A sort of barn find

[Matthew Barnes]

Started on the body.
Used a sponge roller to get the first coat on, on the outside.
Sandblasted steel gives a great surface for the paint to bond to.



Then broke out the spray gun to do the interior and underside.











Indicator housings were remarkably intact.

[Matthew Barnes]

Then some sanding and a second coat of primer.
Changed colour to help with cutting through.
Lovely stuff to sand.
180 then 400 wet and dry.







And more sanding....and more sanding.

[Matthew Barnes]

180
400.
800.
1200.
Repeat.
Getting ahead of myself but the roof and quarters come up beautifully when you spend the time with the sand paper. But lots of rust to sort before we get close to getting the primer smooth.

[Matthew Barnes]

The bottom of the car looks a bit like a sieve in places.
Some places will need to be cut out and patched, but the repairs don't give me access to places that will no doubt have surface rust: suspension tube, bottom of the rear wheel house below the torsion tube, transmission tunnel, the box section in the engine bay, behind the heater tubes and in the cavities behind the lower suspension pan.

So my plan involved a petrol sprayer and water-based rust converter.
Dilute the rust converter 2 to 1 and use the petrol sprayer to blast the stuff into every cavity until it drips out the various rust holes. Then cover with a rust converter primer (similar to red oxide but without the etch aspect)





Bottoms of the doors are rotten (to be expected) but the rest is solid.

[Matthew Barnes]

New steel is a little pricy with a 10 to 1 exchange rate, and transcontinental shipping!
But now have all I need...or rather the minimum.
Have avoided ordering a front slam panel and the floorboard clip helps....two very expensive parts (considering no-one does a rhd replacement floorboard).



The floorpan involved the now familiar hand stripping with torch, scraper and then 3M wheel. A nasty job. But considering the saving......



The parts have been a mix of RD and Sportwagon Eckhart . SE is a bit cheaper on account of there being a few direct flights a week from Germany to SA. Both have been great to deal with.

You got mail.


964 outer rockers very kindly 'loaned' to me. Indents will have to be flattened.







These replacement lower hinge post patches are great.
Decent gauge and a nice fit.
From Sportwagon Eckhart.



My only criticism are RD's rear window corners. They have no gutter lip. Will have to fashion some. A tricky little piece of work despite paying 120 $ for 2 parts.





Interesting idea for the rear parcel shelf that needs the corners done.....like they all do. Smuggler's box pressing is the same as the parcel shelf on the swb cars. So I reckon I can sacrifice this spare cover to make two patches.



Now all I need to do is get all these bits welded in!
Simple.....when you know how.

[Bear911]

Shiny new metal, nice! How do you plan on flattening the indentations on the rocker panels?

[Matthew Barnes]

Originally Posted by Bear911

Shiny new metal, nice! How do you plan on flattening the indentations on the rocker panels?

As far as I recall the way to do it is to make two vertical cuts on either side of the indent and then flatten them out with the aid of a buck and a hammer. Then weld and fill. Some guys weld in a little patch. Will see when I get to item #647 on the list!

[Matthew Barnes]

A few bits and pieces I have been playing with while waiting for some real progress.
Colour scheme is an organic process...I call it spray can photoshop....



Satin black engine lid works quite well...imho.



With some gold pin striping tape



Like the idea of going with black anodised window trim



And some DIY grilles. Cymbal for colour reference.







Centre filler....I remember a little chemistry





And the Momo Monza Steering wheel. Something different, with a little R influence.

[Matthew Barnes]

Time to start with the welding.
After getting numerous quotes and trying to puzzle different ways of paying for the body to get sorted, I decided to do the metal work myself.

Short of a broken shackle on a wind pump, I've never welded anything before. I've digested a lot of theory from this forum and from the tube. We'll see how reality compares.

I've borrowed a little machine from a mate. Clarke 90 Amp. 25/75 gas and .8mm wire. Lots of practise on different gauge scrap to get the wire speed sorted......and some muscle memory.

