"I done ghetto fixed it!"

If you've talked to me for any length of time, you've probably heard bike shop stories. And, you've probably heard about the time that a customer came in with a bike and a hammer and proudly declared that he "done ghetto fixed it!!". Say what you want, but he did the best he could in his situation, with his constraints. Now, 20 years later, I too have done ghetto fixed it!

You might recall, I had a rust hole in the driver's door sill. I cut away most of the bad metal, and cut the hole as neatly as I could...

Then, I cut and shaped a piece of stainless steel to fit the hole. At this point, a purist would think that I would weld the piece in place, but I don't own a welder, I don't intend on learning to weld, and I decided to get by as best I could.

The piece has been "welded" in place with epoxy, and I used epoxy to level things out...

 For the thinner vertical section, a mix of metal mesh, epoxy paste, and epoxy putty was used to fill things. In the end, a lot of the edges of the mesh was ground away, but by then, there was enough epoxy in place.

I sprayed it with flat black to see where I needed to make improvements. You're seeing the final result (after a couple of passes filling and sanding). It's not perfect by any stretch, but this area will be under a layer of vinyl wrap, a rubber pad, and the rubber door seal. I didn't see the point of making the shape perfect.

The passenger side is coming along similarly - sheet metal + epoxy, but there's more extensive damage leading to more extensive work. More details later...

Shapeways Redux

I received my completed parts from Shapeways. After ordering a couple of test pieces in different materials, I settled on a polished white plastic. The letters look great and very "real". 

I also ordered three pieces that would make up the mounting system for the main plastic panel. Printing the whole panel would have been extremely expensive, and too large for the print process, so I printed 3 thin pieces that were sized to fit the printing constraints, and matched the mounting points of the real Porsche reflector. The these pieces also served as a template for the precise holes needed to mount each letter.

After I glued the printed "template" to the back of the plastic panel, I drilled out each hole with a drill press. 

 The resulting fit was perfect - each letter fits exactly in place. The panel also makes a perfect holder for spraying the letters. I'm likely going to go with a steel/aluminum finish. More about that later...

Shapeways Here We Come

The rear reflector is a bit cracked and in dodgy condition, and a new one can be very expensive, so I'm going a different route. I've drawn up a design in ViaCAD and I'm using ShapeWays.com to "print" pieces to build a new rear logo. I started by downloading the Porsche font and creating 3D letters. I added pegs to the backs of the letters so that they would fit exactly into a plastic plate that I would also print. The idea was that I would print stainless steel letters, a large plastic slab to mount them on, and a stainless steel frame to finish off the edges. Unfortunately, the original thick design of the letters would have been about $800 to print in stainless, so I brought them down to 2mm. The plastic slab would have been about $500, so I reduced it to a very thin layer that serves mostly as a stencil for the letter holes and also for the mounting points onto the car.

My plan is to print the letters, the frame, and the mounting "stencils". Then, I'll make the main plastic plate in a more traditional way (ie. not 3D printing it). Then, I'll wrap the plastic plate in something like carbon fiber, glue on the stencils, mount the letters and the frame, and mount it on the car.

I've ordered a sample letter in a couple of different materials. More later...

Lower Back Pain

I've removed everything from the rear end. This means that I'm about 90% done with disassembly. I still need to remove the glass and a few odds and ends like windshield wipers, but I'm pretty close.

Once everything is off, there's a significant amount of cleaning and patching that I need to do. I now have a better view of things like the oil tank and the heat exchangers, but I'm trying to ignore their condition at this stage.

A word of warning...

I started this blog as a way of documenting what I was doing and to provide helpful tips to anyone who might want to do the same. Today, I have two helpful tips.

Helpful tip #1: If you're thinking about disassembling a perfectly good Porsche, DON'T DO IT! Get a wife, a girlfriend, both, a dog, whatever... I give the 1974 911 a low rating on maintainability. It's as if the designers assumed that the owners would never want to disassemble the car using common household tools (an, on one occasion, a butter knife). There are better things for you to be doing with your time and your butter knives.

But, if you don't agree with that first tip,

Helpful tip #2: If you know you're going to replace various rusty screws and bolts, you'll find a zen-like calm fall over you when you come to the realization that a cutting wheel is as acceptable as a screwdriver and far more effective.

The front is complete

After days of poking, prodding, prying, scraping, eating, praying, loving, and crying I have removed the driver's side fender. I've also removed everything else, but the fender was the painful part.

I think there was a healthy dose of schadenfreude at the Porsche factory in the 70s. Be assured that the longest screws (requiring the most turns) were also the ones that were in the most hard to reach locations, rust prone, coated with rubberized liners, and surrounded by jagged rusty corners. After I managed to unscrew everything, I still had to fight with 38 year old adhesive that was sealing the fender to the body, not to mention one spot weld and an attached fuel system.

Now that it's removed, you can see the washer fluid reservoir (currently attached to a pump that looks like it broke in the 80s), and the fuel overflow tank. I think I might remove these, clean everything up, and reattach with new hoses.

You can also see the ventilation system. I'm thinking of removing this, as it seems redundant in a California Targa car. The way that Porsche heating system is designed, it's more likely to pump carbon monoxide into the cabin than to increase my comfort. I still haven't decided, but I'm very tempted to remove it.

As a side note...

