914 2.0 > 3.0 GT Conversion

[rhd racer]

Amazing work Stephen

[chief]

Man alive you have found all the rust my car didn't have!!!!!
I have to say, i'm not sure how you keep so positive
Look fabulous though and you've done it all yourself, so bloomin well done sunshine
Glad to see you have a telly in there to watch the ruby
I'll just go back to my piddling about in the garage then

[RichardJ]

Thank you very much for posting your photos of cutting the rust out in the hell hole area. They are very useful to me, enabling me to see just which bits are double skinned, as mine appears to have an almost identical amount of corrosion as yours did pre repair in this area.

Can I ask what you have used to finish sand your welded seams where you have butt welds? Was it the die grinder sanding disc I can see in some of the pics, or do you also have one of those neat looking 3” orbital sanders too? I am looking to buy some new tools to make repairing the ‘hell hole’ slightly less hellish. I just bought a tiny 2” PCL angle grinder, but having found out that nobody other than PCL seems to keep the discs, which are probably a proprietary design, in stock, and they work out to almost £8 each (that’s not an error!), it’ll be going straight back.

I have been welding for 20+ years, mig and tig, but do not consider myself any kind of expert. I have not done any bodywork for a long time now. The quality of the repairs you are doing is excellent, most impressive given that I think I read you’d only done a 1 day welding course before starting this project. I’ll be more than pleased if my hell hole repairs come out even close to as neat as yours have, so thanks for the inspiration!

[defianty]

Thank you very much for posting your photos of cutting the rust out in the hell hole area. They are very useful to me, enabling me to see just which bits are double skinned, as mine appears to have an almost identical amount of corrosion as yours did pre repair in this area.

Thanks, not the easiest of repairs due to the location really. It felt like a never ending job. I fitted the battery tray the other day so it was nice to tick off that area for good.

Can I ask what you have used to finish sand your welded seams where you have butt welds? Was it the die grinder sanding disc I can see in some of the pics, or do you also have one of those neat looking 3” orbital sanders too? I am looking to buy some new tools to make repairing the ‘hell hole’ slightly less hellish. I just bought a tiny 2” PCL angle grinder, but having found out that nobody other than PCL seems to keep the discs, which are probably a proprietary design, in stock, and they work out to almost £8 each (that’s not an error!), it’ll be going straight back.

90deg die grinder mainly with 50mm/2" 36 grit Roloc discs. The discs I get form ebay, 50 at a time for about £10. At that price as soon as the edge starts to wear I throw them. I've probably used about 150+ on the car so far.

I have been welding for 20+ years, mig and tig, but do not consider myself any kind of expert. I have not done any bodywork for a long time now. The quality of the repairs you are doing is excellent, most impressive given that I think I read you’d only done a 1 day welding course before starting this project. I’ll be more than pleased if my hell hole repairs come out even close to as neat as yours have, so thanks for the inspiration!

Thanks again. I've improved hugely over the last few months and really think I'm getting somewhere now. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, patience really seems to be the key with this kind of welding as it's all too easy to add too much heat to the metal and ruin it. I've now developed a process that works well for me and continuously gives me good results.

[RichardJ]

Thanks. It turns out that the £8 per disc for the mini grinder I bought was an error after all. I sent a moaning e-mail to the manufacturers, saying there was just no way I'd be paying that much, and the tool would be going back. Their sales director phoned me today thanking me for pointing out what was apparently an error in their web shop, which they have now corrected, making the discs now about 55% of the previously advertised price. Still expensive, but they are sending me 10 or free, and it looks like I can easily adapt the grinder to take the very cheap 3" cutting discs too having done some measuring. They're actually 60mm discs, despite being advertised as being 2". Strange.

It looks like I can get a Roloc disc adaptor for the same tool from ebay for about £3, so I'll be giving that a try now I know what you've used to 'make your welds disappear'.

[defianty]

Ok, let's get on to the next instalment!

