Respray progress

[Peter Empson]

Just seen my car for the first time in a month and there's been some real progress made now. Sadly it's in a pretty sorry state, but still just within what I expected might be the case.

The pics below are not for the squeamish...

The corrosion is due to a bodged repair of the car prior to my ownership, which has resulted in the rear wing, inner sill and even the floorpan being rotten [] It's a bit worrying to think that there was precious little strength to right hand side of the car, an impact there could have been rather nasty.

More pics here


Chris at Exeter Porsche has been fantastic at supplying the panels, and I've been very pleasantly surprised by the prices. Luckily the offside wing I've ordered is much cheaper than nearside for some bizarre reason (£390+vat instead of £6-700 ish). The floorpan which is coming over from Germany is only £290+vat which seems a steal considering the size of it (it's a single piece that is both sides of the complete floor linked by the transmission tunnel). The inner sills are a paltry £25 each.

Naturally he whole floorpan wont be used, just a section of it will replace the damaged area. The nearside sill may be ok, but we intend to change it anyway. Rather than patch the rear wing we're going to do it properly and replace it completely, which I'm pleased about, even if my wallet wont be (I'm now really regretting not buying that shell on eBay a few months back for £1K!).

Onto more fun things, I've just seen the carbon sunroof panel that Simon at ESS got for me, it's fantastic [] It weighs literally nothing and from what I've seen is really nicely finished (I didn't want to unwrap it till we needed to). If I had a black car I'd leave it unpainted (you know you want one Mr Sims), and feel really guilty that it's going to be covered. This is a great weight saving and pretty cheap too.

Also there was my new front bumper, this is an experiment which may or may not work so I don't want to get my hopes up too much. It's a race part and should be used on a wide bodied car, so it's going to take a lot of work to adapt it (it'll be blended into a standard bumper from which a mould will be taken). It's looks stunning, very serious, although might look a little over the top on a road car [] - we'll have to see! I suspect I'll end up with a lot less ground clearance, so the splitter I planned probably wouldn't make it past the first speed bump.

The new rear screen has been made by Plastics4Performance, which is 1mm thicker (at 5mm) so hopefully should resist sagging and has their latest coatings on it so it should last well, the price was about 4 times more than a standard race part so I hope that's true.

There's a few more decisions to be made, I really want to fit fixed lights now rather than later. I've had it confirmed that the ones I like (the kfz-vonoldenburg.de ones we discussed here a while back) are only for the S2/Turbo's and the earlier shaped ones are coming later on in the year. So I might go with the Clubautosport ones as a short term solution. I think it'd be rude not to fit a lightweight rear bumper too and I may still get the spare wheel well cut out. The doors are ludicrously heavy but I can't see how we can save much there without compromising safety and convenience.

Next update will be in a couple of weeks []

 

[Diver944]

Wowsa!

.....and here's me thinking you were just having some wings and a bit of paint

Should look great when it's finished, until then I am sure you're still enjoying the bus.

 

[George Elliott]

Peter, major surgery for sure. Nice to see it being done properly now.

The last body repair was a mess, but they did use a Genuine inner sill[] which must make you really pleased - probably an OPC repair? Sir

keep up the good work!

George
944t

 

[sawood12]

That rotten sill is unbelieveable and pretty shocking. I'm surprised you didn't have signs of some sort that it was so far gone. At least if you ever broke down you could have pushed the car along with your feet Fred Flintstone style. I'm looking forward to seeing its progress.

 

[Peter Empson]

ORIGINAL: Diver944

Wowsa!

.....and here's me thinking you were just having some wings and a bit of paint

Should look great when it's finished, until then I am sure you're still enjoying the bus.

Lol! Well that is sort of how it started out []
The bus is a joy. I'm lying. [] When it broke down earlier in the week I was very tempted to buy the first car I saw for sale.

George, you're right, it was heartening to see the genuine Porsche sticker on that panel [] It just seems they didn't paint any of it properly, there wasn't the correct undersealing applied either. Foolishly I had the underseal reapplied about 7 years ago when it became evident there was a bit of a problem here and this probably made it much worse (I thought I'd caught it in time).

 

[Peter Empson]

Not sure why I took this picture, nor why I'm posting it here, but it's the only shot I got of the sunroof, even if it's still bubble wrapped.

 

[Peter Empson]

Found another []
Look at the weave on that...[]

 

[Peter Empson]

Forgot about another bit of discovered rust... Nearside inner front wing has a bit of a hole in it too.
Last pic for a while, I promise [8|]

 

[Dico]

Very enlighening pics Peter, thanks for posting them.
Thats a fair old project you have there!

