I did buy it from AA about 15 years ago! If you find that sales picture I'd love to see a scan of it. When I bought it it looked much better than the rust I have discovered would lead you to believe especially when you consider that I have driven it very little in the interveneing years and it has been garaged and dry most of that time

PM me your address and I will dig them out and send them to you if I can find them. That's about right 15 years ago. I almost bought it. I think it was $3500 or so? keep up the good work.

Finally got some time to work on the car again over the last few weekends. I fabricated the part below to patch a rust hole on the drivers side right behind the jackpost. When I started the jack post and "pyramid" cover looked pretty solid but a few minutes with a screwdriver and I had what you saw above. I bought a few new parts from AA and fabricated the piece below. They are not the prettiest but they are the best lookin' part I have made to date

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It may be alittle while before I can weld it on since I think I would be well served to remove the outer clamshell and see what is going on aroud those heater tubes and I have little more work to do to the inner piece of steel behind this piece.

Looking great dude , I've got the drvr's and pssgr's side jack post areas both to do myself. I like the fact that you are fabing some of the peices that you need , gives me hope that I can do the same ( very low budget ).
Please keep the pics coming , you are doing a heck of a good job .

Jack / Jaxdream

Thanks! The only tools I used for this was a hammer, a welder and a dremel. It was not quick but so far it has been rewarding

John

Keep up the great work. I love watching these resto threads.

The year so far has conspired against my car habit. This is the first weekend I have had to work on the car since March. I have opened up the rockers and found some rust (no surprise) but it doesn't seem as bad as I expected. It seems like there is some scale a little further forward but I'm hoping it isn;t as bas as it looks since I is hard to open that area up.

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Good to see you back at it! Great job fabricating that drivers side jack piece...I suspect I will be doing that soon myself. I really hope someone starts making that repair panel!

I'm always amazed when I see guys step out of their comfort zone and take on a complicated repair that they have no experience with.
These cars see alot of owners that would sit on the issue that you're up against and sell 5 years later feeling beaten.
I think the ineternet and sites like 914World allow people to find their sows ear and turn it into that silk purse (I'm not saying your into purses).
Guys like ScottyB, Sir Andy, Dr Evil are just a few of the mentors passing down the knowledge.
whether you know it or not, you're inspiring others to step out of their comfort zone and wade into the rusty underworld .
You're doing a great job, keep it going!

SW

I read every build thread and learn something from each one. There is a wealth of knowledge on this site from people who have been through it before. Thanks to all who have passed down their knowledge!

I broke out the sand blaster last weekend and cleaned up the inside of the long as best I could, then sprayed it with some Ospho. It came out pretty good but there are some more areas that I have not yet managed to get to. I am constantly amazed at how hard my sandblaster is to operate. It is one of the cheap harbour freight models. Between its tendancy to give me either nothing but air or mostly sand it is amazing that anything gets done. Between that and my undersized (for the job) air compressor and every sandblasting session ends with me swearing a lot and covered with sand. There has got to be a better way.

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John

After finishing center portion of the long I realized that there was a tiny hole a little further forward into the long where it gets much more complicated under the door hinge. What I found is in the picture below. Obviously I will need to cut it out. Unfortunately it means that I will most likely need to but the entire inner rocker instead of just fabricating the relatively simple area in the back as I had originally intended. I better open up the diriver side as well before I order the parts. No point in going out twice.

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John

Sand blasting is great when the flow is happening but maddening when it is not.

Some tricks I've used are:

1. You need a water separator in your air line or moisture causes clumps that clog things up, I use a good one 10' from the compressor and a replaceable one right before the blaster, check your water separator and empty it every hour or so
2. Sift all your sand to avoid clogs
3. when stopping even for a few seconds, turn off the sand before turning off the air or shutting the nozzle or you will get a clog right away, turn on the air first and open the nozzle then open the sand last when starting up
4. Trying to blast when your air pressure is below 60 psi is usually frustrating, take a break and let your compressor catch up and you will get more done in the long run
5. Put a portable fan blowing on your compressor so it does not overheat from continuous running, even compressors with fans can use help from a second fan when blasting
6. hold the gun farther from the piece you are blasting than you think should and it usually works better

These things worked for me, you need to experiment with your set up to find what
works...

