I did it in the house. Temps were 68F (shop temps run 64-66). I wish I had taken more pics of the process. I wouldn't say it was weak. It still takes a lot of effort to peel the vinyl off the plastic even with the general purpose 3M. But the way I stretched the vinyl the first time left more tension than the adhesive could hold. It was a little like stretching a skin on a drum and then trying to stick it to the bottom. It just pops back up. More than anything, I think it was my ignorance rather than problems with the glue or plastic. But I'll bet if it was fiber board like the original material, my first technique would have worked.

Good question on the dimples. I pondered them because they look like they could be drill guides for the clips and screw holes. They were close, but didn't exactly line up with my original card, so I ignored them.

Brent I did the same repair on Doug's door.
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...t&p=2444021

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I cut the roller coaster channel off of a spare parts door.
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...t&p=2495185

I just couldn't create sometime that I was happy with. Too many twists and turns.

Thanks Cary, I've read every word of Doug's thread but had forgotten about this. I hadn't looked close enough to think about that front lower corner being a 3-dimensional bend (roller coaster is the perfect term). I wonder if I could get somebody to chop the channels off a donor. That would sure save on shipping and make it economical. Funny how that little strip of angled metal complicates what would otherwise be fairly simple patches.

Finally got a day to work on the car. I have to admit, the crowded shop situation is wearing on me. But I spent the day working on my Porsche which means I have no reason to whine.

Just did some niggly stuff today, getting closer to putting the sail panels on. There was still some rot on the middle wall of the passenger B-pillar that needed to be addressed.

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Patched up the holes and repaired the flange. This was taken before grinding was complete.

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Then I rebuilt the little shelf dealy and spent a lot of time grinding and dressing all of the patch welds on the inner wheel house.

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I'll treat this with Ospho again and then give it a couple coats of epoxy primer. I'm also going to lay down some seam sealer over that shelf and contour it so it sheds any moisture that drips down in there. Then I'll be ready to put the sail panels on.



Okay Andrew, I'll take a guess. Would it look something like this?

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I am not positive that is what I think it is. It was walking down the road in front of our house one morning. Showed the pic to a room full of fellow wildlife biologists, including a couple who were on the Interagency Wolf Study Team that did the science before wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone. All of them think it probably is, but can't be certain.... but this one definately is - not exactly National Geographic quality, but it's the first wolf I ever saw in the wild.

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If that's not the critter you wanted, I have another guess.

Good Progress

Been a busy week. Didn't receive data from a client when I had hoped, which left me with an unplanned fun day to work on the car. The extra day set me up for steady progress all week. First was trimming the sail panels for final fit. Once they were fit and clamped in place, I noticed they had some slight bulges from the stamping. I decided to shrink as much of those out before spraying primer. Doing it later would risk burning off primer inside the cavity where it couldn't be touched up. This is after 3-4 passes with the shrinking disc. You can see the high spots. At this stage, they've already shrunk out quite a bit.

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After about 45 minutes of working the shrinking disc countless times, the main high spot has shrunk down flat. There are still a few ripples in the front corner that will need some work and maybe a bit of filler, but much less than without the shrinker. In hind sight, I probably should have used hammer and dolly to flatten those ripples, but I was afraid of stretching the metal and introducing new warps into the panels that would affect the fit.

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Now I was ready to shoot some primer. Put a couple medium coats of PPG DP
LF epoxy on all cavity surfaces and down quite a ways under the quarter panel.

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Having a full day to get the paint on set me up to make steady progress over lunch and evenings during the week. I started by doing the plug welds on both sail panels. That went smoothly.

Now for the welds I've been practicing for

With the plug welds done, I loaded a spool of EZ Grind wire for the butt welds. I don't know if it will make any difference. Some people say there is no benefit, others say it hammers out better than normal wire. I figured I could use every bit of help to achieve those invisible welds on these panels. Here's the passenger side clamped and tacked.

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About 3 hours later, I had the butt welds complete and rough ground with 36 grit just to take the weld down just proud of the parent material. I'll come back and grind a little more, work it with heat, hammer and dolly, and more grinding and blending later.

