Well after two rounds of measurement this afternoon, no change in the X or Y dimensions and the suspension points are still square to each other. Whew!

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Adding an extra 6mm spacer is a lot easier to deal with than if the XY coordinates had shifted. At least it shifted up. That would give more negative camber which can be dialed out with shims. If it had shifed down in Z that would way worse and could result in postive camber with no way to dial it back toward negative camber! For the moment I'll be happy for this little gift.

For now I'm going to leave Z height alone. Need more time to think about how this could have shifted purely in Z direction.

As usual, tools need fixin' before you can do actual work.

Air compressor has been running a really high duty cycle over the last couple years. Time to change the oil and the air filter.

Air filter is a little bit less than a manly size. Hard to belive this is all there is for filtration. Oh, well as long as it keeps working.

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With that task buttoned up it's time to

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Finally, not only is the front attached to the rear, the passenger long is now tied cross car too!

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So here's the disaster of the week. This portion of the rear bulkhead welds over a U shaped channel that acts as the structure for the bulkhead and support for the 6 cylinder engine mount.

Wouldn't you know it, but even though I had the vertical rib lined up perfectly when it was tacked, when I laid in the final weld bead, it shrunk inward. This caused the panel to tip in at the top. The nature of the vertical stiffening bead makes it stand out even more and it looks like

Honestly, I'm not sure how to prevent this when having to weld thin sheet metal to what was effectely a much thinker structural element. I've done this in the past with a better degree of success but in this case, it tipped in way more than I anticipated and the more I tried to "fix" it, the worse it got. At this point I think the only "fix" is to cut the weld across the bead, and then use a slide hammer to pull it out. I don't think the fix is worth it given that this area really isn't seen. Have some time to think about that one.

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Certainly not the end of the world, but not really craftsmanship that I can be proud of.

With the bulkhead attached to the long, I turned my attention toward wanting to mock up the tunnel.

I have a donor tunnel but it needs quite a bit of work before I can even get to the point of a mock up.

Stripped the tar.

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Spent a couple of solid hours drilling about 100 spot welds. I'll post some pictures of the tunnel internals once I get the last of the MIG welds cut and the tunnel split wide open.

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This tunnel had a broken clutch cable tube that was repaired with some bolted in hooks. It will be worth seeing the fix from the inside for those that may be struggling with broken clutch tubes. After that I'll have to source the metric size tubes from RD and then rebuild the tunnel internals.

If you can figure out a way to pull that out enough to make it an outie rather than innie, a shrinking disc could work miracles to straighten that out after grinding down the welds. That's how I dealt with similar troughs left after welding my rear quarter panels back on. Too bad that spot is double-walled.

Hmm. Maybe, but I think the main issue with attempting the shrinking disc is two fold.

1) the vertical bead. Shrinking usually works for large less crowned surfaces.
2) The thing that sucked the bead in is the U shaped structure behind it. As that puddle weld cools, it pull the non structural sheet metal toward the stiffer cooler U channel behind it.

might not hurt.

What I tried to do was to shink the panel back toward the sheetmetal with a little TIG torch heat. What it did was exactly the opposite. It actually sucked it toward the U channel.

If only I hadn't welded the interior side panel completely first. Then I could have had easy access to the back side of that panel and I could probably have bumped out the lip of the U channel.

Ah! I forgot about it being "glued" to the U-channel. And yes, the bead wouldn't allow it to go perfect like you might get on a flat panel, but I had a patch on the inner firewall where the disc pulled a beaded area flat enough that a thin skim of reinforced filler could smooth it over. That U-channel is the killer though. Bummer.

Parts for the 2.4L six finally came back home from thier winter vacation in AZ at Ollies.

Just did a quick initial unpacking is encouraging. Case has cleaned up nicely after a media tumble. Has that nice grey magnesium look!

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The engine mounting boss that cracked has been repaired very nicely.

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More unpacking still to be done. Will post some more pictures later of macining done to main bearings and addition of shuffle pins, etc.