John

In a sick twisted way I'm jealous of guys like yourself that take on a project like this. Sure, I love driving mine and not worrying about restoring anything on the car, but I've almost suffered a few weak moments in the last few months where I almost sold the car to take on a near-death project.....then my Wife steps in and reminds me of how much of a stupid idea that is.

Nice job, and keep it up.

Thanks!

I suppose the grass is always greener. I spend a bunch of time hoping I can finish this so I can just drive the thing. On the plus side I have learned a lot. I'm not entirely sure that I am not slowly turning the car into much smaller pieces of steel.

John

Thanks! I will definitely have to give all these all a try. Anything to reduce the frustration!

John

I found the pics, would like to send them to you. Good luck with resto.
PM address again.

When you take a lot of structure out without REAL good bracing it will be a miracle if it goes back together as straight as it should be.

The only way to make sandblasting better is to pay someone else to do it.

It has been a while since my last post and I have been working but have not made any substantive progress until today. Today was all about sleeving the inside of the passenger side long. If you look at several of my previous posts you will see that I removed a significant portion of the bottom of the inner long because of rust. Following Jeff Hails advice in the Bring out the Dead thread I decided to sleeve the long to strengthen my welds. This is the piece I fabed today from 16g. There are two notches at the top that will be filled with the pieces that came out of them once the piece is welded in. All that is left to close up this side is to buy some 18g and fix the baffle at the front of the long (not quite visible at the right of the pic but it is in several other shots).

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This is what I got done this weekend. Not quite what I was shooting for but I got most of it done despite my garage being very hot today (I need to invest in AC) and having a spliting headache most of the time.

Weld thru primer applied.
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Stiffener sleeve prepped and ready to go in.
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Front baffle seam welded in but not yet cleaned up.
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Stiffener in welded and primed.
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Next step is getting cleaning everything up putting the heater tube in and welding on the outer longitudinal panel

John

Didn't get that much done even though I worked at it all day but I do have the passenger side closed up!!. It still needs some grinding and the sill and lower door jamb.

Now my debate is do I open up the other side. It is not as bad off at the back as the passenger side but I really don't want to discover it needs done after I paint the car. On the other hand I hate to drill out all those perfectly good factory spot welds and replace them with my less optimal versions if there is nothing wrong with it. I wonder if anyone in the Atlanta area has a fiber optic camera that I could use?

Now for a couple of pics...

Heater tube back in
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Everything welded up
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Did you get the pics?

I Did!! Sorry, I forgot to PM you to thank you!! With those pictures I would probably buy it again even through I now know what its issues are!

Those are really nice looking patchs and welds.

Very neat and professional looking work.

Your car will be good for 40 more years.

You may want to test fit your door to see where you are.

Some temporary bracing across the door is always good.

John

Welding the stiffener on the inside is very cool! Nice work, keep the progress pics coming.

Thanks! There actually is a brace going from the upper seatbelt point to the floor boards. Some have questioned whether it is strong enough but so far it does not have too much tension on it. The door is actually also in place and I keep checking it and a few other measurements as I go. So far there has not bee much movement (if any). I have been very careful to keep my weld heat down by only welding a fwe things at a time and I have been trying to control weld shrinkage by welding seams first while the panel is otherwise loose before doing the spots

By the way I love the rotisserie in your profile pic! I have borrowed a metal rotisserie but I wonder if your version might be better to do the floors since it grabs the car much closer to the middle and might induce less flex.

John

Thanks! I hope I have enough in there to do at least some stiffening but I am thinking that I will have to still do the upper half of the to really make it stiff. I am also considering doing a 16 ga stiffener that extends through the firewall on the cabin side of the long to reinforce the dogleg since I have replaceed most of the metal in that area and am not entirely sure it is strong enough.

