A sort of Barn(es) find

[jeremyg]

Welcome (back) to DDK Matthew. Great to have another resto strip. I like your style, and do I spot another Pointer! German? There's a number of pointer people on DDK!

[stretch]

Great read so far. Looking forward to the future episodes.

[Parkview911]

Welcome (back) to DDK Matthew. Great to have another resto strip. I like your style, and do I spot another Pointer! German? There's a number of pointer people on DDK!

Marvellous. Thank you.
Old Porsches and Pointers. We're bloody certifiable.

Indeed, a GSP.
Jasper.
A rather big one.
Adopted from the SPCA after swearing we'd never have another one (from the sadness of losing both previous versions....a morbid joke with the local vet)
To follow the Porsche / Pointer analogy, Jasper is probably a 991 compared to Jack, the first, who was more of a 3.0RS.

This latest version, like the 912, was adopted and thus saved from some form of abuse.
They both arrived in a sorry state.
And thankfully both seem to have enjoyed their time with us so far.

As my brother says: "there is always a pointer on the wrong side of a door"

[Parkview911]

Great read so far. Looking forward to the future episodes.

Thanks Stretch.
Your ST build is fantastic.
I really admire the attention to detail.

[Ant22]

Looking forward to the unfolding storytelling, car should prove interesting also!

[Parkview911]

Cheers Ant.
I hope the quality of the work measures up!

[Parkview911]

Porsche Dog.

[Parkview911]

So to continue with the story.
I got the LO back from blasting.
And the reality of what i was facing began to sink in.

Lower wheel house, both sides knackered.



Some previous repairs...





Inner fenders pretty good



Front window corners, minor rot



Door lock posts, lower hinge posts, sills, kidneys knackered and badly repaired.
Appears all these areas were repaired at some point. I use the word 'repair' very loosely here.





Inner sills not too bad but I decided to take them out anyway, to clean out the floorpan edges, seat rail supports etc.



Rear window corners, same again. Rot badly patched and covered over with fibreglass.



Suspension pan didn't look too bad on the surface......



Have kept this hanging on the wall as a reminder of where I started!
Notice the many layers of crap repair. For all their ineptitude, the previous repairer was extremely committed to doing a crap job.



http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag4 ... lei2mn.jpg

The underside...







I have shown these to a few prospective buyers of earlier cars....an example of what can lurk beneath fairly decent looking paint, or decent looking 'original' paint with the tiniest of blisters.

LHD sill and kidney



And the layered rot of the lower fender flare.



That pretty much sums it up.
The full list ran something like this (and quite a few of these I only really discovered once I was up to my armpits)
This car is pretty average, if not okay compared to many of the restorations.
I'm pretty sure it spent some time in the salt before it was dispatched to the colonies.
But a big list of repairs to be done despite its time in the sunshine.

- Front slam panel
- Fuel tank carrier
- Suspension pan
- Slam panel corners
- Front longitudinal both sides
- Front rain channels
- Inner sills, kidneys, lower door hinge posts, lower door lock posts, outer sills, front and rear corners, both sides
- Rhd outer floor pan
- Rhd seat rail support
- Various floorpan patches
- Both rear lower wheel house corners
- Smuggler's box
- Engine mounts
- Rear window corners, both sides
- Parcel shelf edges, both sides
- Various little b@#tard patches
- Seat bowl patch
- Rear corners of the wheel flares
- Bottom of both doors
- 1/4 window lower edge, both sides

As I said, a lot of work but nothing outrageous for a car this old and in this condition.
The next phase, dear readers, was about to begin.
One for which I was completely unprepared, mainly because it involved a strange dark art called welding.
Up to this point i had never welded before.
Not a bead.
Talk about jumping into the deep end, with concrete boots, and one arm tied behind your back.

[Parkview911]

A quick coat of 2 part primer can do wonders for removing that drowning feeling.
In the short term at least. It was good while it lasted.
3 and bit years later I am about to have it all in one colour again.

[911hillclimber]

Very interesting thread and great pics.

I 'restored' my 73T shell in 1989.
The front was as bad as yours, under the torsion tube the same, the outer sills were marked inside for a Mk!! Cortina.
It had solid inner wings and rear seat/parcel shelf but needed side floor strips and kidney bowls etc.

That was 27 years ago, a car from Germany and was that rough then, so I think you are doing ok.

In-picking is the worst thing, but 3.5 years would be a killer for me! 11/10 for patience.

