68 Irish Green 912.... The Grinding has commenced, Part-1:

[bugstrider]

Well here we go....

Have you ever bitten off more that you should have or had an idea that you thought was a splendid one at that particular moment up to the point you ask yourself, "What in the *$#& were we thinking?". Well this is one of those moments. Back in May of this past year, the wife and I stumbled across a second 1968 Irish Green 912. It had been sitting in the yard of a very nice elderly gent who had decided it was time to move onto another car project. This particular car was much nearer to being able to be driven on the road than our first 912 project that is need of a front suspension pan and other metal work along with some engine changes. After having a look at the car, we decided to take the chance and purchased the car from the guy with the intent to have it on the road in a couple of months......(anyone ever tell themselves that???? hope it worked out better than it did for us). After getting the car home and spending several hours making it look much better than it did, I began the cursory poke around the car. I knowingly purchased the car understanding that there was a small amount of rot in the r/side of the engine bay. No big surprise here since these great little cars seem to always have their own little rust issues. Besides the intent was to do a "quick" patch, drive the car getting to know the quirky traits of the 912 while we thoroughly tuck into the first "red" 68 912 in our stable with the understanding that when the first one is finished, we will swap cars and start on the second "Irish Green" 68 912. Again I ask has anyone ever told themselves that same thing?

How we found the car:


Well, after making the car look better by a good wash, a rubbing compound coat followed by a polishing compound coat then a good polish chaser, I was pleased by what I saw. In its current state, the car was truly a good 25' example of an older unrestored 912. Then my Type-A personality took over......

After the wash, rubbing, and polish:


I started poking around in the engine bay and to my chagrin, realized the metal rot was more expansive that originally thought. What is that old saying again? Oh yes, "Love is blind". You know you can't really see the true extent of the rot with the interior still in the car so then I MUST remove it to see exactly what I need to do, besides it is the intent to just get this car on the road and drive it as is. Did I mention that in this post already? Well I just wanted to say it again just in case you the reader had forgotten. I start pulling the seats, panels, carpet, and then the nasty pad. Insert dramatic music sound effects please. Lets just say that my eyes got a rude awakening when I pulled that junk up and saw what a 44 year old leaky rear window seal has done to a car thats been sitting out in the open for years. Since we still live in the stone age here in Placerville, I still do not have a garage on our property so everything I am doing is being done outside and exposed to the elements. Knowing this, I make my first of many trips down to harbor Freight to get myself a large heavy duty silver tarp, more on this later.

I was discovering very quickly the further I dug into the removal of the horse hair impregnated underlayment, the worse I would feel. After its removal, I stood back and looked on in terror of what I saw along with several uttered colorful metaphors.











I then remembered that I had a nice fresh, unopened heavy duty silver tarp that was calling my name. I quickly retrieved the tarp, ripped it open and then covered the 912 up. Fast forward several months and the 912 is still cocooned in a silver tarp directly in front of our front door. It is painfully obvious that I am not going to be able to drive it to the 2012 Vouz, so I walk by it every day with my head hung in shame. Fast forward a few more months to Feb 2013, I begin to think to myself this is absolutely ridiculous, we have a perfectly good example of a 1968 912 sitting hear under a tarp. So at the beginning of the month, I effectively have removed my head from my posterior backside and began tucking into the rust repair in front of me. With the assistance of my mentor who effectively has placed his boot in my *&$.

I have begun...

I think your story will sound familiar to a lot of owners starting their first project. Restoration always takes twice as much time and money as you expected when buying the project and often even more ...

Keep posting the progress. What's the goal of the project? A perfect restoration to a show car or just a fun driver? The '68 is a one year model with specific details like the door cards/pockets and side reflectors.

Below two pics of our '68 cocoa brown sunroof coupé with beige interior. I was lucky to find a nearly rust free and unwelded one ten years ago. Nevertheless I completely rebuilded it. We take a lot of care to keep it in this condition. My only wish is a set of side reflectors in good condition to complete the '68 look.

Otto

[apriliaguy]

That car looks great Otto. My 66 is in restoration hiatus for winter brrrrrr

[Spendo65]

I feel your pain. I'm going through my first restoration now. its crazy how much there is to do. Just putting the body back together now. Keep the posts up.

