Well, as I alluded to in Phase 10, I was able to find a donor car.
This was quite an adventure and a story with many twists...
I was at eBay one night and decided to do a search on "porsche chassis" shortly after a lead on another car expired.
I was shocked to find a fellow who had listed a 1970 911T targa, for free for the first person to contact the "seller"! "FREE", One of my favourite words!!
This section will describe my trip and outline my plans for the new donor car.
A long story, and one I won't soon forget!
These are the pictures that were posted with the auction/ notice...
The description said the car had a good front clip and rear clip...
I had email discussions with the "seller" and made arrangements to come and pick the car up the very next weekend.
I left Friday night at about 11:30 so that I could be early for my Saturday meet. I was working on about 3 hours of sleep and headed down the Interstate highway to Boston. I made excellent time and everything was going fine till I got about 6 miles outside of Boston. The truck had been running well all night. I got to the top of this hill just on the Mass turnpike and the truck just came to a dead stop. No banging, no smoke, just an engine that wouldn't re-fire. "Just great! I popped the hood and I don't see anything obvious like a huge ON/OFF switch turned to "OFF"... so I started diagnostics and decided to try a couple of things. Checking spark is not so easy to do when you're by yourself, so I decided to start with the fuel, I had a couple of jerry cans full of fuel, so I put some gas in one of my water bottles and poured some fuel down the carb. Attempted to start the truck and "holly cow" it started! I was psyched! For about three seconds till the fuel in the carb was used up... So, here I am on the side of a busy road with traffic flying by my ankles at about 75 miles an hour, and I have a fuel delivery problem... Plan B- get the heck off this road ASAP! So, I pull my cell phone out to make a call and you guessed it my phone didn't have any service in this area! Ahhh! So, I got out of the truck and waited behind the guardrail until a State Trooper showed up. A very friendly fellow, that wanted to know everything about what I was doing so far from home. He called a tow truck, and told me they'd be there in about 45min. Once the truck arrived,
I asked to be towed to the exit I was planning to get off on, and to be dropped off at the first auto parts store. I was now about one hour late so my first job was to get in touch with the "seller" and let him know where I was, and that I should only be awhile. The next thing to do was to get all the available parts to fix my truck before all the stores closed. So, I bought a new pump, filters, and relays, and proceeded to remove my "3/4 full" gas tank, so that I could access to the fuel pump. My plan was to replace the fuel pump first, then replace all the filters, (I didn't feel my filters where bad because that was one of the first things I replaced when I got my truck just a couple of months ago).
So, the first step to get access to the 1987 GMC fuel pump is to remove the gas tank, luckily I had my big floor jack and all the tools to get the job done.
Got the car loaded and checked into the first Holiday Inn I could find...This is a picture of the truck and trailer at the summit of one of the Appalachian Mountians
As soon as I saw the donor car I was surprized to see this big thick rubber padding that is laid over the rear "seat back section". I did not have this pad on my car when I began to strip it so, I'll try to get it off in one piece, just in case this is no longer available...
The first thing I did after taking a bunch of pictures was to remove the passenger fender and evaluate the area around the passenger side battery compartment. I was pleased to see the area was damage/ rust free.
Here I took a picture of the inner passenger side fender area. This picture will prove useful as a guide for replicating the black sealer patterns as well as the glue patterns that were all covered up on my car. This whole area will be cut out and replace an area on my car that had been previous damaged.
Here's another shot of the driver's side notice the black sealer pattern is different than the passenger side. This donor car garnered boxes of small parts, like plugs, brackets, nuts, bolts, and screws. Not to mention the rear suspension, brake cables, heater box cables, transmission shifter cables, and tons of those little plastic sleeves that insulate the wire harnesses from the mounting brackets...
The first piece I cut off the car was this interior mounting panel that was fairly rusted on my car. This panel is covered in a half inch of foam and then covered in vinyl.
By mounting the donor piece in my vice I was able to get good access to the back of all the spot welds that held the panel on the old car.
The idea here, is to cut out all the spot welds and peel the unneeded sheet metal away from the new donor panel.
Here the piece is free from the excess metal and ready to be sand blasted and primed.
Here's my car showing the mounting panel. You'll notice on the bottom of the panel the complex shape has completely disappeared from rust. The leaking rubber seal around the targa roof would allow water to run down this panel and soak the spongy foam, resulting in this mess.
This picture shows the panel almost removed. Before I finish this area I will be coating this whole area inside with some black POR15.
Here I'm trying to get the new part to fit as nice as the old one... This is the part sand blasted and treated...
Here you can see how complicated this panel is. This would have taken me forever to replicate, and even then it would probably not be as good as an original piece. You can also easily see the spot welds that I'll drill out and but weld.
I also had to make a patch panel for the lower inner area of the mounting plate for the inner trim panel. (It's the two peices of clean sheet metal on the bottom)
...Before that happens I need to prime it to keep the flash rust at bay...
...Here's a shot of the outer rocker panel with another coat of POR15, and the inside of the interior trim panel...
Here I have "but" welded all the spot weld points. After I grind and sand all the butts down I'll coat this outer area with at least one coat of POR 15...
As you can see I've got a couple of jobs on the go...The next phase should see some of these things coming together...The passenger side "air conditioning" hole, the driver's side rocker panel, and the interior mounting panel installed...The next phase will not be for those with weak stomachs as I begin to plan the final demise of the new donor car which will see the front clip cut-off, the rear quarters trimmed off, the roll bar hoop trimmed and any other useful parts that can be salvaged...stay tuned!