[Matthew Barnes]

The first real project is to patch two rust spots at the front and rear of the longitudinal.







Steel behind the lower door post corner is not great. Looks worse on camera than it is. If it weren't in such a tricky spot I would cut it out.





Rear Patch


And a coat of paint over the rust converter before it all gets covered up.



Also drilled a hole at the top of the door hinge post to allow me to spray rust converter in the top...and wax when the time comes. Plan is to drill quite a few of these through the chassis: rear box sections, wheel house corners etc.

[Matthew Barnes]

Next step the inner sill.
Clean off the factory black, drill, fit.









There is a Porsche in there somewhere.....


Had a few goes to make sure the welds were penetrating. Drilling out dodgy welds are school fees I guess.






Not going to win any prizes, but it's solid and straight.

[Matthew Barnes]

Jack tube support plate. I'm sure there are better / smarter ways to do this but this seemed to make the most sense to me, with my limited skills.

Step 1.


Step 2.
A mate gave me a great tip: I-Beam scraps as an anvil. A piece of railway track is ever better, but haven't managed to find a piece yet.


Step 3.


Step 4.
I need to get a mini cutting disk for the air grinder. A mini grinder with a 4 inch disk makes cutting accurately quite tricky.


Step 5.


Step 6.


Step 7.
Backing plate. I welded a piece of round bar scrap to the I-Beam to make a buck / anvil. Radius is perfect for the bottom curve of the body.


Step 8.

[Matthew Barnes]

Step 9.


Step 10.


Step 11.


Step 12.
Drilled and ready for welding.


Quite proud of this.

[Matthew Barnes]

Strip off the factory black and etch prime.





That was about 12 hours of work.
Next steps:
- lower door hinge post
- rust patch behind kidney
- kidney
- outer sill
- door lock post patch into outer sill
- lower flare cut welded back on....

And then the same on the other side.
And the front, and the floor pan, and the parcel shelf, and the rear window corners.

The trick is to focus on what you have done, and not what is still to be done. A lot like life I guess.

[Willem Fick]

Originally Posted by Matthew Barnes

Also drilled a hole at the top of the door hinge post to allow me to spray rust converter in the top...and wax when the time comes. Plan is to drill quite a few of these through the chassis: rear box sections, wheel house corners etc.

To plug these holes later, pop in at Skiffy in Midrand. They stock a great selection of plastic caps and plugs. As far as I can recall any quantity under 10 is considered a sample and come at no cost. Their catalogue can be browsed at Skiffy plastic parts, Skiffy metal parts, components.

[Willem Fick]

Nice progress! I really like your solution to a jacking tube, and the welding looks just fine!

[Flieger]

Nice work.

[Matthew Barnes]

Next step: closing up the indents on the 964 sills.
Good practice for welding and grinding.
These things are filled with holes.





A makeshift anvil. Round tube welded to a piece of I-Beam scrap.




Welded up and ground down. Not the prettiest but a thin skim of filler will finish it off.




Stronghand Tools. Good quality and a good price...even when imported with a silly exchange rate. Can never have too many clamps.

[Matthew Barnes]

Lower door hinge post patch.
Restoration Design.
Pretty good fit.

[Matthew Barnes]

And the dreaded shut lines.
Doors from a 71 targa.
Sills from the 90s.
Shell from 67.

Have been terrified of this step - combination of how much filler and fiberglass there was in the old patchwork of rusted, layered steel that were pretending to be outer sills, and my lack of skill / experience working steel. I hoped that somehow, by some miracle, I would be able to fit everything back together with the minimum of hammering, shaping and four-letter words.









All credit to Porsche. Their bits really are made properly.
Usually a fair amount of lead, but mine was fairly unleaded.
Unlike the FBG front wings.
Has anyone, ever, in the history of car construction received FBG panels that fit?
I doubt it.
But at least they are FBG so working them will be relatively painless.





Next step: patching the lower door lock post.......