S2 Repair/Resto learnings

[GregBarton78]

Rather than hijacking the body panels thread, I figured better to do what I swore I would never do and document the work done on my S2.

Before the pics start: As summary of my relative starting point and what I cocked up/learned:

About 20 (ok...nearly 30) years ago my Dad, in one of his more astute parenting moves observed that his then 15 year old son was discovering pubs, whisky and wild women rather sooner than was optimal. So he bought me a clapped out, 1972 Hillman Imp. Deal was - "You get it roadworthy, I'll insure and tax it for you."

Cars do not come any more clapped out than 1972 Hillman Imps. Cue learning to weld. A lot. Head gaskets, drive shaft couplings (loads of the things), complete engine swaps being completed in less than an hour etc etc. Tuning books were studied, heads ported, camber angles played with etc etc.

That was a long time and two children ago.

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Some years later with disposable income recovering from children of my own, I mistakenly opened Car and Classic after a few glasses of Red and this thing arrived on my drive a few days later:

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It had an MOT. Amazingly. It also had rusty discs, defunct shock absorbers and ran like a bag of nails. But it was no longer my favourite Corgi model, no longer a sunbleached outline on the wall where I grew up. It was on my drive...

*Disclaimer*

What follows will upset proper engineers. Some of the welds might make your eyes bleed. At the end of the day I have an arts degree and spend all day flying a desk. Some of the fabrication is at the 'avant garde' end of the visual feast. But its solid, seam sealer covers a multitude of sins and the end result looks fine.

 

[GregBarton78]

By the looks of it, the car had been well looked after for a long time then changed hands a few times in the last 8 or 9 years. Evidence of a new power steering pump, new starter motor and alternator. Belts had been done 5 years ago. However since 2013 it had done 800 miles and some 'interesting' MOT history appeared.

Job 1 was new discs and pads. Quickly evident the shocks were all knackered as well. I am amazed how well the 944 drives on knackered shocks. Whilst you're in there you may as well do all the bushes and teach a child how to install struts as well.

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We now have a car that stops and steers ok. Traced a few leaks from the vacuum system, fresh fuel and a run down to Goodwood for the Revival and the thing was genuinely impressive. Almost tracked straight, pulls like a train and looks great from 20 meters.

Lets just have a close up on that nearside sill....

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To be fair the dealer/trader that I bought it from (I bought it unseen over the phone after a bottle of red...) did declare it needed work for its next MOT and offer to sort for £500. Which I said I'd sort knowing considerably worse lay beneath.

 

[GregBarton78]

Bought replacement centre, outer sills from Classic Car parts and Panels as well as the rear 3/4 wing sections.

Generally I was lucky with my car - the front end was completely rot free and it has clearly had new front wings - one had not been etch primed when painted so the paint on that side was crap. Once I started hacking the rust out of the sills, I had got there just in time. Total Damage quotient:

Both sills have been done before, but they've just plated flat steel over and got artistic with the filler.
Front edges of inner rear arches dissolved - hence no side skirts as nothing to attach to.
Jacking point on offside non existent.
Hole under handbrake but outside the chassis rail.
Near side was a little better having not had as much repair work.

Near side:

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Offside:

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That Jacking point:

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[GregBarton78]

Lesson 1: Take the seats and carpet out the car. Sounds obvious, but the seats pull out in minutes. The carpet set is similarly straightforwards.

Just pull the lot. I wasted ages moving bits out the way and panicking about setting fire to stuff. Nothing bad happened but I made life hard for myself. Part of my problem is a single garage so had to do one side, then get the thing down, out, turn it round then do the other side.

Lesson 2: Unlike Hillman Imps, Porsche's are galvanised. This means when you eventually get to the point of sticking new metal in, you are producing Zinc Oxide gas. Metal fume fever beckons. BUY A RESPIRATOR! Yours for £25 https://amzn.eu/d/6rjfaCu

The weekends are much more pleasant without a zinc based headache. Anything with a carbon filter will do the job nicely. Also means you can't smell your own Sunday morning beery farts which is a definite bonus.

Lesson 3: don't use what looks like jacking points on the front corners near the footwells. Enough has been written about this. They're not very strong. Stand the car on the suspension arms. If you haven't and its sat on those points now, read lesson 1, get a big bit of timber, put it behind the accelerator pedal and hit it with a big hammer if you want a nice throttle pedal.

 

[GregBarton78]

I was pretty fortunate that the centre sill was in generally a very good state for the majority of it. Rather than bracing the doorframes/shell and going back to the inner sill (which you can't unless you buy OEM sill replacements) I elected to repair anything crusty with sections. It's probably more welding as this all needs to be seam welded in, but less faff overall. And now I'm not inhaling Zinc Oxide gas all the time this is quite fun.

The leading edge of the front inner wheel arch is a 'fabricate it yourself' job.

Lesson 4 - leave this until MUCH later in the work. Start at the front of the car and work backwards. I spent ages getting the curvature to look right only to have to bin what I had made both times because it was too wide. Easier to do all the other work, tack the rear 3/4 panel in place and fabricate the shape to fit inside, then take the skin panel off and then do the inner arch.

This didn't fit. Scrapped it.

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Neither did this one until I cut, hammered, rewelded. Note that I left the trailing edge of the arch in situ - it's quite a complex curve and really hard to get the lines right.

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[GregBarton78]

Jacking points:

These can be acquired in 2 parts which bolt into the car. They're surprisingly thin and surprisingly expensive. It was academic as, guess what? The bolts all sheared and I didn't have enough good floor to fit them to.

Fortunately the structure is provided by the MASSIVE chassis rail directly above, so I figured that with a bit of floor repair (this touches the carpets. Remove the interior...) and the 4mm steel I had kicking about, a square box can be made that is stronger and critically £147 cheaper to produce.