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On the driver's side, I had to use a little different approach. The lower edge of the sail panel had a bit of a wave in it. To avoid winding up with an oil can welded in, I trimmed, fit, and clamped the lower section of the quarter panel at the same time. I removed a couple clamps before remembering to snap a picture, but here it is tacked in with most of the clamps still in place.

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Then the long, slow process of zapping the butt welds shut. Another 3 hours for this. I came very close to getting 'er done before shutting down to go for a walk with the wife and dog and then movie night.

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I did not expect to start the weekend this far along. Should easily get the lower quarter on the passenger side welded in the morning and then work on grinding, hammering, and blending. Really hoping to get those invisible welds on this!

Sorry Brent - I'm being too obscure. I just wanted to repeat one of my favourite lines from Leslie Nielsen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS3LWOTCW4A .

As for your repairing/welding - it's really opened my eyes to what is possible when it comes to cutting and then refitting panels. I've always tried to unpick whole panels rather than cut across them but now that you've shown what's possible I might be a bit braver.
I certainly couldn't replicate those butt welds just yet - mucho practice required !
Thanks for the inspiration.

Nice work Brent - you're catching me up!

...well you gotta pay some attention to the dog...wife too I guess...but you are now responsible for the emotional travels of all of us that would never do what you are doing , and satisfying that experience vicariously through yours...WE JUST CANNOT BE LEFT HANGING !...Please dont quit on this project , its all about your fans....

love the work Brent.
Also enjoying all the wildlife keep it all coming!
Glad to see your eyes are better and back in the swing of things.

You guys are too kind. I've been cracking up about that Leslie Nielsen clip all day. So as not to leave anyone hanging, here's today's progress.

First I lowered the skirt on the passenger's side. It was a bitch getting that panel fit and clamped in place, but I persevered.

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Then a couple hours of slow welding and it was in. Those zits in the middle were from filling in the holes left from the PO's body work.

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Attempting the vanishing act

Now to get serious about grinding and see if I can make those welds disappear, but first, a word about safety.

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We'll see if this keeps the shit out of my eyes.

Grinding, grinding, and more grinding. Hours later, here we are.

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Not invisible yet, but it's looking promising. There are a few pinholes to fill, but not too many. Hopefully with hammer and dolly and judicious use of the torch, I can make even these remaining googes disappear.

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Now for the important stuff. Despite living within eyesight of a chain of beaver ponds, they have so far eluded my haphazard attempts to capture on camera, so no beaver shots today. I've managed to snap shots of ripples on water just after they dove, and once got a fantastic shot of a beaver dam a split second after the beaver jumped off. So, the best I can do is a shot of one of the ponds.

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And a muskrat swimming in it.

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Ah well - there's always the sandbox.

On less important matters - what worries me about the welding/grinding thing - with my rubbish welding - is that I never know how much thickness of weld is left after I've ground the top off. Lots of practice required on bits of scrap I guess.
Keep going with the master class.

Really nice work.
I really would like to see a beaver in the wild though..... but I appreciate the Muskrat.

"The ever elusive Beaver..." Reminds me of my college days.

Brent - Glad to hear your eyes are all good. Great work on those fenders! There's a part of me that almost wants to leave the weld lines visible and go with a Frankenstein theme... OK, maybe not.

Here's hoping that getting the fenders back on is one of those points in time when you can step back, feel it's all worth it, and appreciate just how far you've come. We sure do!

Again, great work and thanks for taking us along with you on your rebuild/rebirth journey. Keep it coming and best to you, my friend.

Chris

Looks great.. Someday I get that far grinding. Not at that stage yet..