Now the problem is these parts go on the back burner until I figure out whether or not I have a job due to the ongoing panicdemic.

Here's a comparison of the bearing web that was a little bit compromised by porosity.

Before:

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After:

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Main Bearing Saddle with porosity

Before:

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After line bore to standard bearing size:

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I'm very happy with the clean up on this main bearing saddle. Perfection was out of the question. In the end the bearing is well supported and the really crunch looking porosity is gone.

Overall the case was updated with shuffle pins, the oil bypass modification, addition of case savers to all cylinder studs, cylinder decks were machined, and of course new case studs all around.

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I'm pretty sure the shuffle pins are overkill for a street engine that will get built to E spec, but once this is put together, I wanted the case to outlive me.

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Heads turned out great. Amazing what a good hot tank and media tumble can do for making parts look new again.

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Heads were ported to 34mm to work with PMO ITB's.

Since I found a bent valve and a cracked valve retainer at teardown, these are completely new valves, guides, springs, guide seals, and then the heads were surfaced.

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And of course, the rods were also had the small end bushings replaced and the big ends were resized.

The big waste of time and money in this whole excercise was $140 spent trying to clean the oil cooler. Ollies spent a bunch of time getting it cleaned out but then it failed pressure testing. Unfortunatly they didn't mark where it was leaking. Trying to fix it is a non-starter since I don't feel like building up a fixture to pressure test it.

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could be worse.

I started having second thoughts about cleaning it anyway. I hate reusing an oil cooler from an engine that I don't know the history of. It's always a little be hard to be sure that there isn't some schrapnel sitting in there just waiting to come out and destroy a new engine.

The main drawback was that 911 engine coolers are so pricey it seemed like it might be worth the gamble if this one were to come back cleaned and pressure tested.

Probably a sign that I was being foolish to use an old cooler on a fresh rebuild.

We would reuse a cooler out of a running engine but not one that was from a broken engine. I used the Stompski gauge to pressure check. If it failed, the cooler got tossed. Past experience was if a cooler had one leak and was fixed, it would shortly develop another. Are you doing a front cooler? If so, ditch the engine cooler and just use the front one.

@mepstein

Thanks for sharing that learning from your shop. Makes sense. If something like an oil cooler weld has fatigued, even though you fix the one spot, there are likely to be more sports right in the vicinity that are on the verge of going bad.

Sort of the same thing I do with headlamps and tail lamps. When I replace them, I do it in pairs. Personal experience is roughly similar. By the time one reaches end of life, the other certainly isn't much further behind.

No front cooler for me so I'll eventually spring for a new engine cooler once I get this engine project back on track.

Strange practice doing it that way?,pressure test always comes first,have been through all the 911 cooler BS,had one fail with a steady drip,had to buy a replacement in my country that was $$$$,tested ok and washed it in solvent for several days ,SO much crap came out then got it ultrasonically cleaned (more crap)and then got a local alloy guru to weld on the angled oil fitting...really a hassle as the PO said the 914-6 cooler he supplied was fine .
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Pic shows old cooler with 20 psi on it,IMO in the 911 motor with a good oil pump they can reach high pressure on first startup with cold oil,a used cooler can be a gamble but my replacement has been fine.

@porschetub

Sorry you had so much trouble too. Coolers are a PITA that is why I've always just replaced them as standard practice on Type 1 and Type 4 rebuilds I've done. I know Ollies went though several versions of clean and test. I'm not sure I ever got the full story. All I know for sure is that it wasn't clean like this when it went away, so they definately spent some time trying to save it.

They said initially there was some sort of blockage that kept coming out of the ultrasonic tank as black stuff. I'd be willing to bet they tested 1st but with some sort of blockage it could have passed pressure test 1st and then failed later once they got the blockage cleared?

Glad you got your cooler issued under control. Those leaks don't look fun at all.

