Ok, here goes. I decided to start a running thread to document the cars progress. I have started a blog, but this seems like a better way to memorialize the progress.

History: I purchased the car in Northern New Mexico in the 2001 or so. PO said the engine was a recent rebuild, and the tranny had been gone through (do they all say that?) The car was 20 footer, and had at least 3 layers of paint with 2 different yellows over the Bahia red factory finish, some body filler work was evident, but it looked to be a reasonably rust free car for under 2 grand.
Drove it for a summer and the clutch went out, so I put it away until next summer. It sat for nearly a year in the garage, until I performed what to me was the most difficult automobile repair I had ever attempted, clutch job. Using the PP tech article I was able to get it in with a minimum of errors and excitement. Test drove it and put it away for winter again.
Somewhere along the way I decided it was time to start the deconstruction (the reason I bought the car in the first place), so I slid the jack stands under it in the winter of 2003.
Fast forward 3 years. In 2005 I moved twice, first to Idaho where i met some of the SLC guys and Ginter, and then to Wisconsin. I draged the car along behind the whole way. I accumulated parts along the way, including all needed for 5 lug conversion, Fuchs, upholstered the interior pieces, steel flares, 911 style dash, gauges, suspension upgrades, a parts car (did I need that?)
Well I made and appointment to start the body work the first of March, so I worked all January and February to get every nut, bolt, wire, and grommet out of the car, and dragged it down to the body shop for soda blasting.

Here is how it looks today

and how it looked when i brought it in 2 weeks ago

I know everyone has a facination with the hell hole area so here is mine first from below

You have to love the home made battery try! that thing is SCARY! HTe body guy just grabbed it and yanked it out of there!

here is a veiw of the home made engine shelf that the "battery tray" is mounted on.

Here is all that crap stripped out

Top view of the RUST

another angle

All cleaned up

and another view of it afterwards. All in all not too bad I guess. he is going to pull out the engine mount on that side as well to clean up any remaining rust undr that peice too!

Then he reworked all of the weatherstrip channels under the front hood that were rusted out from the DAPO using silicone bathroon caulk to hold the rubber down, trapping all the warter there so it could have the maximum effect!
back edge all rusted out

replacement ready to weld in

head light buckets and their associated rust



Fixed!

cool!....it's going to be a looker! So, what other items do you have planned for this project?

Mocking up the flares



They should fix up the hell hole this week, and start on the flares and stuff.
Now it is up to me to go and buy the rest of the parts like floor rear half, seat hinges, jack posts and supports. ANd maybe NEW F/G bumpers. the old ones off the parts car really suck, and they may be cheaper to buy new than to make the old ones work!

QUOTE (jim912928 @ Mar 25 2006, 04:28 PM)

cool!....it's going to be a looker! So, what other items do you have planned for this project?

Here is a partial list of all the things i have ready to go in no particular order:
• Reupholstered the entire interior, with core doors panels and back pad
• New Getty 911 style dash also with matching vinyl
• 911 front struts
• weltmeister sway bars
• turbo tie rods
• new ball joints
• 911 front calipers
• Elephant Racing poly bronze front bushings
• Elephant Racing top strut Weather-Sealed Front Monoball Cartridge
• Weltmeister hollow torsion rods
• Rear 5 lug conversion using 914 hubs and new bushings
• Rear koni’s
• 180 # rear springs
• 916 style front and rear bumpers (used, need some work)* not using
• fiberglass trunk with integral lip spoiler* not using
• Fiberglass flared rocker covers* bought new
• Windshield*
• Reproduction steel flares
• 16” x 6 and 16” x 7 Fuchs wheels think I may want or need wider wheels in the rear and the 7s will fit in front

*from a 916 clone roller I bought recently

still need:
• Elephant Racing low friction control arm mounts
• Carpet set
• weather striping
• Rebuild brakes
• Side shift conversion?
• all sorts of nickel and dime stuff


Plans are to do all the body work and paint it black with the Fuchs refinished black with polished lips. I may use the 7s on the front, and get 8 or 9s for the rears. That stuff all needs to be sorted out.

Issues still to be addressed / ironed out / decided:
• Use the old “bondo-lishious” doors and repair them, or use the 1973 new style doors from parts car
• Wheel choice
• Gauge package/ re working
• Exhaust (want Tangerine racing, but I am afraid the budget will not allow it! So I will go with the rusted out HEs and the Manta muffler it came with
• May decide to powder coat / paint the suspension parts for some flash
• May paint calipers
• Convert to side shift tranny?

Miscellaneous custom touches. I would love for this car to be one of a kind. Some Pie in the sky idea that will likely not be realized:
• SIX!
• Chopped roof (take 1.5 to 2 inches from the A and B pillars
• 928 style head light buckets grafted on
• black out all the “chrome trim”
• box out the rear chrome trim and eliminate totally

Amazing work on the channels.... Nice detail..

looking good, keep up the good work....