Looking forward to the DIY bits!

[Parkview911]

Thanks Hillclimber.
In the greater scheme of things this shell was not that bad, especially lucky that it hadn't had a big bump.
I have to be thankful for that.

Patience is a necessity when you are relying on unskilled, unreliable labour! And a rather serious lack of funds for outsourcing to professionals.

Interested to know some detail around the guitars and cameras....

[911hillclimber]

Have always loved guitars, the woods and tones.
Mini collection of all types with one favourite, but I can fix welding better than I can play...
All started with mates at college with a Brit Tuxedo III electric which was cr@p, but now a Roger, Epi Les Paul, Eko, Suire Tele and a great Ibanez special edition, prob the best guitar I have.
Just sold a '53 Gibson ES 125 full hollow body, short kneck but a bit dissapointing even through a valve amp.
Bought it years ago instead of a lsd for the 911.

Bob Watson was not impressed at the time!

Cameras in the same vein, 35mm was a boyhood hobby, self developing and printing in the attic kind of thing.
Still shoot a film every now and then in B&W and still find is so difficult.
Small collection, but best is my Kodak Retina Reflex 3 inherited from my father who died when I was 17 but left me with th photography hobby.
Best real cameras today are the Nikon D40 and my beloved LUMIX LC1.

Just sold my Leica M3 which was a school boy dream, but

There, you shouldn't have asked!

[Parkview911]

After finding as many excuses and distractions as possible the time came for me to grasp the grinder and start cutting away the rot.
The parts had arrived from Canada - via a first class seat if the way bill was to be believed!
The RHD sill was chosen as the best place to start my education.



And a mate donated these two OE 964 outer sills. Very kind of him.



[Cue Flight of The Valkaries]

Inner sill cut away - was filled with holes from wonky sheet metal screws if I had to guess.
The inside was cleaned with compressed air and a vacuum, and more compressed air.
I could have sworn that someone was playing silly buggers, pouring in blasting sand when I wasn't looking. Staggering to think how much of this stuff accumulates in all the crannies.











The inner tube look pretty good. And the metal behind it was also solid, likewise the seat rail support.
So a good start.

B-Pillar not so good



Let the patching commence.
Well, let the practising commence first.





My neighbour, who tragically is besotted with early British motors, lent me his little Clarke 90 Mig machine. If not for the pathetic duty cycle and wonky wired motor would still be in use today. Running about 50 Amps I started with my first patch.

Both front and rear sections on the sill were toast, so out came the cardboard just like they teach you and in went the steel.





Looking back at some of the welds and steel now makes me cringe. With 3 years' worth of school fees behind me I would have done quite a bit differently, or rather have made bigger patches. But then if it was easy, everyone would do it!
I was obviously quite proud of having made good tack welds on account of having taken close-ups of said tack welds.

Like your first child; photographed and recorded to the max...and the second child not so much.





And finished off. Very Good Matthew well done. Here's a Gold Star!



Anyway.
I cleaned out the inner tube area as much as possible and hit it rust converter and a rust paint. Nice and clean.
I considered writing something really rude on the inside - perhaps for my sons or some other sucker that has to redo all this work in 20 years, but I forgot. Common excuse in my life.



Same procedure of the rear area.
And ready for the inner sill.
I read somewhere in my online education that it was always a good idea to strip away the shipping coat on any replacement part. Great idea in theory. But one of those annoying ideas that gets in the way when all you want to do it weld the bloody thing on. Still, in my defence I followed this procedure for every new part or patch I installed (aside from the front slam panel which should be blasted):
strip with a face-off wheel, clean, etch prime. it might be due to the fact that I have a growing fetish for bare steel.







This is the other bit they don't tell you: the number of times you have fit, fettle and refit. Like most good finishes, it all comes down to prep.



The scene of a crime...



So as a little aside, my first lesson about the importance of penetration, ahem, occurred when the inner sill that I had welded in along the top seam fell off when I removed the clamps. So all i succeeded in doing was welding closed an entire row of plug weld holes I had drilled! Lesson learned. Turn up the amps and wired, make sure the earth is nice and clean. And start again.







Then strip and etch prime. Done.





Cheeky little crevice in the top right corner was welded closed.

Next step was to recreate the jacking plate support.
I am very envious of people who live in Europe and the USA for one reason: buying replacement Porsche parts with the respective currency is not an exercise in balancing debt to income whilst predicting currency fluctuations on a forward looking basis. if you want the part, you buy the part. Simple. And not to mention the organise fraud that is shipping ex the USA. Are they trying to punish anyone who ships something from the US? Compared to Europe it really is organised crime. Anyway, rant over.

























