LH Floor Edge Out

Barry says:

I measured the existing replacement floor edge, and it was projecting about 1/4in too far out at the front, and about the same distance inwards at the rear. Further down the line this would have caused a lot of problems with the outer sill to door gaps.

After a bit of a battle it was removed without going too far backwards on the good original metal. Note that the seat mounting reinforcement panel had only been welded on with three welds, rather than the 15-20 it should have had.

The whole area must have been 'as found' last time, as no attempt had been made to tidy it up, let alone paint it. I've set to with wire brushes, Scotchbrite and emery, and just about tidied it up. Once the area is welded up and ready for its new floor edge, I'll go in with the first hit of paint. Once the floor is dealt with, and just before the new middle sill goes in, it'll get another dose of etch.

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Centre Tunnel Dents

Moving on, here's the next instalment from Barry:

With the car mounted on the rotisserie, work proper could begin.

As is usual, the centre tunnel had been battered over the years, although I've seen very much worse. Much of the damage could be pulled out with welded studs and a slide hammer. Towards the rear, it was too badly crushed to retrieve using studs, so I removed the whole area, scraped and blasted it, before beating it back to the correct shape. With this done, the edges were primed in a zinc rich weld-thru primer, and the centre in black etch.

With the painting done, the area could be welded back in and the whole area tidied back up.

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Don't Have Nightmares

Bit of work on the underside now, so the shell moves to the Rotisserie. Before I post photos of Barry's witchcraft, let me share a "before" picture of the front subframe mounting point.
Someone presumably drove around with it like that.
Don't have nightmares...

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Front Inner Wings - Conclusion

Continuing the discussion of whether to keep or replace the inner wings, we also looked at the A-posts.

Barry says:
The A-posts (which get scrapped if inner wing replacement is undertaken) are both very good. In fact, I propose we even re-use the bases as we know they fit.
I'll chop them out, re-flange with new metal and weld back in once the inner wings have their new metal. We have nearly 400 euros to play with on these, and that assumes they fit perfectly. Yours, we know, do.

As you've doubtless guessed, we chose to keep the front inners and repair.
This makes me happy for reasons already covered. I'm glad to be keeping the original steel, especially bearing in mind the view of the scuttle / bulkhead and its join to the inner wings, as seen from inside the luggage compartment.

Given that inner wings are not exactly cheap from Porsche (best part of 3K GBP plus VAT for the pair), you might also imagine we're saving some money. Not so much, though. Individual repairs will take time, and the RD panels also cost. With that said, inner wing replacement is also many hours of labour (because they are so embedded in the structure at the top end), so the "pay for panels, save on labour" maths doesn't work quite the same as in other cases.

RD parts list was:
PP236TR ribbed area of offside front inner wing
PP204B tank support (non-battery tray)
PP236BL battery area repair
PP236BR ditto
PP280R torque tube housing area
PP280L ditto
PP221A parcelshelf
PP227B parcelshelf upstand.

2240.70 EUR for that lot, including VAT, shipping and modest discount.

And at my friendly local OPC:
Rear slam panel
Nearside engine bay seal holder
Heater tubes X 2

719.56 GBP inc VAT etc.
I did manage to get a cup of tea and eat some OPC biscuits this time, though.

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Front Inner Wings - Evaluation

With the pulling done, and the sills off, we now knew as much as we would ever know about the front inner wings. Time to make a decision - repair or replace?

Before getting into the details, Barry and I talked about pros and cons. Main problem with inner wing replacement is that they extend so far back toward the dash / bulkhead, and they obviously have a very visible join with the scuttle. So here's what I said to Barry:

My simplified thinking now is:

  • there are disadvantages to replacement, as you say
  • scuttle and its joins to inner wings are really good, and those original inners / welds are meaningful for originality
  • front end twist is probably correctable, and we already knew we were replacing the entire front pan

... so it all comes down to how bad the inner wing damage is, hence how strong and neat the repaired damage is going to be.

If the existing front inners are so significantly weakened by damage, or will be so visibly sub-standard when repaired that neither of us will be happy, it has to be new inners. Otherwise I’m back to my usual preference for keeping as much original metal as possible.

So Barry took plenty of photos and we had a discussion about what to do. Here's part 1 of what he sent me:

I'm leaning towards repairing both front inner wings. The internal structure on both is perfect, both from luggage bay and inside the cockpit area.

We can get all the repair areas we need from Restoration Design. I'm thinking that both of them have so much % of good metal, I'm sure we'd end up regretting getting up under the dash where the replacement of inner wing is so hard to conceal.

(If the scuttle had gone, or the inner structure of the inner wings had gone (they often do), or if it looked impossible to get the correct alignment, I'd say replace. )

The accompanying photos looked like this:

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
RH Sill Etc

As per nearside, the offside wasn't over-welded and the inside of the sill area was just left as-is. No cleaning, no primer. Heater tube again poor. One layer of metal missing again, albeit a bit less area than before.

On a 70 car, this side has the through-sill oil pipes. Better news here - they are perfect. I took them away for a repaint.