Good luck. Paul

 

[jackregan]

ORIGINAL: Peter Empson

Not sure why I took this picture, nor why I'm posting it here, but it's the only shot I got of the sunroof, even if it's still bubble wrapped.

Thats great to see the restoration work being done - many wouldnt have bothered and thrown the car away, and like the OP said the porsche sticker on the sill is great!

I like the carbon sunroof - is that the GT racing one and do you think it will fit?

 

[Peter Empson]

Yes I believe Simon got it from GT racing. I don't think fitment should be an issue, it looks straight and true and has some give in it to enable us to bend it if necessary. I think Alan at the bodyshop is going to try to blend it in seamlessly if it's good enough. I've decided to strip all the headlining and paint the inside of the roof now, I'll just leave the sunvisors, rear quater trim and A pillar covers in place, the rest from the carpets upwards will be just painted metal. I'm starting to feel quite confident we might almost completely offset the additional weight of the half cage and SC (nearly 50kg I guess). If only I could come up with a good solution for losing weight out of the doors without resorting to having to use door bars on the cage.

 

[Big Dave]

Flippin heck pete...

If that was my car, ide be reshelling it...+ what a proper race car itd then make....

No i see why you gutted you didnt get the £1K one recently.....

 

[pauljmcnulty]

If only I could come up with a good solution for losing weight out of the doors

You could go Atom-style and have no doors? Or removeable doors for track use?

Possibly easier to lose weight from the driver's seat area, though....[][]

 

[morris944s2john]

First of all- good on you for having the car repaired!

I thought the rust was bad in the sills on mine, but a couple of small holes on each side was nothing compared to the damage on yours.
Its interesting that the repair panels are not too expensive. For the DIY restorer that would make a mechanically good, but rusty 944 a good project, compared to restoring a classic 1960's British car, the rust on yours doesn't look to bad a job. Maybe 3 months of spare time.

Keep up the good work, and keep the progress photos coming. Just goes to show, after welding, its vital to protect the cavities with plenty of waxoil! Looks like all they did was weld the panels in with the black transport primer still in place. Bad mistake!

 

[edh]

Peter - that c/f panel looks great [] I bet you are erring well on the minimal side now when it comes to putting the car back together. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it goes on the track with the s/c

I guess we can safely say that the Lux rusts as well []

Mine's in next week to have the sill trims removed, minor (I hope just on the o/s/f wing) corrosion cleaned up, & sills cleaned up & repainted. Wish me luck! []
I waxed inside the sills in the summer - everything I could see looked completely clean & no rust, so I may be lucky

As for lightened doors - I don't think you have any option but to fit door bars or leave it as is. I'd be wary of running a full cage in a road car ( I think we've done that one to death in other threads).

 

[peanut]

wow that reminds me of years of restoring MGB's I'm going to have nightmares about my S2 now.
Those round pressings in the cills (3rd image) are they removable rubber bungs ?
If they are it would be a handy inspection and waxoil treatment access point

 

[944psi]

Those round pressings in the cills (3rd image) are they removable rubber bungs ?

Yes they are - I've had mine out and done the very same with dinitrol to prevent any future nightmares;

Peter, looking at your pictures makes me realise just how committed you are to your car. It also humbles me to think that I didn't have the balls to sort out my first S2 that was possibly in the same sort of condition [well probably a little worse] and I took the 'easier' option.

Now, having owned one for nearly 2 years, I would have no hesitation in committing to such a project [subject to time, money and an understanding wife].

Please continue to keep us topped up with pictures!

Phil
ps. Wasn't a consensus reached that they are sills as opposed to cills? [8|]

 

[pauljmcnulty]

ps. Wasn't a consensus reached that they are sills as opposed to cills?

DON'T START THAT AGAIN! [][][]

 

[steve 944t]

wow that is some serious work. May I ask where you are having the work done? I so far have an estimate from 1 bodyshop for over £3.5k to replace 1 sill and both front wings. Seems rather steep to me!

 

[Peter Empson]

Blimey, lots of posts to reply to, please excuse the multiple replies but hopefully I shouldn't miss anything.

ORIGINAL: Big Dave UK

Flippin heck pete...

If that was my car, ide be reshelling it...+ what a proper race car itd then make....

No i see why you gutted you didnt get the £1K one recently.....

Hi Dave,
I have priced the reshelling option a few times and it seemed to work out quite a bit dearer. Doing it the way I wanted (including E coating and so on) would have got the cost just into five figures by my reckoning (can post how I arrived at that if you're interested, some of it's probably debatable). I think a cost of half that should be possible (I so hope I don't regret typing that), assuming I don't get too carried away upping the spec []. The other plus is that I will know that there's nothing hidden away that can bite me in the future.