Porsche Pain

After an Easter weekend of binging, yesterday I decided it was time to give the liver a rest and get some work done on the rust bucket. I woke up this morning at 6am for some reason and started to plan my day, I got to the garage about 10am ish and after I decided to get the seat mounts done I picked up one on the seats on the way.

The first obvious problem was that the seat runners are a bit wide to fit between the chassis and the heater channel. After an hour or so of changing my mind about how to do this I finally went back to my original idea. The plan is to use a beam of 50x50 box section across the floor plan to bolt the front of the runners to and a couple of individual mounts at the back.

I Drilled some holes and welded on a captive nut to bolt to. Next problem was that the front mounts bolt down at an angle so I had to cut a couple of slots and tap it down to suit the seat runner mounts. After welding up the cuts I added some angle brackets so the box section can be welded to the floor pan. The box section has a radius to the corners which may result in a bad weld so the angle will help provide a good connection.

Front mount

 I spent most the day on this and then started to mate the rear mounts. These new brackets I designed have given me full travel of the seat runners where before I only had about half as they were welded and fixed to the original runner for the car and seemed to restrict travel. Also I have positioned the seat so that there is some leg room in the back while it is still comfortable to drive in the front without hugging the steering wheel. Another problem I had in the past was if any one tried to get in the back it was very tight and awkward, this has also been fixed as I can now move the seats all the way forward.

New mount positions

My seats are looking tatty and as soon as I have the funds after the MOT, the first thing I will spend any money on is having these recovered in red leather. Tomorrow I'm going for an early start and hoping to finish fabrication all the mounts and maybe have these welded in by the end of the day.

Ebay Baddies!

A few weeks ago I won an ebay auction for a padded dash as the one I have doesn't suit the vents I have. Anyway after two weeks of emailing and no reply I threatened to open a case and he instantly replied claiming that the Item had been lost in the post and that he had a few in better condition and would send a new one out the next day. I asked If he had sent it two days later, the 14th April I think and he said he had. Any way Today I revived the same damaged dash shown on the photos from the auction. So had what had once been found? No! On the delivery note It said that the Item was sent on the 14th April. I would name and shame but not I'm sure its the right thing to go.

Any way I'm stuck with it now and don't expect to receive a second one in better condition. These things in good or near perfect condition with no cracks are like the proverbial brown stuff from rocking horses so I have a plan to repair. This is an expensive plan but I will have a Pimp dash.

I'm thought this needs covering in vinyl and some one on bay is selling sheets of carbon fibre effect vinyl wrap, so after watching a video on how to wrap I thought that the shapes in the dash may be too complicated, so then I thought What about real CF? I found a supplier that had videos on their web page for skinning. This is where you apply a single layer of CF cloth over an existing part. Perfect!

So this is my plan, put I think I'm going to develop this further. Once U have coated my dash I plan to make GRP mould from this from which I could possibly make another CF dash from scratch. Problem with CF is the cost of the resin, To skin the dash it will cost £70-80 in materials plus time on the job. To make a full CF dash using the mould I think it would be about £100-120. This also got me thinking that if this is successful, maybe I could make my own bumpers, headlight ring and spoiler moulds?

I thought that It may be a bit much CF and not look right with the lime green paint so do I go back to the original paint colour the same as most the other Euro lookers for the sake of the dash? I guess we will just have to see.

Downs and ups

So last Mondays post I had the front bumper hangers welded on the the spare wheel well. The next day I fully welded in one side which was slow as I was pretty tired but got it done. when I got home I was so tired and on a bit of a downer thinking about how I'm going make the rear bumper hangers fit, thinking about it the next day made it worse so I had a night off.  

Bad alighnment

Thursday I was back on the job and the break was good, I got the second front bumper hanger trimmed down and after some fettling I welded it up. The panels are ok but a bit over sized at the bottom of the inner wing so I had to cut a 'V' and hammer the rolled lip in an add a bit of a filler piece.

Finished panel with the panel realigned

Both sides done

Once done I offered up the front panel and decided it was time to weld it on, although I did forget to drill a hole to screw on the linkage cover plate which, Ironically, was the one thing concious that I needed to do while working on the front!  Over all I happy with results and just need to do a little bit more grinding. I've got a day of grinding and finishing planned on my week off at the end of the month.

Front End Done!

Today is Saturday and Michelle  ditched me to go to Liverpool for they day so I went to speak to some one about spraying my car and it's looking like he can do it in July with a turn around of around a week so things are moving forward and It may be on the road for the Blackpool Breeze! I also need a new fibre glass wing on the front as one is deformed, I spoke to day mouldings and they quoted that I would have one by October! The sprayer said he can paint that one later on so I will just stick with the deformed one for now.

