Before fitting anything, we spent some time ultrasonically cleaning the various nuts and bolts we needed, to avoid getting any greasy mess onto the painted panels. Then onto refitting panels. First off we fitted the engine an froot lids, then the doors.
The doors did not go so well. Having fitted new hinge bushes, the hinges were mounted on the doors (struggle 1 – needed to relieve the top and bottom faces of the hinge bushes). Then the driver’s door was hung. IT WON’T CLOSE !!!!
The door was hitting the B-post – by a lot. Much examination and head scratching followed. The good thing was that the door gap seemed wider at the top than the bottom, so not a case of the shell having distorted. Checking left side to right side gave equal measurements, so probably not a shell issue. So we took a break for lunch. Unfortunately, after the break for bacon rolls nothing had miraculously changed – the door still wouldn’t close.
We mounted the passenger door, and that was exactly the same !
More head scratching. Thoughts were leaning towards the hinge part mounted to the door being the culprit. When the doors came back from stripping, the hinge wouldn’t move and took considerable force to loosen them up – maybe I had bent the doors in doing this ?? This line of reasoning was supported by the doors striking the top corner of the closing panel in front of the A-post, so it the part of the hinge on the door could come in and back, then clearance would return and the door would move forwards.
While considering how it might be possible to bend the door at the hinge area, I finally realised that I was a bigger plonker than normal – the hinges were the wrong way around
. When I picked up the first hinge, there were indents from the securing bolts, so that had told me which was around to fit the hinges – turns put one hinge had indents on both sides, and that was the first hinge I fitted. Swapped them around and guess what – the doors actually fit in the hole. Relieved doesn’t cover my emotions at this point.Needed a big shim on the passenger door top hinge and a thin one on the top driver’s door, and all was nicely lined up along the sills and B-posts. I might add a smidgen more weld to the rear edge of the driver’s door to reduce the gap from 5 to 4mm like the other gaps, but other than that, gaps remain as good as when I fettled them, before the car was stripped.
Then we hung the wings I got from the swap meet. On my original wings I has built up weld on the rear edge of one wing already, but now with my new wings, I need to do the same thing again. The gap is 8mm or so on both sides – nicely parallel, but toooo wide. Also, the wings have fallen out with the froot lid – there are about 8mm (parallel) gaps down both sides.
The angle of the photo and the height of the wings make the gaps seem better than they really are - I assume that I need to bend the inner wings in slightly to fix this, or maybe flex the wings in at their top flange.
The engine lid hinges need some adjustment. The froot lid was aligned with the scuttle panel. All appears good, except for the off side corner by the scuttle.
It looks really obvious in this picture that the panel slopes up from the original scuttle to the outer edge of the repair section. Those with good memories will remember that I had to slice the nearside repair panel as it sat too high. I didn’t get time to check and fettle the offside before it went to stripping, but it looks like it will need the same treatment. Both scuttle end repair panels were fitted as low as I could get them – disappointing that both needed significant work. Anyway, should have checked this before paint, but I was getting very nervous about the passing of time and an unprotected shell. Still, it’s only in primer, so no big issue.
So, this is where we left the car
Almost looking like a 911 again
The next day I tidied up a bit, then attacked the rigid fuel lines. The ferrules looked rather rusty and although the flexible pipe sections looked in fine fettle, I decided to change them. Following the good advice on here, I cut off the ferules with my Dremel
and removed the flexible pipe sections
I'm pleased that I decided to do this 'while I was here', as one end of one of the flexible pipes actually looked like it was starting to balloon once the ferrule was removed. and ordered some new fuel injection pipe and some Mikalor double o clamps. I also ordered a new banjo fitting but need to do some research on what the end fitting is on the other pipe.
Not likely to play much now until after the NEC show, when I need to collect some more epoxy primer so I can paint the large pile of shot blasted suspension components taking up space in the middle of the floor. Oh, and I think I need an aircon unit
– whether paint or Dinitrol, or similar (see separate post). While I'm in that area - I have two pull-thru wires to pull the fuel pipes back through the correct route. Unfortunately, my pull-thru for the wiring loom has gone walk-about. Where exactly does that go 
). It was a Porsche event though (a day out for marketing staff, but unfortunately no goodies came my way). A new regulator and water trap arrived on my return, only to find the regulator didn’t and the water trap was waaaay toooo restrictive. Refund issued and I got a replacement regulator from another source – it leaks from a joint, so is also going back !. Anyway, I bought another spray gun that had a regulator with it that seems to work, but of course the weather has now chilled down again, so I’ll wait until it warms up before attempting to spray more epoxy primer.
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. I’ve never seen the main drive face plate come fully adrift from the diaphragm before, but it does make for a tuneful clunky noise when you dip the clutch. A car that has not been apart in 100k miles is not keen to let any of its parts loose, but a mere 10 hours after I started (I thought it would take 2, but have never done a FWD clutch before), the gearbox was finally sitting on the garage floor but the clutch was changed. Thankfully Alexcx the garage bitch came a-calling the following day (thanks mate 
), and after a mere 6 hours, including a stop for leisurely bacon and egg butties followed by a trip to the local Ford stealer for replacement lower ball joint pinch bolts, it was all back together and running 
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Since then I’ve put my toe-tector boots on !
