Wot, not another '79 Targa resto thread

[jtparr]

Great to be close to the end of the weldathon....

[911hillclimber]

Good going on the wings!
I did that task a few years ago now and found the curve of the repaired area to be critical to the overall fit to the lower sill rebate.
Suggest a full wing fit-up before paint incase of some tweeks to the steel shape?

Strip and primer etc will feel great.

[PeterK]

That's a sound plan since I have the time.
I've been focusing on the major rust removal and then stripping, but always expected to have to do panel tweaking after stripping. Hopefully it is only panel tweaking and not straightening the tub !

[PeterK]

After my mega-day efforts on the front wings, today was just a quick play to sort the cover sills.

First I needed to make some replacement brackets for the lower mountings of the cover sills. My original (well most of it) looked like


I decided that rather than just self-tappers into the brackets, I would fit spire nuts / captive nuts or whatever


So snip, snip, bish, bash and


On the upper mounting points, I thought that the self-tapper holes in the sill were bodges, so had welded them up earlier . Here I thought that rivnuts would be suitable, so drill , drill, squeeze and crush and …


Then the replacement brackets were tacked on and primed (maybe a little splash happy here and didn't even leave time for the primer to dry )



Next up I cleaned the garage, span the car around and it’s now ready to trial fit the front wings. Will they fit after all my repairs – only time will tell.

[PeterK]

On a roll now – onto the front wing fitment

The nearside front wing was not original to the car - it was on it when I bought the car, but it had clearly been changed at some time. As I’ve mentioned previously, the door gaps on this side were horrendous when I bought the targa – it looked like the gap to the wing was huge and so the door had been moved to the middle of the hole. All gaps were nasty.

Now the door gaps to both rear wing and sill are acceptable (3-4mm), it would be interesting to see how the front wing lined up. Well …..after a lot of fiddling ....

The shapes of the wings are not too far out]


That last photo looks horrendous, but that’s mainly old paint and drippy primer , not rust (honest sirs).

And the door to wing gaps are



So the answer was not as bad as I expected, with gaps ranging from 4 to 6mm. I’ll tighten up the larger gaps to about 4mm, by putting a bead of weld on the rear edge of the wing. What was not so good was the scuttle to wing alignment. Remember that I replaced the outer corners of the scuttle on both sides, and they didn't come labeled as Porsche parts, so probably Dansk. I placed it as low as it would go, but it ranges between 4 and 7mm too high relative to the wing top


The other side is very similar, both with the door to front wing gaps


And the scuttle to wing height


On the assumption that they’re not all like that Sir, I need to do something. Option 1 - I raise the wing to more level with the scuttle, but then the gap to the top front edge of the door is enormous and there is an opening gap from the door to the wing, increasing from the bottom to the top, so also not a viable option. Option 2 would be to build the wing top up with filler, but that doesn’t make me feel good. That leaves me with option 3 - to slice horizontally the side of the scuttle pieces and gently beat them lower. So, before I lay into the scuttle with my trusty cutting disc, any other thoughts ???

[911hillclimber]

I went through all this in '89 and with Dansk wings, 3 weeks ago...
I decided to try to even the gaps and heights at that same junction, murder to move anything.
I decided to work on the wing to correct things, and that is tricky.
This is why I suggested a full fit of the wings.
I think dropping the scuttle to suit is a good move as long as it fixes all the issues!

Keep at it, love diy effort.

[Jonny Hart]

I’m fairly certain Mr Doorgap himself (Barry) once told me that the wing ‘finger’ to door gap is wider so that when it is viewed from the side it looks even with the vertical door to wing gap.

[PeterK]

Thanks Jonny

[PeterK]

Lots of chores and visiting my daughters (not a chore) over the next few days, so a quick status update.

I’ve just been playing with the NSF wing and associated gaps, starting with the wing to scuttle height difference.
We had this (top left of picture) - about a 7mm difference in height


So first some slitty, slitty


Followed by some weldy, weldy, grindy, grindy


Much better


This evening it was onto the rear edge of the wing. I’d marked the gaps


Built up some weld


And then ground some off


The gaps are now about 3mm, with an area in the lower third probably 2.5mm, so the gaps needs opening out a little, a few small areas require building up and then the welds need finishing properly. By on the whole, quite pleased with where we’re at.

[911hillclimber]

Job well done!

[PeterK]

A little while since I updated this thread, but I have been busy doing ‘stuff’, including starting to strip down the engine, so more updates to follow. In the meantime, today I have mostly been getting ready for the trek to the Midlands in the morning (do I need to pack my passport ). Borrowed trailer - just had to replace all of the lights !