I got to visit Mark's car (and the cheesehead that owns it) at the shop.
It's neat to see a a bare metal tub being worked on . It screams with potential. Mark's dedication to doing it right was obvious. His plan sounds great and the shop is on the same page.

The shop seems ready, willing, and able, and I'm glad to know it's only 25 miles from my house.

Among a couple nice muscle cars, I was very happy to see a roller Ghia convertible with fresh burgundy/maroon paint. In the parking lot was a great looking sky(?) blue VW combi. Here in the midwest, seeing these old VWs is a real treat.

well some more progress to report.
I ordered the following from restoration designs. figured I may as well do it right while I am in there (any one heard that before? maybe as they them selves uttered it?)
rear half floor pan
seat mounts and hinges
battery tray and support
jack receiver plate
jack receiver tube
Engine tray

didn't really need some of it, like jack receiver stuff , but I figured it best to take them off and get rid of any surface rust under there and save trouble down the road.

also worked on one of hte pie in the sky ideas..... I ordered a center mount brake light from a Honda Del Sol to see how and whether it fits into the targa bar. If it works I will post lots of pics!

QUOTE (gopack @ Mar 28 2006, 06:38 PM)

also worked on one of hte pie in the sky ideas..... I ordered a center mont brake light from a Handa Del Sol to see how ans whether it fits into the targa bar. If it works i will post lots of pics!

Thats gay...Del Sol are for fat chicks.

I might have some stuff you can use. I have the front end off a 71 911 that I rebuilt almost everything on 1 1/2 years ago...new bearings, new vented rotors, new ball joints, koni's. I'm taking it off my 914 and putting on an 84 carrera front end.

Also have spaced rear 914 brakes with turned down vented rotors. Brakes were totally rebuilt.

I also have 6X16 and 6X17 fuchs on the carrera i'm getting the motor/tranny off of.

wow.... that's one heck of a restoration!
you think you're gonna get it back on the road for the beautiful summers in madison?

since this is the official restoration thread.... do you mind disclosing the cost associated with each stage?

how much did you pick up the car for, how much for the parts, and how much are you paying the body shop??

i hope i didn't kill this thread.....

Well.....
The car was the cheapest part I guess. I paid $1700 for it
Flares were about 1 G
interior was north of 1 G
used Fuchs 750
parts car 450
suspension parts ~1500 to 2000
body shop. HMMM lets see, as much as i want to send them ..... the more I ask for , the more I will pay. The estimate is 10-15 K.... not cheap, but I can't do this stuff, and I want it done right!



I HOPE to bust ass and get it on the road by end of september so I can at least drive it once this year!

new progress from yesterdays visit to body shop.
So far the flares are welded on and cleaned up a bit on passenger side.
FRONT

REAR

He is going to box the flare in the front bottom area to ease the transtion from the rocker panels and make it look good!

and stich welded on the drivers side rear

and the cut out made on the front!

It is amazing to me how big a hole you need to get flares on!

THe replacement sheet metal has also arrived, got a new rear floor pan half, seat hinges and mounts, seat reinforcememnts, battery tray and support and jack reciever and surround.
Next week he is going ot insatll all of those peices, finish repairing the drivers door and start to box in the targa bar

I picked up a high mounted stop light on Ebay for cheep, and when we have the targa bar mods going on we will atttemp to install it right in there as if it belongs there from the factory!
Here it is siting on the parts car! the curve of the light fits the roof line curve exactly!

Showing curve on flat counter top

and the targa bar on my car with tape measure

and the measure of the light

I will have them take a lot of pics of this part of the work in case any one is interested. The only reason I am even considering this route, is that we are going to cut off the targa bar spot weld flange, and seam weld the whole thing all around to eliminate the targa bright trim. so I figured while we are at it, I can add a pocket for a high mounted light, and get the custom factor, and be safer at the same time!
It will be a tight fit, and we may have to add a bump protruding down wards of 1/8 inch or so , but it will look good! The only issue will be mounting depth. I think it will be fine as the light is only 2 inches deep at the widest part.

Sure is looking good, keep the pictures coming.

Looking good Mark!

Where's the 4/8 update? Did you take the day off? Are you slacking???

I wish!
I am working a job in Michigan, and the project manager decided we needed to work 13 days in a row, so I was stuck here all weekend working. I will have to call them in a couple of days and see what is going on

thanks for caring Dan!

Mark,
Looks great! What part of Michigan are you working in?

Middle of da Mitten.
St Loius Mi to be precise, hotel is in Mt. Pleasant.
The only thing up here is CMU, and I havent even spotted any cute co-eds to oogle yet!

THis is a picture of the marker at the entrance to the site I am working at. Nice huh?

4/14/06 update!