I like this crowd OT warning: Quick beaver diversion. Years ago when the beaver moved into the valley, the dam caused some minor road flooding during spring snow melt (which always happened but had become worse because of the dam). The then chairman of our road maintenance committee took it upon himself to whack a chunk out of the beaver dam with a backhoe in November just before winter freeze. That left the beaver lodge high and dry, which left the little buggers no choice but to burrow into the bank for shelter - in this case, the bank being under the road. Of course, the road collapsed. The next road meeting was all about what to do about "the beaver problem." Most were concerned for preserving the beaver, including the land owner where the pond was built. I stood up and explained why whacking the dam caused the worse problem of burrowing under the road, and offered up a device called the "Beaver Deceiver" as a solution that would let the beaver stay but also maintain the water level where we wanted it. I also rattled off some facts about how beaver are good for our wells and had built a very nice fire protection pond for free. Immediately people in the crowd started calling me "Beaver Man" to which I responded that I didn't think my wife would care for that nickname at all. Stone silence from the crowd. It's nice to be in a group that appreciates good beaver humor.

BTW, we never needed the Beaver Deceiver. By that time, the beavers were well on their way to building a chain of dams that slows down the snow melt and the road hasn't flooded in years because of them. As usual, beaver is the solution, not the problem.

Now back to the regularly scheduled program.

Lol that is hilarious.. Love it..

Okay, back OT. This has been my nemesis from the start. It took me awhile to figure out how much harder the weld filler was than the surrounding material, and that the weld usually winds up in a little valley thanks to the shrink. Ben's tutelage has been a huge help understanding this. Being able to scrutinize and copy the work of Ben, Stephen, Chris, and others has also been important. And then there is the work Kent is doing on Michael's car which I think is the gold standard and provides a, perhaps unattainable, goal to chase. And of course, lots of practice that you get plenty of working on a project like this.

The EZ Grind wire is interesting. It's a bit of a misnomer. It isn't that much easier to grind. But it does make a softer weld that grinds flatter to the parent material and also seems to lay a bit flatter in the joint. I was happy to see that once I ground down to the level of the parent material, much more of the weld had disapeared than with the regular wire. I've read claims that it also hammers out easier to let you restretch the shrink. Hopefully I'll find out today. In general, I think experience would trump any advantage of the softer wire, but for a bumbling idiot like me, I do think it has helped. I'm not claiming victory here yet, but I'm not defeated either!

BTW, it is amazing how much your mind wanders during the slow process of welding and grinding. It can almost be hallucinogenic. This weekend, Sebastian Cabot has popped into my head a few times. Anyone remember him? Man, that dates back older than my car.

The butler from family affair? Uh... startin to worry about you brother. It's that time of year here in Montana... cabin fever? or in your case garage fever?!? Go outside and take some deep breaths man, go for a long walk. your not getting your drinking water from the beaver pond are you?
Seriously, your doing a really fantastic job. I should see you cruising your ride in Southwest Montana this summer. Thanks for the thread!

I know, right? I wish I could blame it on flashbacks, but I think I was the only kid in school not dropping acid. And yes, we are talking about the one and only Mr. French. How random is that?

Now how about a mid-day update?

More on the driver's quarter - knowing when to quit?

Started this morning grinding the backsides of the welds in prep for plannishing with hammer and dolly. We never get to see the seamy underbelly of these patches, so here it is before grinding.

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Notice the plug welds inside the door jamb? Those were a PITA but I did it that way to leave nice, factory looking spots on the front. I think they look good anyway. This pic also shows an example of what I meant a few posts back when I said I needed to be careful not to get excited and skip a step. The step I skipped was trimming the weld flange on the RD sail panel to match the factory quarter. Would have been easy before the part was welded in, not it will require some delicate surgery with the Dremel. I'll weld that seam between flanges after the surgery.

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After grinding the backs of the welds and plannishing with hammer and dolly followed by just a touch of grinding with an 80 grit disc, I had the welds 98% invisible (sorry, forgot to snap a pic). Then I needed to fill pin holes. Zapped them with very quick bursts to keep the heat down.

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But dang if those didn't create a few boogers that don't seem to want to hammer and grind out. When cold hammering didn't work, I tried heating them to dull cherry with a MAP torch and hammering. It sort of worked, but I was stretching metal in areas I didn't want in addition to the booger spots. I don't know if it is because the MAP flame heats a wider area compared with O/A, or maybe I don't know what I'm doing. Anyway, if you run your hand along the seam, it feels like it has been hit by a bunch of golf balls. I think the magic shrinking disc will pull a lot of that out, and more hammer and dolly work will probably finish it up, but there is a good chance I'll need a thin skim of filler over the joints. Still, I'm pretty happy with where I left it.

