Complete Celette bench jig & bespoke early 911 bracket set
Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 6:05 pm
I am very sad to say that none of my trio of R, RS and RSR projects has exactly gone to plan. In fact far from it. I've not given up, but have to be realistic about what I'm going to get finished and when.
The chartreuse green RS is very nearly finished for Rally Costa Brava in a month time but big bills have mounted up and the car sets me back a lot more than I ever expected.
Although it was a fully MOT'd driver when I bought it in Feb 2015, the bodywork turned into an underside restoration setting me back close to £13k including stripping and re-assembly. After running the car for a while it was clear that the loom was well past it's sell by date, and was going to let me down when I least needed it, so a complete re-loom was order of the day for another £2k. That is on top of all the stuff I planned to spend on all new brakes, suspension, seats, harnesses, rally lights/trip/timers/etc., heated screen, extinguishers, h/e's, cut outs, new clutch, etc.
So on the bright side it is nearly finished and with a bit of luck will be rallying in Costa Brava in a month or so.
The next in line is the RSR. This has turned into a proverbial nightmare on the bodywork front. It had been having metal work done and redone for all of 2015 and eventually went for paint in Q4 2015 over 6-9 months behind schedule. This unearthed a heap more bodywork to do and several key bits that would have to be redone from scratch. Major nightmare and I won't even say how much it has cost me as it makes my eyes water
I'm still trying to figure out exactly what to do about it, this has all come to light in the last couple of weeks only. But I'm hopefully this will still happen. Finishing it for this summer though, probably isn't realistic so and more likely to be 2017 before it is on the road and the budget has just got a heap bigger.
That brings me onto the project that actually started off the dream trio, the '67/'68 swb R project.
I bought this ex rally car shell back in April 2014 knowing it was going to need a lot of work. I don't normally like dipping a car because of stripping off all the paint in all those impossible to get to places, but this car was so bad if we hadn't, then we would have been chasing our tale for months trying to get back to anything solid. So after stripping it down and ripping off the sills it was off to get dipped in late 2014. It came back a lot lighter than it went and Enviro-strip said it was one of the worst they'd seen. One of the only panels worth saving was the top of the rear 1/4s and they managed to bash that in getting it in and out of the tanks.
I have >60 panels bought and ready to fit to the car but it was clear that without a jig it couldn't be done.
9 months of looking myself and waiting for my body guy to get a jig I eventually got one.
The job on the R shell is massive and without the roll cage in it, it would have already fallen apart. Frustratingly it has sat for a year now post dipping just gathering surface rust while the jig was found and the RSR bodywork was completed. The job is still massive.
To top everything off Mr Cameron has decided he needs a LOT more money to pay for local services. Makes any of the numbers above seem small. This has wiped me out so work has had to be suspended indefinitely on the R.
The long and the short of this is that I need to sell a load of stuff to be able to finish the RS and to even have a prayer of finishing the RSR this year. One of those things that might go is the Celette jig as it was only got for the R and that is on hold till I don't know when.
Below are pictures of the jig and bespoke 911 brackets. They have only been used once and the jig is in good condition. The brackets are like new. It is currently holding up the remains of my R shell but that can be removed.
Send me a PM if you are interested in the jig. If it is going to go at all then it needs to go now.
With the full mobile jig bed and the full set of bespoke Porsche 911 brackets, there are also 22 blue towers
080-6 off
140-4 off
200-4 off
260-4 off
601-1 off
602-1 off
141-1 off
142-1 off
2 off extension plates
5 off cross beams
4 off cill clamps
1 off puller with new air foot pedal and hose
box of celette stamped bolts
Sales picture of the Porsche 911 brackets set
One above is not my jig but shows the bespoke Porsche bracket set in place on a smaller Celette jig
The chartreuse green RS is very nearly finished for Rally Costa Brava in a month time but big bills have mounted up and the car sets me back a lot more than I ever expected.
Although it was a fully MOT'd driver when I bought it in Feb 2015, the bodywork turned into an underside restoration setting me back close to £13k including stripping and re-assembly. After running the car for a while it was clear that the loom was well past it's sell by date, and was going to let me down when I least needed it, so a complete re-loom was order of the day for another £2k. That is on top of all the stuff I planned to spend on all new brakes, suspension, seats, harnesses, rally lights/trip/timers/etc., heated screen, extinguishers, h/e's, cut outs, new clutch, etc.
So on the bright side it is nearly finished and with a bit of luck will be rallying in Costa Brava in a month or so.
The next in line is the RSR. This has turned into a proverbial nightmare on the bodywork front. It had been having metal work done and redone for all of 2015 and eventually went for paint in Q4 2015 over 6-9 months behind schedule. This unearthed a heap more bodywork to do and several key bits that would have to be redone from scratch. Major nightmare and I won't even say how much it has cost me as it makes my eyes water
I'm still trying to figure out exactly what to do about it, this has all come to light in the last couple of weeks only. But I'm hopefully this will still happen. Finishing it for this summer though, probably isn't realistic so and more likely to be 2017 before it is on the road and the budget has just got a heap bigger.
That brings me onto the project that actually started off the dream trio, the '67/'68 swb R project.
I bought this ex rally car shell back in April 2014 knowing it was going to need a lot of work. I don't normally like dipping a car because of stripping off all the paint in all those impossible to get to places, but this car was so bad if we hadn't, then we would have been chasing our tale for months trying to get back to anything solid. So after stripping it down and ripping off the sills it was off to get dipped in late 2014. It came back a lot lighter than it went and Enviro-strip said it was one of the worst they'd seen. One of the only panels worth saving was the top of the rear 1/4s and they managed to bash that in getting it in and out of the tanks.
I have >60 panels bought and ready to fit to the car but it was clear that without a jig it couldn't be done.
9 months of looking myself and waiting for my body guy to get a jig I eventually got one.
The job on the R shell is massive and without the roll cage in it, it would have already fallen apart. Frustratingly it has sat for a year now post dipping just gathering surface rust while the jig was found and the RSR bodywork was completed. The job is still massive.
To top everything off Mr Cameron has decided he needs a LOT more money to pay for local services. Makes any of the numbers above seem small. This has wiped me out so work has had to be suspended indefinitely on the R.
The long and the short of this is that I need to sell a load of stuff to be able to finish the RS and to even have a prayer of finishing the RSR this year. One of those things that might go is the Celette jig as it was only got for the R and that is on hold till I don't know when.
Below are pictures of the jig and bespoke 911 brackets. They have only been used once and the jig is in good condition. The brackets are like new. It is currently holding up the remains of my R shell but that can be removed.
Send me a PM if you are interested in the jig. If it is going to go at all then it needs to go now.
With the full mobile jig bed and the full set of bespoke Porsche 911 brackets, there are also 22 blue towers
080-6 off
140-4 off
200-4 off
260-4 off
601-1 off
602-1 off
141-1 off
142-1 off
2 off extension plates
5 off cross beams
4 off cill clamps
1 off puller with new air foot pedal and hose
box of celette stamped bolts
Sales picture of the Porsche 911 brackets set
One above is not my jig but shows the bespoke Porsche bracket set in place on a smaller Celette jig