DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

....and then finally onto something I've wanted to see gone for ages......the sunroof!

Filling in a sunroof is not as straightforward as you might think......





......I'll let Barry explain....

....The reason for bonding the board across the roof is that as soon as the internal structure is removed and the skin trimmed back, the roof loses all of its rigidity. It then moves all over the place and as you weld the new panel you end up chasing gaps round and round as the unstable roof and the unstable blank panel fight each other. You’re dealing with a hand-wheeled panel, hot welds and floppy metal. They don’t like it very much so the trick is to get the whole thing locked off and stable wherever you can and be very careful during the whole operation.

The net result is although you spend a long time on the early stages, you’re not chasing your tail trying to correct huge errors that would be a nightmare to sort (and fill) later. Slow and controlled with tiny steps is the key.....





....I'd provided Barry with a hardboard template I'd taken from my original non-sunroof 73E.....



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.....although dare say his own steel profiles are a tad more accurate!....





....and a beautifully finished job by Barry as ever .....





....now we have a short intermission whilst Barry deals with other work.

Cheers,

Other work ...... can’t stop there!

Lovely job.

Darren do you have a target date for completion, or taking the project as it comes?

Gonna be lovely

yoda wrote:Other work ...... can’t stop there!

Just a quick fix for someone else......

23e Heure wrote:Lovely job.

Darren do you have a target date for completion, or taking the project as it comes?

Gonna be lovely

....thanks James......I'd like to finish it yesterday but I'm skint!....not looking past the bodywork at the moment and it might come to a grinding halt for a while. A lot depends on how this years pans out but I'd like to get it finished without having to sell anything.

We'll see

Only just caught up with this thread. How have I missed this. Fantastic work and it’s going to be another amazing car once complete.

Darren you are going to have an enviable garage.

Incredible work

Clear coat it and leave as it is! (only joking!)

In the absence of any meaningful update I thought I'd share details of a few recent acquisitions.......not that Barry hasn't been busy of late and indeed he has sent me through a few, as always, wonderful reports on progress however the money shots are soon to follow so I'll save these for later

The reality with this project is that it's likely to come to a grinding halt in the near future and subject to the economy and business getting back to a (hopefully) degree of normality, but at least at that point I should have a facsimile perfect 3.0RS shell, protected in epoxy and ready for paint and assembly........having reached the point where I may have taken advantage of squirrelled funds, these will now have to be kept in reserve and the big ticket items will have to wait.........but at least I can seek out a few trinkets to keep me occupied....



....

....my quest to find out the ideal way to mount my Lollipops seats was under my nose all the time and, unsurprisingly, documented on page 49 of homologation document #3053 showing the seats fitted onto lightweight rails with Recaro sliders....so this is the way I will go......





....now in an ideal world all parts for this project would be original NOS but that's never going to be possible so I'll content myself with decent reproductions where needed....in this case it'll be later Recaro sliders which I'll modify to have one adjuster with an original Recaro knob to add authenticity and rails supplied by Karmann Konnection which, although not 100% accurate, are a solid reproduction at a good price and almost identical to originals ......



.....

.....next purchase was ATE brake fluid reservoirs. I have these fitted to my orange car and I'd searched for another set for some time without success......I then reached out to Andy who not only suggested where to look (I actually already had) but more importantly what term to search for and within 20 minutes my task was complete. Huge thanks Andy .....



...I sometimes wonder if the small bottle with this pair is a touch smaller than the original but that doesn't always appear to be the case?.........For the past couple of years I've latched on to any RS reference source I've come across and have saved every 3.0RS photo I've found, I quite enjoy spending hours sifting through the photos and discovering details I'd previously missed........one thing is for for certain, and that is there are not two the same! ......all these cars have lived an active life, been modified, built and rebuilt and then some more.....not only that, the factory no doubt also used what parts they had available at the time so you can never say never!

Whilst many real 3.0RS's out there are clearly some way from their original factory specification I'll attempt to keep this build as close to 1974 as I can....



....

...of my recent buys probably my favourite are these period NOS Hella number plate lamps....



....these are certainly an item that differ from car to car.....you will see both chrome or black and whilst many cars have much later lamps fitted originally there seems to have been two types fitted, those you see above and a slightly taller type....











....I would have preferred black and might coat these that way for aesthetic reasons but still a great find even though they might not get fitted for quite some time!

Cheers,

Going to be a cool car Darren. Got to say the mongrel looks fantastic in the above pictures

Thanks Mark

Darren65 wrote:...of my recent buys probably my favourite are these period NOS Hella number plate lamps....



....these are certainly an item that differ from car to car.....you will see both chrome or black and whilst many cars have much later lamps fitted originally there seems to have been two types fitted, those you see above and a slightly taller type....



153279491.MuokupgA.2 by Darren Tompkins, on Flickr







....I would have preferred black and might coat these that way for aesthetic reasons but still a great find even though they might not get fitted for quite some time!

Cheers,

I have these on the back of mine and have found them to have been fitted to a number of cars over time, not just the original BMW 2002(?). Porsche 917 has them on its back deck and also the Ruf Yellowbird.

That's interesting Ian, I wasn't aware of the 917 or Yellow Bird link but no doubt used in a number of applications over the years. A common item back in the day but harder to find nowadays.

Cheers,

I tried adding some pictures but realised I don’t know how to re-size them..... Google is your friend as usual