DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Looks great Neil, good to see the panels being finished

Found some more issues at the rear - dodgy repair from way back - rear not straight and passenger bumper 'adjusted' to fit.

This became apparent when the new bumpers wouldn't fit properly on the LHS.



Rear part way through repair.


Rear end pulled as it was found rails were bent and RHS 5mm shorter than left - rippled and badly repaired.


You can see that the rail repair is being revisited here. The plan is that there will be an interior sleeve. The metal is good just it wasn't straight.


We have new rear panel, new latch panel and 2 new bumpers to go on.

Hopefully the car will be in epoxy by the end of next week but that might slip by a week because of these recent issues.

The good thing is that every part of the car will have been fettled. We did think we wouldn't have to go here but he ho....

Cheers, Neil

You'll soon forget the extra yards of grief, but will know that it's straight now

Its going to be great when its done - are you going with the original colour, are are you going to be naughty in that respect?

Hi Deano, I will be returning the car to it's original colour which is Signal Orange.

It was painted retail red at some point - which I didn't dislike - however I love Signal Orange and, when I spoke to the second owner who had it from 1974 in London he told me it used to be Signal Orange.

He passed me the UK Registration documentation.

I love the story and love the colour....

Cheers, Neil

You have chosen wisely. Looks great on a Targa too.

Sent from my SM-G988B using Tapatalk

You are right Rob but you are biased

I have a couple more photos of some lovely repairs being undertaken. As stated we found some creasing and poor repairs. The had been a cut from another car welded on following a rear end shunt back in the day.

Martin has stretched the rails back and removed the crease. The seam that runs underneath the rail on the RHS was wavy and now it is straight. In order to repair the rear the corners above each of the rear lights have been removed and the inner panels cut.



The picture above shows the cleaned up inner panel with part of the rail butted up to the rest of the rail. There is a section removed and Martin is going to 'sleeve' the join using sheet metal plug welded on the inside bridging the gap. The rail repair will be really strong and invisible once cleaned up.

You can see a piece of metal in the following shot by way of an explanation.



The metal the right of the large oil filter hole is all butted up and not yet welded but was put together to show me how the jigsaw pieces go together.

I am really pleased to see the workmanship and am confident that the repair will be really effective.

Martin now has to create some repair for the passenger side.

This will probably constitute a 2 week detour but at least I know that the rear end is all good clean and string metal.

Cheers, Neil

Neilnaz wrote:Hi Deano, I will be returning the car to it's original colour which is Signal Orange.

I love the story and love the colour....

Cheers, Neil

I absolutely love signal orange, and as Rob said, I think it does look especially great on a Targa - lucky man IMHO !!

Martin sent me some further updates with regards the rail repairs. It is looking very tidy

You can see the 'sleeves' applied inside to strengthen the repair here:


Further 'sleeves' applied:


The outer piece to be welded in place:


The outer piece being welded in place here:


Here is the other side of the rails repair:


The repairs are being really nicely executed. Next will be the other side.

It is quite exciting to see the progress and the quality.

Cheers, Neil

I have some more photos of the repair work of the rails. The driver's side is repaired but the finishing welding will be completed at the end. The passenger side has been deconstructed and parts are being straightened out and parts are being fabricated. It would probably have been cheaper to replace the whole of the inner cross member but I didn't have timely access to one of these. We have a replacement outer (latch panel), the rear panel and bumpers.

Cleaned up passenger side engine mount:


Straightening out the passenger rail:


Another shot of the tidied up engine mount - it has been epoxied inside/underneath:


Martin is piecing together new metal to recreate the LHS of the rear inner cross member:


A shot of the repair of the passenger side rail - it was previously kinked from the rear impact - poorly repaired and never straightened:


I have to say Martin's work is excellent. It is nice to know that the car will be very straight and will definitely outlive me

The car should be in epoxy in 10 days time - slightly excited.....

Cheers, Neil

Good to see such care and attention to quality.
Epoxy in 2 weeks, fabulous!

Keep these reports coming please.

Hi All, a further update from today. Martin sent me a couple of additional photos:

Firstly the inner cross member is coming together. The sections are partly welded together here:


This photo shows the view from further back.


I think there is just a bit of tidying up to complete before the latch panel and other panels welded back in place.

I will pop round tomorrow to get some further updates but it is looking so good

Awesome.

Neil

It’s looking great -
Sone quality work there

Further progress. The passenger side engine mount is welded in. The cross member is welded together and looks really good - shame I didn't get a photo of it

The welded but not completely finished passenger side engine mount:


Martin put the latch panel in place and it looks really good - it is just located not welded yet:


Another view:


Martin has to complete some further welding of the cross member and weld the latch panel into place. He then needs to fit the cut-off corners.

It is looking really, really good.

Cheers, Neil

That’s looking great Neil. Are you going to back date the rear latch panel? You can see what Gary did with his resto.

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