Before I start buttoning everything back together I need to add the drivers side GT strengthening as I never got around to doing this side previously.



With that in place I could start putting it all back together.

I didn't want to cut this off originally but installing the new jacking point but removing it made the installation of the jacking point much easier.



I'm not sure why I chose to cut this piece like I did. Drilling the spot welds would have been the better option.

All back in place now though.


I could now get on to welding in the sail panels.


Getting some seam sealer in place as this area will be difficult to access once it's all back together.


Drivers side sail panel in place. I thought it turned out well.


That was going to be it for that side now as I wanted to fit the sail on at the same time. This way I could measure them both as they were being fitted so I knew they were in the perfect location.

[defianty]

The passenger side was a lot trickier due to having to fit a new door jamb panel too. Getting this to fit perfectly took an age and I spent far more time measuring and checking things that it actually took to install.





The reproduction panel doesn't come with the bolt receiver holder so that had to be fabricated. Here you can see the state of the original panel that suffered badly in the accident. Drilled full of holes and stuffed with filler.





The passenger side the lower rear quarter I had to fabricate as the replacement panel I sourced was too rusty to use. Buying new isn't an option.

I've got to be honest here I never for a second thought this was going to work and it always worried me just how I was going to repair this rear quarter and actually be happy with it.

Anyway, don't laugh this is what I did.

After cutting out a piece of steel the right size screwed it onto the rusty replacement panel and used it as a template. I then carefully hammered over the edge to give me the return I needed. By using a shrinker on the return I was able to add the curve in the panel to match the side of the door. I did all this months ago and it was only last week, after never finding a better solution, that I pulled this panel out and decided to go with it.





Now having a replacement door with the correct shape finally I could hold up my fabricated panel and see if it was going to work.

Well, would you look at that! Not bad.


All cut down and ready to weld in.



I seem to have forgotten to photograph the passenger sail panel install, I could have probably used the shots of the other side and flipped them. I doubt anyone would have noticed

Slow and steady.


Done! Just a slight adjustment of the door gap needed but at this stage it was less than 0.5mm out.

[defianty]

Before I finished of the rear quarter I need to address these holes in my new door. It looks like a previous owner had installed an aftermarket mirror or two. As many of you know the mounting point for oem mirror is already in the door all that's need is to drill the holes in the correct place.

Looking up from inside the door. You can make out the threaded holes ready for the mirror fittings.


Driving up a center punch from inside the door gives you the spots where to drill. I drilled in with a 2mm bit and when filed out the holes to the correct size.

With the new holes drilled it was time to fill the others.


Job completed.

[defianty]

With the sail panel, lower rear quarter and the other end complete I could finally piece together this patchwork rear quarter and wrap up the passenger side! To say I was excited to finally get this done was an understatement!

Patchwork!


Flare going on.


Again is surprising just how long this takes to do. The butt weld join on the rear arches is over five foot long!

The other end.


This part at the end of the arch needed some attention, this is how I received it and I couldn't leave it like that.



Better.


Drum roll!

Passenger side complete!

[keith fellowes]

What a great job you are doing. Most impressive

Your excitement of seeing the end of tunnel is almost palpable

[LMR]

Wow!

Brilliant work.

Keep the updates coming Stephen

[chief]

More fantastic work there Stephen!
Saw your post over on the 914 U.S.A and as I expected there are quite a few differing opinions...
You have the skills to engineer your own solution, I reccomend that route.
Your car has made such dramatic progress of late, it's unrecognisable. Well done that man!

[sladey]

Awesome stuff Stephen - looks great to see that whole side in steel

[defianty]

Thanks everyone. Indeed it's great to see it all come together. All signs of the accident damage gone and although it'll need a light skin of filler in places, it won't be sculpted from the damn stuff!

[Dean.s]

Nice work indeed. Can't wait to have a bigger workshop (like yours) for my next build.