66 LHD 'Doctors Car' restoration begins

[MT]

Hey Garry, Please do I need to pick your brains re my new zinc plating kit!
Anytime this w/e - and bring that 912! Give me a call if it can work for you.

Mick

[MT]

Back from Aberdeen - spent Friday making this wheeled cradle so I could move the bodyshell around a bit. Made it from some 1" square tubing I bought and some wheels/plates I had kept 'just in case' - as you do.


Saturday spent stripping underseal/sealant. As you will recall the original underseal on the inner wings looked good over most of the area and I was tempted to leave it alone, but I thought I'd better check. Turns out there is some rust developing under the underseal as you can see in the detail photo below.



Tried a few methods to remove the underseal and eventually found the propane torch shown in the picture with a scraper as the best method. Torch was £24.95 including regulator and several fittings on e-bay as I recall. Doing the inner wing in the picture took a timed 22 minutes. The sealant inside the under-bonnet area is harder to shift, but still the propane torch was the only effective method. Anyway all the front end inside and out is now done.

Now need to do the rear end, cut off/remove the outer sills and decide how much rear wing to cut off. I have a replacement 'rear end' that came with the car that has the rear latch panel, light boxes and the first 2ft of the rear wing that might well cover all the imperfect section at the back. How much to trim the front to get to the kidney bowls, bottom of the B post etc is the question.

[911hillclimber]

This is an interesting car. The shell looks good and challenging in some unusual places!
Someone has cut one of the rear radius arm brackets off the torque tube, but under the tube-body looks ok!

Have you had a GOOD probe around witha sharp braddle yet?

[visualfx]

I think that's a trick of the light.

Was round at Mick's this morning exchanging notes an I didn't see a problem. Know what you mean though, looks like it's been cut off.

[MT]

It's a trick of the light. The radius arm bracket is fine - same as the other one. I have been round tapping and probing quite a bit. A few small problem areas - front and rear latch panels, base of A and B post and the central floor next to the pedal box - and major repair of the front control arm joints and tank support, but it's solid over much of the rest.

I have, however, learnt from past experience with my other cars that it's best not to get too confident until the car returns from the blast cleaning. Will cut the outer sills off tomorrow or Wednesday and we'll see what it's like underneath.

[MT]

Finished the underseal stripping of the rear inner wings and the underside of the engine area. I have then removed the outer and inner sill from the RH side. The inner sill was largely intact but with a few holes in the middle, and significant localised severe corrosion at the base of the B post such that I decided it was better completely replaced, as opposed to patch repairs.

The bottom of the A post is holed towards the rear of the car, and I suspect the inner sill behind will need some fixing as well, but not as bad as it might have been - given some of the other restoration threads I have read.




I have decided to remove only enough of the front of the rear wing to allow the blasting to be done. I then plan to reassess how much more to remove depending on what appears, and to get access to the kidney bowls.

The heater tube looks like new - not sure if this is usual, but it is certainly saying put!

[johnM]

The only 'non-Germanic' thing I've found up to now is the way the headlining is secured in the rear quarter, above the rear shelf. After removing the thick sound-deadening stuff .....there is a strip of thickish stiff rubber that is nailed (yes, nailed!) using 4 twist nails to the rear window shelf. A quick tap from the engine compartment and they came out, but seems very incongruous.



Mick

Just looking through the porsche manual and it tells you to use nails (self tapping screws) and it shows a bloke with a hammer and some tacks, to secure the bottom of the roof liner at that very point, so I would assume they are original!!

[dizzycap]

I found twist nails holding down a piece of felt or maybe the last piece of the roof liner when I took my 1970 Karmann built 911T apart. I believe these to be factory twist nails. If there's any traces of them I'll post a pic.

[owen nw]

excelent reading owennw

[MT]

Just a short update.

Car went off to be media cleaned at Cleaning Consultants near Loxwood in West Sussex.



along with its bits and bobs



Well see what comes back before too many detailed plans are made. I have spent the last few days on a voyage of discovery around front and rear suspension dismantling - very entertaining, interesting and educational as you might have gleaned from some of my questions elsewhere on the forum. Never mind all in bits now and most suspension parts are away for blast cleaning, and some for powder coating. I plan to paint most of the suspension with POR 15 rust encapsulator, and then a final coat of their Chassis Black. From what I can see this will mean a) it will be at least as good as powder-coating for corrosion protection and probably better b) look more like the original coating and c) I can do it myself in my own time to a known standard. I have used this mixture on my other restorations, notably the TR4A, and am a fan.

Also I have sourced two fuel tanks, one for this car and one for IKEA car from e-bay.

Spent today stripping tank one. Despite the fact it hasn't had petrol in it for some years I spent an hour steam cleaning the inside, before getting stuck in with the propane torch. Anyway a happy hour and ...





No major (or even minor) problems found. The worst piece is a small 2" section of seam on the front edge that is starting to swell. No where near a leak, but it will get some rust treatment.

