1973 2.0L Rustoration, Restoration turned OT garage build Options

[bbrock]

Thanks for the details on the clock. Makes sense now. I'm thinking maybe I should open mine to clean and relube before plugging it in as a preventative measure. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[Superhawk996]

Happy to be of help!

I ordered some special watch oil that is supposed to be used to lube the clock jewel and other mechanical pivots. We'll see how that works!

I especially appreciate the tip on the trim spray and on getting glass cut - something will definitely have to be done to correct the red inner bezels!

I think I may try to polish out the plastic lens. If that doesn't work I'm going to try your glass tip.

[Superhawk996]

Didn't get much done that looks impressive.

I did sandblast and prep the engine mount with POR Metal Prep.

Back side was pretty heavily pitted. It cleaned up but there is some metal loss.



Does anyone have any tips on what to do with the heavily pitted material?

Front slide looks good.



Seems like if I've gone to this trouble to do all this removal and salvage of the part, I'd rather know that there is enough material there for sure.

I think there is still enough base metal there to weld to but would feel better if I maybe doubled it from the front side?

[Superhawk996]

Great looking restoration!

Check out this page for rear suspension inner console reinforcement plates:

http://www.tangerineracing.com/chassis.htm

John

Thank you -- Love Tangerine!! Bought a set but haven't had time to get to these yet.

[Superhawk996]

Have not posted in a while but I've been working. Not terribly exciting visual progress.

At this point I'm basically struggling with too many degrees of freedom on placement of the inner wheel house panel.

I was finally able to settle on that and have since Cleco'd it into place after I was satisfied that the panel is in the right fore aft direction and also that the basis of the interface to the inner and outer longitudinal are at the right Z height and are basically level to the other driver side rail as a reference.



Spent the last couple weekends on two tick points:
1) Jack post location & prep
2) Getting outer suspension trailing arm mount prepped

On the jack post front I ran into a interesting issue. Since I've been using Jeff Hail's Thread as the basis for getting me started and rationality checking what I do I found that the dimensions he had noted didn't match to my vehicle for the jack post location.

Jeff has kindly posted so much information and he's a much better artist than I will ever be. I think this one may have been a typo.



Dimension of 43 1/4" didn't match my vehicle though all of Jeff's other measurements for things like the suspension console mounts did match exactly.

This lead to much double checking and trying to figure out if I was doing something wrong. Ultimately the measurements from my car need to be considered "master" for my project.

In my case my jack post needs to be at 47 1/4 inches as measured from the very front of the front fender lip that the outer rocker locates from. It was the same for the driver side on my car.



I can't reiterate the importance of doing mock up work just to double check.






In my case, installation of the outer rocker confirms that 47 1/4" is the right measurement for me.



So satisfied that I had things in the right place, I've welded the jack post to the Wheelhouse panel.

[Superhawk996]

The trailing arm mount on my car came with one of the three bolts pre-broken and better yet, there were remnants of a broken EZ-OUT in inside the bolt hole. The only real way to fix this is to either use and EDM machine to burn the hardened extractor out (not possible on vehicle) or to replace it.

This lead to me ordering a bobbin from Tangerine (Did I mention they are a great vendor (IMG:style_emoticons/default/first.gif) ).

First I cleaned up the other two holes with a tap and Proof Torqued the fasteners to make sure they were sound and would hold torque. It would be really crappy to find out later after welding the console mount that one was weak and would strip.



Putting it in the new bobbin took a bit of time. However the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that this was much easier to do on the bench. I wouldn't look forward to doing this under the vehicle

Started by removing the bad bobbin.



The new bobbin is on the left.

Since my outer console mount had some metal loss on the floor of the mount, I decided to put in some new metal as reinforcement. Had to do a little pattern development.





Welding in the reinforcement





I also ran into a little problem where the new bobbin wasn't at quite the same height as the other two. It was maybe about 3/32" too low. I used the old trailing arm outer pivot to serve as a datum. By tightening the other two bolts first the third can then be pulled up to the right height. At that point I began tacking and final welding.




I also predictably ran into some issues blowing holes into the thin pitted metal that was previously reinforced. Patience . . . and TIG welder really helps with this.




All in all things turnd out to may satisfaction.







Next step: Gotta get this located properly to the inner wheelhouse panel. In my case, since I didn't cut the outer quarter panel for access, it needs to be welded to the panel before I weld in the wheelhouse panel.

[euro911]

I drill two holes in the bottom of each jack point support to allow for better drainage.

Then a small dose of Eastwood's Internal Frame Coating can be sprayed in there to keep the inside surfaces protected.

[Superhawk996]

I drill two holes in the bottom of each jack point support to allow for better drainage.