I've seen a number of 914/6 coolers pass though FS/WTB but I can't bring myself to pay that kind of money for a cooler that I have no idea where its been. . . . though that philosophy wasn't in practice back in my younger dating years. At this point I'd prefer a virgin cooler. However, that expense of a new cooler will be put off until the panicdemic subsides and my job situation is a known entitiy.

I can tell you from personal experience the new coolers are not as near nice as the original.. From a quality stand point.

Just did a mod the other day for someone.. This was used and clean but very nice.Click to view attachment

Engine is looking great!

That should last a long time.

Getting a new cooler will be worth it just for not worrying about debris from the old one.

Can't wait to see this car on the road!

John

@FourBlades

Thanks John! It's such a long slog starting with a car that should have been scrapped. The encouragement from the forum certainly helps keep me motivated.

Work in the short term will consist of the "free" work to fix the rust and replace the sheetmetal which was paid for over a year ago. No worries there.

Likewise I have enough already paid for parts to put together one of the 2.0L four cyclinders in my posession at the moment. So the engine work is "free" at this point.

Luckily I'm still working for now which is great. However, I don't know for how much longer as the L word is being rumored. The only upside to a layoff would be having time to work on the car with the parts that were previously paid for and sitting on hand.

At this point, based on slow progress to date, I'm shooting to be on road next summer. More time on my hands would pull that forward substantially.

@superhawk996 I hear you.. I have made amazing progress on my car as I have not been working much and not many people buying parts so lots of free time.

As promised, tunnel internals exposed.

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This donor tunnel has a previous clutch tube repair made with a coule of threaded J-hooks. Overall, one of the cleaner repairs i've seen when this breaks loose.

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However the mid-tunnel support braket also has been fatigued and cracked. It's hard to say which end broke 1st and which failure led to the other.

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When I rebuild the tubes inside this tunnel, I'll do a little bit more reinfocement to make sure this doesn't happen again.

@mb911
It is a catch 22 isn't it? Age old truth. You can have time or you can have money. It is rare to have both at the same time.

Hopefully this crisis of fear will pass soon. Lot's of innocent folks that just want to make a living out there being harmed by all of this nonsense and thier inability to simply earn a living for themselves and thier family. That way we can all get back to buying those awesome parts from you .

Thanks for your support.. As you know not getting rich here but it fuels my habit.. Did make progress though again.. Almost have a runnner..

@Mb911

I watched the YouTube from the walkaround a Saturday or two ago -- Car looks great. You're almost there. It will be so excitiing to see another car saved and on the road! Cant wait to meet you in person one of these days at a midwest meetup when I get mine running!

Sounds good..

Haven't been posting much progess lately but I continue to chip away at stuff.

Spent some quality time with the sandblaster - what a miserable job. Everytime I do this work, I wonder why I didn't just shop it out.

Managed to get some donor sheetmetal stripped down. I was primarily focused on getting the tunnel done. Once you're suited up and ready to deal with the PITA of sand blasting, I try to get as much done in one shot as I can.

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Luckily I got it done just before the hot humid weather rolled in - unlike last year!

Prepped the donor tunnel with Eastwood frame paint on the inside and Epoxy 2K on the outside.

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Metric tubing to rebuild the internals has arrived from Restoration Design but I've been putting that job off for a bit.

Since parts came back from Ollie's I've been needing to check the line bore and make sure there aren't any issues that need to be addressed.

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Unfortunately I ran into too much variability from my dial bore gauge. Despite setting it up with gauge blocks I'm having trouble getting the accuracy I need. More accurate bore gauge supposed to be here tomorrow.

Generally seems to be nice and circular but according to my dial gauge I'm running a little bit more toward the high side than I had hoped but need to keep in mind that we're working with a 47 year old mag case here. Bore's are nice and round though!

Next order of business was to meausre the crank while I wait for the new bore gauge.

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Measurements generally look good.

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Generally same story here. Measuring above wear limit but a little bit on the lower end. I've got to balance that against the fact that I was using a relatively heavy touch on the Micrometer to get the smaller numbers rather than being light and getting a more appealing number.

