the car on the jig, is less good than I'd hoped. More on that later.

Wine o clock now, I think. Cheers! 

I should probably make clear that Barry Carter's business is not called Barry's House of Fine Welding. Or indeed Karterwerks. Official name is "911 and Vintage".

Anyway we went straight from the blasters to Barry's place near Hastings, stopping at home overnight to load up the new panels. Not quite enough hours in the day, as usual, so these loading pics are unnecessarily arty night shots.

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We made it OK. Thanks again to my Discovery and trailer owning friend Graham.

My car is next on the Celette, after someone's rather nice Targa has departed.

I feel excited, but also apprehensive. I've got some idea of the post-blasting state, but it's Barry's expert eye (and jig) that will reveal how good or bad the shell really is.

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Some progress. Today is blasting day.

Various children "helped" with the loading. 
I'm not sure how those Victorian chimney sweeping contractors got anything done. Child labour? Useless.

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My friend Graham, however, who owns a Discovery and covered trailer, was very useful indeed. Thanks Graham

In case it helps others, I'm going to be fairly open about costs (without disclosing information that is confidential to those working on my project).

Here's the list of panels I've bought, all from Porsche except a couple of repair sections from Roger Bray. Ordered well in advance of metalwork starting, because supply is not always perfect, but that also means pre-blasting. 

Total cost: 5721.35 British Pounds including VAT (our sales tax).

Hmmmm.

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What have you been doing for 2 years?

Getting Sidetracked

I seem to have accidentally bought an Alfa. Like almost everything I own, it needs work...

What have you been doing for 2 years?

Getting Sidetracked

I decided I needed better (more weatherproof and more secure) garage arrangements at home.

Long story short, I got a bit carried away, ended up with a 6m wide industrial door, and got a bit OCD about the cladding:

What have you been doing for 2 years?

Researching History (continued) 

So, the car was Guards Red, Fat Backside, Whale Tail. 

I said it was the full stockbroker treatment. But luckily our unknown 80s Australian fashion victim was, seemingly, not a stockbroker. Or not a very successful one anyway. We can tell this because the update was, luckily, not very thorough. Not much money spent, lots of original parts survived.

The first item not-even-slightly updated was the engine:

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MFI type code shown here. According to Michael Burgess' website http://911mfi.com/5.html, this is correct for the engine. Also note date codes on the cylinders: 6/69 so almost certainly original to the car.

In summary the original engine, MFI, intake system, oil union etc, gearbox survived. Some ancillary parts are wrong (throttle linkages, cam cover paint, fan shroud and trumpets painted, oil lines wrong, oil cooler has repair so probably scrap, etc etc). But basically it's all there.

Phew!

There's plenty of further evidence to suggest that our Australian forward-dating friend was on a tight budget. For example, as this pic shows, the red paint liberally hit the outside of the car, but in other places a black rattle can (with very little disassembly) seems to have been used.

Which is why (up to date pics below) there's still a fair amount of original orange paint to be found in the nooks and crannies. 

Might be useful for a colour match. Nice to see, anyway.

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Last pic of the 80s legend.

Note
1) Vigorous use of the under-bonnet rattle can
2) The mod to replace the front-mounted oil cooler with a length of pipe. Maybe the cooler got damaged, or maybe it didn't fit with the new front bumper etc.
3) Front calipers are not correct - should be alloy of course.

What have you been doing for 2 years?

Researching History (continued), this time including a shameful past in Impact Bumpers

The Australian owner from whom I bought the car had intended to restore it. He made a good start and amassed some interesting parts. Along the way he took some photos which tell a bit more of the story.

Let's start with this one:

Yes, it's my 70S.
As was obligatory in the 80s, the poor thing was painted red. It also acquired fat rear arches and a whale tale. The full stockbroker treatment.

These pics give an idea of the bits the PO removed as part of the strip down:

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Which left us with this:

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Looks pretty awful on the face of it, but luckily it turned out that the unmolested parts of the chassis are in good condition. 

Also we've not yet found any accident damage. Unless you regard wide arches and a whale tail as an accident. Maybe more of a crime.

I know, I know, the 80s were different times...

What have you been doing for 2 years?

Buying Stuff

And earning money to buy stuff.

I have some very expensive pieces of sheet metal from Porsche, and lots of other bits. More on that, with pics of the more interesting parts, later.

What have you been doing for 2 years?