Then a small dose of Eastwood's Internal Frame Coating can be sprayed in there to keep the inside surfaces protected.

Thank you for confirmation others are doing this. I think this probably is the right thing to do. I was thinking of this when I was welding it up. the two options are keep water out which is near impossible or give it a way to drain. I will drill holes and coat the inside with paint before I do final assembly to the vehicle.

[Superhawk996]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

Having a rough go of getting the trailing arm mount positioned properly. I've been chasing measurements around the past couple of weekends. May be drifting into OCD territory on this but I'd really like to ensure the suspension mounts are located as exactly as possible.

Would appreciate any insight from others that may have fought this battle.



Currently can get X/Y dimension correct but Z dimension is too low by 5-6 mm. Trying to force it up in Z results imparts a twist to the body at the rear locators of 4 mm. I'd rather not do that.

Due to the geometry of the frame rail, the X dimension and the Z dimension are interrelated. the dark blue line is where the mount wants to be if Z dimension is correct, the current (orange line) is where X/Y dimensions are correct. You can see the variability between them and how they are related by the angle of the frame.



I've been using a trammel to measure the body locations but this measurement technique seems to have about 3mm of error on each end depending on how square the measurement point is to the trammel. This could account for up to 6mm of measurement error end to end.



Ideally the trammel extensions should be kept as short as possible to minimize parallax error. However, that isn't possible given the need to clear the body cart and the difference in Z height between the front mounts and the rear trailing arm mount.
The error is actually much larger than 3mm unless I use a level to ensure that the trammel extensions are 90 degrees to the trammel bar.

I had loaned a laser plumb bob to a buddy for the last couple years to do a basement remodel. I've gotten that back and intend to remeasure everything today using the laser to drop the suspension locators to the floor and then measure that with a simple tape measure.

The laser plumb bob specs are +/- 3mm at a 15m on the laser projection upward and +/- 6mm at 15m on the downward projection. The downward projection is literally an inch off the floor so that error is negligible. Likewise, the up projection will only be less than 1 meter so again negligible. . . . . IN THEORY.



We'll see how this works out today. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/calvin.gif)

[Superhawk996]

Also picked up some front brake calibers from PMB to address my old ones that were sticking during my October "test" drive.

This is always a tough call given that I'm a pretty cheap bastard. Rebuild myself and save money but takes time OR pay someone else $$ and save time. Right now my time is in shorter supply.

I've rebuilt 914 calipers before and quite frankly it is a bit of a pain. And even when I've done it they still end up looking ratty even though they are perfectly functional.

I've got to say that the work PMB does is top notch. Automotive jewelry (IMG:style_emoticons/default/crest.gif) !

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif)

I intend to pick up some rears and to have my proportioning valve freshened by PMB as I can cash flow that in the coming months.

[Superhawk996]

Update on the trailing arm mount madness:

Laser plumb bob only confirmed the trammel measurements and that although X/Y position is reasonable, Z is off.

My solution was to notch the wheelhouse frame rail section. The radius of the stamping doesn't match my OEM part exactly and is pushing the mount low in Z.

By notching the rail I was able to tighten up the radius to match my trailing arm mount and move it up to proper Z location while maintaining X and Y dimensions.





Once the part was correctly positioned I used a body hammer and dolly to return the flange to mate with the part and then welded the flange back where it belongs. In the photos below, I still need to add a doubler reinforcement on the inside to replace the material I removed.







put the panel back into the vehicle and reconfirmed my measurements. All in all I'm pretty happy. When everything is metal finished and painted, the modification won't be evident and will be as structurally sound as the unmodified panel.



I'm still off on the diagonal by a 3mm (~ 1/8") but that can be adjusted when I instill the inner section of the frame that resides in the engine bay.

Looking forward to moving on!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I know fitting the inner frame rail is going to be time consuming based on the rough fit work I had to do already.

Once that is done, I hope to make more rapid progress. February is here and it takes forever to heat up the garage in order to accomplish any work! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

Still have lots to do!

[Superhawk996]

Back to work. Last couple of weekends have been limited work due to other priorities and some ridiculously cold weather.

Back to mocking up pieces to tweak fits. First order of business was to get the inner frame mated to the outer wheel house and to the fit up the connection at the rear trunk.

In my case I found that the outer house sheet metal which as a doubler welded to it was causing the inner to sit too high. I did some creative reforming with a hammer and dolly and got it down to the point where the angle of the two frame rails is within 1 degree of each other.



I then started to mock up the inner longitudinal. This one is a bit surprising that the sheetmetal overlap between the inner frame rail in the engine compartment only overlaps the inner longitudinal by about 1/4". That just isn't going to do. That joint will be too weak and it's right at a highly stressed location.