While waiting on the bore gauge, I decided to mount up a set of Glyco bearings and try some plastigauge.

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Coming up with 0.003" clearance which is a bit too loose for my liking. Would rather see 0.002" - 0.0025".

One option is to try ordering Porsche bearings but I hate to do that since my understanding is that Glyco was OEM supplier but there seem to be a lot of posts over on the bird forum that bearings from Porsche tend to run tigher. Wouldn't be unheard of for supplier to provide better spec parts to the OEM though.

Second option is to send the bearings out for specialized coating but that won't be cheap.

Third option is to cut the crank undersize but would rather not do that unless absolutely necessary.

Forth option - new crank assuming one can be located in better shape than what I already have.

We'll see what they measure with the more accurate bore gague but I really don't expect much change beyond a couple of tenths (0.0001"). Getting 0.0005" out via bearing tolerances is feasible but I don't think I'll get 0.001" out that way.

Since Porsche bearings are sold individually, I'll likely order 2 half shells and see if there is any promise there without having to go whole hog on a hunch.

Not feeling any love from the new bore gauge. Accurate - yes. Repeatible - yes. Producing the desired anwer I'd like -- NO!

Well, I've now had the opportunity to measure the line bore and the bearing clearances.

The line bore is basically at the top end of the tolerance for the line bore size. I was hoping that it would have been bored at the bottom end. There is only a total tolerance of 0.0017" to work with. I didn't get an inspection sheet from Ollie's so I'll see what they think they bored it to but the bottom line is that I'm generally measuring 0.0005" or so over the upper limit of the line bore spec but I wouldn't put my hand tool accuracy up against a CMM measurement. We'll have to see what Ollies uses and where they think they lined bored it at.

My crank on the other hand is clearly toward the bottom end of the tolerance. Actually I'm only 0.0005" - 0.0007" off the Wear Limit.

My hope was for a tight line bore and being able to find a workable set of bearings based on some selective fitting. That doesn't appear to be in the cards.

Looks like there will be a 0.010" crank grind and the more expensive undersize bearings in my future. Win some, loose some. Bottome line: I'm coming up at 0.004" of measured main bearing clearance using micrometers and a digital bore gauge that are being set, checked, and repeatable with gauge blocks. Too much clearnace to assemble it as-is.

Any rework of the crank goes on the back burner for now. Potential COVID induced layoffs are a real possibility for me so expensive work will be put off until I know more.

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Well after an extended period of time away from the garage, it's back to the grind . . . literally.

Spent a lot of time on my back yesterday grinding spot welds to remove the floorpan from the driver side longitudinal.

It's nice to finally have wide open space. I had been putting off this job for quite a while. Dreaded job, dirty, noisy, and tough working upside down.

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During the removal I discovered that the cross brace in front of the seats was completely eaten away about 3/8" from the driver side long. Luckily the long is completely unaffected. However, it's amazing that someone just fiberglassed over the rust perforation in the cross member as if it had no structural purpose. Simply amazing to me the that people did to these cars

I have some localized pinholes in the driver side outer bulkhead near the shift rod. I decided that since the inner bulkhead is trashed at the floor pan, I'd remove the inner in order to gain better access to the outer.

Damn rodents had been storing nuts in the area between the panels.

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Damn previous owner somewhere along the line though they were making molds. Entire floor pan covered in fiberglass resin made this a dreadful job. My arms are still itching today. The good new is that except for a little resin clean up from the longitudinals and off the wheelhouse, all remnants of fiberglass are gone from the floorpan.

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So with the driver side inner bulkhead removed, I can now get clear access to the outer in order to cut out the localized pin holes and replace with new metal from Restoration Design.

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OK so #1 main bearing half shells came in and I thought I'd post the results.

This single OEM Porsche main bearing #1 is $75 per ½ shell. $150 for the bearing pair. Not a set – just Porsche OEM bearing #1. I paid $165 for a whole SET of #1 - #7 bearings from Glyco – the OEM manufacturer.

