The Manhattan Project

[AndrewSlater]

Just spotted Ben's post.

When you see the the two velours in the farbkarte, how do you tell you have “special velour” and not “velour”? did Southbound have a card with velour as well that you could rule out?

I was only shown the page that had the special velours - interesting that your page (the same as the one in Ferrymans thread) shows special velours and velours.

Also interesting to hear it is called cinnamon in some countries - I am learning something new all the time.

My COA states 'Brown/Beige Leatherette with Leather Seats' but then COAs are often full of mistakes.
Firstly my seats aren't leather and secondly February is spelt 'Febriary'

In your documents the seat panels are shown as Leatherette/Basketweave - I definitely don't have any basketweave in mine.

So is your carpet cinnamon - if so it would be helpful if you could post some photos.

Thanks
Andrew

If I can get the screen fitted I will be looking at trying to make my carpet repair.

[gtBen]

Just spotted Ben's post.

When you see the the two velours in the farbkarte, how do you tell you have “special velour” and not “velour”? did Southbound have a card with velour as well that you could rule out?

My COA states 'Brown/Beige Leatherette with Leather Seats' but then COAs are often full of mistakes.

In your documents the seat panels are shown as Leatherette/Basketweave - I definitely don't have any basketweave in mine.

So is your carpet cinnamon - if so it would be helpful if you could post some photos.
Thanks
Andrew

In reality my carpet looks more like yours in your photos then they do on my photo. Look behind the seat where the floor mats have protected the carpet from fading, that's more like the look the have.

I think we have the same carpets. Mine are quite a bit hairy/curly, and doesn't the velour seem to be more hairy then special velour in the farbkarte!



The baskeweave inserts in my front seats have deteriorated and have separated along the lines and is now brittle.

Decisions, decisions
Maybe I put in a black interior and a 1328 and a 1300 until I decide what to do with all of it. Beige is not my favourite, maybe I put everything but the seats back

edit:
My COA is ok after it was corrected, but some details are missing. I had a US friend helping me to get a over there. It would be nice to compare it with a COA from this end ...or maybe not
Bengt

[AndrewSlater]

I would agree your carpet does look the same as mine.

A cinnamon colour where original and a much pinker colour where faded.

I went into the loft today to get my drivers seat out and found that it does have a basketweave centre so again identical to yours.
Not sure why I was adamant it didn't but it is 6 months or so since I saw them.



So between us we have might have enough parts for one good interior.

If you do decide to go black ( that was my dilemma also I'd prefer black over the brown / beige look ) then I know someone who would be interested in some of your carpet ( especially the carpet maps pockets ).

In other news another go at the windscreen and it is all fitted - hurrah!

[jjeffries]

I continue to be very impressed by your work on this car. Super nice. Best, John

[jb]

It looks great
Has it been finished?
Does it go?
Are you happy with it?

[AndrewSlater]

It looks great
Has it been finished?
Does it go?
Are you happy with it?

Thanks for the interest - to answer your questions - no, no and not yet.

Back in October I thought that the finish line was in sight and that my biggest worry was matching carpet samples.
I then ran into a set of problems that I hadn't foreseen and have delayed the project somewhat..

I first got my door frames out of the loft and remembered that one of them was incomplete.
It was the drivers side that had suffered most of the storage water damage and a foot or so had dissolved away.
I'd forgotten it was this bad.


This was the first setback but was easily solved with the help of Nick Moss supplying a replacement.

However the replacement led to me discovering a bigger problem!

[jb]

Thanks for the interest
This was the first setback but was easily solved with the help of Nick Moss supplying a replacement.

However the replacement led to me discovering a bigger problem!

You are so close to finishing.
It surely cannot be insurmountable can it?

[AndrewSlater]

So I soon had the door glass and door frames fitted and really thought I was on the home straight when I made the fatal mistake of trying to shut my doors - and well they didn't, shut that is.

The door frames clashed with the 'a' pillars. If I pushed hard enough they closed but only after taking some 'a' pillar paint with them.

To say I was a bit miffed was an understatement.

In the following photo you can see how the front angle of the door frame doesn't quite match the 'a' pillar.


Both sides were pretty much the same so I spent a few days adjusting the door frames until I came to the conclusion that no matter how I adjusted them they didn't quite fit the door apertures.

I then spent several days trying to research if anyone else had encountered this problem.
I eventually found a thread on an American website that lead back to here
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=16695&start=15

So back in 2007 a fellow DDK'er seemed to have a very similar problem that made me sick to the bottom of my stomach.
I have to admit I didn't sleep much that night (or for quite a few nights afterwards).

