Floor Pan Fixes

There were a few spots on the bottom of the Floorpan that needed fixing - the rear section of the centre tunnel was crushed and a corner of it was rusted through.

I also decided to replace the seat-mount reinforcements on both sides. They weren't rusty but were pretty beaten up. So off they came..

This is the 'Short Rear Floorpan' section from Restoration Design. I'm only going to be using small sections from it...

So I cut out and cleaned up the rusted floor corner..

 ..and fitted and welded in the new section.

I did the same for the centre tunnel..

..and welded in the section from the new RD FloorPan.

I ground off the tops of the weld. It doesn't need to be beautiful as ultimately it'll have heavily textured undercoat on it.

This is the new RD Seat Reinforcement strips welded in (on both sides).

Once the repairs were done, I did a bit more cleaning up and lightly sanded the first primer coat so the next layer could key to it.

Floor Pan Clean-Up and Inspection

The Floor Pan is in pretty good shape all round fortunately. OK there are a few scrapes and a couple of rust spots but otherwise really good for a 40 year old car with pretty primative rust protection.

First job was to remove the underbody jacking points which were toast on both sides. I have new Restoration Design(RD) replacements.

I ground out the spot welds and chiselled it off...

It's pretty rust-pitted underneath these jacking plates; but I'm reluctant to start chopping into the Longs and replacing these sections as I don't think it's that bad.

So then I went to town on removing the cr*p from the bottom of the car. The tar came off with a scraper and Heatgun, the wire cup brush took care of the white mastic sealer while paint-stripper took off the.....paint ofcourse. Oh yeah and a whole bucket load of elbow grease!

From this...

..to this.

Here are the problem bits. the firewall end of the centre tunnel had been crushed and one corner of the floorpan had rusted through but no big deal, I'll fix those next.

This bit's fine though; this is the reinforcement for the pedal cluster.

And here it is after the first coat of epoxy.

..and onto the Rotisserie, finally!

I've had the basic Rotisserie for some time now - thank you Stuart (Mr.Pharmacist on DDK)! The usual way to fix the Rotisserie frame is through the bumper mounts but I didn't trust mine. At some point the car has had a bump at the front which has ripped the holes that the bumper fixed to. I've also done big repairs at the back and the bumper mounts aren't completed yet...so it made sense to me to fix the Rotisserie frame elsewhere.

The front suspension points and the rear transmission mounts make good sense because they're way stronger and hold the car at more points than the bumper mounted option would.

So here's the attachment at the front.

At the back, the frame fixes simply to the Transmission/Gearbox mounts. You can see the frame itself has a ton of reinforcement welded. It's probably way over built and strengthened but I'm not taking any chances of the tub falling off and destroying itself and/or me..

And so to the fun bit...

We're having a lot of building work being done to the house right now so I recruited the builders and one plasterer to help lift the body while I engaged the frame. Thanks to Richie, Tim and Matty!

 
Special kudos to big Matty for lifting the entire front of the tub single handedly. The guys did a 'test lift' to gauge the weight of the thing and said it would be easy to lift for a few minutes. But the reality was I only had a few seconds to get the frame engaged before things got wobbly! Still it's done now...hoorah.

Here's a few more shots of the crew and various bits and bobs:

Me setting up the frame...

Matty taking the strain!..

The Rotisserie is connected front the back by 40mm x 40mm box sectioned steel and the whole thing is mounted on lockable castors so I can move it around as needs be..

Here's a shot of the mess to clean up on the underside. Lots of nasty black underseal and paint to remove but fortunately not a massive amount of repair work needed; floor pans are largely very good.

Porsche 914 Rotisserie

Final Chassis Stiffening - Strut Tunnel

Last(ish) job to do on the chassis stiffening was to re-inforce the Rear Strut Tunnels. This pic shows the area prepped on the driver's side.

...and here's the passenger side ready to go.

I fabricated the plates out of 1.5mm again. Weld primered and drilled for plug-welds.

Driver side plates welded:

Passenger side plates welded:

The weld obviously came through into the inside of the trunk, scorching the primer there. So that was cleaned up ready to be re-primed.

All of the welding was ground down and then epoxy primed.

Chassis Primered

Here's some pics of metal with paint on it!

Isn't that nice...!

Suspension Console and Chassis Strengthening continued...

Next up, adding the kit from Tangerine Racing to the Suspension Console on the Driver's side. I tacked into place the small box section shown in the bottom left of the pic above. Then the larger half box was tacked into place. This part virtually covers the whole console and ties it to the wall of the wheel-housing above. I taped over the unfinished join before stripping paint from the chassis behind. Here's that pic...

I fabricated the stiffening plate out of 1.5mm thick sheet and tacked that in place too. You can see a cut in it to help seat it against the chassis better.

Here's the whole area cleaned and ready for weld primer..

I also made a small section to extend the stiffening to tie-in with the transmission support. Now the re-inforcement is effectively connected on both sides of the car..or at least will be when it's finished.

Here are the two plates clamped and ready to weld..

I welded them at inch intervals to keep the heat to a minimum. I'll be seam sealing it all later after priming.

Here's the welding finished..

...and here's lots of pictures of shiny metal after grinding, and cleaning-up.

Next comes the epoxy primer...