In the last 2 weeks a lot has been accomplished on the car. The flares are now completely welded on. The hell hole looks like a factory fresh car. Engine mount and battery tray have been repaired/replaced. The targa bar has been surgically altered. The spot-welded flange has been cut off, and the entire thing seam welded up(except for the center where we will try to install a high mounted stop light). The head light doors and the eyebrows have been welded together (I don’t plan on using the lights that much, and they look better this way. No alignment issues). The rear half of the floor pan was cut out and the new piece welded in. the bottoms halves of the jack receiver support plates were cut off, and the rust underneath was killed and new pieces welded on.

Pictures to follow. Too lazy to resize them all and organize them. The body shop takes tons of pictures to document the entire job start to finish.

I will try one LARGE picture and see how it works.

underside of tunnel, floor gone. he also fixed the area where the tubes pass through the hole that is not supported by welding that all up before he put the new floor on.

so here are a few pics of the hell hole repair. hard top get a good shot of that stuff, first pic is how we left it 2 weeks ago.

so here are a few pics of the hell hole repair. hard top get a good shot of that stuff, first pic is how we left it 2 weeks ago.

so here are a few pics of the hell hole repair. hard top get a good shot of that stuff, first pic is how we left it 2 weeks ago. second pic you can see right through the side to the inner part of the outer fender. the thrid poic is the patch peices.

So here are a few pics of the hell hole repair. It is hard to get a good shot of that stuff. THe first pic is how we left it 2 weeks ago.


The second pic you can see right through the side to the inner part of the outer fender.



The thrid pic is the patch peices ready to install


last the finished product

and with the battery tray installed, one of the few things i am going back to stock on!


finally they dug under the engine mount and killed all the rust there, and fabbed a new piece to repair that area!

Here is the jack reciever repair. probably didn't need to do anything there, but it was showing some rust so we figured "may as well do it right.


Don't seem to ahve any pics of the finished repair. Looks like new

New rear half of the floor was also installed. I'll post jsut a few pics of that
Floor out


new floor panel


fire wall rust from back bottom


welded in place


they killed all the rust in the places we were never meant to look after they welded thcar together in Karman.

a few shot of the car in the sun

passenger side. looks pretty good!


drivers side. this is the side that had a ton of bondo, all held on by drilling holes in the body and letting the "ooze" through the holes hold it on. now all holes welded up, and some major hammer and dolly work in the future! looks like a bad case of the pox or something!

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g75/GOPACK42/HPIM2702.jpg

I'm thinking about these wheels! (NOT)
seriously the flares are going to be soooo sweet I think

And finally my only indulgence other than the flares. I never liked the bright trim on the car, especially when it will be black, so we decided to cut off the spotwelded flange on teh targa bar, and seam weld it all the way around the trailing edge. I am pretty sure that this will be as strong or stronger than the spotwelded set up.
Before


after

another angle

It is hard tro see, but there it is. I have a stop light bar i am going to try to fit IN the yarga bar liek the factory would do today if this was a new car. will keep you posted on that.

and a few misc. pictures.

welding the eyebrows to the headlight doors. it is going to be a weekend (day) driver mostly so I figured it looks better this way , and less to get properly lined up.



welding up lock hole and 6 holes for porsche reflector. I am keeping the reflector, but i have a different one that usedd 4 bolts to attach. ( sue me but I like that look!)

I have a bout 140 more pics on my (new) photobucket account. If there is something you want to see, take a look there. I think I made my folder veiwable to all, but someone try it and let me know if they can or can't see the pictures. username is gopack42 on photobucket.


And Dan, thanks! I am just glad someone out there cares! LOL

visited the body shop on saturday. getting to the end now. just waiting for the bumpers to arrive so they can fit them and make sure the flares line up with the bottoms of the flares. I am anxious to see how good the flared portion of the 916 bumpers matches the flares.

so far the rockers and doors and roof and front hood are primed and the first block sanding done.

doors


also fixed the thresholds and welded new peices on there (before: no after pics yet)



filled in antenna hole


arial view


also had to work on the edges of the top aftr they took the paint off of it


after the bumpers get there, it looks like about 3 days to get it in primer and paint the sills and trunks and pass and engine compartment! (thank God, because the wife is starting to make unhappy noises, AND the checking account is starting to run dry!)

Well, it has been a while since anything has been done. The only progress I can report is that the UPS tracking number for the 916 front and rear bumpers indicated that they will be delivered today (the day the shop is closed!). When I ordered them, I was "promised" (quoted?) a 2 week delivery time. That was march 31st! Oh well, what you gonna do? once they have your money , they dont give a crap do they. I chose this particular vendor because they had a catalog item for flared and non flared 916 bumpers, and they were quoting only $100 to ship the pair. Seems only the rears will be pre-flared to match the fenders. Same price as the others, but half the shipping price. I will post pics and comments about the quality when I see them this weekend (I hope). No other progress, as the shop was waiting for all those parts before nailing everything else down to make sure it all lines up nice.