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Now back to the shop to work on the passenger's side.

Installing my flares is coming up so let me be a little selfish and learn from your very recent experience:

Along those long-ish fender welds:
Did you have much of a shrinkage ditch to correct?
What's your take on how much your planishing moved the metal?

I've always understood MIG welds are brittle and really don't like to be hammered due to a tendency to crack so I've tried to avoid it. I beat the crap out of the practice TIG welds I did recently and they seemed not to care. Not that I stress tested them or anything.

Thoughts?

I've been dying to dive into the gritty details but didn't want to bore people. Now I have an excuse.

I should be able to say more about shrinkage ditches at the end of the day because they look more pronounced on the passenger's side than they were on this one. On this side the ditch was most noticeable at the top shoulder of the fender where it rolls to the sail panel. Cold planishing worked very well in that area. I was actually quite surprised how well it worked. It not only flattened out the ditch, but it also seemed to push the filler back out to thicken that little line the forms at the edge. After plannishing, it was very easy to make that part of the seam disappear with some light grinding. I'm not sure why it worked so much better in that location, but having the easiest access to the back of that spot without being a contortionist, and a dolly that fit the contour perfectly might have had something to do with it.

Cold planishing worked pretty well on the rest of the welds too, but not as miraculous as that shoulder area. Remember that I used EZ Grind which is a softer alloy and it did seem to respond to the hammering more than the ER70S-6 (which feels like trying to bend a diamond). The ability to move that material with cold hammering was definitely limited, but it did seem to relax most of the shrink areas enough to grind out. I've had the same experience as you with normal MIG welds just wanting to crack when hammered. I'm pretty sure why Ben heats to dull red before hammering.

Where it got interesting was where I filled pinholes. Spots where I was able to fill with a single, quick zap ground out clean without much shrink around the edge at all. But if I missed my original mark and drug the wire for just a fraction of a second to pull it over the hole, those shrink lines seemed set in stone and didn't respond to hammering.

Now much of this might be because of poor technique. For right or wrong, I only ground the back side enough to smooth the lumps but left it proud. My thinking was that thickness would held force the metal to stretch and relax. Hindsight suggests that might have been dumb.

The ironic bottom line is that the areas that had the deepest shrink ditch in the beginning, wound up finishing the best. We'll see what happens on the passenger side. Heading out there right now.

The continuing thought that MIG welds are harder then TIG is just not true. The reason why people like to TIG the body panels on because there is less deposition( depositing of metal) I have not shown much of my finish work on my thread simply because I am not there yet but you can easily move the metal regardless of welding process. The only argument for a "softer" weld would be if someone has the nuts to oxy/fuel weld the panels on because the whole process is slower. You heat the metal slower, weld slower, cools slower, thus all the carbon has a chance to normalize within the lattice structure of the steel. MIG is considered a cold metal transfer and has much more likelyhood of pin holes/porosity within the weld where as with TIG what you see on top is what you get all the way through. It is very unlikely that you can hide porosity within a TIG weld..


And to my point with more deposition you have that means more heat went into the weld area HAZ is then very large and requires more grinding and that is why MIG goes out of favor for body repairs.

Good info there Ben. Much of this welding is still a puzzle to me, but I'm happy to say I"m not the same welder today that I was when I started this project. Hope I keep improving.

Now to finish off the progress for the weekend. This afternoon I started grinding on the passenger side but decided that when my compressor needed to catch up, I'd shift back to the driver's side to run the shrinking disc over it to see how much of the warble I could take out. I thought that way, I'd stay busy enough to keep the English butler out of my head. It didn't work. If an actor from the 60s has to be in my head, why couldn't it be Julie Newmar? I could handle that. Anyway, the disc did its magic and gosh darn it, I AM going to declare victory. There is still much metal finishing to do but the panel is close enough that I'll need to shoot a guide coat and block it before I can do any more. I'm very happy with it now.

