And I took a quick look at the rear panel. More work to do.

Ok, that helps fill in the gap, thank you! I've got a small version of one of those profile gauges, but nothing like that for car body work. The tool whore in me may need to acquire one of those.

Appreciate it

Never enough tools!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001C06BB...=UTF8&psc=1

First job today was to weld up the "extra" holes in the rear panel, and then give it another pass of metal work.

I then gave the other panels another smoothing pass. I might be getting these as good as I can. The photos might not show that the highs and lows differ by only about a mm or less.

Front left

Front right

Left cowl

Right cowl

And I made a first check of the right rear fender. More work to do here.

I took a break from panel work today. The first task was replacing a broken stud for the trunk lid torsion bar bracket on the right side. The PO repair was a hole drilled and tapped "nearby".

First step was to cut off the remains bit of stud, and then drill through the flange inside the long.

Then I tapped the new hole (M8 x 1.0).

Here's the new stud screwed in place.

And then tack-welded (along with the PO hole) and ground down to accept th bracket.

Next, I went to work on the trunk lid. As I previously reported, this replacement lid had a rust-through in the inner rib along the trailing edge. I had cut out the rusted section and cleared out some of the inner foam.

Today, I went after more of the foam. I managed to clear it from the side with the access hole and through the center latch area.

I broke out the bore scope to see the degree of rust and remaining foam.

Here's a shot from inside the space between the rib and the trunk lid skin. Looks like the worst rust is where I cut out the original spot. But still lots of foam to extract from the other side.

Now that's something you don't see everyday!

The "money" shot.
Well done there Bob.

I wonder if there is a chemical that would "eat" the foam and not damage the metal?

Not fun to work with but toluene or xylene would probably do it. I'm no chemist but that stuff seems to like to eat foam in my limited experience.

Is that the same foam used in the body above tail lights (and in sail panel)? I think @ClayPerrine recommends just spraying brake cleaner on it. He says that dissolves it pretty nicely. At least I think it was brake cleaner.

Not sure. The foam in the trunk lid rib is yellow, very rigid, and somewhat porous. What I dug out of one rear fender is white, slightly flexible, and rubbery.

In any case, I made a foam scooping and pulling tool out of a piece of 1/4 inch steel rod. Stiff enough to work but bendable to change the angle of the "head" inside the rib.

After a couple of hours:

I got 99% of the foam. And the rust looks minimal.

Some brake cleaners may work to dissolve foam, but there are various formulations.

Generally acetone is effective for dissolving most plastics and foams. It is readily available at big box stores. Never really tried it on Porsche foam. Also very rough on paint. Use carefully.

I don’t know how I missed this thread, maybe the title threw me off.
Just read it to here. FANTASTIC WORK. I’ll be following now.
Awesome that your son is involved too. Look forward to more.
Cheers

Thanks, Dion. Doing the work, and the documentation, keeps me going.

Speaking of foam, has anyone replaced the foam in the trunk lid rib? With what?

More work on the trunk lid today. Here's the hole cleaned up.

The patch requires a double curve, one sharper and one constant radius. I got pretty close.

Fit in place.

Tack-welded in place. The thin metal around the edge of the hole behaved better than expected.

And all welded in place. Grinding tomorrow.

I also welded a small crack in the rib along the right side.

And I welded two holes in the middle of the trunk lid skin, probably from a luggage rack. I guess that was a thing at some time.

Got back to work on the trunk lid today. Grinding down the luggage rack holes I filled:

Grinding down the crack welding in the right side rib:

And grinding down the welding around the patch. I am pretty happy with this one.

I then set the trunk lid back on the car, propped in rough alignment. The next step is to straighten out all the dings, including the trailing edge. From 10 ft it looks pretty good, but...

The trailing edge has been bent inward. I suspect it got set down hard enough on that edge to roll it under a bit. From the right side to the center, I see a gradual drop of the edge.

On the left side, the bend is more abrupt. I need to invent a lever that can clamp onto the edge, and ease it upward.

Meanwhile, I finished up the metal work on the right rear fender. The sanded spots in the guide coat make it look worse than it is. The highs and lows differ by only about 1 mm.

I worked more on the trunk lid today. First I made a tool to grab and pry the trailing edge. (some of the notch fell out during work--the clamp kept the 2x4 from splitting)

After some gentle prying, plus some more hammer work with a soft-face mallet, I got the edge close to straight, and equally distant from the rear panel along the arc.

Looks good by eye.

And even better from a few feet away.

I'd say just slap some paint on that baby Bob.

Love this thread B. Such an inspiration to redo my rear end!

Also love how flat the rear decks of these look. No wheels and all... Like a spaceship or something