Well I guess it is time for an update.
Talked to the body shop guy, and he was NOT pleased with the quality of the bumpers, but from all I read I was not suprised, and I expected a lot of work on them. They have the front fit and ready to go, but the guy that is assigned to my car is off on a one month vacation to europe (he goes to Croatia every year).
I talked to the shop owner, and he asked me, since he was a man short, if it would be OK to put the car on the back burner for a month. they have a 1968 Z28 they neeed to get done for a guy in the service who is scheduled to ship out the first of July, and they wanted to get it done before he lwaves. SO my baby will sit till July, and then it should be only 2 weeks after that untill she is ready to come home and start the jigsaw puzzle assembly!

I am not lookign forward to that, in fact it has me a bit scared! I may be calling on all you semi local guys to help with the work or at least moral support when the time comes!

Ouch! That's a long delay! I'm here for moral support at least. July won't be the best time for me as you know. July will be the best time for me, just not for cars! :storksmiley:

Exciting as hell Dan. I never get tired of the resto threads when guys are doing it right.

Bummer about the delay, but your car is looking really great. It will be worth it in the end. Count on me for help putting humpty back together if you need it. I've got a couple complete side shifter set ups if you are still thinking about making the switch. We can talk about it on the 17th if you are still coming.

Well some minor progress. I started working on the mock up of the mirror mounting. here are some pics if any one is interested.
It doesnt quite fit, and the angle of the mounting plate will have to be played with, but I think even I can do this!

made a vent window out of plexi, and drilled the 3 holes in it. cut the slot to temporarily accomodate a rib in the casting i may cut out in the final product. will need to play with the angles and such for a bit, but i think it will look good. BTW mirror off of a gen 5 VW passat, so I will be keeping it german all the way.

Well good news and bad news.
First the good news. The Car is in primer (mostly) and there are very few things to be done before paint.
The BAD new is I am SO out of Money that it is getting a little scary. I am afraid to tell the wife where we are so I will tell my freinds on the club site instead. I Owe another $5k for the work to date, which i have in my account for the car. the remaining stuff and paint will be about $4000, which is $4000 over the top number i was quoted of $14k. I am thinking of jsut giving up on the whole dream!

Well I went down to visit my baby, and a Chi-Town Teener joined me to help test mount the suspension and wheels. I wanted to make sure the flares were placed properly, see what might be needed for wheel spacers, make sure that the collision damage and repair in the front passenger corner hadn't whacked the front A arm geometry out of wack too badly if at all (before all this I had noticed that with the poly bronze bushings the passenger side was binding a lot more than the drivers side). well both sides were about equal, and Glen asssured me moved more freely than the stock rubbber bushings, so I am satisfied there. here are the pics of what the car looks like now.!!!!

rear wheel mounted


side view with 2 helpers simulating engine weight


Glen in the car holding on the door and fr bumper clamped in place


And my favorite custom touch, the high mounted center stop light!


Any comments are appreciated.... I am especially proud of the stop light fit and concept!

Nice work, looks like actual progress!

Mark looks good. If you need any local help when you get it back let me know.

THanks Brian.
If and when the time comes I will be "SCREAMING" for help!

Mark,

How did you mount and wire the third light? Did you cut the targa bar, hard for me to tell..
Looking good by the way.

I will have to get more pictures form the body shop, but here is the short answer:

If you followed this thread, I had the entire trailing edge of the targa bar seam welded so I could have the targa bar body colored with no trim attached. After the seam welding, they cut a portion of the lower rear edge out and welded in a box with mounting nuts for the light. they ran a wire through the targa bar from the light box to the relay board area. To do this they had to drill an hole in the side of the targa bar to access the wire and then another in the top at right angles to the first to push it down into the engine compartment, and then weld up the holes. I will likely need to wire it with a relay, a 12 volt from the battery and a resister to get the proper brightness.
(BTW, the light is from a Del Sol, and as you can see is a perfect fit.) I would estimate that this was about 10 hours of labor at the shop, but if you have the skills it should be pretty cheap!

Hey Mark,

Inspiring work.. and I really appreciated the photo of the center tunnel from the bottom without any floorpans. Make the brake and fuel line routing very very clear.
Keep your chin up on the financial burden.. remember, you are getting a "new" car after all this work is done. Even with the deep discounts the big three are offering to get sales moving, you couldn't buy a "sporting" car for less than $30K

Unfortuanately this will be a 30k car by the time I am done with it, nd for all I know it may have a bus motor with 60 HP!? i thought i had 2 liter porsche heads cause i could only feel 3 studs when i bought the car, but it turns out i had 4 stud intake manifolds and heads with one stud removed. I guess that explains the intake leak popping on deceleration!