Thanks,
John

Now that the passenger side is welded up, I have moved on the drivers side and I am pleasantly surprised. There is definitely some rust but as far as I can tell it is all surface rust. It was almost not worth taking it apart but while I am here I will go ahead and replace most of the rocker/outer long with a new piece (I already have it). The front under the door jamb doesn't look that bad so I will try to sand blast what I can and Ospho the whole thing but not open it up like the passenger side

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An interesting discovery while I had it open. I have always wondered why the brake light stayed on quite a bit while I was driving but I figured the switch must be bad or it was a wiring problem. I knew the hand brake had been replaced but the job looked pretty good so I figured it was not that. Turns out I was wrong. From the inside you can see that the new part does not cover the front holes that were drilled to remove the old part. Whoever did the work managed to weld the brake handle back on about 1/4" - 3/8" behind the priginal position so it fails to press the button in the down position. unless it sits just right. I guess I have to cut that off and redo that too.

Inside the cabin looks good

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inside the long not so much

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Looking great man! As you have found out, the best way to learn is to dive in! Lol keep up the good work and you'll have your baby back on the road in no time.....unless your wife is like mine and makes you work on her car every weekend instead of your car lol

I have been following your thread, keep up the good work!
Instead of cutting out the PB to adjust 1/4 inch, would it be easier to add some kind of shim to the PB switch button to get it to contact better?

Yeah it would probably be easier and I was thinking along these lines until I took another look at how they buchered the long getting the old brake out. In the end, I think I am going to replace the metal and remount the brake.

John
PS Where in GA are you?

Hey John,

I'm in Cave Spring Ga, about 10miles from Rome, GA...

Ever heard of it?

I got a project going here too.


Larry

Not Cave Springs but definitely Rome. Hows your car comeing?


John

I am currentlt tempering High heat paint on some Heat exchanger parts on my BBQ grill, my wife thinks I'm nuts.

Overall, much like you I have had this car for many years, my garage princess.

And every so often when the honey do list begins to be completed, I catch the feaver to complete the car. For the past few months I have been polishing, cleaning, getting parts together from various source to complete the car. To date I have almost everything I will need in terms of parts, to get the car together to begin the process of getting it fired up. I still have alot of electrical wiring to sort out, but I've made more progress in the past 3 months than I have in the 13 years i have had the car.


Where you at in GA?

Larry

I'm in SW Atlanta. Just north of East Point

Didn't get much done on the car this weekend (It was my Anniversary) but I did make it the the Peach State PCA Autocross at Atlanta Motor Speedway. All I did was spectate but it was a lot of fun. Below are some pics of what I got done last weekend.

The deeper I dig into the Driver's long the less I like what I see. The front is still ok but as you can see the rear is very pitted on the inside.

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I have not yet decided how much farther back I will cut out. The area I have alreay cut out is easily replaced with some left over inner long from the passenger side but if I go much farther back I will need to fab some more custom parts as the long starts to turn up and he inner reinforcing layer starts to have corrugations. Before I make any more decisions I will need to determine whether this car has a drivers hell hole.

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On the plus side I fabed the inner sleeve for the drivers side. I'll have to decide whether it is worth refabing it once I determine how much more comes out.

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John

John,
Still making great strides with your work. I went to the Autocross today as a spectator. Was in my Green 911.

Phillip

I was wondering whose car that was. I really like the green color.

John

Made a little progress on the car in the last few weeks. Just a couple of photos of the pattern and part that I made to cover up the longitudinal ribs from the replacement panel in the engine compartment. I extended it through the fire wall since I have to replace the bottom of the fire wall anyway. It shoulld also help to stiffen the frame a little.

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Hopefully next weekend I can finish up the fabrication and start welding things onto the car.

Last few weeks?? You mean months, better get going buddy. We're waiting!

I've got the suspension console tentatively fitted.

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And I need to start looking at the engine mount.

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I can't believe how long I have been working on this car.. Anyway it is on the rotisserie. I'm going to have to will this thing to someone for completion.

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Welcome back! It looks like you've done some impressive work.

Thought I would see if anyone has an opinion of some of my welding plans. I have already welding in the replacement dogleg in the longitudinal.
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Since the corrugations look a little odd I thought I would add another layer of steel to smooth things out. I am a little concerned that the extra layer will add too much thickness but it will add more strength to the bend the bottom of the long.
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One the fire wall is in it looks ok.
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Let me know what you think. On a side note the surface rust will be cleaned up. I fabbed this several years ago.

John W

Just an update


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