Restoration Porn: Engine bay and cabin prep

[dtw]

Thought I'd attach some pics of the ongoing restoration effort. The final steps before going to the paint shop are pretty much done - stripping and painting the interior and engine bay. Now I'm just waiting on the platers. Last week I dropped about 140 lbs worth of steel parts at the plater for yellow cad plating - some key hardware from my car was included. Once that gets back, I'll be ready to pack up for the paint shop, which is now ready for my car.

You may notice the entire rear suspension is MIA. What started out as an innocent trailing-arm bushing replacement snowballed into a complete strip/paint/plate job - should be in near-new condition when finished.

The interior is done in POR 15 semi-gloss black and silver, and the engine bay was stripped down to the undercoating and then sprayed with PPG DP50LF epoxy primer, followed by two coats of PPG Omni single stage topcoat. I have decided to make a minor break with originality by painting the engine bay in body color (#936 Silver Metallic) instead of black on my '72. I've spent too much time detailing my engine to have it "toned down" by a dingy black engine bay, so I went ahead and brightened things up by going with the silver. As this car is not-quite-concourse, I'm OK with this "incorrect" feature.

[Rich76_911s]

DTW,

That looks really great! !

How did you get rid of all the glue and crud from the inside of the car? Wire brush, chemicals? ? ?

Really looks like it is comming along beautifully.

Rich

[Dan in Pasadena]

Dave, Curious what kinda estimate you got from the platers for the yellow zinc?

[Tim Hancock]

Looking good Dave, seeing that all clean and uniform looking has to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

[Dan in Pasadena]

Dave, What (if anything) are you planning on using for an engine sound pad? Stock black or the silver foil? Your engine bay looks so good it would almost be a shame to cover part of it.

Stole this picture from a thread in the Engine Rebuilding forum by PorscheKid962. The gold foil would look good in my yellow car (wish I had seen it in time!), not sure it would look all that great in a silver car but you might want to go look at his thread for the source of purchase. Maybe you could find something unique that you'd like...assuming you will use one at all! Your car looks great.

[dtw]

Rich, thank you for your kind comments. Last night's enjoyable paint-gun session is the culmination of dozens of hours of prep work.

The interior was a mess - overspray from painting the exterior, rust, upholstery glue, grime, you name it. In most areas, the original paint was well-preserved so I just left it alone after a good cleaning and sanding. Other areas that were pitted with rust I stripped with a wire wheel in an angle grinder. The upholstery glue I removed with 3M adhesive remover - works great. Most of the generic cleaning and stripping was done with Scotch-Brite pads and lacquer thinner.

The engine bay was more difficult. I wanted to preserve the original textured undercoat which was in great shape, just covered with two coats of paint and some additional crappy aftermarket undercoating. The key was finding a stripping method aggressive enough to remove this garbage, but gentle enough to leave the original undercoat intact. Finally, I found that a combination of regular old mineral spirits applied and worked with stiff plastic bristle brushes found in the cleaning section of Lowe's worked best.

All of the above work (and the final spraying of color) was performed with chemical-resistant gloves and a respirator - With all the solvents I've gone through in the last few weeks, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Dan - I am going with cadmium plating, which is significantly more expensive than zinc. I believe the fees per batch are $92/100 lbs, plus an additional 50% ($46) baking fee to deter hydrogen embrittlement. This is well over double the cost of zinc plating, which is not only cheaper, but it is much easier to find platers performing this work. Very few platers still do cadmium due to the costs and EPA scrutiny. Fortunately, I found a plater just down the road from my neighborhood that still does several military contractor jobs - all of which specify cadmium plating. Not only are they still doing cadmium work, they are very knowledgeable about the process, which is key. Poorly done plating can turn a box of hard-to-replace and expensive Porsche bits into worthless scrap.

[Terry Neer]

Dave,
Engine bay and interior looks great. What plater did you use and where is he located? Do they charge by the pound? Would appreciate any info.

[Terry Neer]

Dave,
I see you already replied to Dan. Man, you guys are on top of this one.

