DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Time for an update.
First off a 'Spot the difference' quiz. Look at the front quarterlight windows in the last post of mine, and the one below. £1m to the winner - well I got a e-mail this morning from some bloke in Spain saying I'd won a £1m on their lottery - I don't need the money so I'm offering it as a prize.... (And it's not that they're the other way up!)



Anyway back to the serious business. Got myself some outer edge floor panels (thanks Chris), so it's time to sort the floor edges, kidney bowls and the sills.

You'll recall the LH floor edge looks like this



Some serious open heart surgery reveals some damage to the outer seat rail support as well as more thinning of the floor edge than was apparent from inside the car (isn't there always!). The orange stain is from Metal Ready.



Jacking point is solid though



So a couple of repair panels and a coat of self-etch primer (POR 15 of course)



Cut and fit the floor edge panel - it's wet with Metal Ready



and coat with, yes, you've guessed POR 15 Rust Encapsulator. Job done. I have about 400mm of the front of the floor edge panel unused, so if anyone needs that piece only and would like to give me £30 plus p&p to defray my purchase cost of the full panel please send a pm. I will shortly have an even longer bit (500mm I'd guess) from the other side as well.



My shock absorbers that the TSA tried so hard to steal from me have finally arrived. I have removed the old inserts (Koni as suspected from the red tops - anybody want them? I think it best to assume they'd need servicing before use) and trial fitted (ie I have not torqued down the top locknut on the insert). A question... They are Bilstein and came with a ring sellotaped to the bottom of the insert - see photo



When removed it looks like this



Given the locknut seats perfectly in the threads in the outer strut without this ring on the base of the strut I assume it is either for another (non Boge) outer, or it fits somewhere else (under the dust cover?). The mounting instructions are 'silent on the subject'. I know Bilstein struts have internal bump stops, so no rubbers, and I remember reading somewhere (Nick Moss I think) that the thin rubber ring on the top bolt is just for shipping and is to be binned when fitting. Any other wise words before I make a tool to torque the locknuts down?

EDIT 30th JULY 2012: After I had assembled the car and road-tested it was obvious that there was too much vertical play in the front suspension, and some clunking to boot. Jacking up the front wheels and levering the wheel up and down gave about 5-6 mm of free movement (and a clunk) before the shock absorber took over - just the same amount as the thickness of the brass ring. So I dismantled the strut and re-taped the ring where it was on delivery and reinstalled. No clunk......... so the answer is you need the leave them attached and install inside the strut.

I have also decided to refit the original steering rack setup, with the damper, Slientblocs, standard rods and TRE's. I have sourced a new Boge replacement damper (£60 including shipping from classicgarage.com in NY state - which I think is a result) having been told they are NLA/mega expensive. They sell a Koni version for about £100 shipped to the UK if anyone is looking for one.

I am also in the market for a 15mm front ARB, and possibly a complete 15 mm rear one as well if anyone has one they are prepared to part with. As a minimum it would seem sensible to install the mounting plates and the ball joints on the trailing arms while the car is in bits/upside down. Again any views welcome.

Day's work tomorrow then back to the fun on Saturday.

Can I enter the quarter window completion please?

Very impressive floor repair Mick

Premature ejaculation ... again.
Just heard from classicgarage.com - no Boge or Koni steering dampers available, and unable to get any .... looks like I'll be refurbishing the old one unless I can find another reasonably priced option.

Following Barry's Tech advice post, today I tackled the B post inner repair, the A post inner and outer repair and the fitting of the inner sill.

First up more surgery on the rear wing, kidney bowl (what was left!) and the area underneath at the base of the B post.



Then a repeat of the RH side to repair the A post base and fit the inner sill. I made up a repair section for inside the A post and then another for the outer, welded and primed just like the other side. After some checking of alignment (actually the panel was a great fit) I plug welded the inner sill - paying note of the need for good penetration (comme d'hab!)- and then fabricated a section to fit on top of the inner sill B post end and replace the lost section under the kidney bowl. Lots of plug welds (and a few seams) in the area of the jacking points as per Barry's fine thread (not quite as symmetrical I have to confess!). Add the jacking point support (more plugs and four seam welds).




Then some POR 15 self etch primer, weld through primer where the kidney bowl will go, and some seam sealer along the welded seam and we're done for the day.



I plan to do the same for the other side next week, then rotate the car to normal, do some minor repairs to the doors, and then trial fit the doors with the outer sills/kidney bowls before welding them in place.
But first some kind chap has invited me to Lords for England v India tomorrow. Not a big cricket fan, but live sport is always worth a watch, and the beer tent will be a good fallback. More next week ......

Good going and very neat.
The imperial measurments made me smile!
Keep the updates coming, most interesting.

911hillclimber wrote

The imperial measurments made me smile!

I was on a work course recently and was told that we aren't allowed to use the term "imperial" anymore while refering to measurements, we have to use "inch". This is because "imperial" is unPC and has connotations of dominance and superiority . The world has gone mad, I tell you. Completely mad!!!

Fan-bloody-tastic

Just curious: why did you choose POR15?

You think it will last?

Hello Barwaut,

I have tried a lot (most?) of the rust prevention/rust encapsulators on the market today as I have worked my way through five 50/60/70's restorations (3 Morris Minor's, Landrover S2a, TR4A and now the first of two 911's.) I haven't got a car done in POR-15 that's been completed for 20 years so in that sense I don't KNOW that it will last, but what I do know is that it forms a truly bonded coating with mildly rusty steel in a manner that none of its competitors can emmulate. After it has cured it is impossible to remove without an angle grinder, and it is very difficult to chip or scratch. Only thing is you do have to overcoat it with something as it will deteriorate with UV exposure.

