The 'Maverick' Classic Porsche Forum and Classic Porsche Club for Porsche 356, Aircooled Porsche 911, Porsche 912, Porsche 914 & Porsche Replicas. 'We join for the cars but stay for the people'
Barry: There was a small ex-kink at the rear base of the inner wing, so this was removed, the area behind tidied up, and new metal let in. Later on, when the front is welded and the generator / big spot welder running, I'll run a series of single sided welds around here to match into the original factory welds. In fact, there are no signs of welds here, so I think the factory did in fact miss a whole run of welds back in period. Hand made cars, these odd things crop up all the time.
The new repair panel for the top rear is a very accurate pressing, but a tiny bit small. I templated up an extra section, transferred it to steel, and butt welded in onto the repair. The whole was then blasted internally and primed. The opened cavity was vacuumed out, and again primed. The area was then welded up.
Whilst waiting for paint to dry, I got going on just truing the top of the inner wing repair on the Pullmax, thus ensuring it would be an accurate match to my own repair panel, and just tidying the shape up a little at the same time.
Ref: Replacement panel QA and feed back to supplier:
Does anyone send a complaint back to the suppliers involved for poor panel quality?
If they are not told then it all just carries on.
On some of my bike projects the quality of replacement parts generally were really bad, esp Lambretta parts from India.
I found after complaining that the suppliers did no QA at all, just shipped out what they shipped in.
The one found all their exhaust manifolds (bends) were all out 10mm like mine. They had 50 in stock and 12 had already been shipped.
73T 911 Coupe, road/hillclimber 3.2L
Lola t 492 / 3.2 hillclimb racer
Boxster 987 Gen II 2.9
No Graham, and this is the bit that boils my p155.
If I have a problem with a Porsche panel, I have to report back to the supplying OPC parts department. They then send down a generic form, with request for full details, multiple pictures etc etc. This info then gets sent back to the OPC by me, and dissappears into the ether.
There is no compensation to me, a one man band for my time in engaging with this process from the multi-billion euro, incredibly profitable manufacturer. There is no feedback direct to me, and no way of directly feeding back from me to them. As a way of developing a culture of continuous feedback and inprovement, it sucks, and smacks of the utmost arrogance.
There is absolutely no question of user error here. It's as simple as using a rule, dividers, or placing new over old panels. The new front inner wings have a fraction of the number of spot welds on the top seam and are missing the corner seam welds on the battery boxes, often the inner tower pressing is misplaced to the main wing. Random battery boxes have random dimensions, front wings with misplaced headlight bowls, rear quarters with mis-welded and placed B-posts and bumper brackets, front pans with misplaced mountings and excessive rippling etc etc. Many spot welds have dangerously sharp flashes leaving you either de-burring or with cuts. In essence, in many cases there simply isn't the care and attention given to many of these panels that the prices suggest. To give an idea of the profits Porsche are pulling, there was a simple corner brace behind the fuel tank. At £12 (it's price a couple of years ago), it was a fair price. Overnight, it's gone to £48.
On the other hand, some of the panels are perfect, and the most gorgeous pressing quality. Outer sills are lovely, as are the new 911 xx doorskins. The shape and pressing accuracy of all four wings seem pretty good, although even there front LH wings have issues at the rear near the bonnet.
Overall though, it's a pretty poor show.
DDK Member1243 07741 273865. Home of the RY Austin 7 Trophy's and Austin Single Seat Racers
Have you seen the price rise for a full roof? I still have a supply of panels bought when the Karmann factory closed down, these are much better (with regards to fit) than some panels bought now. It's also not just panels we also report back on, there's trim parts, rubbers even headliner bows, which simple did not fit.
Thanks for the insight, Barry, Alan.
While accepting that reporting to Porsche would be banging my head against a brick wall, I think I'm going to have a chat with Restoration Design - will probably see them next weekend.
Cheers, Richard.
I hear the same type of thing with other makes of classic.
Seems the big guys can simply ignore these issues, and live on the fact you just have to go to them.
The motorcycle world is the same,, but there are no magazine players like Porsche, so you can get to the coal face quite well.
Not all are at all bothered, take it or leave it seems to be ok...
When I bought my real
Porsche rear wings in '89 the fit was unbelievable ESP having been used to MGB parts.
Dansk sills and door skins were the opposite, a real challenge to get right in particular as my skills are not perfect.
73T 911 Coupe, road/hillclimber 3.2L
Lola t 492 / 3.2 hillclimb racer
Boxster 987 Gen II 2.9
Best to let Barry describe what's going on here: Both inner chassis legs (longitudinal tank supports) need some sort of back-dating.
Charmingly, whilst doing other work on one, a captive nut literally fell off. How we would have chuckled if that had happened just after the shell was built and painted. Suitably impressed, I seam welded every captive nut on both panels.
The hole that was filled on the offside leg is an impact bumper feature, and not correct for an early car.
Pics of panels stripped ready for weld-thru primer and welding. Washer bottle mounting placed in the correct, but improbable-looking position, towing eye welded on, front end less front slam and nearside inner wing repair another trial fit. This followed a good half day just tweaking all the fits to be suitably neat and crisp.
Also the new tank support needed a bit of fettling to be really good, although it's a very nice panel in fact.
As I mentioned, I've been vigorously posting to catch up with Barry's efforts.
I'm sorry to all who are fed up with seeing yet another update about my car.
We're now up to date. Barry sends a full report and photo pack after each 40 hours of work, and I have posted all of those.
There was one more little teaser, though. From an very initial / rough trial fit of the outer panels.
Even though I know it's an illusion, and that there's still a long way to go, I found this photo curiously exciting:
I had the same thing with the captive nuts on the same panel recently, also happened to both captive nuts in the two small front inner wing extensions, so ask Barry to check those too!
We had three known good mounts, and one known bad one. So Barry removed the bad one, and roughed it into place using my steering rack subframe.
Barry: This did mean the shell had to float in mid-air to gain access. Be assured it wasn't as dodgy as it looked, as the rear was still on the jig on one corner, and the whole shell was being supported by the crane in the centre.
Still, rather you than me!
With the mount tacked, the shell was placed back on the jig, checked, removed again and fully welded.
Shots show nice fit both to jig and my subframe.
I think we have fully established on this build that anything with a layer of primer on it must be assumed to be crappy.
Nevertheless, today's nasty surprise was actually surprising. Surely the bonnet, which has been sitting there innocuously in its grey primer for 2+ years, looking for all the world like a new one, was above suspicion?
Er, no... This morning's 07:25 email from Barry read as follows:
Bad news on the bonnet I'm afraid, it's toast, or at least is as far as a high standard restoration like yours is concerned.
It's been well dented, and poorly pulled out. Probably more seriously, it's got a nasty pitting to much of the area I've stripped, possibly it's been crudely repaired and then left in bare filler in the damp? Either way the conclusion is the same, we need a new bonnet.