1) Yeah, that's why it was noisy to jack up....

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2) Floor sections first then the heavy duty bodge installed

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Then the rest of the rear outer floor and sill repair sections

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Not the prettiest of welds but its solid as hell and under seam sealer & underseal.

 

[GregBarton78]

A lot more stuff happened, but I didn't get pictures. However we are onto the good bit of putting nice looking fabrications on. To the outer sill...

Lesson 5. Just remove the front wings. Its better, easier and they bolt off. There may be some adhesive if they're factory fitted so be careful. However if you are in possession of a 944 with rust that has NOT affected the front wings and they're the originals, then please send it to the Stuttgart museum of weird stuff. They will want to study it. The reality of the sills I've used is that there is a front lip that hooks round. You can only weld it in if you have the front wings off. If you don't there's a gaping hole for dirt to get in and start the corrosion again, just in a more accelerated fashion.

I didn't remove them, did loads more work. Realised, then guess what....off the wings came at the paint shop (Chris Gregory in Knaresborough - dead good!) and they tidied that bit up. They know 944s...

Easy huh?

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These sills need welding in on the out edge of the door treadplates.

Lesson 6: Don't cut the old sill off at the factory seam. You need the treadplate section in the car. Also, be careful with the grinder when cleaning the welds off as the panels grind through quickly with a flapper disc. Ask me how I know...

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Lesson 7: Take the doors off. Same reason as the wings. It's a **** to get into the corner of the sill/door join with a welding torch and the white grease in the hinge burns nicely...A decent paint shop will whip them off anyway and they're simple to do. When welding this section, take your time. It's highly visible and easy to distort with too much heat.

Lesson 8: Remove LOADS of underseal from the floor when welding the bottom section in. Arguably you could convince the MOT Man that its factory sills if you did the top join well and get away with a few spot welds. I was happier with seam welding. Have a fire extinguisher handy - lots of wax and seal to catch fire here.

 

[Cater_Racer]

Looks like it's coming on well.

 

[vitesse]

Great posts & photos,Greg-as for Zinc Oxide gas ,much more likely to be Chlorine gas when welding anything coated with Zinc.

 

[GregBarton78]

Smartarse moment - apologies: Depends on the galvanising process - ZnO way more common than ZnCl - plus you'd get immediate corrosion on any metal surface with Chlorine coming off ZnCl and I'd have much worse than a headache after inhaling that bad boy.[X(]

More to come in a bit....

 

[GregBarton78]

Ref the Wing repair panels - these are less detailed than the outer sills which are really impressive, have the channels and jacking point diamond. @CBSchnel you will however need to seam weld the joddled end as it is just tacked on.

The repair sections are just flat pressed and really big. They nearly reach up to the door latch. In fairness they're well sized and accurate but you have to allow a lot of time and messing about to get the curvature right. The wing is a mass of different curves and I gather the tolerances between cars were....generous when new.

I cut mine down to join at the bottom of the door frame to minimise the amount of good car I was cutting into. This was a good move as the structure behind the wing is complex and I didn't have to mess about with it.

Pics here are of the shit-show I was replacing and what it looks like the first time you offer up the panel. This was a low point in the build motivation levels!

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[GregBarton78]

After what can only be described as a monumental amount of cocking about, I eventually had the wheel arch curve lined up, a join into the inner arch, a reasonable line to get it looking roughly factory on the sill : wing join, as well as the right curve out to the blistered arch from the sill. It's a really complex shape!

Lesson 9:There is no shame in using filler to tidy the odd bit up. I spent ages trying to get the seam line to look factory. Correct solution was get it structurally ideal, whack a layer of bondo on there and run a grinder down it to create the lap joint look....

Yes my garage was a pigsty by this point. The cool box did have beer in it though

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[GregBarton78]

After that, some minor surgery was needed on the bottom of the trailing edge of the rear arches which were a bit soft. Car was now in a proper garage being prepped for paint.

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[GregBarton78]

I sent the car into the body shop for them to tidy up my bodges and paint it. Definitely recommend Chris Gregory in Knaresborough. I asked them their process and they said "Well we work on stuff we like and take them down to their bare knackers". Followed with "But we don't do deadlines".

Eyes open off it went. They did a cracking job.

Lesson 10: Budget for ludicrously expensive unbudgeted items. Windscreen delaminated upon removal. £700 gone. Replace all the external seals and gaskets for door glass, handles, mirrors etc - it transforms the car. There's probably about £1500 here I never considered.

I thought I was on a winner with the OEM £350 windscreen direct from Porsche Classic. Turns out it won't fit a 944, doesn't have a tint despite saying so and doesn't have a radio aerial. Porsche Classic Shop also do not answer their emails. If anyone needs glass for a 924/944 race car, I have 2 spare windscreens now, one old, one new....

Here it is fresh out the spray booth. You can see how much better it is to whip the wings & doors off and get in the front of the sills

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Filled, that lap joint now in place, sills seam welded and ready for base coat.

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Lets gloss over the ABS unit....

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[GregBarton78]

Then eventually it was done...just in time for winter.

Or as done as these things ever are....

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[944Turbo]

Excellent thread and well done for all your handiwork!
Tony

 

[CBschnell]

Thanks Greg, appreciate the detail and pics, it will help me and others undertaking this. I will post something similar when we start in December - obviously taking in your invaluable lessons!
Chris

 

[GregBarton78]

Good luck! I was quite nervous when I started but they're fundamentally really simple but well engineered cars. The bit that really struck me was how easily it all came to bits compared with a British built rotbox from the 70s!

Look forwards to seeing your progress. There's about 11 months work above