I prefer to think of Unobtanium as the land of re-birth, rather than a graveyard. We tend to find them when they are left for dead, and get them into the hands of people who restore them, like this one found a few months ago, it is now in Poland being restored. And yes, that is dirt up to the steering wheel!

That's similar to what the Graveyard guys do. I applaud your work and theirs - I was playing on your 'cameras in the shop' comment about your guys! I get your decision to keep your nose to the grindstone rather than going to the reality show bit despite the bucks they'd throw your way. You keep on being you and your shop, your mission statement if you will. Resurrect as many as you can! And play with them as you will...

The main reason we decided against doing a show was while it would be fun, it would kill our actual business. The guys we buy cars from sell to me to do it quietly, they don't want cameras at their house, showing off their collection. They just want to quietly sell 2-3 cars. Also, can you imagine, the rest of my life I would go to buy a car and the seller would be like, "Hey, it's the TV guy!" and the price would be double. Nope, a few seasons of TV would not be worth throwing a fun and profitable business down the toilet.

That's what Project Binky is.... 2 humorous British dudes with incredible fab skills building a rally car from a rusty Mini body and a wrecked Toyota Celica awd drivetrain in the corner of their shop between paying jobs.

Oh yay, something new to complain about!!! I can't wait!

Oh, then I can start complaining about the complainers, that will be fun for ages!

--DD

Now that winter has officially sunk in, temps in the single digits and below, I figured I can really make some headway on this project. It is time to start securing the front suspension now that I have lowered the shock towers. I've been avoiding this job because it's pretty daunting, but I started today with the two outer pieces.
My first piece didn't come out like I wanted it but would probably do the job, while my second piece came out pretty nice. The 2nd piece looking so nice got me to re-do the first piece, which is getting there, but I ran out of day.
So far so good.

Love the craftsmanship. Keep it coming

I can't believe you took that perfectly good flat metal and cut and bent it all to hell. What a hack.

I didn't get as far as I wanted today, I dis-carded the re-done piece and started on a 3rd piece, which came out ok. I got started on making the middle piece but ran out of day. Luckily the weather is supposed to be very cold next week to, so plenty of time to get the pellet stove humming and the hammers swinging.

Happy New Year!

Good thing you had the English wheel !

Rory-
It's amazing what you can do with an English Wheel. You should come out this weekend to Pro Shaper and help us work on the aluminum 550, advanced metal shaping indeed!

www.proshaper.com

Funny, Dave.

I hadn't been on the board a lot recently, so just catching up on your project, Adam. Keep cracking away at it.

It's amazing what THEY can do can do with an English wheel.

Rory-
I understand you're older and your eyesight might be failing you some, but the picture I posted was me, shaping the metal that went into that 550 tail that was also pictured. And if you want to come out this weekend and brave the cold New England freeze you can work side by side with me shaping metal, I'll give you a crash course, because I'm a nice guy.

Yeah, I'm older and I do use readers but anyone can see that the parts you made for the destroyed 914 racer are junk. I'd be embarrassed to display that lack of
skill. To be proud of them and to claim that YOU formed any compound curve aluminum part for the Spyder is utterly contradictory. The pictures do tell the story.
I'm saying this as politely as I can
PS I love the cold. I was skiing just last weekend north of Montreal.

Rory-
I guess at this point I've extended the invitation to join us for metal fun, so your only choices are to man up, show up, or shut up. You choose.

i dont get it ,,,one piece panel , route lines through with grommets...But Thats Me

Thank you for the invitation. I'll have to decline.
I have no interest in learning that skill.
Perhaps YOU could you provide a 60 minute demonstration on YouTube ?
Maybe whip up a taillight section real quick ?

Sorry, the only thing I do on youtube is help my 9 year daughter put up funny videos.
But I will take a bunch of pics and update everyone on the progress on the 550.

Made some progress today finished out all the front cowl metal. I also got to try out my new metal brake, that was cool. Ran out of day when a guy came to pick up a 911 but happy with the progress I made.

Wow, what great junk you got laying around. Of course the 550 hanging from the lift is just awe inspiring!

Thanks Bruce! The 550 is turning into a fun one.

Made some good progress on the build today. Start working on the inner fenders as well as the metal around the shock mount. The first piece came out pretty nice but it was only one curve. The next piece was a lot of banging, shrinking, stretching, and more shaping. I ended up cutting it in two piece which helped get the curves better.
So far so good.

I've never used an english wheel, or really see one used. So you beat a wrinkle in the metal and then smooth it out?

It's all about how you want to shrink the metal. The example just photo'd above is using tuck shrinking. You can tuck shrink by creating a high spot that put a V into the material then hammer the metal back into itself, which shrinks it and creates a compound curve. You're left with the proverbial "bag of walnuts". Then you can employ the English Wheel to smooth it out.
Depending on how much pressure you use when wheeling, you can either just smooth things out or you can stretch/thin the material, which causes the compound curve to raise up more.

Here's a simple hood scoop I made. The compound curve area was all done on the English wheel. It started as a flat piece and I "wheeled up" the curved area by stretching it.

It's fun stuff!

Fascinated by metal shaping and wish I had the room for the equipment. I would be out there playing all of the time. The 'tuck shrink' just doesn't seem plausible unless your folding the metal back on itself. But then you'd need to heat it to forge it back together. I'm off to YouTube to see what I can find.

Just fascinating.

The guy that taught me said you have to think of the metal like clay, it can be molded, it just takes time and patience.