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
LH Sill and Torsion Tube Area

We need to make a decision on the front inner wings - repair or replace? And the sills are coming off anyway. So now is a good time to get them off and have a look at the bottom of the A posts.

As mentioned, the sills had been recently done as part of the previous part-complete resto. The car has not been used since then. So they should be pretty good, right?

Er... no.

Over to Barry:
It turned out that the nearside inner sill was barely attached at the top, and it just peeled away.

I was amazed to see that inside the sill area, no attempt had been made to clean up inside the area at all, not even a dash of primer. The heater tubes on both sides have had it I'm afraid.

I was also surprised to see a whole layer of metal just cut away and left out altogether at the rear.

Not a pretty sight.

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Pulling: Before and After

Some photos before and after pulling.

Front strut top mounts before and after:

Engine mounts before and after:

Front screen jig before and after:

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Pulling: Strut Towers

With the car held down to the jig by means of the various brackets that now fit, plus a pair of sill clamps, the front towers could be pulled.
The Porta Power is lifting the offside tower a bit, whilst helping it in and rearwards a little.

At the front, the current front pan doesn't fit the jig brackets, but I was able to lock them in one hole down (these have an upper and lower position), and then use long bolts / screws to hold the front of the car where I wanted it. Later on I'll weld some temporary straps between front of inner wings and the jig-bed whilst the front pan comes out. There is still some spring in the area, but as more and more work is carried out, I'll work this spring out before any new metal goes in. In the meantime, those ugly long bolts are holding everything just-so.

Whilst on same subject, all that pulling around has got the nearside torque tube end into the correct position. The four bolt 'receivers' though are a different matter ...

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Pulling: LH Side and Rear

Barry says:
The whole of the nearside of the car needed to go forwards a fraction, so I did this with the Porta-Power. This corrected several problems all at once.

The next issue was that the rear was slightly bent over to the nearside. This was corrected by means of drilling, bending and welding on a 3mm steel strap for the dozer to grab. This worked well, and if the need arose, the plate could be cut off, the welds linished and the rear slam panel none the worse for wear.

It was then time for some more work on the back end, this time in a vertical direction. I'm omitting a bit of detail here - Barry is extraordinarily (in my view) open about his methods, but this bit has a couple of trade secrets.

Anyway the news was good:
As hoped, the nearside was lower than the offside, which explains why the front screen jig fitted as it did, pre-pulling.
The rear nearside being lower than the offside pulled the roof back, pulling the A-pillar back away from the jig.

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Pulling

As shown in the previous photos, the shell is somewhat bent. So the first work package is pulling - applying fairly large forces to the car to try to pull it back into shape. We have the Celette jig to tell us how it's going, and also some other tools (like the screen jigs).

One of the indications of the front end twist was the front suspension mounts. They had been hacked about pretty badly, presumably to get the front suspension to fit despite the mounting points being misaligned. So on the jig they went.

To quote Barry, findings were:
Both of the Macpherson strut top mountings are pretty battered, and the offside one has been ground down, plus one of its clamp plates cut down. Now actually, I don't think the inner wing itself was out so far as to justify this wanton bodgerism, so I wonder if the upright itself was bent, and to a degree, this is what is trying to be corrected here?
... seems like a plausible theory.

Since I'm not using the uprights (struts) that came with the car, I don't much care whether they are bent. In fact, better if that's the problem not shell twist.

This is what I mean by hacked about:

... and this is how the mounting points looked on the Celette.
Not great, but not as disastrous as I had feared:

Moving to the back end, here are the "before" pictures of the engine mount points, relative to their correct positions on the Celette:

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Status Summary: Front Screen Area

I think this can be summed up as "not great". That jig should fit waaay better than this.

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Status Summary: Front Pan and Front Inner Wings

I knew that the front pan etc had been repaired, and had planned with Barry that these repairs would be coming out (see panel list - already bought all of those bits). 
As shown here, the previous repairs were somewhat agricultural:

The main problem up at this end is that, either as a result of poor front end restoration, or more likely as a result of trauma, the front end is twisted.
One side is about 10mm higher than the other:

There are also various areas of corrosion / damage repair to the front inner wings. 
We had hoped to save the inner wings, but it now seems likely that new front inners and a-posts are the most sensible option. 
Panel cost of that is quite high, and of course it takes more time.

More investigation required before that decision can be made.

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Status Summary: Rear inner wings and Torque Tube

I knew the previous torque tube end repairs were poor, and would be re-done.

Torque tube itself is OK. More pitted at ends than expected. End repairs will sort this out.

Fit to the jig is not too awful:

The bad news back here is old buckling and ugly repairs to the inner wings. All of that needs unpicking and properly fixing. So there's more work than expected to the rear inner wings / "chassis rails":

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Status Summary: Back End

Really not bad. 

Rear screen jig fits quite well:

Rear of shell is a little low, implying that any previous work was not jig based:

2016 MetalworkRichard Fry
Remove Paint, Find Truth

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.

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry
Blasting - the Merciless

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! 

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry
Delivered to Barry's House of Fine Welding

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.

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.

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry
Off to Blasting

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.

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

2016 PreparationsRichard Fry