Alright, I spoke a while back that I was going to start producing the Front trunk pan. I already have all the steel and all the CAD work done, so all I need to do is prep the steel and start cutting!

I wanted to start a thread here for all to follow the progress and also to get a better idea of what goes on at Restoration Design. I am the one in charge of designing and making all the dies here for the 914, 911, 912, and 356's. I have only made two small dies( pedal cluster support, seat mount bracket) for the 914 so far so I wanted to make something else that was in need.

I started with an NOS full floor pan. The one that runs from the firewall all the way to the front trunk pan. Brought that away to get a digital scan and then from there I designed the male and female halves of the die.

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First the drawings of the Female die

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and the Male die

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Why is this in the sandbox???
Moved to the Garage.


And please, don't use BMP images. They don't show on webpages. Use JPG or PNG instead ...

Awesome!

I always wondered what the large holes in the bottom of the car floors and trunks are for. When I was doing some repainting in the front trunk of my car a circular cover that fit over 1 of the 2 holes in the bottom of the front trunk came off. It appeared to be siliconed over the hole. Any idea what they are for? I was just going to silicon the metal circle back in the place it came from. The holes are circular but have what look like some sort small tabs cutout on them as well.

Best guess would be for the spot-welding robot arms to go through to get into the corners.

Cool!

Just so you guys can picture what will be happening...

the female first

Cut with 4.5 inch face mill then cut with 1.5 inch bullnose

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next 1.25inch ballnose and then finish off with .5 inch ballnose

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Male half...

Pretty much the same tools as the female.

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And also the drawpad...

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This is pretty awesome. Any chance you'll ever create the whole piece as one( front trunk pan, front rear pans)?

The only thing I need now is rust!

Very nice!

I dont have a press that can handle a die that large, and that die would cost way too much money to be justified.

I'm going to have to swing by and check this out sometime ... I know of a certain orange 72' body shell that could use some steel where the A/C condenser hole is..

Very nice.

Awesome work !!! How about a lower windshield cowl, any chance ??

Rust, have some of mine...

This really is awesome. Thanks for helping us keep some neat, old cars on the road. Keep up the good work!

WOW is all I can say. I just love to see that these parts are made and available to save our cars. BRAVO!

That is fantastic...I am sure you will sell many of these because they do rust a
lot here. Having new front suspension attachment points will be really nice on
rusty and front hit cars.

John

Wow! Count me in for a front trunk floorpan!

Did some prep work on the blocks of steal so I can more easily move them around.

First drill pilot holes

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next drill

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Then counter sink

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Finally tap...

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Now I can move them onto the mill and drill and power tap all the mounting holes.

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Wow, how much does that thing weigh?

i will surely be in for one for my '73. really nice.

I don't think the front suspension mounts are part of this as they are spot-welded onto the bottom of the actual floor pan.

Also, it looks like the double (triple?) layer reinforcement for the suspension mounting on the inside of the trunk is not part of this.

The larger piece is around 2300lbs and the smaller piece is around 2000lbs. I have a magnet that is capable of lifting the smaller one, but I don't feel safe doing that.

As for the suspension mounts, those will come in time. First I will stamp out the floor pan. Then I need to make a restrike die that will fold the outer edges up in the front and the edges on the side down.

Very cool.

Thanks for sharing.

Awesome. Do you have a target date for getting these to market?

Ahhh, I new the question would come up at some point.

I dont have a target date on when the die is going to be finished. I should have one half on the mill for the end of next week, and then that will take nearly two weeks of milling IIRC. Even after the die comes off the mill, it still needs to be polished, which will take another 2 weeks. There are other dies that I am constantly working on, so there might be another die that has greater priority after this one half is done.



Pete

Pete, thanks for sharing this with us. I am really blown away by what you have to do to get something like a front pan into production. This is a tremendous amount of work. It's really pretty awesome to see the die as a raw block of steel. I'm just excited to learn that RD is doing this.

I am glad to share this with everyone. I have loved the 914s since I first saw them when I was 14. It was a Silver 914/6 that was in a road and track magazine I think. I never would have dreamed that 12 years later I would be stamping out Porsche parts and working on keeping these cars on the road. Although my car has yet to see the road. Thats been a work in progress since i was 18...

Loading the steal...

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I have to clean up an edge on both X and Y axis to ensure that I can accurately pick up the coordinates, and also indicate the edge so I know the block is on the table straight.

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Picking up the coordinates with my edge finder.

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I drilled and countersunk all the holes, now Im ready to tap.

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Little video...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osaKR0WQdfc

Got some work done yesterday, and set the steel up. Indicated the edges and made sure it was straight.

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The 1.5" bullnose cutter has been running for around 15 hours.

This is where we are at currently. Another couple hours and we can move onto the 1" ballnose cutter

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OK, came back to work later on. There was a massive amount of chips this afternoon, so I pause the mill to clear them all. This is the amount of chips that there were when it finished.

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And here we are from above...

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Now I can start the 1" ballnose. It will be finished by the morning so I can fire up the .5" ballnose. That should run for the rest of the weekend on the finishing pass which has a stepover of .003.

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amazing.

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing!

totally awesome, really impressive process

The 1" ballnose finished with no glitches.

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The .5" ballnose will run for 180 hrs. Good thing its Canadian Thankgiving this weekend! Taking the rest of the day off and Relaxin at the cottage!

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Great work! Any chance of making those from galvanized steel for better rust protection?

All of our panels are made using galvanneal. I will let Wikipedia better explain what that process is...

Galvannealed or galvanneal is the result from the combined process of galvanizing and annealing to produce specialized sheets of steel. The galvanization is made through the hot-dipping (Hot-dip galvanizing) process and gives a very fine greyish matte finish. Galvanneal does not flake off its galvanized coating when formed, stamped, and bent. The very fine matte finish acts like a primer, allowing paint to adhere easily, and is very rust proof; only white to dark grey marks appear if it comes in contact with water. Galvanneal sheets offer good paintability, weldability, corrosion resistance, and formability. It is extensively used in the automotive, signage, electric equipment, and other industries requiring a metal with good paintability and long reliable service life. This steel process is produced by many steel mills and it is commonly referred by its trade name of Jet-Kote.

The power must have gone out this weekend some time between saturday night and sunday morning!

Lost some time!

oh well, happens. I started it back up on the opposite side, so hopefully it will be done by the beginning of next weekend

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This is freakin insane!!!! Thank you for sharing the pics!!!!!

Great Work

It is sometimes simply amazing to me how lucky we are to be living in the age we are right now.

The older guys that made that original stamping back in 69 had to do it the hard way. Massive Calculations, wooden bucks, manual machining.



Today we have Faro & Romer arms to digitize parts in hours, Solidworks to convert the digitizing to raster modeling in minutes, Edgecam & Mastercam to convert the modeling to machine programming in hours, and 5,6, & 7 axis cnc machining centers to take a 3-4'' block of steel, and turn it into a usable die set in a matter of days.

Beautiful Pete,
Thanks for taking the risk on this, as I'm sure there are a lotta 914's needing this piece.

Ron

Wow!

Babydoll is going to need one of these pieces, so I'm extra happy about what you're doing!

Make Flares!