Restoring Jewel’s 911e (Another ’69 e Restoration)

[Puma]

This is a nice thread. Thanks for taking your time to illustrate your methods.

Any updates?

[TC911e]

Thanks. There should be some updates and at some point I'll get them up. There have been some gaps, especially when I was working out of town for several months last year, but hopefully I'll get the thread caught up n the not too distant future.

[TC911e]

Been awhile, but…

After a significant gap (both in working on the car and in posting, but mostly in posting) I finally am getting around to updating my restoration post. Though I went through a about a year’s worth where not much was done there’s been progress and I’m nearing the end of the rust repair part of the job so here’s the somewhat abbreviated update.

I left off on the post with what was going to be a small patch in the smugglers box that turned out to be on top of one of the suspension pickups, leading to a further investigation of a previous set of repairs (and some consternation about taking all that apart- http://forums.pelicanparts.com/paint-bodywork-detailing-forum/867602-should-stay-should-go.html) and replacement of the tank support and other pieces.

[TC911e]

In preparation for the tank support replacement and demo the full floor pan got an undercoating striping generating a pretty good mess, but fortunately not finding any new surprises beyond the front pan and making a big mess.





Disassembly of the old repair did yield a number of additional surprises that fully justified the decision to pull it all apart- as well as some interesting earlier fabrication and repair techniques.

[TC911e]

The little patch from inside the smuggler’s box turned into this










The driver’s side was even worse, and required a few more fab’d parts










and that led into more demo in prep for the trunk pan

[TC911e]

Lots of drilling of spot welds, beating and grinding



Led to a big hole in the front



And a check fit check of the new panels

[TC911e]

Since the rot extended beyond the flanges where the new part met up with inner fender area I ended up cutting out more than the new pieces replaced. Then there were a number of pieces needed to fill the gaps.

[TC911e]

The ugliest one was the one near the pickup for the front swing arm mount, but there ended up being a number of little pieces to be able to get the shapes close and welded in.







But ultimately the pan was on and the bottom gaps filled.

[TC911e]

The trunk interior also required a number of interfacing panel fabs

[TC911e]

Completing the left side and leading to a similar, but less involved process on the right side







And with the installation of the reinforcement plates over the pickup points it’s ready for the installation of the top panel

[JackMan]

Bravo, great work

[bugstrider]

Fantastic metalwork!!! I am bookmarking this since I need to make similar repairs. I am just curious about you lateral tank supports that you custom fabed. What was your motivation to fab vs picking up ones already formed, say from Restoration Design? Just curious on that.

Mine are also in bad shape along with many other bits. Since you are tackling many parts, what are you using to support your project? Cart, jig, rotisserie, etc? In post #84, it looks like the octagon design.

Cheers


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[Steve F]

Looking Great!!

[724doorE]

Looks really good, I love the handywork!

[TC911e]

Fantastic metalwork!!! I am bookmarking this since I need to make similar repairs. I am just curious about you lateral tank supports that you custom fabed. What was your motivation to fab vs picking up ones already formed, say from Restoration Design? Just curious on that.

Mine are also in bad shape along with many other bits. Since you are tackling many parts, what are you using to support your project? Cart, jig, rotisserie, etc? In post #84, it looks like the octagon design.

Cheers

Yeah, the support is an “octisserie”, built like the one I first saw in Fishcop’s thread. It worked really well, but I’d pay a little more attention to the height dimensions to try to get the CG closer to center of the loop. It was a little difficult rolling back to “right side up” the way I built it.

As to the lateral tanks supports- those pieces were from a few years ago (I’m way behind getting pictures up and just now trying to catchup). I’m not completely sure those pieces were available then, but I suspect it was a combination of not wanting to buy a big piece to cut out the little piece I needed, thinking it wouldn’t be too big a deal to do compared to some of the ones I’d earlier, and some of the other issues I’d had with various reproduction parts that all took extra “massaging” to get them to fit.

[TC911e]

Well, ultimately I got behind in posting updates and then just completely gave up on the thread- though work did continue. What will follow is a “quick” update to bring us up to the present- largely to help me get the story organized as I head into the bodywork, paint and reassembly phase. I’m going to try to get the thread up to date and cover the last 5 years over the next few days.

[TC911e]

Also the Z3 and Mini are long gone, but the signature edit apparently doesn't like the link to this post and wouldn't save.

[TC911e]

After I got the floor pans in, I took on the left rear where it had been backed into something wrinkling the engine cover, the rear valance panel between the bumperettes and shoving the left rear bumper guard into the rear cross member. The rear tip of the quarter panel above the taillight was also pushed down.



I made a couple of abortive attempts to pull the cross member back out with weld-on studs, but that didn’t work at all. So, out came the damaged part of the rear cross member, and the fab process started.



Built a wooden form,



shaped a panel to fit,



And welded it in. That all looked pretty good, though it turned out ultimately it wasn’t good enough.

[TC911e]

From there I went after the tip of the rear quarter above the tail light where it was pushed in. After getting it stripped it was clear it wasn’t just bent, but torn as well.



After much sketching, cardboard templating, all while using the right side, the turn signal housing and the (new, used straight) engine cover as guides, I got a cut plan and new piece laid out,



cut out,



fabricated.



fitted and welded in (though I apparently didn’t take any welding progress pictures.



Around here’s where I ran into trouble.

[David Inc.]

Just around there? Yeah sure man, the rest looked so easy!