I’ve been reading stories on interwebz and the bird forum that Porsche 911 bearings are better and have tighter tolerances. In the nature of a skeptic I wasn’t sure I could believe Web info so I ordered just this one bearing for comparison

Yup – it’s true.

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Glyco aftermarket bearing set
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Porsche bearing ordered from Pelican - delivered in Porsche bag, Porsche p/n on bag and on bearing.

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Although the OEM Porsche bearing bears the Glyco makers mark, it has a Porsche part number and different markings. Even the maker mark is slightly different. I'm not suspecting counterfit parts but see it as evidence that these Glyco aftermarket bearings are indeed different.

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Clearly made in a different plant and/or via different sorting / handling / marking process.

More importantly these bearings would give me a tighter fit by around 0.0009” or nearly 0.001”. That is huge. I’d like to target 0.0025”-.003” max but was measuring 0.004”+ on the Glyco bearings with both plastigauge (well really .003” gauge that didn’t appear to crush fully) and the math between bore gauge of the bearing and the crank as mastered off the micrometer used on the crank.

Yes - I only measured 1 point on this comparison but it aligns with the postings on the bird forums about differences as posted by those that invested more time measuring two or three points per bearing.

Very frustrating.


Looks like I may end up having to pony up $850 dollars for the OEM Porsche Bearings. The other option is upgrade pump to 76' 4 rib pump or maybe a 930 pump but that is just counting on pump volume to mask larger clearances that would be present by using the aftermarket bearings. Other option is grind crank undersize and be sure they grind to the high spec and then polish down as needed. Not ideal either.

Time to think about this a bit more.

Glad to see progress on the chassis.
Sorry about the bearing situation. You’ve done a tremendous amount of research into that. Amazing the price tag on the Porsche OEM bearings. Tough call. I’d have to go with the Porsche ones. Sounds like less of a headache in the long run. Have you looked to see if any deals to be had with EBS Racing? Only a suggestion. When i was working on my 2056 their prices at the time were cheaper than the bird or the dealer. Not sure of today but worth a look maybe. Save some coin. Good luck.

Prepped the donor tunnel with Eastwood frame paint on the inside and Epoxy 2K on the outside.

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Metric tubing to rebuild the internals has arrived from Restoration Design but I've been putting that job off for a bit.
[/quote]

A general question on clutch tube failures. If the tab washer is correctly fitted at the tranny bracket that holds the rotating wheel, all the thrust force on the clutch cable should be absorbed by this attachment and not on the clutch tube ???
There are so many failures of the clutch tube that my guess may not be quite accurate, any insight from experienced builders ?

@barefoot

The clutch tube has a bent radius as it travels through the tunnel.

Your point would be correct IF the cable traveled in a straight line. Given that the clutch cable tunnel tube does have a radius to it, there are side forces imposed on the cluth tube.

As you apply tension to the clutch cable, it wants to revert to a straight path, but, of course it can't being constrained by the tube. As it attempts to go straight, it imposes side load on the tunnel tube.

In normal use the side load on the tunnel tube is managable. The problem of side force get exaggerated by dragging / unlubed cables, the clutch cable wheel getting bound up and not rotating freely, high force pressure plates, and just plain old fatigue of the brazing over 50 years of use. Remember typical life cycle for a car from this era wasn't even 10 years, 100,000 miles.

Picture below should help visualize the radius of the clutch cable guide tube. In the picture you can see two things.

1) The clutch tube has been repaired with the "hook" fix at the front end of the tube.
2) The stamped braket that supports the tube behind the shifter his broken / torn.

Hard to say which occurred 1st but it give you a sense that things do fatigue and break either the support braket and/or the tube attachements.

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In my case the clutch tube had seperated form the front of the tunnel and gotten itself onto the WRONG side of the shifter mechanism, Wore a groove into the tube as I got the car. I was able to fashion a clamp from a conduit bracket & bolt it ti the tunnel side. Worked OK after that.