Spendo65

@apriliaguy

Just take a look at the link below, Spencer's previous thread, where I left some pics of my current project a 65/66 912. You can imagine that I know what you are going through at the moment. Share pics and your pain is shared.


Spendo's '67 912 Restoration


I realize that I'm a lucky guy who is able to take the nice cocoa brown 912 for a ride when work on the red one was frustrating...

Otto

[bugstrider]

Hi Otto,

+ 1 for what Aprilaguy said, that is gorgeous looking car. The color combo is beautiful! Is that the original combination or your custom look? Either way, it a great look.

Right now the intent is to have a good driver. I want to just get this one on the road so I can focuss on our second sunroof 68. Since it will be a while before it sees the road because I want to take my time to do it proper. When that on is finished, then the Irish green will get major attention.

With that being said, the metal repairs in the Irish green that I make, I want to be sure to do them right.

Cheers

[bugstrider]

Here are some more shots of the progress





Oz, our Aussie thought he would interject his thoughts......








My current garage the 912 is parked under. At least it looks better than the bush-okie tarps that was covering the car.


Cheers,

This looks so familiar! And soon the nice work can start. Modelling, hammering the little pieces of metal to give them an exact fit. Welding, grinding and perhaps some leading and another part of the body is like new. And so on! I love that as a contrast to my daily work behind the screen. Sometimes it's hard to believe that some people love to collect stamps. (Sorry! Everyone his/her own passion).

The brown '68 sunroof coupé is 100% original, except the Hella's in front of the grills and the '68 Fuchs wheels. When I bought it, it was the only descent 912 I could afford. It was relatively cheap, because who would like to be different and be seen driving in a sh@#%$ color like that. A sports cars is red or yellow, but brown? For me - as with so many things in life - it was a challenge and bought the ugly duck with only just over 50 original kmiles.

Within months I got used to the color and my wife and I even started to love it. Five year ago I've taken it apart to the last bolt and rebuild it and resprayed it with its original cocoa brown color. The interior was in a very well condition, so only new cartpetting was needed - also in the original beige setting. Now we are lucky we did it. And many people with us, because it's different ...

As far as I could research, the Porsche factory did not produce another cocoa brown sunroof coupe in '68. The ugly duck is now rewarded as a unique example of the 912 series.

Although we have had a lot of "fun kilometers" here with the brown sunroof, I think the '65/'66 red coupe I'm working on now will be more a driver than a show car. And driving is what we have them for...

Otto

[bugstrider]

I love it when Mother Nature has different plans for you when you are working on your project outside.....



Man, I need a garage in a bad way........

[WANNA930]

I remember those days now I just pay someone to blast it. For a couple hundred dollars it will save quite a bit of time that you can be using to repair the rust.

By the way we used to call the Norton strip discs "Hamburgers". They are black 3 1/2 - 4" discs that HD actually sells just as cheap as autobody supply and they strip like crazy. Wire wheels have to keep being reversed which you can't do with that grinder.

Try one Norton or 3M wheel and you will be hooked.

I did the blasting and grinding of both my 912s myself. Not to save the money, but to be"in touch with every piece of metal of the body. When grinding and touching the metal extremely thin parts, bad welds, previous repairs, missing/damaged details are better noticed and can be marked for later repair. Looking at the clean professionally blasted body these details are often overseen, specifically when it is your first 911/912 body, not yet knowing where to look at.

But I do agree that it saves lots and lots of time and tons of dust found in every drawer and on all shelves in your garage.

@bugstrider: Looking at the pics you are halfway now! Looks great! Yes, you indeed need a garage! But, within a year after building the garage you will realize you only have half the room you intentionally needed.

Otto

[bugstrider]

Hey everyone,

Its been forever since I posted anything on our project so I thought I would make an entry or two. First of all I don't want to sound like I am making excuses but life has had a funny way of getting in the way of our progress.

On to the progress.

TANK:

I have been working on a new/old tank for the car since the original was in pretty poor shape. I took it down to a local blaster for them to hit it and remove some of the surface rust from the exposed parts. I then proceeded to remove the remaining rubberized coating via a HF heat gun and scraper....