[AndrewSlater]

So my fear was that the back of the car had dropped pulling the roof and 'a' pillars with it.

I remembered that the front screen had taken a couple of attempts to fit and in hindsight hadn't been as easy as I had expected.
This would also stack up with the 'a' frames having moved. The more I thought about it the more I was convinced this was the likely problem.
A combination of the paint stripping pyrolysis process, removing metalwork to get at the inner heater tubes, and sitting on a dolly for over a year had probably taken it's toll.

In Steve's thread he had had his shell corrected thanks to Barry and some sizeable trolley jacks.
Of course his shell was corrected pre-paint so this was a different proposition.

I consulted my bodyshop/painter and he felt we could probably tweak the 'a' pillars and door frames and that I was probably worrying too much.

So the plan was to return it to him for some fettling.

But first I would need to reverse the build process and remove the glass, some of the interior trim, etc etc.
I didn't know it at the time but I would need to remove more trim, door locks, side skirts etc, once it got back to the bodyshop.
So another low point in the build.

So just before Christmas it went back to the bodyshop for a few days of tweaking.

[AndrewSlater]

So after a few days it became clear that it would take more than a little fettling and tweaking to fix this problem.

By the time I saw the car again the bodyshop had already put the car on the jig and attempted the trolley jack technique.
This have proven that by jacking the rear the roof and 'a' pillars could be moved. However when the jacks were removed the shell would move back.

We measured the car at the engine mounts and found the rear to be 15mm lower than factory spec, which was quite a large error to correct.

After the exchange of a number of really instructive PMs with Barry it was established that we would need to move the 'a' pillars probably a good 25mm beyond were we needed them for the set to take.

Of course we were worried how a painted shell would take all of this force.
Another worry was that if we could lift the back, move the roof and lift the 'a' pillars then the door gaps would inevitable have to be redone, which meant the car would need to be repainted anyway.
This wan't going to be a quick or cheap fix - but then there was only one way to do it and get the car right.

And if things weren't bad enough we were attempting this with all the mechanicals fitted including the engine and gearbox ( who's mad! ).

Again we tried to correct the shell but even with 25mm+ of extra lift at the rear the back would always drop too far once the jacks were removed.

We soon concluded that some of the metal that had been welded in the car during the restoration was working against us.
We partially removed the sections we had removed to access the inner heater tubes and rejacked the car approximately 30mm beyond where we needed it.
The sections were then welded back in whilst the car was under tension and finally the jacks removed.

This time - success, the engine mounts were within 2-3mm of factory spec and the 'a' pillars were now parallel to the door frames.
The car was left to sit for several weeks to check nothing was moving back.

Now the door gaps have been corrected and the car is all prepared ready for final paint ( I'm hoping it is final this time I'm not sure I can afford to do this again).

So that's the story up to date.
I'm hoping to get the car painted and back within the next week or so, in which case I will be back to where I was over six months ago - time to start fitting the glass again and thinking about carpets!

[defianty]

What an ordeal, I'm not sure I'd have survived that! I've been very diligent measuring my 914 shell over the course of the restoration in fear of something like this.

Pleased to hear you're over it now.

[Gary71]

A sobering story. Good to hear it’s back on track.

I’m going to get my shell dipped so will be very mindful of this potential issue.

[hot66]

Wow ... wasn’t expecting that twist in the story. Sound like it’s at least sorted now and you can back in with the build. You must b made of stern stuff

[AndrewSlater]

I think I would advise anyone having there shell stripped using pyrolysis to do the following:-

a) measure your bodyshell carefully beforehand.
b) weld in some bracing around the door apertures before you have it dipped.
c) remove the inner heater tubes just before it goes for stripping.
d) re-measure the shell upon return
e) replace the inner heater tubes ASAP and re-weld up

Speaking to Barry he does see quite a few shells that have warped in the same way, so this is not an isolated event.
I suspect most people keep quiet about such problems - but I wanted to make sure others were aware of the issue.

So overall it has been an expensive and frustrating 6 months.

To add insult to injury I had to get the non-driving car back up my steep garden from the workshop in order for it to go back to the bodyshop for it's unplanned trip.
I decided that a tow from my 997 C4S was the obvious way to go.


Unfortunately that resulted in an expensive cloud of smoke which was a well cooked clutch and dual mass flywheel - ouch

[keith fellowes]

Oh for FFS!
Andrew, how many times have you said ' sod this for a game of soldiers, I'm going to sell it and get on with my life?'
Really admire your perseverance, but at the end of the day you will have a cracking car