I plan to use POR 15 tank sealer kit internally, then POR 15 Rust Encapsulator (no I'm not on commission!), and their Tie-Coat primer on top so that you can then use anything you like on top of that. My plan is to use the 3M sprayable seam sealer that seems to be the closest to the original grey 'rippled' finish.

I've also been experimenting with my yellow zinc plating kit - modesty prevents me from showing you my results to date .......

Mick

[MT]

Well as much came back as I expected, but not as much as I'd hoped!

Cleaning Consultants did a good job, but it's pricey and was at the top of their estimate range (£1400! with the VAT) and they managed to add a couple more dents. See I thought as there was not much paint/coating left it would be quick and cheap, turns out getting back to solid metal took longer, not less time - or so the story goes. Ah well its only money and going to a good cause. I still had to have a lie down in a dark corner for a while.

Anyway the good bits

Under Bonnet area



Rear seat - although there are a couple of pitted areas with two small pinholes that were not apparent before cleaning



Floor - inside



although the hole on the LH side has got quite a bit bigger



... and underneath looks like new (apart from the hole near the pedal box)



Front inner wing



Rear inner wing - all good apart from the seat belt mount which a
has almost disappeared on both sides. Why does that bit go so readily - Garry's has gone on his 912 as well.



Windscreen corner



Less good news .... there has been a pretty substantial repair done on the rear wing near the torsion bar cap, and the area above it has been extensively 'dinged' with a sharp point, presumably to key for some filler. Anyway it makes it easier to decide how much to cut out. If anyone has a piece of a rear wing with the torsion bar hole (doesn't have to be much more than the immediate area) in it that is solid I'd like to get one for each side. The rest of the wing is repairable I think, but fashioning the torsion bar hole is going to test my metal shaping skills and equipment beyond what is realistically possible I fear! Does anyone know if the torsion bar cap/hole is the same size/shape on later models as well because I suppose there is a better chance of getting a solid 'offcut' from one of them. Help Barry!



Also the area immediately below the torsion bar mount hole on the inner wing is holed on both sides, albeit in a quite limited area



A and B post bottoms as expected







Started dismantling today ready to start repair work next week. Sick of drilling spot welds already. I have decided after some consultation and measurement that I am not going to use the jig I could borrow from my local garage. The shell is really very rigid and square and the ability to get around and under is going to be very helpful - also I'm not sure my garage floor will take the strain.

[911hillclimber]

Phew!
Feel better now, you have a few holes to do!!
That is a nice shell, and £1400 very very well spent. You will reap the benefits over the coming years as you can get the rot all out now because you can see it.

worst parts are below the torsion tube, tricky to do.
Windscrean surround is fab, and the floor edge is very localised.

Lucky!

Full details wanted of course as you fix it.

[58A - 71E]

Cleaning Consultants did a good job, but it's pricey and was at the top of their estimate range (£1400! with the VAT) and they managed to add a couple more dents.

Interesting to see someone else had the same experience with these people

Good luck with your project; following with interest

[MT]

Well I have started on the body repairs - more to follow - but first the fuel tank

I have managed to acquire two appropriate and good fuel tanks from e-bay - one with the smaller breather hose connection for this car, and one with the larger connection for the 72E (IKEA). I have steam cleaned the insides of both for a half hour or so even though neither had been used for a couple of years - better safe than sorry - (with herself's carpet steam cleaner while she was out), and then removed the factory gunk (and in one case a horrible PO bitumastic additional layer) with my now well-used propane torch, cleaned with Metal Ready, painted with black POR 15 rust encapsulator



and then added POR 15 Tie coat primer, such that I can now add any top coat I fancy in the knowledge that underneath all is well. The Rust encapsulator is really hard, but flexible, and sticks like s**t, to the extent that if you get any in the lip of the paint tin you will really struggle to get it open again!



As I said I have used the same stuff on the suspension parts I have back from blast cleaning, topped with POR 15 Chassis Black. Will do the rest when the bits are ready and post a couple of photos so you can see the results.

I have got the POR 15 tank sealer kit to do the inside (I wish I had thought a bit more because if you buy the Marine Clean, Metal Ready and tank sealer separately (and do without the fuel additive - that I will probably not use anyway), you can get them quite a bit cheaper than the kit.

£90 for tank + £10 for POR 15 + £60 for tank sealer = brand new tank for £160 - to a Northener, PRICELESS

... did I mention I am already sick of drilling spot welds ....

[MT]

... and so on to the body repairs. Decided to start with something small - the base of the RH A post. To remind you it looked like this after cleaning



So first cut out the rot



...then the rot underneath, cut a piece of flat plate, prime the rear and weld it in.. (not my prettiest welding, but there's not much room in there)



Bash a piece of sheet metal into shape for a half-hour, punch some holes, spray weld-through primer in the hole and behind the repair piece..



... and weld it in place, bit of grinding..



... and then a bit of primer to finish - first of many.....