Barefoot

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@barefoot .

That is amazing that it was clunking around in the tunnel and hitting the shifter that long to wear a hole in the clutch tube like that.

Good job getting it clamped back down!

Been a little distracted by side jobs.

Did a repair for my neighbor's tractor for some sort of cover to the hydraulics. Since I occasionally get use of the tractor for winter it was only a fair trade.

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OEM part is diecast zinc pot metal. It had broken the ears off the cylindrical portion.

Pot metal is a PITA. Can't really weld it per se. However, I do have some Aladdin 3 in 1 rod that comes in handy for pot metal repairs. It is sort of a cross between soldering with an OxyAcetylene torch and brazing.

The problem is that the difference between being hot enough to flow the rod and the material just turning into mush is only a few degrees apart.

I was able to get it "glued" back together with the Aladdin rod and then remachined it but don't have much confidenece in the long term durability since I don't know what sort of loads are on it.

I decided to make a replacment out of 7075 Aluminum. That one should last.

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The other distraction was trying to fix an AAR valve that had the heater wire intermittently shorting out to the housing. Not Good

I tried to set it up in a 4 jaw chuck to peel off some of the metal housing tube that supports the wire where it exits the housing.

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Bottom line: Complete failure and waste of several hours of work but at least it fun trying to save it.

In the end just as the bit was cutting though the last of the metal tube, it grabbed a few strands of the copper and shredded the little bit of the wire insulation that I had just gotten cleaned off.

Having failed, I completely disassembled the AAR down to the internals. Looks like this could be ripe for some sort of conversion to have a stepper motor drive the physical AAR valve. Obviously that would require an Arduino or something in there to drive the stepper motor but it could have opportunity to "tune" the AAR as the vehicle warms up.

Anyway -- failure for now and something to think about for the future.

So back to some real work.

I had to pull the shifter bushing support off the old sheetmeal and get the pass-thru hole positioned properly.

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Welded it to the new sheetmetal and got it painted with some Eastwood frame coating to prevent surface rusting until I can get 2K epoxy on the exterior.

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An then spent a couple more quality hours in the engine compartment fitting it up and trimming for welding today.

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I don't know what it is about working in the "hell hole" but it seems like everytime I get scooted under the car I realize I've forgotten some tool, my sribe, sharpie or whatever.

Outer bulkhead panel is done. I have the leftover piece of the panel outboard of the shifter left and won't be using it. If anyone is needs it, it's yours for the cost of shipping.

Seems to take forever to get even these little panels installed.

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Really pleased with the weld penetration.

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Nice and strong and will clean up with minimal weld clean up from the front side when it's time to do the finish work.

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Looks like I can spend some time after work this week getting the inner panel ready for install.

That looks really clean and well done. Nice job. That lower firewall is NOT easy!

Thought I'd be welding in the last portion of the driver side inner bukhead panel but it turns out that I've got two headaches.

One is real and I don't feel like welding right now. Probably dehydrated and need to drink more water and a couple Ibuprofen will help. Hopefully I'll be fixed shortly and welding in an hour or so.

The other headache was the repair panel I purchased from RD is missing a form feature to clear the floorpan stiffening dart. I'm mildly disappointed in RD. I really like these guys! But, the 325L panel that I purchased from them needed way more fabrication work than the similar part on the passenger side that I purased from AA for only about $10 more.

As I was finishing up panel prep yesterday, I noticed the lack of the floorpan form feature. Initially I was thinking maybe that floor pan stiffening dart isn't on the driver side.

Quick mockup of the floorpan has a dart there.

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More work to prep the panel needed before I can weld it in.

In addition to this form feature, I also had to completely do the weld flange inside the tunnel. Yeah, Yeah . . . I know all panels are going to need some tweaking. But the AA panel on the passenger side had the tunnel flange formed by the stamping dies and fit the tunnel near perfectly as received. All in all, this was a couple additional hours of panel prep that I didn't have to do on the AA panel used for the passenger side.

