January | 2011 | Project 911SC

Project – Underbody and Wheel Wheels – Updated 8th March 2011

January 11, 2011 DS 5 comments

UPDATE – 8th MARCH 2011

At last – painting is done and I’m ready to reassemble. Realistically I still have some other smaller parts to paint and refinish but nearly all of it is done. Today I’m picking up a replacement crossmember so this will enable me to start putting the front end back together. All that stuff stored in boxes can finally make it’s way back to the car.

To be honest I was a bit nervous about painting in case there were issues. The Glasurit product is excellent and it was really quite easy to do. I certainly wouldn’t tackle the exterior but for what I am doing it turned out well.

After

UPDATE – 11th JANUARY 2011

It’s a bit scary when I see that my most recent update on this project is almost 4 months ago. Lots of other things to do kept me away from the car. Anyway, I had applied the Wurth SKS in December but had a problem with the batch – it was right on its Use By date and it didn’t dry properly, instead remaining tacky. I almost shot some new stuff over the top but it just didn’t seem like the right path to take. Instead I rubbed it all back and applied new product. The result is really pleasing.

Glasurit paint has been ordered and even though it is about triple the expected price I am looking forward to seeing the colour on the wheel wheels. I still have to repair the front bumper shock but I’ll get some colour on the rears first. This way the area is sealed and I can start assembling while I wait for “Mr Welder” to come by and weave his magic. I ain’t gonna weld this myself – some things I just won’t tackle.

Anyway, some pics.

Alot of messy and tedious work to get to this point

Hours and hours here

That light is like the one at the end of the tunnel!

UPDATE – 19th SEPTEMBER 2010

It’s been a while since an update on this project. Having been away and also only really getting a couple of hours here and there it was impossible to progress as quickly as I would have liked. Over the last couple of weeks I have finished cleaning/prepping and masked up ready for chip guard (Wurth SKS).

Today I setup up the SKS gun for the first time and after a few practice sprays I started on the car. I was surprised how easy it was apply. I am really pleased with how it has come up. I feel liked I really moved forward after doing this. Here are some pics.

Prepped and masked

More shots of prepped and masked – hoping the SKS evens it out… (it did!)

Back to metal for the area around seal and where SKS is not applied. This was etch primed just after this pic.

DIY spray booth – almost ready to go

SKS done – not much applied at bumper shock mount as this is going to be replaced with a not so rusty one

Looking much better now – next stop ‘body colour’

Looking good – you can see a couple of spots that need touch up before paint

UPDATE – 25th JULY 2010

I’ve been feeling that progress is going very slowly. Today I wanted to get some sense of achievement so I polished up the front half of the brass oil lines – came up quite well. Ideally it would be media blasted but I am not going that far on this project!

Also brushed back the RHS bumper shock mount and coated with POR15. This pic was taken before the Metal Ready which really cleaned up alot of the surface rust. I am hoping that the POR15 process works as claimed – if so I’ll never need to touch this area again!

Here it is with POR15

And with Upol Acid 8

UPDATE – 23rd JULY 2010

Pics to come after this weekend but both fenders are off. Drive side (RHS) is a bit messy and will be replaced when I eventually do a respray. Not worrying about it for the moment as it’s not part of this project. So far the project status is:

Remove suspension and brakes – done
Send parts for blasting and recoating as relevant – done (not yet back, expected mid August)
Repair underbody – partly completed
Clean wheel wells – partly completed

When suspension coems back I will get the car rolling again and them off to a mates place where he is going to cut rust and weld new metal. He’ll do the brakes and then the car will come back for final SKS and paint then assembly.

UPDATE – 5th JULY 2010

Almost everything off now. Only got the RHS front fender to go which is requiring a bit of careful consideration. One of the PO’s had attempted to fix/hide some rust and in doing so bogged the fender to the sill!! I think one day I will have to strip the driver sill back to bare metal for a 100% understanding of what is going on – but not now. I have to draw the line and going this far breached my rule of ‘no DIY on the exterior body’, valances and rocker panels excepted. Luckily the bogged area is under the rocker panel so I didn’t feel too bad pulling out the cutting wheel and dremel. As I was cutting I was feeling a bit ickky but it needs to be done.

The LHS fender came off pretty easily and I know it’s been off before as there was no weather seal there. I started on the scrubbing, using my 3M pad – making sure not to destroy the existing rubber undercoat. I simply want to clean and prep well enough to prime so no need to take it all off. The integrity is pretty good so I am pretty happy. Taking the panels off makes it so much easier, plus I can get into all the awkward spots. The added bonus is that I will KNOW what the situation is on every part of the car.

Finally got all the suspension, steering and brake components out. When I say finally I really took my time partly because I wasn’t sure how far I was going to go with this. In the end I don’t want to have to do this twice so I may as well do it properly. Nothing on the car is going to be a patch job.

I also say ‘finally’ because some of these components were and absolute ‘biatch’ to get out. The worst was probably the spring plates. Something I should be talking about on the suspension project but still worth noting here. I tried for a week to get these things off the torsion bars and it was looking doubtful. Read more at the suspension project post.

Anyway, it was a great relief to have everything removed and packed away. In a couple of weeks I’ll have a spare Saturday morning to head down to Autocoupe where Phil is going to blast some bits some bits. I’ll recoat some of the parts (ie, sway bars, a arms), leave some others (ie. trailing arms, front cross member) and replate some other bits including hardware. He is also going to rebuild the calipers properly. This means blasting, splitting, re plating and then baking. I am only capable of blasting and new seals so this one is for Phil. Not sure what that will cost???? Hopefully I don’t pass out when he hands me the invoice.

While this is happening I am going to clean/degrease 27 years of grime. I will then ‘spot repair’ any surface rust but cleaning up with wire brush, coat with POR15 to stop any growth, spray rubberised undercoat and then some light passes of body colour. I have researched this process and this so far seems the right way to go. In my opinion is seems like the best approach short of completely stripping. The overall condition is excellent and so I see no need to go that far. I hear alot of complaints about rust in UK cars but I am yet to see anything too scary. All ‘brown’ metal is surface only and will clean off without any hassle. Everything structural is sound. If I see any rust I grab my screwdriver and stab around and so far so good. When I thoroughly clean each area the final truth will be revealed but at this stage I am sleeping easy!!

Probably the worst looking on the pics is where the trailing arm bolts onto the tub. This truely is no issue – only light surface rust that will clean right up. Although this spot is in the engine bay ‘zone’, an area I will tackle when the engine is out, I am going to sort this now ans I don’t want to remove the trailing arm again. It will take me longer to do that later than to fix it now.

In terms of painting I have decided to buy spray equipment and do it as a 2 part paint. It’s likely I will get some solvents on thhe wheel wells or undebody and I really don’t want the paint to discolour. I have read a few threads on pelican parts bodywork forum and this seems like the right way to go. How can it not? It’s how it was done in the factory. Getting a spray gun will allow me to do the rocker panels, front and rear valance as well as front boot refurb. I’m sure I’ll get some other uses out of it.

Enough blogging for now. As I always say, can’t wait to get some after shots of this.