Researching History

Most of the credit for this goes to the previous owner in Australia, who bought the car as a resto project. He was kind enough to share what he'd found out. Thanks!
Here's what I know so far:

Porsche Cars Australia and Porsche Cars Great Britain have confirmed that it was delivered as a Signal Orange right hand drive 911S in the UK. Production completion date was 1 December 1969. 
Ian at Porsche Club GB has it in his records. According to him it was first registered as CLK 92H, with the LK signifying London.

Three Signal Orange UK S-es were registered early in the 70 model year. Mine has supplying dealer "Porsche Cars GB" on the CoA. Demonstrators and press cars? The other two are fully restored.

DVLA says that my car has not been registered here in the UK since 1983. 
Australian Customs say they have been tracking incoming cars by chassis number since 1989 and it must have been imported to Australia prior to that as it does not show up in their system.
So it seems likely the car originally travelled from the UK to Australia around 1983.

Starting at the other end of its life (2010), the car was sold by Exclusive Cars in Perth (Tasmania) to a private buyer shortly before the PO bought it. 
It was last registered in Tasmania as SI2687 in 2006.
The car was brought to Tasmania from Melbourne, having been bought at a Fowles auction around 2001, after which it sat for some time in the workshop of Berry Motors (VolvWreck) before being transported to Tasmania. By that time it was in the red 'wide body' guise.

It was last registered in Victoria on 22 February 2001 as NMH695. Porsche Cars Melbourne say it went through their workshop in the mid 1990s, although they no longer have detailed records from that time.

To get some pics into an otherwise colourless post, here are the two sister cars. 

First one, owned by a DDK-er who has helped me out on many occasions - thanks! 
This one has a chassis number about 40 below mine, and an engine number about 50 below. We've also compared "build" numbers (the numbers stamped into the dash, near the ashtray). All seems in order...

Second one. I don't know the owner - if you're reading, please do get in touch.
This car is one chassis number below mine. Perhaps they were nose-to-tail on the production line.
Photographed by me at Porsche Classics at the Castle, Hedingham.

If anyone has any history of my car based on the registrations I mention above...
UK 1969-1983?: CLK 92H
Victoria, Australia 1983?-2001: NMH695
Tasmania, Australia 2001-2010: SI2687

... or any other info about the sister orange 70 S-es, I'd love to hear it. Please get in touch via the contact form on this site.

What have you been doing for 2 years?
Thinking of a Name
I don't name cars. But my daughter (now 11 years old) can't resist. 
This one is, apparently, called "Night Bug":

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Midnight blue, looks like a smooth squashed beetle. I guess.
This one is, apparently, called "Buzz":

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1969 car, the year of Apollo 11, so named after Buzz Aldrin. 
Also has no soundproofing, so does tend to be a bit loud. 
You could quibble over whether that noise is actually a buzz, but anyway. I learned a while back not to enter into debate with my daughters unless absolutely necessary.

And the car to which this blog relates, the 70 S, which came from Australia and will be back to its original colour of Signal Orange in due course, is, apparently, called...
"Orange Bruce".

...Badum-tissshhh.

My car should go to Barry's house of fine metalwork in September.

In the meantime, in case anyone remembers who I am and what my car's supposed to be like, I'll do a few posts answering the question "what have you been doing for 2 years while failing to make any visible progress on your resto project?" 
Which is a more polite version of what my non-car friends say when they come round and see the car in the same old state. Friends who have restored cars don't tend to ask.

I've put the shell on its dolly ready to remove the suspension etc.

I'm on the UK old Porsche forum, DDK: www.ddk-online.com . It's a great community in many ways, and in this case a fellow DDK-er helped me out by letting me have the DDK Heritage Dolly when he'd finished with it. I believe it's 10 years old and has seen a few interesting cars.

Provenance is everything, of course. The DDK Heritage Dolly has mystical ancient markings... so at least I know it's been welded up by someone who knows what they're doing. 
Hopefully the car won't fall on my head.
Thanks Jamie for the dolly (and delivery service).
 

My welding slot is gradually approaching, so I'd better make a bit of progress on readying the shell for blasting.

This weekend it was engine and gearbox out, using the "gently lower them onto trolleys and lift the car off" method.
I realise this is not much of an achievement - the engine was only back in the shell for transit from Australia, so I had no issues of disconnecting linkages, fuel lines, electrics etc. But still the first time I've ever done it, so I felt unjustifiably pleased to have done it myself, without dropping anything heavy. And indeed without bending the selector shaft where it comes through the hole in the rear bulkhead.

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