1965 912 Painted Dash metal work

[r-mm]

Hello all

Kindly redirect me if this isn't the place for this thread. I'm an enthusiast in Connecticut who has previously done a bare metal restoration on my '73 Alfa and will now need to undertake some work on my 912. While the work on the Alfa was fairly involved, the question of what to replace and how was relatively obvious to me. I'm not at all familiar with the 912 body structure nor entirely aware of the panels available. I have read many threads here - in awe - and browsed the Restoration Design site.

I bought this car as I seem to buy all my cars, like a fool. It has a very nice paint job and lovely gaps, but was hiding a good deal of bad prior repairs. Presently I'm addressing bad overlapped metal at the parcel shelf / rear bulkhead area and will appreciate help guiding me as to the right way to approach the repair. My thinking is to remove the spliced parcel shelf and bulkhead and replace them with new pressings, while patching the longitudinal rails and seat bottom. I believe this is damage caused by a leak at the base of the windscreen.

[911hillclimber]

Welcome!
Check out Maxak thread in restorations first page, about 5 threads up from the bottom of this page.

or this link:

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=63430
Have a look at Gary's thread linked here, check the last few pages as he cuts into this area of his shell.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3552
Graham.

[Ian Gunney]

welcome to DDK - I'm the other way round to you - started with a 912 and now coming to the end of a rebuild of a 67 Alfa GTV.

Ian

[r-mm]

The Targa thread is impressive indeed! I did some highly unskilled panel beating on the Alfa but have not a spot on that man's skills to make complex curved sections.

Thanks for saying hi Ian - are you on the Alfa BB as well? I'm same user name over there. Took the '73 out for a spin with the wife yesterday, seizing on a brief warm spell here in New England (its much like old England but just, well, new?).

[jjeffries]

Hi Rus!
John

[r-mm]

Oh Hi John fancy seeing you here.

So I've determined I need to replace the parcel shelf & its bracket, rear bulkhead, heel panel and rearmost portion of the rear floor. The seats themselves seem stable enough to keep and patch. My instinct is to start at the top/back and work my way forward/down. Is the dimensional stability of the rear screen opening at risk when doing any of this work?

Thanks,
Rus

[Gary71]

Hi Rus, welcome to DDK! Sorry I missed this thread before.

I’ve been through recently this on my car (which Graham linked above)

The lower screen rail gets quite flexible once you’ve cut out the parcel shelf and the little vertical bracket right at the back. It’s ok in line with the screen but rotates fairly easily so it’s worth resting the engine lid back on periodically to make sure the line from glass to rail to lid still flows.

I made a few key measurements across the screen to scribed lines just to keep an eye on things and nothing moved.

I put some simple (ugly!) bracing across the screen and down to the rear damper mounts whilst I repaired the screen corners as it would get even wobblier with that section removed But it had to come out before the shelf went back in as it was in the way.



Don’t know if you have the 1/4 panels off, I’m guessing not. Changing the shelf should be possible with them in place, it will just be much harder getting to the spot welds to get it out. Not impossible though.

I hired a spotwelder to do the screen rail (I plugged the rest) and I’d definitely recommend that. 20 minutes work and done. No grinding or messing about.

Best of luck, and you are in the right place for support and well meaning advice, can’t guarantee its all right though!

[r-mm]

Thanks very much Gary!

One of the complicating factors of the work I'm undertaking is that I'd like, as much as possible, to leave the paint in place. Like a fool I bought a car with a pretty paint job but sub par repair work. That said the exterior gaps and paint are very nice and I'm painfully familiar with the cost of paint from my Alfa. So I'll see what can be done from the inside/below/wheel well access.

You read my mind on the spot welder. As I was going to bed I thought "how much could one cost?" Will certainly be poking about to see what the options are.

Do you think I have the sequence right, starting at the package shelf and working down the bulkhead, to the heel panel and then rear floor?

[Gary71]

Yes, sequence looks ok. It’s difficult to get the new parcel shelf in from the engine side and from the other side the top of the bulkhead gets in the way.

I did both at once with lots of self tappers and then welded it all at the same time.

[r-mm]

Got it. I have my panels coming from Restoration Design end of week. (shoutout: fast and fairly priced shipping! nice prices on the panels too). I'm sure I'll have many thousands more questions as I remove the old panels and see what there is to work with. Chances are there will be patching to what I'm calling the rails/wings as well.

[r-mm]

Well, the new panels are here and they look quite nice. Thanks Restoration Design.

I'd post more pictures but I really can't seem to get right by this site's image height, width and size requirements. I'll need to figure out how to modify every pic I take I suppose?

As I look at the welds I need to make at the back, the spot welder is sounding quite handy as it'll disturb the surrounding paint the least and I ought to have nice access as my spot weld simulating fingers display.

[Gary71]

The spot welds on the inside are tricky due to the height to the shelf. I had to cut the lower tip right down and even then it only just went in. Ideally it needs extended reach tips that have a lower profile.

Still better than trying to plug weld that little flange though.

[911hillclimber]

I used a spot welder to do a lot of welds on my 73T and I could have bought a new one for all the hire charges I paid, well worth it.
They still generate a lot of heat of course but no splatter to speak of.
Use a well damped cloth to quench the area once the red heat is past.

The hire welder came with a vast array of arms and tips, already very modified by previous users.....

Might be worth hiring the set if it comes with a lot of arms?

[r-mm]

Thanks gents good point about access to get the arms in place. That reminded me to ask: is the install sequence

1. Bracket to body
2. Parcel shelf to bracket/body

or

1. Bracket to parcel shelf
2. Assembly to body

Am I right that the spot welder will also be of use to put the rear floor section in? Here's a snapshot of the panels I'll be replacing. Not sure yet if I'll be cutting the rear floor to only address the bad bits at the heel or putting the whole thing in.

[Gary71]

Not saying this is the right way but I did upstand panel to shelf, then to body. Everything self tapped together first though.

The floor was originally spot welded but the small thing you can hire won’t reach that far in so plug welding is the way forward.