1986 Porsche 911 - with added E46 M3

Destined to fall off now you gave used a French washer

Well, it's like summer only hotter, which is nice if you are parading around Cleethorpes beach in your budgie smugglers but it's not very good if you are working on an old banger in a tent.

I went into the tent last night and thought about doing things but couldn't summon up enough energy to actually do them.

Tonight the tent was very hot again but I had to force myself to do something.

What makes it more difficult is that the things I need to do next are very boring.

I have to continue cleaning up the floor and sill to remove the old underbody sealant so that I can then give it a bit of a sanding down ready to paint.

I want to paint the inside and outside of the floor and the sill at the same time, ideally.

I vacuumed out the cab floor but it was far too hot inside to start sanding that so I worked in the underside of the sill.




Sorry but a boring job begets boring pictures.

It was that bad that I actually nodded off whilst I was under there.

It is not far away from being ready for sanding now.




I will be glad when it is all one colour again.


Cheers.

Thanks, John.

When he's a grandad he might be trying to finish that oil tank that I started over a decade ago...


The weekend just gone was a bit of a let down because Ten Acres Cafe is shut for staff holidays and I had to do house work things instead of car things.

There are still lots of housey things to do but I might get to those another time.

Monday was a hard day at work and I was late home so I didn't do anything.

Today was a much nicer day at work so when I got home I got on with a bit more cleaning up of the underside.

I'm on with all the fiddly, time consuming areas, like this return flange at the front of the sill.




There was a fair old wedge of sealer on top of the flange which took some getting off but it did prove to be rust free, which was a relief.




Just a bit further forward of that the sealant around one of the bolt holes for the aluminium under tray thing looked to be lifting a bit, so I picked at it and...




Would you believe it?

It looked like it had gone beneath the outer skin which is only held on by three spot welds, so I peeled back the corner to have a look.




Yes, it has crept under it.

I also dropped off the rear wishbone mount, to clean around that and it had spread a little way around the other side of the chassis leg, into the wheel well.

I started cleaning it up.






Once all the rust was off it got the spooge treatment.






As I am sitting here typing this, that piece that I peeled back is playing on my mind.

I won't be able to leave it, I will have to drill out those three spot welds to open it right up to make sure there is no more rust hiding in there.


Cheers.

I forgot to mention that last night was quiz night, we finished second which sounds rubbish until I tell you that 50% of our team were absent without leave.

I'm pretty sure we would have gone one better if we were at full strength.

Back to this bit, as discovered the other day.




I did clean it up and treat it with the old love potion and tried to ignore it but I couldn't.

It is like an irritating insect bite, you can't help scratching it.

The tab is held down by three spot welds, which I centre punched.




Then in with the spot weld drill.




When the rust in a seam is really bad, as soon as you break through the top layer with the drill you get a puff of red dust which signifies that you have just been presented with a few more hours of work.

In this instance, that never happened but I could see a slight trace of rust at the top of the upper hole.

Let's have a look inside then.




Thankfully it wasn't that bad at all, just a couple of bits of surface rust.

I was fully expecting to have to cut off and remake the top skin before I opened it but it cleaned up easily.






I gave it a good spooging.






I like to leave the spooge to harden for 24 hours before I paint over it so I left it like that for now.

Hopefully I can get some weld through primer on there tomorrow and get it stuck back down.


I then spent a couple of hours cleaning off more fiddly bits of the floor but I didn't take any pictures because it is boring.

All the above is boring too, but it has to be done.


Cheers.

Excellent, Dude.

It is our duty to tutor them in the ways of righteousness, otherwise they might grow up desiring a Tesla or some such.



When I got home tonight the first job was to get some weld through primer on there.




It didn't take long to dry in the warm weather, it was ready after I had finished my cup of tea.

I folded it back using a dead blow hammer so that I wouldn't mark the metal.




If you look at the picture above the tab was still slightly proud of the surface, but the spot weld drill marks all lined up perfectly with the holes.

I got a couple of large washers and the undertray bolt to pull it up flush.




I made sure to clean off the paint before I welded it.




Welding it was where everything went wrong because the weld oxidised horribly because my gas pipe had a kink in it.

What is more, one of the fizzling oxidised sparks dropped down and set fire to the rolled up cloth that I was resting my head on.

This annoyed me no end because I then had to grind it back down and re-spot weld drill it, after I had put the fire out of course.

I was too busy cursing and mumbling to myself to take anymore pictures whilst doing it but it eventually ended up like this.




After another cup of tea, I started sanding the floor, because it isn't going to paint itself.




Still a fair bit more sanding to do but at least I have made a start now.

Before I started sanding I pulled out the rusty clips from the chassis.




I will need to get some more of those.

As far as I can work out, they are a 'prestol cage' and the part number is 07129904323

Does anyone know if that is the correct part number or have I just got a random mobile phone number by mistake?


Cheers.

Cheers, dude.

I did google it and discovered that there are various different versions of the 'prestol cage' but I found an advert for them on eBay which were diabolically overpriced but they were good enough to have a photograph of one next to a tape measure which helped me to confirm that I had the correct part number.



Another weekend has passed where I was forced to do housey things and gardeney things instead of car things.

I can't stand gardening but all the grass and hedges just won't stop growing.

I didn't get my fry up at Ten Acres cafe because they are still on holiday but that is probably a good thing because I have a karting do coming up in a couple of months and I need to get down to racing weight.

It was a real hot one today and when I got home the tent was quite warm inside.

The Doc has gone darn sarf to see the grandkids so I could have got away with not doing anything but that isn't going to help, so I was back in there doing more sanding under the floor.

I don't like sanding but, on reflection, it is not quite as bad as gardening.

I have decided that in this round of painting I am going to do the driver's floor, the inside of the tunnel and on to the box section at the edge of the tunnel on the passenger side.

I did about two and a half hours sanding these areas.




The areas where the two tunnel braces bolt on had surface rust around the bolt holes and there were the odd one or two other little areas of surface rust that I had to wire wheel off.

I had another hour of sanding after the wire wheely thing then put some spooge on the bits that had been wheeled off.




Although I am trying not to think about it, there is probably a bit more sanding and prep to do before I start mixing paint.


Cheers.

You really have far more patience and staying power than me and perhaps most on here too.
It will be some vehicle once finished.

“…. Not even a cup of tea first”

Oh the horror!

John

For me to forgo my cup of tea is almost unheard of, John, and signifies my total dedication to the task at hand.




It is a great morale boost, Phil, but more importantly it helps to disguise all the bodgery that preceded it.


Now I have some paint on the outside of the floor I need to do the inside so that involves another load of sanding.




I had previously just brushed some paint on there that I had left over from doing the boot floor or something and it was a bit rough and ready so I did a couple of hours smoothing it off a bit.

It is going to be a pain when I come to paint it because I will have to mask up all the cables and things.

I gave the front part of the floor a quick going over too, and put a drop of spooge on where I had welded up a grommet hole.




I want to get this side fully sorted before I go on to the passenger side floor where this awaits.




Speaking of paint, I've just ordered some more and the price has gone up astronomically since I got the first lot.

It is now £133.08 per litre which makes Shell V-power look like a real bargain.


Cheers.