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On the pass side, I decided to mix it up a little and went more aggressive grinding the back side before hammering.

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I also decided to intermix grinding with shrinking because there were some issues with the panel. First, there was some serious oil canning at the bottom. I think that was left from the fender bender crease that prompted the quarter inch of bondo. Second, there were a couple of wicked bulges above the seam between the sail panel and quarter. Those were on me. I hadn't noticed the RD panel had a sharp roll toward the bottome edge that should have been flattened out a little before welding it in. The worst bulge was so high and tight that I was worried I would have to cut the panel to relieve the stress and flatten it. But that shrinking disc is pure witchcraft I tell you. It took quite a few passes, but those bulges laid down like lambs. I'm really happy with the line I wound up with.

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I got as far as rough grind with 36 grit and hammering all the seams with hammer and dolly. It looks like most have raised to where they'll grind smooth except right at the shoulder roll at the top of the quarter. I'm going to use some heat on that to try to relax that metal more. This time, I'm going to fill pinheads before finishing the grinding. I'm thinking about filling them from the backside this time. It's getting there, I think.

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I like the shrinking disc idea. I might try that a bit..

How's life up on Montana?
Bet you're ready for some Spring weather?
Looking forward to hearing about your updates.

Ha! Spring is in full bore here and it sucks. Spring weather here is a 3-month tug-o-war between winter and summer. Right now we are in the muddy, slushy, slop stage but there will be several more foot+ snow dumps followed by more slop between now and June.

Slow going
I've been picking away at the passenger side quarter. Feels like a lot of work without much progress and it isn't as pretty as the driver's side. I started with filling pinholes. I don't know how other people do this, but I'm having good luck with placing a trouble light on the back side of the panel and then chasing stars with the welder.

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This time, I decided to try filling the holes from the backside to see what that did. I liked the result! It leaves these little zits on the face of the panel with very little shrink.

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It only takes a little touch with an 80 grit disc to make them disappear. The shrink lines in this photo are from the original seam, not the pinholes that were filled.

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Those shrink lines were next. I mentioned earlier that the "ditch" seemed deeper on this side than the other. I'm not sure why that is because the welder was set the same and I thought I was being just as careful to keep the heat down. Running over with the hammer and dolly cold got some of them out. I heated some of the worst areas and that helped a little. Unfortunately, my ancient JC Whitney hammer I was using had developed a little ridge on the edge that I hadn't noticed, and every time I whacked the panel, I put a nice little mark in it about as deep as the shrink I was trying to lose. Click to view attachment And try as I might, I just couldn't hammer them all away. So, I decided to try dialing the welder down low and see if I could add material to fill those voids.

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I honestly thought I'd just wind up chasing the problem across the panel, but to my surprise, it helped. I don't have a pic to prove it, so you'll just have to trust me. Now the question is, how much of that do I want to do?

Warp Nine Captain
You may recall this side had the collision damage. Looked like probably a minor parking lot scrape that left two creases from the door jamb rearward that the PO's body shop had pulled out with a slide hammer and slapped on a 1/4 inch of bondo. Before welding the panel back on, I hammered out the creases as best I could, but did not fill the holes. Big mistake In hindsight, I should have filled and ground the holes and then gotten the panel flat before putting back on the car.

The upshot is that I spent several hours chasing oil canning around the panel. I would shrink and/or hammer and dolly a bulge flat and lose the oil can, only to have it reappear after smoothing out another warble elsewhere on the panel. No doubt, this is my inexperience showing, and not understanding how to apply the "first in - last out" concept on this panel. But eventually, I was able to get it to where a guide coat and blocking is needed to straighten it more (same level of finish as the driver's side).

It's tempting to continue on and finish, but I think it makes more sense at the project level to move on to finish patchwork and rough grinding all the seams; then go over the entire car with a guide coat, blocking, and metal finishing. So, here's where I'm leaving it for now.

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I may still work on some of those shrink lines, and I should be able to hammer the panel flat, but ultimately, it will need a bit of filler to at least fill those hammer marks. That makes me less enthusiastic about making every single weld line disappear. But at least it is going to have a LOT less filler than before. I swear I lightened that panel by 3 lbs. removing that filler.

