Rebuilding my '79

[kerthunk]

I can't seem to leave well enough alone. Some of you folks may remember my previous thread:

'79 SC Project - That isn't a backdate!

After having a great year driving it around and even having some DE time at The Ridge, I decided that it would be a good time to get back to work on the car. For the most part, the car has been an absolute blast to drive and has been reliable.

I've had a few issues that I need to work out like a door stay exploding, broken fuel filler door, rust by the battery box, a leaky windshield and a headliner that just looks like crap. Being that the paint wasn't all that great either, I have decided that I would go whole hog and take the car down to the tub. I'm going to be tweaking things a bit more as well. This should keep me busy for the winter!

I just about have it stripped, need to pull the wiring, brake lines and dash bits still.

[kerthunk]

I've dug into the battery box rust. I needed to make sure that the suspension mounting point was in good shape, so off came the front fuel tank support. A spot weld drill bit does wonders here! The channel had quite a bit of rust scale in it on the driver's side. I vacuumed it out and hit it with a wire brush to figure out what was going on.



This area by the left mounting point is pretty thin. I can flex the area around the hole with a firm finger push.



Got some rust through in this area.



Under the battery box looks bad, but the metal seems to be intact still.



Being that I haven't really done this kind of work before, any ideas how best to approach fixing this up?

I hit everything up with some Permatex Rust Treatment after taking these pics.

[Brown747]

Go John! Go!

[racer_X]

Originally Posted by Brown747

Go John! Go!

+1

I have been staring at my decaying battery box in my otherwise completely rust free '77, procrastinating on the project you have started. My gas tank is done, but what lurks under that upper panel needs to be nipped in the bud.

Glad to see you have a jump on it!

[mpetry]

Great investigative work there - the good news is that your pan does not need to be replaced. I'd cut a section from the piece you have and weld in reinforcements.

If you decide to go all out and replace the suspension mount, be sure to use the A-Arm as your location tool and then spot weld the new part into position.

it could be a lot worse

[OttoB]

"I can't seem to leave well enough alone.
I've had a few issues that I need to work out... I have decided that I would go whole hog and take the car down to the tub. I'm going to be tweaking things a bit more as well. This should keep me busy..."

So, curious minds wanna know, what do you have in mind/what's in store with your '79 while you're in there down to the naked tub?

[kt911rs]

Just a flesh wound! I would treat the crusty inner with some por-15. You can use a syring, or garden type strayer to get where a brush won't. Weld it up with a patch panel....I know your wanting to use your new Hobart Wire Feed!!!! I wouldn't think to replace the suspension support when it's still in good shape. You can buy both pcs. of the Battery Hold-Down from Porsche or Restoration Design. Nice Work! Going to be Killer in Viper Green.
Kelly

[timmy2]

If you have it exposed and you can see rust you should cut it all out (anything with rust) and replace it with fresh metal. Use patches you make or pieces you buy to do it right. (when will you have access to fix it again?)
Any metal that has rust now that you just treat will come back to haunt you.

[kerthunk]

What do I have in store? Well, I don't have the entire plan yet, but this is what I do have...

The motor was a 3.2SS with 46mm PMOs. For this round I twin-plugged the heads (thanks Steve Weiner) and switched the cams to Mod-S. I will be using the JBRacing twin plug dizzy. I just finished putting the heads back on and got the cams timed. Hopefully I'll get the rest of it assembled this coming week.



The suspension is mostly the same except for the addition of these:



The body is where I am looking to do the most work. I picked up a club sport front valence (no fogs) and drilled it for a chin spoiler. My duck tail from Stratton Motorsports (sonjay) came in last week.



I'm waiting on a sunroof delete panel from chris_seven.

I'm also looking to do a color change. I wanted a stock Porsche color that was bold and not around too much. I decided on Viper Green Diamond (264) which shows in the factory manual as a 1976 color. Here are a couple of pics:




I'm keeping the rest of the bodywork/trim pretty much stock except for switching to Euro bumperettes.

I'm pretty happy with how my interior turned out last time. I need to fix the dash and clean things up a bit. Thinking about deleting the rear seats since the kids are growing too fast and won't fit back there so well anymore.

Basically cleaning it up, giving it more zoom, dropping some weight and simplifying things.

[Brown747]

John,
The slope is really getting slippery! I can't wait to see/ride the end result.

Thor

[kerthunk]

Originally Posted by Brown747

John,
The slope is really getting slippery! I can't wait to see/ride the end result.

Thor

Yeah, the slope is pretty damn slippery! Luckily, I decided to stop trying to fight it. Instead, I bought myself a sled and decided to just ride the slope! EMBRACE THE SLOPE!!

[kerthunk]

Been a long while since I updated this thread. I wish I could say that I was just too busy working on the car to post, but unfortunately it has just been my job getting in the way of my life. After 3 months of not being able to work on the car, I decided to enlist the aid of a local shop.

I got the car loaded up on a uhaul auto trailer with the help of another Pelican (thanks again Craig) and hauled it over to the shop.



Got the paint stripped:



He also removed the sunroof metal and welded in the sunroof delete panel. With the motor and stuff, this has to be like 40lbs removed from the roof of the car.

Here is the car in epoxy:




Now it is time to replace the suspension pan and other bits of rust under the battery.

[tharbert]

Nice progress! I'm in the middle of this myself. Go man, GO! I just hope I remember how all this goes back together again!

[weseeeee]

Nice job. Keep us posted on your progress.

[rdonahe]

Hey John,

Just finding your thread here. Wow! Nice work, that's gonna look great.

[kerthunk]

I went out to the shop earlier this week to deliver more parts and check over the car. Jason and his team are making fantastic progress. We also got the color locked in. The color just didn't look good with PPG, so we are going with Glasurit. Here are some pics of the progress.

Tackling the rust in the front end:



Doesn't look too horrible, but the suspension pan is perforated and will need to be replaced. Luckily a fellow Pelican had a brand new suspension pan just sitting around that he was willing to sell me to keep the project moving at a quick pace. Thanks again Chris!



The rest of the car underwent a very careful inspection to look for any issues. Luckily only a couple of minor issues that were also taken care of. It is a great feeling know for a fact that everything about the chassis/tub is in great shape! They also welded on the Wevo RARBs and cut the holes for the front sway bar.

On to the primer and blocking...

[Brown747]

Looking good John!

[seanratpel]

John: Could you give me some info on your scissor lift. It looks like just what I need, how about the make , model price etc? Does it work well? How much space does it block out though when underneath?? thnx sean

[kerthunk]

The scissor lift is a BendPak MD-6XP. I bought it from these folks for around $2000 delivered:

Automotive scissor mid rise lifts MD6XP by BendPak

It really does just sit under the floor of the tub. I can pull anything on the car with it up on the lift. If you are going to drop/install a motor, you need to make sure that the car is back far enough on the lift or the transmission will hit the rearmost support bar on the lift. Works great!

[1978911sc]

John, It is coming along great. Looking forward to helping put all the pieces back together! That's an event worth the wait!