[bugstrider]

After scraping, cleaning, more scraping, and then with a follow-up with a grinder armed with a metal polishing disk, this is what was the results...







After everything was cleaned off, I elected to have it sandblasted.





After the final sandblasting I took the tank over to a local business and had it boilded out and then coated with "Red Kote" internal tank sealer. I was disapointed to see that after all the work on the exterior of the tank and how clean it looked, it was returned looking like total crap from the boil-out process and inside coating. After all that work then tank then sat under the house for several months, thus resulting in a thin layer of surface rust to develop, especially on the areas that the acid from the boil-out sat on the outside surface.

having some extra time one week, I decided to move forward on the finishing of the tank. I hit the outside with a prep disk to pull the surface rust off, then following the POR-15 directions to the letter, proceeded to utilize Marine Clean and Metal Ready.







Following the procedure for prepping the tank for POR, this is the final result after the metal prep. You can see the difference in the appearance.

[C. Clark]

Nice job.

[bugstrider]

I then began the process of coating the tank in several thin layers of POR-15 to get the proper finish.










I found that using a separate container to pour the POR into helps extend its useful life, also before sealing the metal container, place a piece of plastic wrap to prevent the metal from permanently sealing the can.



and for good measure, it would be a good idea to place the can into a large one gallon bag if it is going to be sitting for a while.

[bugstrider]

Shortly after completing the fuel tank, I decided to poke around the front area of the car to see the condition of the undercoating. I knew that there was some surface rust in addition was appeared to be some past metal damage from a leaky battery. Boy, was I in for a surprise........

initial scene before my trusty grinder revealed the rust below.







Further digging revealed a suspension pan repair done an unknow number of years ago. However if I had to hazard a guess, I would say between 20-25 years. What was even more shocking was the fact the repair was done by braising rather than welding the steel. I could go on and on, however a picture is worth a thousand words....











What I found truly disturbing, is the fact that the cross brace was held in place by only three braised tack welds on each side of the member in addition to a thin weld on the passenger side.

[bugstrider]

Armed only with my Dermal from Home Depot,(no royalties for that little plug ) I set after those braised tack welds. After what seemed like approximately 6.2 seconds, I was able to lift out the cross brace off of the Suspension Pan. The rust, or as I like to say, the great chasm of death was pretty bad. I think the proper way to repair is to replace. I thought it initially would have been able to be patched, however I think the battery acid damage is too great. I could be wrong, so if you have any pointers I am all ears.

I will post some pictures later of my discovery since they are not on my iPhone.

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day. A friendly reminder to all near the greater Sacramento Area, Bugorama is going down on the 26th at the Sac Race Way. Always a good place to find a Porsche trinket on occasion.

Cheers





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bugstrider]

Originally Posted by Otto H. Wegkamp

I think your story will sound familiar to a lot of owners starting their first project. Restoration always takes twice as much time and money as you expected when buying the project and often even more ...

Keep posting the progress. What's the goal of the project? A perfect restoration to a show car or just a fun driver? The '68 is a one year model with specific details like the door cards/pockets and side reflectors.

Below two pics of our '68 cocoa brown sunroof coupé with beige interior. I was lucky to find a nearly rust free and unwelded one ten years ago. Nevertheless I completely rebuilded it. We take a lot of care to keep it in this condition. My only wish is a set of side reflectors in good condition to complete the '68 look.

Otto

Otto,

A member on the 912bbs just let me know that Stoddard has the reflectors in stock!!! Although they are a tad spendy, $97 ea, it is an option if you want.

Cheers

[bugstrider]

Here are some photos of what I found under the tank support bracket. The one held in place by only six wee-little braise tack welds...

The cross brace freshly removed


Battery tray location/driver lateral support


passenger lateral support




underside of tank cross support




A you can see, with the exception of all the metal damage from a leaky battery, acid and some water in one central location, the pan is in tact. OK, "tact" being a loose term.

[djdsc]

Here is the truth: All of these cars that still have the original undercoating on them, no matter how great they look on the outside, no matter how much the owners go on about their original rust free cars, have rust under the factory undercoating. To think not is just foolish.