There was one more task I finished up this morning. I needed to weld up the inside, bottom edge of the sail panel where it meets the trunk seal channel. Didn't take a before shot, but that went pretty well although I need to figure out how to get into the back side of that channel to get it smooth. Too tight for the angle grinder.

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This next pic also shows some significant shrinkage at the shoulder of the quarter and where I didn't quite have the tail edge of the sail panel aligned. I had a clamp in there, but still didn't get it. You can also see some pitting left behind by moisture getting trapped under the thick bondo that was there. My thinking is that I'll address that with some body solder and will just address the weld seams the same way while I'm there.

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Looks good.. Was just talking with a world class triumph car restorer this morning about metal finishing. He echoed my concerns of thining the metal too much by making the weld disappear and said allot of times you take a panel which might be 18 or 19 GA and thin it to 22 or thinner in spots and thus cracking can occur.. I think the goal is to get as much warpage as possible out with the majority of the weld removed and let filler do the rest. The quality is so much better then what it was 20 years ago.. Your car will finish very nice..

Thanks Ben, that is very good to hear. The rule I've been trying to apply is that if I can feel that the weld is thicker than the parent material with my hands, then I grind some more. If not, I stop. I also do a lot of rapping on the panels with my knuckles. I don't know what that tells me but if it feels solid, it makes me happy.

Brent - I really appreciate the details you're documenting. Speaking for myself, I'm a rank amateur at all this and while reading the books/watching the videos by the experts gives one the "book smarts", there's no substitute for "street smart" (or in this case, "shop smarts"!

And it's encouraging (for me, at least) to see others climb the learning curve as I do the same. Much as I appreciate those experts, nothing is as frustrating as watching how easy they make it look then realizing that just ain't the case!

So again, thanks for sharing all the good/bad and learnings! Much appreciated.

Hey, I know! On the All Metal Shaping site (AWESOME site, btw), they have a "Metal Shaper of the Month" they award.

Acknowledging that Kent would win every month (!!!), I hear-by nominate you as the first monthly "914 Rustorer of the Month, March 2018"!

Congratulations. This award, plus $1.75, will get you a small coffee.

Bob B

And re: the monthly award, there are so many we need to thank. As with the acceptance speeches at the Oscars, I feel compelled to give shout-outs or "who's next?" to many others who I'll cite as inspiring me:

Cary, Ben, Defianty, the aforementioned Kent... EDIT: Yes, Dion, too!

I'm sure I'm missing others, apologies to you.

Oh my! This is such an honor. I have so many people to thank....

Seriously though, I really appreciate these comments. I've wondered often how much detail should go into these posts. I've learned so much from Cary's detailed posts that I thought I'd try to give some back, if only to document the struggle. And yes, I've been frustrated by being able to easily find examples of the perfect butt joint but struggle to find details of how they got there. Of course, one way or the other, I'll get the body surfaces perfect and then F it all up somehow with the paint

Haven't been on the Metal Shaping site for a few months and need to get back over there.

And I want to add Dion to the list of inspirations. A fellow warrior in our current cohort touched by the madness!

Aww shucks! Heheheh thanks for the shout out fellas.
Tons I need to learn. You guys do make it look easy.
Besides misery loves company, but this is the best kind of misery.
It’s actually therapeutic for me working with this project and following you guys.
Have at it!

Chris, Dion we should just merge our threads to this page amd just all post progress. Though my thread doesn't get much feedback I may be an anchor to this thread.

Hey man, this thread doesn't work without you out front ahead of me so I can copy. Stop fiddling with that water pumper and get busy.

Lol. Plan to prime this weekend along with working on the water pumper.

\

Perhaps this comment is too late, but I think your door braces should not be in tension but should be in compression

Dangit! JK Actually, the braces are neutral right now. After all of the long and jamb work, I loosened them up to make sure my gaps and dimensions held. Luckily, they did. I might have snugged them up just enough to keep them from banging around when I rolled the chassis, but they aren't doing much at this point. But I've been meaning to ask when most people take the braces off??? Should I put a little compression force on them as added support while the car is on rotisserie?