Coolio. Trying make some real progress on my own car. Damn cold in the garage.

What not use grommets for those oil cooler hoses? I'd sure look a lot cleaner if you removed them, added a solid panel, and ran them back through some holes in it.

I'm still playing with that panel, and haven't decided on a new fuel cell yet so not 100% sure how many lines and what size will be going through the panel.
And if I do decide to go with this one it will be one panel once it's all welded up.

I am wondering if part of the purpose of the multi panel approach is to avoid disconnecting the oil and fuel lines? Are they frozen in place?

Curious to know what's below those intake stacks in the picture. They look to be on an angle like it may be something other than a flat 6 . . . This was supposed to appear under the scoop picture. The scoop is sitting on a black teener trunk lid.

Don't want to hijack this thread. It's an LS3 w/8 stack injection. Pics here on my build thread:
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...6900&st=520
See post #537 forward

No, it just had several conflicting angles to conform to the existing body lines. I'm trying to go with as much of the original body lined internally as possible, figure it would add strength to weld as many points as possible. I could have run a flat sheet across the front but I was doing it a little different.

So we are getting about a foot of wet snow today. Why is that good news? Because no one will show up at the shop except me, and the hearty UPS man, can't stop him!
But I got to set up a bunch of new equipment and try to out. I was able to get the new Planishing Hammer going, only a couple of strange fittings and stuff, but it's now fully operational. I also set up the shrinker/stretcher which came with a cool mount that mounts to the vise, so I can put it away when I'm not using it. That's handy for a tool you might only use a couple times a month, it isn't taking up valuable floor space.
Between the P Hammer, English Wheel, shrinker, and hand hammer, I am getting the curves I need. Metal work is slow, but you can see progress.
I think I'm going to try and head in this weekend so stay tuned!

Final pics.

Looks like fun!

Adam,

I am struggling to see /invision what you are fabbing right now. Can you help explain it?

I think you have to go back a few pages to see the mockup, I'm doing the driver's side inner fender.

Very satisfying day today. Up at 6AM on a Sunday is strange but you do what you have to do for the project, right?
I brought in some reinforcements on this one because I was making too many guesses with the front suspension so my mechanic Rick from Bavarian Rocket Science was kind enough to make an early morning cameo. Sure enough in a little over an hour his skill was on full display, setting up the front suspension beam as well as figuring out we needed to shorten the front sway bar in order for the shock to clear.
Not only has Rick been racing for decades he also worked on these cars when they were new, so his eye can quickly do what would take me days of trail and error to figure out.
Now that the suspension was set I got to work on the inner fender well and it went really well, sorry, bad pun. But the metal really flowed the way I wanted it to. It was a combination of shrinking, pounding, wheeling, and P-Hammering, then repeat. I got the piece within about 80% of where I want it before I ran out of time. I told my kids I would be home by noon to hit the flea market and spend the day working on craft projects. I got back at 12:11, off to the Flea Market!!

Nice! was near your shop yesterday wondering if you were

Nope, yesterday I was shoveling, and then shoveling some more, if only snow was $$$!

As Ice Cube would say, "today was a good day!"

I started with the middle section of the cowl under the suspension beam. It went in almost perfectly, a little tweeking, but I was happy with the result. I then went to the passenger side piece and it was all wrong, I messed with it for about an hour and finally tossed it and made another, which I was much happier with. The driver's side piece needed a little finishing but was un-eventful. I got all three pieces welded in and it's strong. I plan on doing more metal on the back side and in the corners to make sure the strength is there, but I am happy with the result today.

Today was very productive. I welded up the front cowl panel, and then made and welded up a backside panel. The fit was very nice and I have to say after welding on rusty 50 year old 356's all week, welding newer steel to brand new steel was wonderful. It was flowing so nice it was laying caulk.
A good day indeed!
Tomorrow, back to 356's, a 63 Super 90 Coupe.

My wife was having friend's over today so I got to slip away to the shop. It doesn't look like much but this piece curved in about 5 different directions, so it was a lot of fitting, banging, fitting, wheeling, fitting, banging, and finally welding it in.
The other piece of good news is a I talked to a friend of mine who lives behind a race track and he said I can bring the car to his place, he will help me set up all the suspension (corner balancing, toe-in, camber, etc.) and then we could run it on the track. I'm still several months out from this but it's nice to know I can really sort it on the track when the time comes.

Adam,
Clean up the metal before you weld.
It may help to get better welds.

Rich, thanks for the tip.
I think a lot of that was coming through from the backside, I cleaned the surface but I was welding deep and it finds contaminates and draws them to the surface. The welding was also hard because on the back side I had to do most of it upside down and at funny angles. The front part of the cowl came out much cleaner. But thanks for looking everything over.

Sorry everybody, no 904 work this week, I headed out to MA to check on my 356 paint job and spent the rest of the day shaping 550 metal. The wire form is almost done, much easier than a wooden buck.
904 updates next week!

That dude should donate his lungs to a museum, i'm sure that would make for an interesting display ...

Adam,
. god bless you for saving all those cars and helping them to get into the right hands.

Regarding this build I feel like I am being catfished here. The skill sets being talked about are not being translated and I am one that is in the know so I can speak to quality of fab.

Going to work is a form of male enhancement, daily, in that shop.

We've had an unwritten rule around here for a long time, and that is support people's dreams with their 914s, it's their dream, not yours. Safety is another issue, fire away.