Front Hood Installation

We're getting down to the final steps of the rebuild!  This weekend I got a bunch of things done.  First, I reattached the front hood.  It has been sitting in my back bedroom / storage room for a year so it was a bit dusty!  Installing it was a little tricky because I'm working by myself.  In order to not scratch anything, I laid blankets all the way around and gently laid the hood down.

I reached under and got one bolt int each hinge to finger-tight.  I then lifted the hood and got the other two bolts finger tight.  I removed the blankets and carefully laid the hood down.  It had good clearance on all sides so I lifted it gently to avoid moving the bolt position, then snugged up all bolts with a socket wrench.  I laid the hood down again and centered the hood, making all of the gaps even.  I lifted the hood and tightened all bolts down hard.  I laid the hood down and the gaps were perfect!

I cleaned the hood with detailer and it looks fantastic.  The only problem is I don't have an upper hood latch.  I went back to my pictures and found that the latch went with the hood to the body shop, so I assume it's long gone now, along with the rear hinges.  I searched around the web and found one on sale on eBay for $5, so I snapped it up.  I'll clean it and bolt it into place when it arrives next week.

Firewall Reshaping

The middle battery compartment fits in where the gas tank used to go, between a vertical wall on the front trunk side, and the firewall on the passenger compartment side.  Unfortunately to fit the battery box in place, you have to "reshape" the firewall.  In fact, it's bashing as hard as you can.  I hated to do this to my new paint job, but I didn't know how to shape it when the car was in the body shop because I didn't have any parts yet.  Did I mention that EA has been tardy delivering my parts?  :^)

So here I am, bashing the firewall into shape.  There is a support bar underneath the steering column that makes for very, very hard bashing, so I crawled into the passenger compartment and cut a section of it out with my angle grinder.

Here is the progression of the bashing and the start of the bondo to leave a nice shape.

I've got the car entered into the Warbirds, Wings and Wheels show this coming Saturday at the Estrella Warbirds Museum at the Paso Robles airport.  I need to get this smoothed out, primed and painted to be ready.  I'll take it over on the trailer and get it in place in time for the start of the show.

Picked up the Body

After 170 days, I picked up the car and brought it back to my house.   The targa top still has to be painted, but I can pick that up any time.  Tom and his crew came in on Saturday to help me load it up.  They did a lot of work in that extended period of time, but we had an agreement that they would work on it between insurance jobs, and charged me $10 / hour less than their standard rate since it's a project car.

I figured the best place to park it while I continue my restoration steps and wait for the electric parts to come in was right next to the solar array.

This is a big milestone in the project, and I'm glad Tom and the team at Rainbow did such a great job.

Guide coat during priming is on

Rainbow sprayed what they call the Guide coat this week.  It's a light black mist sprayed over the primer to give guidance when doing the blocking sanding.  The sanding is complete when there are no black specks remaining.  This ensures a smooth surface, ready for any last-minute body filler or the start of the final paint coats.  Tom found the paint formula for "Porsche Meteor Metallic Gray" so we're getting very close!

First Primer Coat

I stopped in to Rainbow on Thursday to see that the first primer coat had been sprayed and they were in the process of filling and blocking the panels in preparation for the second primer coat.  Getting very close to the end now!

Ready for Primer Paint

All of the body work is complete!  Woo hoo!  I stopped in at Rainbow on Thursday and they told me it would be going into the booth for primer that day or Friday.

I've also paid the second half of the ElectroAuto kit bill.  I expect to pick it up in about two weeks, just about when the car should be done at the body shop.

Since we're getting close, I went ahead and ordered the replacement fusebox and the PakTrakr components.

Here are some pictures from the body shop, enjoy.

Back from the Blaster

I stopped in at Rainbow this morning, as they have received the car back from the blaster.  It's funny to see it as bare silver metal vs. silver paint - can't see much of a difference from a distance.

Everything went as expected at the blaster, except for one area.  Apparently the driver's side-rear quarter panel had some damage in the past.  They used the drill-a-hole-and-pull-out-with-sliding-weight strategy, which is normally fine.  The thing they didn't do was weld the holes shut after pulling the panel back out.  They just applied the Bondo over everything, leading to what you see below, where about half of the holes have been welded over.  The rest of the panels look great so we have a great body to start the blocking process.