I vote leave them on until you are all the way done with the rotisserie. Even with my RaceRod door bars fully welded in, I can twist the door braces and open/close the gaps a bit. I do have a fair bit of rear extension on my rotisserie that gives it more leverage to flex the chassis, but still. More support is better than less. My $.02.

Had time for a quick clean-up task while waiting on 7Gb of Lidar data to download this morning. I needed to drill and reinforce the pass. sail panel for the trim clip to match the other side.

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There's a little tab underneath that is an extension of the middle wall of the roll bar to reinforce the clip bolt (this one will get cleaned up and repaired after some media blasting). I thought this would be easier to add after the sail panel was on, but now I don't know why.

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Regardless, it was pretty simple to locate and drill the hole up top.

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... tack in a tab below and drill to match. I didn't worry too much about getting an exact match and pretty, I'm just going for function here.

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Well It's Official ...
It's a Porsche - got confirmation in the mail yesterday.

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I have a few questions about the COA that I'll also post on the originality forum before contacting PCNA, but here they are:

1. I supplied the transmission # but COA shows "not confirmed." Does this mean they have no record of he original # or does it mean they don't match? I think I have all the receipts from PO (2nd owner) on this car that start in 1976. Seems unlikely that the tranny was replaced after only 3 years.

2. Paint code: My Karmann tag lists L96D silver metallic as the paint code, COA lists Silver Metallic/80. Is that just the Porsche code for the same color?

3. Options: COA just states "US Equipment." My car seems to be a bit of an oddball and the main reason for ordering the COA was hoping to confirm it. It is a '73 2.0L WITHOUT appearance group (no vinyl pillars, chrome bumpers, or fog lights) but it DOES have Performance group options (front and rear factory sway bars, center console, and fuchs wheels (all 5 of them)). Shouldn't that show up on the options list?

I was happy to see they listed my engine as matching.

In other news...
I'm getting to the point where I need to do some media blasting before I can complete final rust repairs. We have been in spring thaw so I spent a couple of ours plowing snow out from under the tent garage frame. I needed just one more sunny day to melt the remaining snow off so I could throw the cover back on. And today???

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And yes, I wore appropriate foot attire to enjoy the spring weather:

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Blue skies in Butte America. We'll see what the day holds.

Good to know! I'll hope for the best. Unfortunately, we are near the top of Bozeman Pass so can be socked in with snow even when it is clear in Bozeman 12 miles away. But maybe I'll get lucky and it will clear off.

Hiding Sins

Did a bunch of grinding today. Not exciting. Then I decided to finally fix that cock-eyed seat mount that I've been putting off. I decided to cut it out from the back using the good 'ol Rotobroach. That way, all the ugliness will be under the car and covered by undercoat.

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I don't know what the deal was with that bracket, but it kept wanting to go in cattywampus like it did the first time. I wound up having to screw down and weld one side before screwing down and welding the other, but I got it done. This should hide under the undercoat.

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Mucho mejor -

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Aimless wandering

Spent the day doing stuff with no particular plan. First I ground welds for awhile. Then i scraped undercoating until I got tired of that.

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Then I welded in the most important parts in the whole car:

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Don't you see them? Here's one right here.

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Everybody knows the car won't start without the carpet buttons.

Next I fiddled around and took apart the seat mounts to separate parts for painting and parts for plating.

Finally, I came full circle to complete some unfinished welding on the front trunk where this crazy project started. Needed to finish up a butt seam under the right headlight bucket that I'd left for when the car was on the rotisserie.

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That's kind of boring, so how about some fornicating frogs to spice things up?

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I don't think either of us is old enough to remember, but there used to be cars (trucks? I told you I'm not old enough to remember these!!) that activated the starter by stepping on a button on the floor of the car....

--DD

Oh man! You just brought back a memory. I have a vague memory of my uncle having an old truck on his farm that started with the floor button. I think that was the first car my older brother ever drove. I'll have to ask him about that. I'm sure we both remember when the light dimmer switch was on the floor. I still think that is the proper spot for a dimmer switch.