You might have noticed the addition of Google ads to the blog. This is so I can get marvelously, filthy rich off of the 50 page views I get every single week. I'll invite you all to my castle some day.

I also did it because I realized that I had no direct experience with the dashboards, analytics, etc. that come along with the Google ad platform. So, I figured "what the heck? I'll try it". Bear with me during my little experiment.

It's a Wrap!!

Okay, I wrapped my first piece. This is a small piece that connects the fender to the bumper and the "bellows" that you see on older Porsches. They say to start by wrapping large flat areas, so I started with a small piece with many curves and corners. That's just the way I roll.

 I lightly sanded the piece, cleaned it, and applied the cleaning/wrapping fluid. I then positioned the vinyl so that the "grain" was along the length of the car, and holding the piece, the vinyl, and a live heat gun, I started wrapping.  It looks pretty good. The edges and inside are messy, but they'll be hidden and held by the other pieces. In this picture, you can see both the color and the brushed effect.

Twins!

I removed the driver's door (not shown) and the door trim and golly, look what I found!! Not really a surprise, and it's not as bad as the other side. Still, it's good to see that I'm not wasting my time opening things up. Next up, removing the driver's fender. There's a lot of stuff in there that's connected to the fuel tank, so if you here a KA-BOOM, send cash in lieu of flowers.

Oh dear...

After peeling back the carpet on the passenger side, I started peeling off more and more and more. This is the cushion material under the rear passenger seat. This will not do! I didn't intend to change the interior, but maybe I should. I'm this far along....

Keep in mind, the whole point of all this is to prepare the car to wrap, because it was "cheaper and easier" than having someone repaint the car. Clearly, replacing the upholstery is part of that, right? Right?

Facing the horror head on

This picture doesn't look like it, but I was able to break away a lot of the rust bits. The visible metal is now more silver than brown (unless it's dirty, that is). I peeled back the carpeting after removing the passenger seat.I haven't found any more nearby rust besides what you see here. I have plans for how to fix it...

The Horror!!

This is what I found lurking under the door trim. I haven't fully pulled out all the rusted metal, but it's not pretty. I'm trying to figure out my best options, based on the combination of what I am able to do (vs. having someone else do) and what is the "right way" to fix it.

Stay tuned...

Over My Head?

If you're the kind of person who laughs when someone gets in over their heads, you might want to get ready to laugh. I remove the passenger fender with minimal problems. The headlights and turn signals are wired in a way that makes the fenders difficult to remove, so I cut the wires. My rationale is that the wires were not in great shape anyway, so I plan on replacing them when I reinstall the fender. Also, I'm considering replacing as much as I can with LED lights. We'll see...

This might also be a good time to install the magnetic switches for a digital speedometer. I'll look at that once everything is cleaned up. This is also a good time to think about the suspension, although I'm not sure I want to spend the time or the money on that.

What's Behind the Door?

I've removed the door! It's generally a bad idea to remove the door by removing the hinges because it will be a real pain to realign the door later. However, I couldn't remove the hinge pins, and they are notoriously difficult to remove without a special tool and a lot of luck. So, I had to choose whether or not I'd spend money and time buying the tool and doing it the right way at a later date, or moving forward and possibly spending time and money getting the door realigned. I chose instant gratification.

My friends are not surprised.

However, I can't be sure that I will have time to do work on the door later, so the decision made sense.

At the last minute, I put the stands underneath the door to support the weight. Good move... the door is very heavy. I also removed the interior from the door (more on that later) and all of the weatherstripping and trim. This revealed a sizable rust hole in the rear bottom of the door sill. I'm currently weighing my options on how to fix that, but I'll start first by clearing out all the rust (more on that later).

You can also see the wires from the radio. I recently installed a new radio, but I haven't cleaned up the wiring because I have plans for what I might do with the dash. I'm still thinking that through...

For Example...

This video shows the wrap that I have for the Porsche. My plan is to wrap most of the metal pieces in brushed steel, and the non-metal pieces (the whale tail, etc.) in flat black. The video shows the look of the brushed metal, and the problems with only wrapping the exterior. Near the end of the video, you see what happens when they open the doors. This is the effect that I'm trying to avoid.

Off With His Hood!

Ok... So, I started by removing the hood and the trunk liner. I have to admit, I had trouble disconnecting the wires to the (nonfunctional) trunk light. No worries - one snip with the wire cutters and... problem solved! My plan is to replace the light with a bright LED light, but I won't get to that for a while.

One observation: the trunk has a lot of room for an array of batteries, especially if you remove the 19 gallon gas tank and the questionable spare. (Note: the spare might be usable, but I'm not really interested in using the Porsche jack on the side of the road. I'd rather just call AAA.)

I keep thinking about going electric, but it probably won't happen this time around. Other people have created electric 911s, but most of the others cut corners and the ranges are not great. If I did it, I would try to make it as Tesla-like as possible.

And So It Begins...

The car above is a 1974 Porsche 911 Targa, in good running condition, and decent interior, but questionable paint. I have the crazy idea to wrap it in vinyl - brushed stainless steel vinyl, and probably change a few things along the way. Wrapping can be relatively straightforward - you basically wrap a car in a large sticker. The problem with this is that you can see the original color every time you open the doors or look into the wheel wells. I don't like that idea, so my goal is to take the car apart as much as possible and wrap/paint all visible surfaces. In the end, I might have a great looking car, or a pile of parts. We'll see...