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Don't get me wrong. I'd still go to RD for panels but was just surprised and/or disappointed that I had to do this work on the RD driver side part and not on the AA passenger side part. Likewise, I can't say with certaintly that the AA driver side part is any better. Just posting as information but not trying to run down RD.

Anyway, it as a good chance to get the floor pan halves and the donor tunnel in for a quick mockup. Nowhere near ready to weld in floorpan yet but sometimes just seeing a mockup give me a sense of hope & progress.

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11/10/2020 update: have heard from @peteyd at RD that the 325L panel stamping has been revised to add the floor pan formation to more easily fit up. Great company, great customer service on all that I’ve ordered and most importantly incorporating continuous improvement to make their products even better!

Got up at 4:30am meeting with Asia only to find out they cancelled the meeting about an hour ago after I had already gone to bed

Driver side lower bulkhead sucessfully installed last night.

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Time to move on to another section of bad sheetmetal and the last before I can install floorpan.

Next up: The driver pedal box area and driver side wheelhouse.

This jalopy supposedly was a Florida car. I did find some sand in the passenger side longitudinal when I cut that apart which was completely replaced. Video below is of the driver side.


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



Looks like I'll be at least doing a small trap door in the driver side longitudinal to get the rest of the sand out. There were small rust holes in the rear portion of the front wheel wheel to longitudinal area - I'm pretty sure this is how the sand got in there.

Will also need to run a borescope into driver side long just to make sure. Everything is solid with a pick and no signs of pinholes but better safe than sorry.

It's fascinating to me how we each approach the repair process. I've done two cars worth of that lower firewall/rear floor repair and it wouldn't have occurred to me to install the firewall before the floor.

Not challenging your approach at all, just fun to see the other ways folks do things.

Regardless, you're moving right along and it's looking great!

@tygaboy

Considering my aproach was to build the passenger side innner wheel well and long from the inside out to avoid cutting the rear fender it's no wonder I'm doing it backwards. Plus, I need the floorpan out to better access the driver footbox and wheelhouse area. Had I been able to save the tunnel and/or more of the lower 1" perimeter, I would have done it differently.

My thought was that the floorpan doesn't offer any vertical stiffness or vertical structure which would move around my suspension points in Z height.

The floor pan does prevent matchboxing fore/aft movement though and I've tried to brace this movement with the diagonal brace.

The potential for movement keeps me measuring my suspension pickup points like an OCD maniac though.

Well in an effort to get all the sand out of the driver longitudinal, I had to cut some holes.

The front driver side longitudinal had some minor rust at the transition to the floorpan. This was an obvious place to put an access hole. It won't be seen once reapaird and the floopan is reinstalled.

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The rear was obvious too. There was a poor repair of the driver side jack point and I wanted to see what was under there. Usually it is rusted out in this area from the pyramid holding water and debris leading to localized rot. Sure enough.

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Having removed the sand over the course of several hours of swearing and cutting up my hands manipulating a small section of 3/8" vinyl hose (attached to shop vac) back and forth in the long though these access holes, I moved on.

Demolition of the pedal box area was entertaining. The floor pan that normally covers the rear mounting point for the front cross member was basically gone. Simply covered with a skim of fiberglass, rotted sheetmetal, and of course undercoating to hide the whole show.

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Well at least I'm moving forward and no longer working in the engine compartment for a while. We'll see about that because I might be cutting a surgical flap via the driver side wheel house inner in order to properly repair that driver side jack point. We'll see.

The aftermarket bearing vs. Porsche OEM bearing saga continues.

I ordered two half shells at about $45 each that serve as main bearings for bearings #2 through #7.

I was hoping that they would measure a little tighter than aftermarket Glyco as bearing #1 half shells did.

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Nope. Well, maybe by 0.0001" - 0.0002" but I was hoping for something significant.