1986 Porsche 911 - with added E46 M3

I do enjoy the relentless quest for a rot free car .

This will be quite something when it is done.

Nice, is that pear desert cthulhu?

I had a bit of time this morning before the coronation dinner at Ten Acres.

I did a bit of a clean up of the welds on the underside.

I've not gone too mad as I don't want to over thin the already thin metal.






I also cleaned up the inside, this has revealed one pin hole on the left hand edge, I've marked it with a felt pen so I don't forget.




I was going to spooge the lot up but as it needs that hole welding up there is no point.

I don't have time to drag the welder out now because I need to go and get into my union jack suit ready for dinner (that's lunch if you're darn sarf).


Cheers.

Well, yesterday was a strange day indeed.

The mother in law's moving out day so she decides that she's having a heart attack to liven things up a bit.




They came and carted her off on a gurney.

It wasn't a connery (as Del boy would call it) but trapped wind.

Anyway, she is now free to untrap that wind in her new abode, yay!


After all the hullabaloo, I started making my repair piece.




I put the vertical fold in it at the same distance the old bit was at.




Except when I looked at the other side I had left a larger gap between the circley bit and the bendy bit when I repaired that.




The reason for that was that the rust hole on the side I did first was much bigger so I had less to copy when I made the bit.

I never thought to look at the other side.

Anyway, the larger gap between the circley bit and the foldy bit is now the new proper way it should be, so I had to chuck the first attempt and start again.

Once I had hammered a new circley bit and done the new further away bendy bit I had this.




That foldey bit is not a straight line fold so it gives you a wrinkly bit to contend with.




This means there is too much metal there and you need to lose it somewhere.

This is where the shrinker comes in.




Once the upward foldy bit is unwrinkled, we need a downward foldy bit.

I did this by clamping it between two lumps of metal and bending it.




Then chase in the groovey bits.

Side one.




Front one.




These were done with a chisel against the open jaws of the vice then tidied up a bit after.

Doing the groovey bits against the vice gives us a straight groove.




But we really need a curvey groove, so it gets tapped up on a dolly clamped in the vice.




This gives us the bit of curve we need.




There is just the little triangle groovey bit on the right.




You might notice I had marked out the top right hand edge to knock in another groovey thing.

Then I realised that I don't have to bother knocking that in at all.

If I just cut that corner off instead.




Time to cut the old bit out.

This is looking up from underneath.

All that cardboard is grinding spark protection.




Check that the new bit looks at least something like the old bit.




Offer it into the hole to see what final tweaking is needed.




Do the tweaks and struggle welding the really thin stuff together.




Quick clean up to reveal any pin holes.




And that's where I am at, couldn't do any more because my knees were telling me they had had enough.

Sadly there was nobody available to cart me off on a gurney so I had to hobble into the house under my own steam.


Cheers.

Fabulous fabrication once again

I Think Trigger got an award for his broom.



Cheers, Phil.



Cheers, James.

I'm living the dream!



Well, I have been deep undercover for a few days.

Actually, we went on holiday by mistake.




To some place in France called Nantes.

They have a cathedral there and apparently it took a while to build.




According to the guide above it took over 400 years, so perhaps ten years not to complete a 911 oil tank is not so bad after all.

They also built a massive mechanical elephant.




Why they did that lord only knows, but they did.


The real reason I went to Nantes was to go here.




I believe it is one of the largest arenas in France, outside of Paris.

I went there for this.




I like geriatric German rockers, ok?

The 9000 capacity arena was sold out so I'm not alone in that.

If you are not into the Scorpions, there is always the Jules Verne museum.




The big fella with the sextant is Captain Nemo.


Anyway, I'm back in Blighty now so back to reality.

According to my daughter, it had rained all week.

That might explain why the grass was growing wildly out of control so I needed to have a go at that before I could look in the tent.

I didn't have chance to do much besides welding up any pin holes in that last piece and treating it with some spooge.




In the middle of the rear seat there are two globs of sealer.




There were similar globs of sealer in the rear floor pans and they hid drainage slots, some of which were very rusty indeed so I had to pull the stuff out to check it.




They are not too bad.

The ones in the floor I hammered flush and welded shut and I will do the same with these, but not yet.

I can't get to the underside until the axle carrier panel comes off so they got some spooge too.




Not the most exciting update I know, but give me a break, my garden is massive!



Cheers.

After easing myself back into it very cautiously on Monday it slowed back down straight away.

It was the lovely Doctor's birthday on Tuesday so we went out for a celebratory bite to eat.

Wednesday was quiz night and we were runners up, first of the losers...

Now where was I?

Oh yes, finishing off the rear seat area.




All this means that I'm getting dangerously close to having to drop the back axle.

In order to do that I need to get the back end of the car up on axle stands because, despite being elevated, it is still standing on its wheels.

I need to refit the plastic blocks back into the now strengthened jacking points so I thought it wise to paint some of my nearly e-coat colour epoxy on there first.






As there was a drop left I used it up on the rear seat.






I didn't go right to the back because I will need to weld there when I do the axle carrier panel.


Whilst that stuff was drying I knocked up some thingmys.




I even painted those too but didn't bother to take any pictures when I was making them.

Why on earth do I need two black painted thingmys?

Find out in the next thrilling episode...


Cheers.

It's you. I can see them.

The paint has dried on the sill so I can get the jack point block things.




And stick them back in.




My pal Luke lent me some big-ish axle stands.




Obviously one of the pins was missing because they always are.




But the tops of the stands are too big to fit onto the jack point blocky things.




Hence the black thingmys I made previously.




Which worked lovely.




So now the wheels are in the air.






Now I need to remove the brake pipes to the rear brakes.

There is a (semi) convenient join in the pipes where they come down off the front bulkhead and head off under the floor.

For that, I thought I would be organised and made these.




Which finished up like this.




These are to bung up the pipes which remain on the car at the front bulkhead.

Of course being organised ready to plug brake pipes is a fantastic idea if your bungs fit...

Actually, one bung did fit but the other didn't.




BMW in their wisdom used two different sized fittings presumably so that you don't mix up the left and right brake circuits.

As I didn't have any of those bigger ones I had to snip it off the old pipe and make a new stopper, post-haste.

The flow of fluid is now stemmed.




That black hose in the foreground is the clutch hose, it was perfectly positioned to obscure my view of the job.

Anyway, the brake pipes are now off and I am one step closer to dropping the axle.

When that will be I'm not sure, the doc has got some work lined up for me in the garden this weekend...


Cheers.