Done. Was pretty proud of this result.....easy to tell from the number of photos. I think when I did the other side I took a before and an after! Looking back, this work took about 3 months....

[Parkview911]

Have always loved guitars, the woods and tones.
Mini collection of all types with one favourite, but I can fix welding better than I can play...
All started with mates at college with a Brit Tuxedo III electric which was cr@p, but now a Roger, Epi Les Paul, Eko, Suire Tele and a great Ibanez special edition, prob the best guitar I have.
Just sold a '53 Gibson ES 125 full hollow body, short kneck but a bit dissapointing even through a valve amp.
Bought it years ago instead of a lsd for the 911.

Bob Watson was not impressed at the time!

Cameras in the same vein, 35mm was a boyhood hobby, self developing and printing in the attic kind of thing.
Still shoot a film every now and then in B&W and still find is so difficult.
Small collection, but best is my Kodak Retina Reflex 3 inherited from my father who died when I was 17 but left me with th photography hobby.
Best real cameras today are the Nikon D40 and my beloved LUMIX LC1.

Just sold my Leica M3 which was a school boy dream, but

There, you shouldn't have asked!

That's serious. On both counts.
The Gibson hollow body sounds awesome, and disappointed to hear it's disappointing.
But then a factory LSD sounds terrible but works great, so I'm not sure if you're ahead on that one!

I have an Epi Les Paul Standard Long neck Bass. Lovely tone but neck heavy so the left hand takes a pounding.
Played with a mate for a while who has an original Telecaster - a beautiful thing in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing. Surprised there is no Gretsch Countryman in there.

Film is a whole other story. 35mm or 6x6/7. There is a whole movement back to film, particularly black and white. It seems to be a sort of early air-cooled thing: returning to a format that is only as good as the user by removing all the technical helpers. I also dabbled as a kid and then taught myself the basics via Kodachrome and magazines. Digital is great but the mystery of film is largely irreplaceable. Leica and Contax are still on the 'one day' list. I had a Rollei twin lens that I bought in a pawn shop when Iived in Florida. I just donated it to a mate who is big into film. He has used it as a parts donater for another Rollei and is shooting with it now. Bloody amazing. A man can never have too many hobbies!

[Parkview911]

Next the lower door hinge post and the kidney.
Looking at the RD process recently I can't believe the prices for the lower door hinge post patch.
I must have ordered an early batch and paid accordingly.
It's clearly a tricky part to press but $225 US each is mad.





A man can never have enough clamps.
These are a brand called Stronghold.
Nicely made and reasonably priced.
Took me a while to add butt-weld clamps to my collection. Shouldn't contemplate this kind of work without a set.

And on to the kidney.







Again, the bit I didn't record is the endless clamp on the outer sill, check the fit, unclamp, persuade with a hammer and a dolly and clamp back on again.

The sill, being a 964 part, needed some work. For this side I followed the tried and tested route of cutting and flattening the indentations. The Dremmel is a vital little tool. Mr Vos up the road was struggling with removing a welded in cage out of a 69. I offered him the use of my Dremmel. He was very dismissive at the sight of the the little thing. A mini grinder in one hand and the lightweight Dremmel in the other. A week later I returned to collect my Dremmel. Mr Vos was effusive about how useful it had been to the point that he didn't really want to give it back.

Cut:



Straighten out with the help of my high tech anvil:









All welded up and stripped to bare metal. Not bad for an amateur. Amazing what you can learn from the internet these days. Remind me of my own advice when I have to deal with one of my sons having 'learned' something from the internet....



The next step is the dreaded door gap.
I was really unsure what I was going to do if everything didn't line up properly, but by some magic it all kind of fitted together.
Sometimes you get very lucky.

An arty shot mid process:











A little hindsight: drilling plug weld holes through the upper channel of the outer sill is not the best approach it seems. The gas shroud of the MIG prevents getting close enough to the hole to weld. Unless of course you have a handy spot welder.
The best bet - from my limited experience - seems to be to drill plug holes from the inside of the body. This way you have can use the proper wire stick out and get nice and close to the plug weld hole and make sure you get the right amount of penetration between the lip of the inner longitudinal and the outer sill. I am sure there are more experienced welders out there who know exactly how to do it...but then they have the benefit of being professionals.