The Manhattan Project

[jamie]

Brilliant place. Nice guys. Am interested to see how this car comes back - it looks OK in the pictures!

[AndrewSlater]

Not made an update for a while but plenty of small jobs ongoing.

Firstly a lot of my sheet metal and suspension parts have gone for powder coating, and fixings gone out for plating.
I'm hoping not too many of the fixings are lost along the way as they could be a pain to replace.

The front hubs have been cleaned up, and the old bearing and races removed.
I used the domestic oven technique and found the races came out easily when heated over 200 degrees C.

The new races were more of a challenge to get in and found I had to get the hubs to closer to 250 degrees C before they went in easier.



The steering rack has also been refurbed and both bearings replaced. The needle roller bearing was definately shot so glad it was all disassembled and restored.


The rear banana arms have also been cleaned up and the rear wheel bearings replaced. After struggling to remove the original bearings my local Porsche specialist helped me replace them for new ones.


Still need to solve my engine yoke issue before I can start on the engine but that's in a different thread.

So plenty of bitty jobs slowly being crossed off the list.

[AndrewSlater]

Not much progress on the Manhattan project as there is an interloper in the workshop and I seem to have broken it


How tricky can these flat six engines be - eh?

[sladey]

Wossat?

[AndrewSlater]

It's a 997 C2S that I decided to change the starter motor loom and starter to cure a lazy starting issue when hot.
Whilst I was there I refurbed the alternator and a list of other small jobs.

To gain access to the starter and cable you have to strip a lot of the ancillaries out, throttle body, inlets etc.

The only fear with these cars is that you put everything back together and you then get the dreaded 'computer says no' error message.

In balance I prefer working on the older cars, but find it amazing how many of the parts on the car bear a close resemblance to the 70's parts.

[AndrewSlater]

My plated parts have been returned.


Now I just need to remember which bit is which.

I have also got the interloper out of the workshop ready to check out the powder coated parts.

The bodyshell is also overdue back from Envirostrip so could get really hectic soon.

So I now need to start thinking about colours for the car.
When I say 'thinking about' I don't mean overthinking ( sorry Jamie ) just hell that looks good I'll go for that.
Can't say I have changed my mind about the Bitter Chocolate ( even though Pelican was reporting brown cars are back in vogue - sorry it is still 'S**t by moonlight').

So here goes can anyone tell me the definitive oranges that would have been available for a '74 IB car?

I saw the Blood Orange (I'm guessing) 2.7RS at Wilton at the weekend and that is definitely a nice colour - but was it a '74 colour?

[AndrewSlater]

My bodyshell is now ready at Envirostrip and due to be returned next week.
Vaughan tells me it is a really solid shell - so fingers crossed.

Here are a couple of photos from their Facebook page




Apparently the car has gone through the process alongside Nicolas Hamiltons BTCC Audi A3.

So I ask again what are the period Oranges and codes for 1974? - Thanks Andrew

[210bhp]

Signal orange 116
Orange 156

Regards
Mike

[AndrewSlater]

Thanks for your input Mike - quite like signal orange.

Where there any special order Oranges offered that year? - trying to work out if blood orange was an option in '74.

[AndrewSlater]

I've been restoring my heater tubes as the outers had detoriated and crumbled away when they were removed.

I managed to source some identical outer ducting tubing and after some careful cutting, high temp paint and glue and hey presto!



Before and after.

I even repainted the end caps - not that anyone will ever see them but at least I will know they look good

The other news is that the shell is back from Envirostrip.
I'm going over to the bodyshop this weekend to give it a thorough inspection and to list the work needed but will update when I know more. The initial inspection shows the majority of the shell is in superb condition with just a few areas of work required ( which I already know about ) - will update after I've spent some more time studying it.

In the meantime here are a few gratuitous shots

The rear seats and parcel shelf look A1

as does the engine bay

and the underside

[74rsman]

Loving the progress so far. I've been tempted with fully stripping my own but just didn't have the facilities to strip n refit a lot of the components so I'm working around mine panel by panel!. Yours will be nice when finished. I vote brown

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

[neilbardsley]

It does look gpod

[sladey]

Looks to be in fantastic nick - what are the sills like?

[AndrewSlater]

Thanks for the comments.

The car needs a few areas of work but luckily not any more than we had assertained before the paint was removed. See viewtopic.php?f=9&t=51342

In summary the back end is pretty much perfect other than an odd small corrosion hole under the rear offside window the size of a 50p

The parcel shelf, roof, rear inner wings, front and rear screen surrounds and floorpan are all perfect too.

Both my doors ( ones a secondhand replacement ) are pretty corrosion free, and both the secondhand genuine Porsche wings I have sourced seem pretty much perfect.
Both the engine lid and the bonnet are also free of corrosion just a couple of minor dinks.

Then it gets a bit worse.

The sills have corrosion holes at the front and rear but nothing that warrants full inner or outer sills - but the plan is to patch sparingly to retain 90% of the original sills using new inner and outer panels.
The kidney bowls have a small amount of corrosion but will be replaced. Also the rear quarters have some corrosion between the sills and the torsion bar covers so repair panels will be used.

Both front inner wings have corrosion on the top rails and the wing joining plates are shot ( read mainly missing - and replacement panels to be fitted )

The inner wings are corroded through behind the impact bumper mounts. [Can you buy repair panels for this section? ]

The fuel tank support has a small amount of corrosion and will be selectively replaced with a new panel.

The front slam panel is perforated along the top and the lip is mainly missing now - new panel on order.

So to balance the photos out - here are some of the bad bits

Front o/s inner wing - this is the worst side


Fuel tank support has corrosion - will possibly change the front support too.

wing corrosion behind the impact bumper mount - both sides equally bad


Front slam panel corrosion with missing lip

So I'm trying to order the final panels that the bodyshop needs and then watch this space on the welding update.

I'm also bound to have plenty of more questions - so please feel free to help out with the answers.

[911hillclimber]

Looks to me the tank support has been done before?

Sounds you are lucky and the shell in the worst areas (to do) is ok.

Lots of details required please!