When overcoated with POR-15 chassis black it gives a satin coating almost indistinguishable from powder coating (I have lined up a mixture of powder coated and POR treated suspension components and asked various restorers to tell me which is which). You can tell, but not easily! In my opinion it looks closer to the original Porsche coating than powder-coating.

When coated with POR Tie coat primer you can then spray modern 2 pack on top with confidence that if the paint is chipped the coating underneath will probably remain intact and certainly avoid rust spreading unseen underneath. I did the engine bay on the TR4A this way. If you get any rust encapsulator in the rim of the tin it will weld the two together and you will wreck the tin getting the top off again - if you can - so it sticks better than sh*t to a blanket! It is also a great coating to brush on. I plan to use it on all of the 911 apart from the outside of the roof, wings, engine cover and bonnet, coated with chassis black in the footwells and the engine compartment - and coated with tie coat primer and the spray sealer under the floorpan,the wings and under the bonnet.

Eastwoods product is very similar, but a bit more watery. I have used it on the Landrover chassis with Eastwoods Chassis black on top and it is of comparable quality, but just doesn't feel as firmly bonded when applied. That said it tied with POR-15 in one mag test I saw.

Hammerite won't even stop the tin going rusty and everything I've used it on (mainly an oil tank and some gates/gateposts) went rusty within a couple of years of being outside. Waste of money

I favour Dinitrol products for spraying into box sections and the like.

All that said in summary I have been guided by lots of comments on lots of different classic car restoration websites, and by my own experience of what products seem likely to be effective given the way they go on to the surface - but it is still very subjective and all of them would fail even my own personal standards for truly scientific product testing!

So you pays your money (quite a bit in the case of POR-15!) etc etc.

Interesting. I too have been through a few in my years and the 911 I have i did with 8 months welding on the tub.

Finished in Comma red oxide and smoothrite in 1988/89.

Car has done about 70K miles since then, mostly in the summer months, sleeping outside under a cover in those winters inbetween. Where the Smoothrite is exposed to wear (lower rear behind the front wheels, base of the A post) it is weak, even with stone chip down there. In the wheel arches where rain water simply runs down it it is still strong with minimal touching up after all those years.

Cetainly today's Smoothrite is nothing like the tins 20 years ago, the Green influence i think.

To measurements, I went to Tech College in 1970 when the country went metric, a superior system imho so I used both systems, 'inches' and metric (to be PC bullsh-t correct) and currently have a Lola race car made in 1978 which is all Imperial, so use both types now!

Great thread, great pics, and we all owe Barry a pint!

Thanks - and agree wholeheartedly re Barry - his threads and comments are invaluable to people like me doing a 911 for the first time. The consequences of a cock-up on a 911 are somewhat more costly than on a Morris Traveller, so 'trial and error' is not a great restoration strategy!

Re measurements I like you am 'bilingual' having been at school/uni through the transition. I favour metric, but it depends which side of the steel rule is uppermost at the time I think! When you see the photos of the other side you'll see some metric ones.
Some measurements just seem more natural in one system or the other - somehow ft.lb. is just right, and N.m isn't (like psi v bar), whereas it's deg.C and kg every time. Also the simplicity of the metric nut/bolt/spanner system is marvellous after several years of Whitworth, BSF, UNF, UNC, BA, BSP etc etc

Anyway, back to restoration....

Great thread and a really interesting one to follow through to the final 'on the road' day.

Re: measurements, I had a conversation at I think Jewsons a few years ago :-

Me - can I have some posts of 3 X 2 (meaning inches)
Jewson - sorry we only do 75 X 50 nowadays (meaning mm)
Me - OK I will have 6 of those in 6 foot lengths
Jewson - that will be fine

So width and height in metric and length in imperial - daft.

They weather still makes me laugh as we have temperature in celsius and wind speed in miles per hour.

Ian

Great job. Looks like your getting well on with it. I was just looking at your floor, do you think the floor has been replaced in the past or was it original?

Keep the updates coming.
Kind regards

Hello John,

Original I'm sure - no evidence at all of anything other than factory welding/fitting/interior. Bear in mind it was only 'on the road' for 11 years maximum 66-77, so not much opportunity for major structural replacements like a new floor.

Mick

Got tired of metalwork so for light relief I took to the wooden steering wheel.

First stripped off the paint and the tatty, but still well attached, varnish. A good sand down of both metal and wood



A couple of coats of primer and then about 8 light coats of satin black - did still get one 'run' that was annoying on the metal, and 4-5 coats of Rustins Plastic coating on the wood (used it on my TR4A dash to good effect, and no one suggested anything better.



Then to the horn push. (The foam in the picture was an earlier effort and not the one I used - I found it needed to be bigger - and circular!)





The leather centre was in a sorry state - v. brittle and deformed so I have been covering it with leather moisturiser every day for a couple of weeks and now it's like it was just off the cow! The chrome rim was also v tatty, but I managed to dismantle it from the push paddle and get it rechromed. Anyway I cut a piece of foam for a backing to the leather centre, glued it in place and carefully pressed the chrome ring in place. It's not obvious, but there is a small indent in the rim of the metal plate that provides the backing to the foam, and one of the tabs on the chrome ring has a small 'pip' pressed into it.



Anyway unless you line these two up you'll never get the chrome rim to fit in place. It's a bl**dy tight fit as it is, but eventually it clipped in place. Bend the tabs over and you're done - providing you made sure the Porsche logo is properly lined up!



Clip the push on the wheel and Voila!



Well pleased

So back to the metalwork