Restoration of my 1971 911T Targa

[911hillclimber]

We all understand this. Those of us with hands-on experience of fitting the front up will certainly understand!

Not unusual for ill fitting bonnets. My steel bonnet does not fit correctly the Dansk front wings, but my racing fibre glass bonnet does!

Strikes me the shell is in excellent hands, those gaps look sublime to me.

[deano]

BonnetProfiles.JPG

Hi, when I mentioned that the bonnet is too narrow at the front this is as measured against another bonnet. Alex re-checked the width between wings which is correct. IT is quite likely that the bonnet was shaped to fit that car as it was and the bonnet is too crowned. i.e. it bulges up too much towards the front so the left and right hand edges at the front are narrower.

Sorry - I know what I am trying to say here - just failing miserably....

Cheers, Neil

I penned the front-to-back and side profiles of three original bonnets/hoods onto card during the summer, to try to understand why I couldn't get a good fit on my best bonnet (it seemed to be too long), whereas another bonnet fitted perfectly.

To cut a long story short, the side profiles of all three were almost identical from the cowl/windscreen end down to the Porsche emblem but the final nose section of the side profiles all had a very slightly different angle around where the frame flattened - I have tried to show this in the attached sketch. I'll bet the factory had some method of tweeking that bend...

The front-to-back profile (bottom edge that sits on the front bumper) of my best bonnet was different to the bonnet that fitted the best, and all three bonnets had a slightly different front profile (relative to the back end), as shown in my sketch.

A tap with a wooden block along the front edge gave me the shape i needed. A note of caution though - if you bend the nose too far back, the metal might fold over the frame and show a crease.... hope that makes sense. It sounds like, if you bonnet is solid, it might be possible to get it into shape...

All the best!

[Neilnaz]

Thanks for the encouragement 911Hillclimber.
I appreciate your thoughts Dean. I have some further information regarding the bonnet.

Cheers, Neil

[Neilnaz]

Bonnet pictures:




Front wing pictures:



Alex thinks these are savable - some need of repair around the headlamp bowls, at the bottom (where they all go) and the flanges where they attach to the body


Rear Deck lid pictures:


The deck lid is much better than I expected as there was a large bubble near the letter R which always scared me - turns out it was only skin deep

Cheers, Neil

[Neilnaz]

As you can see from the above - I have discovered it is easy to get a host for my photos!
I have also discovered that my heavy bonnet was not because it was made of lead but that it was covered in a great depth of filler due to poor repairs and wavy-ness. It is possibly a short hood lengthened as opposed to a long hood repaired.... Don't really know at this stage.

I may be getting a replacement bonnet but they are few and far between and the one I can get hold of is $$$$ and needs repair also.....

Cheers, Neil

[Gary71]

Wings definitely look salvageable.

I wouldn’t bother with anything other than a new OE bonnet as any savings on initial purchase price will be lost in the hours of paint and metalwork prep.
My bonnet had a similar layer of filler and I gave up grinding it off after taking 30mm of 5mm thick filler out of the front.

[deano]

My favourite of three bonnets turned out to have a deep meteor trench in the middle - about half an inch thick in the middle. Luckily, it was fairly easy to fix. Another one was dented around the front centre, where you would press done to close, presumably due to decades of heavy handedness. Interestingly, this one had slight depressions immediately above both courtesy light cutouts in the frame, maybe as manufactured?? Used a little bit of Upol Dolphin Glaze in the deeper depressions, followed by about 6 layers of 2k high build primer (block sanding inbetween) to get rid of all the imperfections and get it flat... (maybe 2-3 days, plus days or weeks of waiting for materials to fully harden). as Gary said, its a LOT of work. OEM bonnets are very expensive though, so its a trade-off....

Love the thread ! Targa's rock !

[RobFrost]

Love the thread ! Targa's rock !

Me too - I especially love those early Targas, in orange, yellow or black with all the chrome. I might swap one day if one comes along.

[Gary71]

My favourite of three bonnets turned out to have a deep meteor trench in the middle - about half an inch thick in the middle. Luckily, it was fairly easy to fix. Another one was dented around the front centre, where you would press done to close, presumably due to decades of heavy handedness. Interestingly, this one had slight depressions immediately above both courtesy light cutouts in the frame, maybe as manufactured?? Used a little bit of Upol Dolphin Glaze in the deeper depressions, followed by about 6 layers of 2k high build primer (block sanding inbetween) to get rid of all the imperfections and get it flat... (maybe 2-3 days, plus days or weeks of waiting for materials to fully harden). as Gary said, its a LOT of work. OEM bonnets are very expensive though, so its a trade-off....

Love the thread ! Targa's rock !

Totally agree. If you’ve got the skills/time to DIY fill/paint then it can work to repair.

As I don’t have those skills the £1145 my bonnet cost wouldn’t have got many hours of skilled prep/paint and I’d still have a repaired bonnet with a load of filler in it at the end.

[deano]

Totally agree. If you’ve got the skills/time to DIY fill/paint then it can work to repair.

As I don’t have those skills the £1145 my bonnet cost wouldn’t have got many hours of skilled prep/paint and I’d still have a repaired bonnet with a load of filler in it at the end.

This sounds like a good opportunity to ask about the paint prep of brand new OEM body parts.

@Gary, presumably there is a lot of work involved in making one panel blend into the next in 3D e.g. wing to door. Would you happen to know whether the panels themselves, including the new bonnet, are completely flat (no depressions/dings out of the box) and dont need anything in the way of glaze/filler and high-build primer, or do they still need a bit of work to make them flat enough for paint? Hope that makes sense.

[Gary71]

They still need a bit of work if you are fussy.

I honestly couldn’t see anything in the bare panel, but it had a little work to meet my painters standards which are higher than mine!

This picture shows it just before primer. I’m assured the filler is only the finest of layers.

[Neilnaz]

I appreciate all the feedback and advice being provided here. Alex who is doing a great job with my car only has:

1) my bonnet which, as you can see, is deeply flawed but fixable given sufficient hours
2) an alternative bonnet that also requires some repair; or lastly
3) a new bonnet

The options and my choice are driven by cost.

Alex is assessing the time to repair 1) versus 2). The equation is slightly twisted with regards 3) as we are in New Zealand which means that a new Dansk or more expensively Porsche bonnet has shipping costs on top. Luckily bonnet 2) is being looked at to see which one will be the lower cost option.

I believe that the outcome will be good whichever way we go but 3) is likely not to be possible due to current difficulties with getting things shipped to NZ.

Another bonnet may become available and Alex is considering whether to look into building a short hood into a long hood as there may be more supply of short hoods. There are not exactly lots of cars and parts in NZ.

Cheers, Neil

[Gary71]

Ah, forgot your location constraint!

Make do and mend is much higher up the list then.

[Neilnaz]

Alex sent me some additional photos showing the tidy up of my car's rear end!

The rear panel was removed (it had been glued on!) revealing some crustiness, random paint and evidence of crash damage. This shows it part way through repair and tidy up.



The passenger side rear wing has been repaired.



I am looing forward to the rear being completed and Alex being able to move on to the bonnet and front wings.

Cheers, Neil

[Neilnaz]

Some more photos of progress - rear end complete except for bumpers and rear panel.

Tidy

Nice fit

Rear panel

Nice profile

Good fit

Nice wheel arch profile

Rear latch panel


Just got sort the bolt on panels front and rear ( lots to do but the main body is 99% complete now).

I am thinking that the car will be ready for paint by March given time off over Christmas.

Cheers, Neil