Help me style this beat-up old 912

[tb912]

have you tried to clean the rockers where you removed the LWB trim? is the paint just ruined right there?

[MichiganMat]

Mikes car has gone under the knife:






Found lots of terrifying possibilities for firey-death in there too, bubbled brake lines, torn and frayed fuel lines, bare wires, etc. Yikes.

The plan so far is to fiberglass the nose and tail, put a 911 front suspension under it, pressure wash the paint off it for a full respray in white. The body needs a new front pan, pass side rocker, and possibly more.

I think we'll leave the engine and trans alone for now but Im sure we'll dig into it when the time comes.

[MichiganMike]

Before the hot pressure wash:


Half way through the hot pressure wash:


More progress to come soon.

[MichiganMat]

'74 911 front suspension that will be going in. Thanks Shaun84Targa!



Car is full of filler and mud, probably 50lbs of it, and its ALL coming out:




Parts headed out for sandblasting and powdercoating:

[Craig_D]

Oh man, that's cool to see. It's like Spring, when things return to bringing life back!

Good luck!

- CraigD

[Flieger]

Are those fenders from Chad Plavan's car?

[MichiganMat]

Flieger - Yup. They are pretty abused from all the track time on them but Chad gave us a helluva deal on them. Taking as much weight out of this '12 as possible.

[Flieger]

Cool, they must be worth at least half a second around Willow Springs coming from his car.

[MichiganMike]

UPDATE!

SOLD:
16x6" Fuchs - thanks to Wheel Enhancement
Old front bumper - thanks to techweenie


New goodies:
CF hood with top gel coat
FG rear bumper
FG Ducktail - not sure if we are going to use it yet though
set of 4, 15x6" Cookie Cutters for only $140 on C.L.

Currently still in the midst of welding in to strikers / rockers. Mat - post up some new photos when you got a chance!

If we use the ducktail, I think it may turn out to look something close to this:


Your thoughts?

[nameisbauer]

nice aero hood.

[Vintage914Racer]

I'm pretty sure my dad used to own 912 #48 pictured above.

[MichiganMike]

Vintage914Racer - No Way!! Do you happen to have any more photos of that car? I'm still not sure that the Ducktail goes well with the SWB narrow body. That car above sorta looks like a LWB actually. I pulled that photo from 912 registry but there is no information on it.

update - Passenger side striker and rocker are welded in and coming along nicely.

MichiganMat - TITTYWOP ;-)

[MichiganMike]

Forward Progress!
Passenger side is pretty much complete and finished! New striker and rocker panels installed!



Now its time to do the same work on the driver side!

[MichiganMike]

The new look with the front FG fenders and bumper, along with the new CF front hood!

[RWebb]

you are so far in, that you should stiffen that puppy up

- find the thread where Dave/TRE describes what they did - I also posted on it so that might help w/ search terms

might have been the pink/strawberry car he did up

[MichiganMat]

Its been busy busy busy with the car lately, but no real pictures to put up. Body work takes forever, ugh. Since the last update, we've:

- welded in the driver side rocker and striker panels
- reattached the driver side fender, ground the welds
- started in on fixing the flaws in the fb fenders and bumper
- cut out the drivers taillight bucket to repair bad metal
- cleaned up the engine
- gathered all the parts to have powdercoated
- modified the 911 front a-arms to accept the 912 through-body sway bar
- cut out the rusted seatbelt mounts and patched in new panels

Also I learned how to use lead filler yesterday, filled in the weld seam from where the fender was removed, and filled in an old patch from a PO that looked really bad.




Im going to try to use lead as much as possible for the butt-weld seams and to fill in a few major trouble spots. Seems like every panel on the car has some kind of damage that needs filling or repairing, its crazy.

And the beat goes on...

[MichiganMat]

Had a busy weekend in the garage working on the car. Man, Im starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and damn does it feel good:

First up was drilling the door handles. 10g lighter!



Next was to repair the driver taillight area. It had been badly repaired with a mix of dent-pulling studs, bird-poo welds, braising rod, and bondo. Even after all that, it wasn't straight. So I cut the bucket out along the seam, hammered out the dents, patched some holes, reattached the bucket, and filled the area with lead:

{before}


{during}


{after}


The bumper and decklid fit perfectly now. It still needs a bit more filler before its done, but the basics are in place for a good solid repair.

Then I finally got around to dealing with the front pan. I've been putting this off until the end because I've been so intimidated by all the rust and rot, but the its actually come together pretty good. The rot does extend up the sides of the tub quite a bit but nothing a few custom patch sections can't solve. My hands are gonna get quite workout filling in the missing areas, thats for sure.

[MichiganMat]

Filled in the hole on the drivers side over the weekend and finished welding in the front and back of the pan. Need to rebuild the battery area still and then I can get to work on the passenger side.

Meanwhile, we sourced a full pan from a friend and parts of that will be going in soon. Eating the elephant one bite at a time...

[MichiganMat]

The pan is almost done! Its hard for me to believe we're here considering where we started, feels really good. Im only a few welds away from wrapping it all up, but wanted to share the progress with everyone.

Below you'll see the rebuild of the passenger side longitudinal, it had to be extended out to meet the new crossmember sheetmetal.



The battery tray had to be extended out on the driver side as well. I boxed in the lower section of the battery tray for strength too, but its not shown in the pics.



The entire pan was given a coat of POR15 and then ground away for the welding. Again, the battery tray was boxed in shortly after taking this pic.



Here you can see the crossmember fit against the rebuilt longitudinal after the welds were made and ground down. Good fit no?



And here she is, what we've been working towards for months now. The tank is a perfect fit! I'll grind the welds tonight and coat again with POR15 and she'll be better than new.



A few months back when we were first looking at this I was nearly convinced that it wasn't going to be salvageable... or maybe just not by me. But really it was just a matter of diving in, taking it slow, and working the metal until it was ready.

I'll have the pan totally wrapped up by tonight, then we can move onto patching the floorpan, hanging the bumpers, and aligning the doors.

[craig356]

Wow, can't wait to see this car done considering all the work you are putting in to it. Nice to see this one being saved and improved upon! Here is my contribution to ideas. This is my 68 912 that I am having a blast driving. Had the 15 x 6 Fuchs on it at Road Atlanta but have always had a soft spot for the steelies on these cars. With a slight nudge from some friends (namely Farrell, but Jerry and Tom too) I returned back to its roots and removed the Fuchs and bolted back on the steelies. Back to the basics as they say and in this case, imo less is more. Hope you continue to post progress as I am enjoying the transformation. All the best, Craig