1986 Porsche 911 - with added E46 M3

The attention to detail and workmanship in this thread always amazes me.

Funny you should mention that, Nigel...



I don't envisage any concours in my future because I soon lose interest in polishing cars.

I need to keep the mojo going because the Doctor is keen for me to remove all the BMW bits from the downstairs toilet...


A relatively routine Saturday, ignore the alarm clock for a bit then Ten Acres Cafe for breakfast followed by a trip to the creamy bun shop for supplies.

When I got home I was struggling to motivate myself to get to work.

My back has been particularly painful for a while so I put a heat thing on and drank tea for a bit.

I eventually dragged myself outside and made a start.

Remember this?




The observant amongst you will notice that when I roughed this out I made it so it sits inside the original floor.

I did it like that because it was easier to check the fit.

What it means though, is that the groovy bits are going to be a bit too narrow.

So to overcome this I moved one edge of each groovy bit.

like this.




You can see the marked on line where I moved it to and also the chisel marks from the original position where I had gone at it like a bull in a china shop.

I should have been a bit more careful with that.

The small groovy bit was a bit less rough.




As the whole thing is quite curvy and had a lot of bashing to stretch the middle bit down.






This meant that the right hand edge of the piece was now too curved and did not sit down on top of the floor nicely.

If we revisit the first picture from this post you can see the shadow along the right hand side (this was how I left it yesterday).




With the extra work that had gone in to it today, it was even further away from fitting.

To sort that out I used the stretcher along that edge.




Those lines in the surface are from the stretcher jaws.

With that, it was looking quite good.




I thought the front edge of the transverse groovy bit needed to be pushed down a bit deeper to match the original.

I marked up where I wanted to move it.

When I got it into the shed it was easier to hit it from the reverse side so I gave it a thorough bashing.

When I turned it back over I had thoroughly bashed the wrong edge of the groovy bit.

This was the edge that I had made once (over hammered if you remember), moved a second time to the correct position and now I had mistakenly moved it a third time.

The metal was now too badly mashed up to be able to get it back into shape so my final tweak, which I probably could have managed without has ruined the panel.

So now, it has been chucked away and I will have to start again.

I am a little bit disappointed about that...


Cheers.

At one point today I went to the shed to make some adjustments to the piece and when I got there I didn't have it with me.

I went back to the tent and it wasn't in the car.

It eventually resurfaced on the windowsill inside the conservatory.

I don't remember going into the conservatory...

When I got up this morning the weather was awful so the Doctor and I went out to try a newly discovered cafe that is open on a Sunday, which seems to be quite rare around these parts.

Had a nice fry up and a very large pot of tea.

We went shopping after to kill a bit more time and to get some lemon fancies (can't get them at the local supermarket).

The weather cleared up late afternoon so I managed to motivate myself to go into the tent for a bit.

I wanted to get this bit of the rear seat area sorted because I had hoped to have that finished yesterday so that I can get on with the rotten grommet hole next to it.

I didn't take many pictures today because I wanted to crack on and also it is really difficult to photograph inside the car with the LED work lights.

I usually end up with large areas of shadow on it and it takes four or five goes to get a picture I can use.

I just didn't have the time or enthusiasm to faff about with that today.

So, this is the bit that was coming out.




You might be able to see up near the top left corner there is a spot weld I drilled out.

This is the only spot weld on this piece where it is joined to the axle carrier panel.

This is the new bit stuck in, you can see that half of that hole i drilled is still there.




There was about five hours between the first picture and the second hence why I didn't mess about trying to get pictures.


This is the point where the internet went down as it has been doing at least once a day for the last fortnight.

I am now on first name terms with the BT diagnostics bot.

He identifies as male and likes to be called Clanky.

It now appears that Clanky wants to send an engineer to look at our fault so when I will be able to complete this post, FK knows.

Right then, BT is still down but my daughter has instructed me on how to link my laptop to my phone by some kind of unfathomable witchcraft.

The next bit to do is this,




which is the bit I was supposed to be doing until I discovered that bonus extra bit that I have just done.

Does any of that make sense?

I'm not sure anymore.


Cheers.

I don't know about posh, you must be thinking of Frankenhealey.

My 'conservatory' is just an extra room to keep car bits and shoes in.




I think that most peoples wives like to hide stuff and claim to have absolutely no knowledge of it.





How did I get here?

Where is that large automobile?


Tonight I had a look at this.




I have begun to rough out a piece to fill this hole, at the moment it isn't very exciting and It is still in the embryonic stages but I have made a start.

That circular(ish) recess was present in the original panel but it has fallen off.




There is still a load more work to do on this before it is even close to fitting.

I have got a long day ahead at work tomorrow so I might not be able to do anything, we'll have to see how it goes.


Cheers.

I certainly have a poltergeist of some description in my house.

Cheers Chas.

I might get to the stage of fitting your special power steering hose one day...

No pictures please

If you still have some of my 'Ye Olde Corpse Reviver No. 2 Gin' it's a very effective brain bleach for towelling induced fantasies.