Engine lid and froot in the back of the tow car, but will they do these while I’m there ?


No harm in asking

[PeterK]

So, I have a few moments between chores, so time to upload a few photos from the last week or so.
Had the Garage Bitch (young Alexcxcxcx) over to play, so we got stuck into the engine. It appears that Nikasil barrels have 10 fins whereas Alusil have 11. Didn’t know that at the time, and thought that you could either look for the branding on the base of the cylinders or use a fridge magnet to check. So, wanting to know what I had and what condition they were in, I only had one option. Starting here


… we passed through here (with thanks to those that helped give me confidence when the No. 6 and No.4 wrist / gudgeon pins were reluctant to come out)



I had tried to remove No. 6 but the pin only came part way and got scared, so moved to No. 4 and had pretty much the same thing. I bent the end of a screw driver to hook the pins out. When that was showing little sign of success, I moved onto deploying a long piece of threaded stud-bar, with a nut and washer on both ends. The one end pulled on the pin and the other stopped my pliers slipping off when I tapped them with a hammer. The removal of the circlips and then trying to get a nut and a washer on the end of the threaded bar (reaching between cylinders, holding the items in the jaws of long-nosed pliers) was not overly relaxing. I had visions of bits flying or dropping into the crankcase. It is coming apart so recovery would ultimately be easy, but was trying to keep all elements of each P&C together.

We had a brief pause to inspect a pair of these sets


I guess that the ‘popping’ noise when the engine ran had something to do with a pair of these ‘modified’ compression rings. The outer, exhaust side head stud on both No. 4 & No. 6 cylinders had failed (the broken bit of one of them had been removed and the engine just buttoned up again in the past).


And we ended with the P&Cs of No. 4,5 & 6 removed and 3 bags of these



I now have a set of 98mm Wossner pistons on the way, and thanks to John, a set of high mileage 95mm SC cylinders (confusingly 10 fin but labelled KS). When the pistons arrive they’re off with the cylinders, which will be bored and re-plated.


Monday saw Alexcxcxcx and me off to Birmingham to drop off the SC for stripping. Got shown around by Vaughan and saw what Sam’s 912 looking good in primer.

Back home, I made a round hole and fitted an explosion proof fan into the garage wall, but didn’t like the fitting. Made a square window surround, cut a square hole in the garage wall and mounted it, then bolted the fan into that - much better looking now. All wired and sucking nicely. I’ve also got a cheap fan to blow air into the garage, to keep my plastic tent slightly positive. Unfortunately it sucks air up the 5m flexible pipe and blows out of the fan. What I really needed was one that blew out through the hose, so that the fan was nowhere near to the garage. Unless someone knows how to rewire the inner wiring of a fan motor, I guess I’ll have to make a round tube to fit into the outlet of the fan, and mount the flexible pipe to that.

Then onto painting the floor. I did previously paint it just after we moved in, and although the paint is water resistant, when there’s a flash flood outside the garage that ends up running over the blocked land drain and floods the garage, it all breaks up. Anyway, I took advantage of the space while the Targa is on holiday in Birmingham and finally got around to brushing and vacuuming up all that’s left of the old stuff. I piled all my detritus up in one side of the garage and painted the other side. BTW, after the flash flood left 2" of water in the garage, I did replace the land drains with gutter style drains.

I know there’s a thread about tiling, etc, but I had some paint. My main intention is to give a more dust free base for when I’m painting. I do lay tarpaulin on the floor when painting, but the painted surface will be less dusty, and make it easier to clean the garage before I start. After I’ve painted both sides and the paint has gone hard, I need to clean the thick layer of crap that’s sitting on everything caused by a year’s welding and grinding, then sort y boxes. I have separate boxes for each area of the car as I stripped it. Unfortunately all of my new purchases are in other boxes, so I intend to sort the new bits into the relevant ‘old bits’ boxes.

Targa is due back on the 8th, so I’ve got my work cut out, what with all this bah humbug Xmas, speaking to the family and being nice marlarky as well.

So, not much else will happen in the meantime, so a Merry Xmas to you and yours.
Peter

[Gary71]

Best of luck getting everything sorted in time. That thick layer of crap in a working garage takes forever to remove.

After spending about 6 hours today with an angel grinder my ‘not going to dip it’ plan looks flawed!

Can’t wait to see the shiny shell in a couple of weeks!

[PeterK]

Thanks Gary
It will be interesting to see how accurate my 'I've done all of the rust repairs' is when it comes back

[Gary71]

Thanks Gary
It will be interesting to see how accurate my 'I've done all of the rust repairs' is when it comes back

Saving grace is that it will be lovely to weld (again!)