70 S, RHD, Signal Orange, UK->Australia->UK

[inaglasshouse]

As a thought:
You can buy for £250 a side this panel, outside and inside from several sources. This would be my approach when I re-do my shell chasing Barry Quality.
Are these panels poor, inaccurate, thin or all these things?
I know somebody who has used such panels and was very complimentary about them (DIY fitted)

Hi Graham,
I'm only familiar with Restoration Design (and Porsche) panels - I'm leaving the choices to Barry since he actually knows stuff, but it's interesting to see what's out there.

Regarding RD, we did use their torque tube area repair panel P280L:
http://www.restoration-design.eu/store/product/PP280L

You'll see that one later.
The pics in my most recent post are the middle layer of the 3-layer sandwich, not yet the outer. RD don't seem to have a repair panel for that layer, but perhaps other options are available?
Regarding the inner layer - I think my car needed very little in this area so a repair panel was not required. One of the good bits...

Cheers, Richard.

[911hillclimber]

That's the outer panel I was thinking of, but I seem to recall the 'set' I saw had the other section too.
It was about a year ago when I was contemplating stripping the car this winter to tidy the areas I did in '88/'89 and found the panel set. Can't remember where just now.
Will have a search. I don't think it was Dansk but thought it was in the USA.

That panel set has shot-up in price!

[Barry]

Hi Graham, for info you can buy the inner wing repair (as previously pictured) and the longitudinal member (chassis leg if you like) base. The inner wing repair (that slips over the torque tube and has the four threaded studs) is technically for 2.2 and earlier, and the O/S needs a modification to fit 2.4 and onwards, depending on how much you are replacing.

The inner longitudinal repair is 2.2 and earlier, and won't help you at all for 2.4 and on, as these are a different shape to allow for the later, lowered, position of the heater tube. Therefore, although I believe this repair comes as a kit, the inner part won't be of any good to owners of 2.4 and on cars.

The centre reinforcing web isn't yet pressed as far as I know, and is propably the hardest panel on the whole car to fabricate. It's only recently with the new hammer-form making technique (arrived at with help of local specialist), that I've been able to make this with the help of tooling.

BTW, I should perhaps point out that if it's been noticed that the metalwork has not progressed at my usual rate, it's because Richard has kindly allowed me to take a week or two out to shoe in the beginnings of an RSR homage build. During next couple of months, however, we'll be back full time on Richard's car .

[911hillclimber]

Thanks Barry, nothing is simple!
That trick panel you mention for 2.4 she'll, I've mine, were oddly ok on my car generally, but my T was then 15 years old.
Happy New Year!

[Barry]

And to you and yours .

[PMNorris]

Great thread Richard, I've just read it end to end (today is my first day back at work in the New Year, so I'm easing myself in slowly by reading DDK threads). Looks like progress is going well. Very good to meet you last week.
Regards
Paul

[inaglasshouse]

Hi Paul, thanks, good to meet you too.
I look forward to seeing your car sometime when it's back from fettling. Maybe at a Fairmile meet?
Cheers, Richard.

[inaglasshouse]

Hi Barry,
Thanks for popping in. Happy New Year!
I was going to make a rude joke about faffing about on DDK when you should be working on my car, but then I noticed the date of your post.
Christmas day off seems reasonable
Take care, see you soon,
Richard.

[inaglasshouse]

LH A-Post Base

As previously mentioned, we decided to keep most of the A-Post bases, so...

The A-post base was just slit off, new flanges added on and after the above, was welded back into place after blasting internally and priming.

The previous repair had skirted around the A-post base, hence the odd 'blending out' at the front on the 'before' picture. Later on, anything that shows here will be run over with the big single sided welder for some cosmetic welds to be added. All the structural welding here has already been dealt with of course.

[inaglasshouse]

LHR inner wing B-post area repair

Another area where previous action had taken its toll.
As I mentioned the car had been widebody-fied then partially reverted, so had already had 3 sets of rear wings including the original factory ones. Ours will be the fourth set.

Barry says:
The front area of the rear inner wing had suffered through having had at least two B-posts welded to it, and then removed.
Additionally there were several areas of corrosion.
Replacement of this metal has the advantage that the welding on of the new B-post (rear wing) is much easier going from new to new metal.

Here's what we started with:

[inaglasshouse]

LHR inner wing B-post area repair (continued)

So it's another fairly complex repair panel, again allowing us to keep the bulk of the original metal.
Luckily Barry says
One of my favourite repairs!
and
I've got some tooling I made up last year for the Pullmax machine, and it makes it very straightforward to produce the pressing in this panel. There is some tricky shaping to do around this area however, as the inner wing has more curves (in different directions) than might be assumed. There is a degree of shrinking / stretching that needs to be done in order to allow the panel to lie nicely relaxed on the parent metal, ready for scribing in.

The repair panel fabrication process looks like this.









"Very straightforward", I'm sure we can all agree

[inaglasshouse]

LHR inner wing B-post area repair (continued)

All that remains is to chop out the old bit and bung in the new bit.
By now I had mastered the required technical language.









Barry says: Note the ad-hoc 'jig' in order to locate the position of the base of the flange. It's not super-critical, but to be within a mill or so does save time later. The top of course is positioned via the B-pillar.

[inaglasshouse]

Top Front of the LH Rear Inner Wing

Including pimple. As Barry explains:

Only point of interest is the little pimple is made simply with a round chisel knocking the metal into a 13mm socket. So low tech. There is one trick however, and that's to form the pimple first, and then overlay the cardboard template to get the repair's outline. This ensures the pimple is spot on, position-wise.

[inaglasshouse]

Rear Window Flange, LH

Both rear window flanges were a mess, presumably because of the previous rear wing replacements in the narrow->wide->narrow history of the car.
Here's the LH one being sorted out:

[inaglasshouse]

LH Floor Edge

Finishing off the floor edge repair panel, and welding it in.
The original floor was mostly very good, so these edges are the only new bits.

With the inner sill cavity all cleaned up and primed, the new floor edge (previously scribed and trimmed) could be prepared whilst the sill area paint was drying.







There are all sorts of holes in the floor edge, only two of which we want, and even those are 10mm rather than our 8mm.
They all get welded up, and then I'll drill some new 8mm's later on. Each hole gets a little custom disk, this gets dropped in and hammer and dollied until it sits in the hole unassisted. The area is welded up, ground back and linished smooth. This is repeated for each hole.





With the inner sill area dry, the various weld sites are stripped of any etch primer over-spray, and re-primed with Wurth weld-thru zinc-rich primer. At last the floor could be welded in.