Australian project. left to right 3.2 - Page 4

saintz · 06-04-2006, 11:27 PM

It is a photo of my pedal area being welded in.
here are some before and after.

what this means is that I am officially half way through.

Up untill now I have been taking away from the car..............now I am starting to put parts back in.

I have had a 6 week delay because of researching that black piece of steel. It is the part that the factory welds into a stock floorpan in order to make the cars for the right hand drive market.

Thanks again to everybody who helped in this difficult part of the conversion.

jk911 · 07-09-2006, 08:04 PM

Hi saintz,

Hows the conversion coming along ? any more pics.

StayGold808 · 07-09-2006, 08:10 PM

Wow... seems like some real butchering is going on...

When my car was converted, it was finished with a stock apperance under the carpets. You can only tell its been converted if you take out the fuel tank and look RLY closely.

Nonethe less, great to see its comming along!

saintz · 07-10-2006, 01:00 AM

ummmmmmm thanks , I think.

No butchering intended I can asure you.

Did you see your car as they were converting it or just afterward?, Wurth joint sealer hides all the ugly bits even the factory ones.

My intention is to make the car look as factory when it is finnished, all factory panels are used and all welds are where the factory placed them (plus a few more for good measure). I won't ever deny that it is a conversion but I want it to appear as original as possible.

As to an update, the dash is welded in so now she is well on the way to being a true right hand drive.

photos to follow.

StayGold808 · 07-10-2006, 01:13 AM

yes, i saw my car throughout the conversion.

I'm just saying, with my car, the metal plating under the carpets has remained unchanged, with the long pieces still protruding up etc.. i'm not really sure how to describe it in words.

Sorry i dont' have a picture on this computer of my car after it was converted with all the interior out.

saintz · 07-10-2006, 03:22 AM

Do you mean the long stengthening upward press outs. That black pedal panel (from a brand new right hand drive Porsche foor panel) you can see in the photo in my previous post has the same indentations which end right where the pedal panel fits, You have to use those sections as a guide to line everything up. Here is a before photo with the long pieces that I think you mean arrowed and a photo of the black pedal area before it was removed from the new floor pan. sorry about the bad photo quality.

saintz · 07-10-2006, 03:24 AM

oops forgot to ad the pics

charleskieffner · 07-10-2006, 04:42 AM

are you still ahead of schedule? need to see more pics. chuck

saintz · 07-10-2006, 01:16 PM

Hey Chuck !

Yep, ahead of schedule, I'll take some more shots and report ASAP

jk911 · 08-16-2006, 02:54 PM

Hi Saintz,

Just wondering how its all going ? Curious to see more pics !

You must be close to completion by now.

Cheers
JK

saintz · 08-16-2006, 05:24 PM

Hi JK

Things have slowed up. I am at the mercy of my friend who is doing the welding for me. There is only about 2 or three hours of welding left to do, meanwhile I am attending to little details such as heater drain conversions, exterior mirror toggle and switch relocations and the biggy.................extending the loom so that everything required reaches over to the right side of the dash. This has been a major part of the job including more than 200 careful solder joints. All of those mindless hours of soldering have kept me off the streets and this board I can assure you. I'll post more pics when I have something interesting to show.

saintz · 08-16-2006, 05:30 PM

By the way................................The only item I can't realistically locate (read price wise) is a 1989 era G50 right hand drive pedal assembly can anyone out there help me ?????????????????

Porsche · Porsche's Garage

You are one patient and hard-working man!

saintz · 01-12-2007, 12:53 AM

You all haven't heard from me for a while because things have been busy.
Welding is all done here are some shots before and after the main steel was put back in.

saintz · 01-12-2007, 01:03 AM

After dozens of hours of welding here are the results.
two more of the front compartment including weld points as well as one of the interior weld points.

All of a sudden the dash and pedal area is on the right side of the car.

slodave · slodave's Garage

Wow! Really cool!

charleskieffner · 01-12-2007, 03:13 AM

i know your gonna hate me when i say this............patrick motorsports has a complete right hand drive dash out of a 935 just sitting gathering dust. they switched to left hand drive for guy in mexico. it came out of a never on the street 935 racing car i think. maybe he has some parts you may need. patrickmotorsports.com chuck

saintz · 01-12-2007, 02:05 PM

Cool, Thanks Chuck, I'll look into it.

jk911 · 03-29-2007, 10:20 PM

Looking good Saintz,

I admire your patience.

I have heard about these conversions since the 80's and this is the first time I have been able to really understand and appreciate what is involved in this project.

This post is invaluable for all us DIY Porsche fanatics down under.

Keep the pics coming! great stuff.

saintz · 05-24-2007, 05:05 AM

Sorry I haven't been posting much on here but I have been enjoying myself driving the thing. Yes she is on the road.

After all of the welding was completed I had the fun job of putting everything back together. The big day came when I checked all my wiring. The solder joints numbered 300 by the end !

I managed to burn the piece of skin between my nostrils on the last solder would you believe? I rested the soldering iron in it's carrier and leaned across the interior to grab the other end of the wire to be joined and that part of my nose touched the tip of the soldering iron !!! To date that is the only injury I sustained from the whole job other than a few micro metal splinters. Touch wood.

Electrically all worked fine, the only glitches I came across were items on the loom which were "hiding" from my sight such as indicator plugs that nestle up under the fenders etc.

The only outside contractor hired during the whole job was the guy who re fitted my windscreen, money well spent. And yes a 964 windscreen seal fits a 1989 3.2.

Other than that my fantastic friend Darryl Rigby and I did all the work, Darryl did the 100s of hours of welding and mechanical and I passed tools and did all the dirty work and pretty bits. I'd also like to thank John and John Jnr. Tarren, Steve from Port Macquarie and John from Zag Auto for his great advice and of course to all of you out there who encouraged me and wished me well.

When I took delivery of the car it had a stalling issue. When the fuel tank was fitted I fired her up for the first time and she started first kick after 1 year, ran till warm and then promptly stalled when I blipped the throttle. I purchased a new DME relay fitted it and the car didn't start fot nearly 2 weeks !

The problem?

Pure coincidence, the fuel pump had shat itself.

Replaced fuel pump, Varoooom she started and hasn't stalled since.

There were a lot of details to attend to such as windscreen wiper motor re works and heater plenum chamber conversions but they all came together. I located a right hand drive pedal assembly in the UK and it was only a week or more after I fitted it that I realised how perfectly we had replaced the pedal area. If the steel floor insert we welded in had been only a couple of millimeters out then the pedal assembly wouldn't have ever fit. It almost fell into place, I think it took about ten minutes from start to finnish.

A point of interest, RHD cars use the LHD pedal area on the left floor as a mounting point for the acelerator pedal linkages and clutch pedal return spring. Two shafts run under the tunnel to the second pedal box on the drivers side. Effective but an afterthought factory wise in my opinion.

Well, she passed her egineering test
(thanks to Chuck Kieffner, thanks again Chuck wink wink nudge nudge)
and road worthiness checks in February 07, has abot 2,000 kilometres under her belt being steered from the right hand side and life is good.

So now all I need to do is have new front carpets made, fit another window lift switch to the drivers door (now right hand side) and change the mirrors which will require a panel and paint shop but I can live with that for the time being. Oh yeah, I still have to re connect all the heating linkages which isn't a biggie and hasn't been high on my list but I am on leave at the moment so now is the time to attack that job.

I hope you have been paying attention.......................

Any questions???? lol