[Dan in Pasadena]

Dave, Thanks for the response. I have not serached for a plater yet but I've got a feeling that with the emissions regualtions here in SoCal the chances of finding a Cad plater at all are slim and none. But I will look.

[dtw]

Tim,
Thanks for the kind words! Wait till you guys see what I've done with the engine electronics board and the MFI fuel filter console! That's where the obsessive/compulsive disorder is going to be really really evident...

Dan,
I purchased a new OEM black sound pad. I considered deleting the pad, but I don't like the vibrations that come through the car without it - this is, after all, supposed to be a tight street car, but not a complete beast. That's the next project. Anyway, you're right, I am a little sad about covering up a lot of this fresh new paint, but I think there'll be plenty of painted-engine-bay surfaces left to really set-off the motor. For those of you who haven't seen the motor, here's a crappy half-finished pic but you get the idea - http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads6/IM0020991131337583.jpg

[dtw]

Dan and Terry,
I know that Henry at Supertec gets real cadmium work done in SoCal, so maybe he can help you out there. My local plater made a point of requesting that I not refer any work to them from out of town, as they have a hard time dealing with just the local enthusiasts. Their most common problem is that the parts from the hobbyists arrive insufficiently prepped and they are forced to reject them. Easy enough for local guys but they don't want to get involved in that over long distances. So, I'm very sorry that I can't refer this resource to the Pelican community at large. I'd be happy to accept parts for plating on behalf of you guys, but with my schedule, you might not see your parts again for a year.

[Dan in Pasadena]

No prob Dave, thanks for the head's up.

Oh, did you powder coat your engine tin or paint it yourself? I need to drop my engine soon to address a leak and I am thinking of buying a low dollar HVLP setup (unbelieveably cheap!) from Harbor Freight to try it on this. A friend did it with Rustoleum Industrial paint and a HF HVLP cheapo unit and it came out unbelieveable good.

[Terry Neer]

Dave,
Thanks for the response. I completely understand your platers reasoning. Keep up the good work, it's looking great.

[Rustbucket]

Dave,

Looks fantastic.
Quick question:
I may have missed it in another thread, but why the silver Por15 on the sides/rear seat area and black Por15 on the floors?

TIA,

[dtw]

Thanks again to all for the comments, after all this work it really means a lot.

Dan - I suggest powder coating - which is what I did. It really stands up better to all the abuse the engine sees. After a couple fan belt changes, valve adjustments, and miscellaneous other maintenance, your paint will start to look beat up. The powder coating should be going strong for years. We found a local coater (Top Coat, look them up if you like, they are very enthusiast-friendly and have very reasonable prices) that was willing to work with us to find the perfect 'version' of black to match original black paint. They ended up with a 10% gloss black that matches up great.

Clint - easy answer, I ran out of silver. Otherwise I would have also painted the rest of the seats/firewall area and rockers silver. The black tunnel is consistent with the factory approach and I went over the floors with black just to clean it up - the tar paper was black as well so black paint is consistent. The pattern I've seen in the '72s is that the interior is a rough coat of body color, but then shot over with a sloppy dollop of black in any areas where the metal might peek out from the carpets. Examples: entire center tunnel, seat bracket areas both inner/outer, and the rear seat hinge bracket in the center of the rear seat area. This area has a very quick spritz of black over the original silver from the factory.

[lateapex911]

Looks great.

here's a pic of my interior after its resto. I painted it to match what the factry gave me. (Except with less rust, LOL!)

[lateapex911]

And here is the actual, less trigger happy response with the picture..

[jhelgesen]

Looks good Dave. Is it still going to the same guy as Britts car?

[Emission]

The silver is a good idea over black. Drop a work light in there, and you will actually be able to see something!

It looks great!

Dave,
The car looks great! Its really starting to come together. I remember when my car was at that stage. You just want to be done with it and drive it. Motor looks great too! Keep us posted and take more pics. It really inspires people to either dream or finish there current project. Whats up with the summer car. Shhh!