I'm considering welding in a good 6" of overlap and then installing the whole inner longitudinal + the engine compartment inner all as 1 big piece.



Overall, I'm pretty happy to see something roughly resembling a "frame" back under the car even if it's only a mock up. It will likely be a while before I can weld. I have quite a bit of pin hole rust up in the front wheel wheels that needs to be fixed before I weld in structure.

Question: Does anyone know why the AA inner longitudinal has two seat belt bolts? My driver side and the cutout part only had one. I can't see the point in this. I'm likely to cut the 2nd out and fill the hole so that I only have one like the original.

[R8CERX]

WOW--AWESOME work!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheer.gif)
Cant wait to see end result!

Thanks for the advise!

Felix

[Superhawk996]

It's been a while since I posted. Things have a way of getting side tracked.

[Superhawk996]

Although I had a rough mock up there is still more work to do on the wheelhouse inner panel.

I finally decided to commit to final welding of the outer trailing arm mount.

I plan to add the Restoration Design outer clam shell to reinforce the whole outer longitudinal.

The problem is I'm not cutting my fender so all work has to be done from the "inside". This means that I can't assemble the whole longitudinal and then go back and add on the clam shell.

Much scratching of the head (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif) resulted in the decision to deconstruct the clam shell so that it can be added in pieces rather than one whole piece. The other thing is I don't like how the added layer of metal will push my existing door jamb outboard. I'll try to post picture of this as I go along. Hopefully the pictures will make things more obvious.

Here is the picture of just the rear section of the clam shell reinforcement in place. I feel that this piece is especially important since it adds another layer of metal to the transition area. This area where a lot of stress occurs and this area of the "frame" is weak since this area is where the inner longitudinal panels meet.

Even if I decide later not to add the rest of the clamshell for some unforseen reason, I feel that having a triple layer in this high stress area is time well spent.



You can see the overlay for the jack post with the spot welds drilled in the background. I'll eventually install that but it needs some trimming to avoid pushing out the door jamb.

Welded in place.



In the process of final welding I did get some warping of the panel that needed hammer and dolly work to put things back in the right place so the inner longitudinal in the engine compartment will fit as it originally did.

Likewise, this will require re-measurement all the way around the chassis again before I can put this panel in place for the final fitment.

During this whole process the Galvanneal steel is giving me fits with a TIG welder. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

The zinc that is in the Galvanneal is constantly contaminating the electrode or causing popping that splashes the weld puddle up onto it.



The only good thing is the constant stop / start to regrind the Tungsten helps avoid overheating the panel. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

[Superhawk996]

The other thing that has derailed my effort to get the long in place is that the Tin Worms have consumed the lower 1" of just about the entire perimeter.

I suspect that someone repeatedly left the Targa off this vehicle and it got filled with water. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) leading to all the corrosion on the lower 1" of the entire floor pan.




So before I can weld in the longitudinal I need to get some solid metal back in the lower cowl and wheelhouse area.

I started to fabricate the lower couple inches of the longitudinal outer.




But the more I got to thinking about doing a from scratch fabrication I decided to see if I could find some donor sheet metal. The tight radius bends and the compound curvature of the wheelhouse weld flange was just going to be agonizingly slow to do from scratch.

[Superhawk996]

@porscheaddic

Came to my rescue and provided a whole front lower cowl as a donor. I can't say enough good things about Vince!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smilie_pokal.gif) His prices are reasonable and he was willing to help ensure I got sound metal and the right cuts to work with my need.



The time it takes to deconstruct stuff is amazing. Lots of drilling spot welds and maybe some profanity is the order of the day.



Piece by piece I finally started getting to the individual panels I'll eventually need to piece this all back together into my vehicle.

[Superhawk996]

I'll end up with some odds and ends that I won't be using. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sawzall-smiley.gif)

If anyone is in need of the front tunnel section or the floorpan plug (previously filled empty hole) let me know and I'll pay it forward by sending to you for cost of shipping only.

With a little luck, I'll get a chance to start cutting out the bad metal on my tub and start fitting up this new donor sheet metal.

[bbrock]

But the more I got to thinking about doing a from scratch fabrication I decided to see if I could find some donor sheet metal. The tight radius bends and the compound curvature of the wheelhouse weld flange was just going to be agonizingly slow to do from scratch.

That area gave me fits for the reason you mentioned. I got plenty of practice making multiple attempts until I got it right. Donor piece is the way to go.

Looking forward to seeing more about how you tackle that rear wheel house and long without cutting the fender. I'm really enjoying watching the quality work. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[Superhawk996]

@bbrock

You've set a pretty high bar. I'm just trying to keep up. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/shades.gif)