Also today I cut off part of the rear valence and I dropped the oil out of the engine and then pulled it out. This was much easier and a single person job this way so the rear valence will be a bolt off job.
Things are looking up and I feel better about it now than what I did on Wednesday and plan to get the rear end boxed next week, then all that's left on the welding is a big of a tidy up and fabricate the seat mounts.

Bling Bling Lights

Ok so I've decided that I'm going to be ordering some of these bad boys for the project, they are CSP LED tail lights but not sure which ones to choose. There is now a poll to decide. The car will be Mazda Spirited Green Metallic and I'm not sure which will go best so there are pictures bellow and please vote.

Thanks

Red/Clear

Red/Smoked

Clear

New Gloves

  Last week wasn't very exciting so didn't bother with an update, I only go one night on it so just finished off hole in the rear near side arch. I also moved on to the rear bumper hangers. This worried me, I cant seem to get one to fit anywhere near right so I've asked advice on VZi and I'm waiting to see what comes from that before I finish is off.

So tonight I got both of the front bumper hangers tacked in place and welded to the spare wheel well panel.
If you have been following this, you will know that I cut the existing ones off a while ago but I've not touched them since welding the spare wheel well in place. I've been putting off welding in these panels worried about the alignment and that it may be a bit too difficult for my ability. So tonight I had no choice but to start them and not that bad.

Cleaned up ready for new panel

First panel clamped up

Once the original surface was cleaned up, next was to bolt up the new panel to the wing bolt holes and marked it out for trimming. Once trimmed I aligned and clamped up the new panel and welded it to the spare wheel well and the lower part of the main body frame work. I didn't got too far up the frame, I want to get the rest of the panel chopped and aligned before I do this.

Levelling up the bumper

Now came what I thought was the hard bit. I bolted up the new panel and then bolted up the front bumper. I used a spirit level on the flattest part of the body I could find (beeltes are very curvy!) and used a jack to level up the body. Next I placed a piece of wood between the bumper irons and placed another spirit level on top of this to correctly align the bumper mounts. After about 20 minutes of tweaking and clamping, I finally got it all level and then welded up the second panel in the same way as the first.

First panel in

Second panel in

I decided to wear my new glove today that have a second layer of leather on the finger, just as well as I put the grinder through the top layer!

I was thinking the other day that I've probably saved myself around £2k so far by making the decision to weld it myself. When I started this I was a bit scared doing all the welding myself but now not I'm starting to find it more enjoyable.

Flaming Car

Bug Spray

Just a quick update today and a couple of photos. I spent all day Saturday grinding away at the rear passenger side cross member and rear reinforcement area. One of Paul's neighbours came over a presented me with a pack of 5 metal grinding discs which are most appreciated with the amount of grinding et to come. On Saturday I also welded in the new reinforcement panel which was pretty straight forward.

Reinforcement Panel Welded In

Tonight I did a little more grinding to the hole in the boot at the rear cross member and began to weld this hole up. I decided not to buy the panel for this but carefully plate it instead. all the over laps will be welded both sides one this is complete. its not the most Ideal be a lot better than it was. While on the out side I cleaned up the rear arch bolt line which need some cleaning up. in the Ideal world it would have a new rear quarter but to complicated for me and the time I have. There is a still a bit more cleaning up to do but the wire spool ran out and couldn't be bothered changing it so I'll restart tomorrow night. Also I'm going through Gas like nothing else, I think maybe I should have Invested in a large bottle.

Filling The Hole

I did originally want this complete by Blackpool Breeze but due to cash flow I've realised that It won't be back on the road for at least 12 months. Although it is frustrating not been able to driver her, I know that the extra time means a can take longer on each part and make sure it is done properly.

Black Bogies!

Its been nearly two weeks since my last post. Not a loads of progress but got to a bit of a mile stone. Last week was hard, I was having one of those weeks where I felt I was getting no where to felt a bit demotivated. Also had a busy week at work and was working late so din't really get on it.

I decided a needed at least one weekend day on it so I spent this afternoon on it. I managed to get the second floor pan half in which felt great but I knew I wasn't out of the woods with a long way to go. After a walk with to Tesco with Paul and a pot noodle tea I get the rear inner arch reinforcement panel out and its not pretty! The problem is plates welded over rot, and behind the reinforcement plate I began to cut out more and more. I began to struggle with this because last week my grind flex finally broke and had bare live wires sticking out so for now I'm using a battery powered grinder, problem is I go trough 3 batteries before 1 is charged ready to use again.

So as I waited for the battery to charge I decided it was time to go home and have a think about how to plate up  the arch.