Body is at the Blaster

I stopped in at Rainbow today and heard from Mike that he had completed all of the metal rehabilitation on the body and it had been trailered over to the blasting company.

They will do two kinds of blasting:
- soda blasting: gentler particles used on outside bodywork to avoid rippling the metal
- sand blasting: coarser particles used on surface rust and nooks and crannies deep inside the engine compartment.

I don't know how long it will take, but they had to wait for an available work window to open up before taking it over so I can't see it being more than a few days.  Then they'll bring it back and start the bodywork and painting processes.

First View of the Metal Work

I stopped in at the body shop on the way to work this morning and met Mike for the first time.  He had already repaired the caulking hole behind the passenger door latch, and was making progress on the other places as you can see below.

After the metal work is done, it will go off for blasting to get down to the metal, then priming, painting and clearcoat.

At Long Last, Ready for the Body Shop

Sorry for the long time between posts, but not much has happened physically on the car.  Our winter was very rainy so I didn't get a lot of good weather to do work on the car.  I did spend a lot of hours on improving the code for the Android battery pack monitoring app though.  It's pretty much ready to go, waiting for real batteries to watch.

When the weather broke a couple of weekends ago, I dove back in and removed the flywheel from the engine.  I installed the flywheel lock and it came off very easily.

 
Then I got the rest of the car stripped.  The only stuff I can't remove is:

- wiring harness - don't want to pull it if I don't have to as it snakes all over the car
- brake fluid reservoir and brake lines - again, don't want to
- drive shafts - the axle nut is frozen on both shafts.  I've tried WD-40, Liquid Wrench, a heat gun and a 2' breaker bar on the socket.  I hope the body shop can get these off because I'd like to clean them up.

I've found a highly recommended body shop right here in town - Rainbow Marine/Auto Body & Painting.  No web site, but phone is (805)239-3791.  They're going to media blast, repair the rust spots, prime, undercoat, paint and clear coat it.  My buddy Gary at G-Rides does a lot of work on a Porsche Turbo that is painted "Meteor Grey Metallic".  It still keeps the silver theme on my car, but a darker, more metallic shade.  I think it will look really good.

Here are a few pictures to show the state of the car before it goes off to the shop.  I promise I'll peel off the carpet first!

Well that's it.  More details as the shop gets to work.

Wrapping up Preliminary Body Work

This weekend was spent grinding, sanding, filling, sanding and priming the paint chips and rust spots around the car.  First up is the cowl area on the passenger side that I worked on last weekend.  I dug out the rubber strip that was stuffed in the seam between the fender and the cowl.  It was moderately rusty underneath so I sanded the crack and slathered in Rustoleum.  I then sanded and primed the whole area to prevent new rust forming on the bare metal.

Remember I previously said there were no more Mystery Holes?  Well I found the last two.  They're located at the bottom of the front fender panels, directly below the rusty mess of the cowling.  There's clearly a failure mode of water not draining properly in these areas.  I could see filler and primer in both areas, with a bit of rust poking through.  I dug out the filler and rust down to good metal, sanded, Rustoleum'd, then primed.  With 5 areas needing metalwork, I've come to the conclusion that I'll let a professional shop restore good metal into those places.  I don't want to do all of this work, then fill the gaps full of body filler, which is I think what happened previously and got us into the situation we are now.  I'll let them work on welding new metal into place, then apply some super-rust preventive technology.

Here's the driver's side before and after:

 

and here's the passenger side:

I also did several surface rust spots and paint chips around the car, wrapping up what I can see of the bodywork.  Here she is in all of her glory, covered with paint masking paper.  I'll let the primer cure and spray with silver paint next weekend.  This is not the final painting, just a temporary coat to get me through the rest of the restoration.  In the course of getting to this point, I've removed a bunch of trim chrome and rubber.  I'll get recommendations on restoration and painting shops, then talk to them about the project and what they need me to do to the car to optimize the process.