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Australian delivered 1965 912 restoration


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I thought I would share a bit of a photo essay of my restoration.

Technically I guess it's more of a resto mod because I don't want to be constrained by correctness.

The aim is to do everything on my own in my shed in about a year.

Rethinking that, some things like machining, and as its turned out paint removal will be farmed out.

 

The car was  originally delivered into Perth in late 1965 and purchased by me from Melbourne in pieces about 18 months ago.

 

It had already had a 2.2L six cylinder installed and was early enough to be a Porsche built 3 Gauge painted dash model.

It is the 696th 912 to roll off the line.

 

Pics below show the trip home from Melbourne to Adelaide and the bits and pieces laid out.

 

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Since most of the panels on these early cars are stamped with the body number I was keen to repair and keep them all.

Although I did source some brand new front guards from Porsche Germany just as back up.

Below shows a bit of the details involved with saving the old ones.

Firstly the flange that bolts up to the body was rusted away.

Also the complete last section of the guards back towards the doors where it is double thickness was dodgy.

I used two later model guards as donors and cut off the fender joining lip and grafted it onto mine.

Next I cut a vertical line down through the donor guards to replace the rear section.

Pictures probably show it best.

It was important to have the doors on in their original position and also the bonnet to get good alignment and gaps.

Once the guards were right I drilled out the spot welds and removed the old turn signal buckets and welded in new Porsche ones.

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Looks like you are one of one the ones that know your way around, so looking forward to observing the recreation of this 912.

Appears to have found a lucky home.

You can keep including the dog by the way.

I love dogs.

 

Dave

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Next up I had the doors chemically stripped. I left the hinges in situ and just punched out the hinge pins, I believe this will make my job easier down the track for panel alignment ec.

While they were away I stripped the steering rack, cleaned it up and replaced both bearings.

 

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With the body on the rotisserie it was easy to see some of the problem areas.

At a minimum the car needs inner and outer sills both sides kidney bowls and jacking tubes.

The front suspension pan and fuel tank support have been replace at some stage and are solid.

Rear window corners and parcel shelf also need work.

Floors are solid although as expected for an old car it is bashed around.

I repaired a few areas on the floor and straightened out any sections of the seam that had been damaged by poor jacking practices.

It was also easy to see that two of the front cross member mounts needed replacing.

 

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The car also had dodgy mounts for the rear sway bar which need to be cut off and replaced, this side took a lot of parent metal with it.

Some simpler repairs involving cut out make new piece and replace although the last  2 pics show a more complicated area where it is a boxed in section where three sections were cut out to effect the repair.

 

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Time for the body to go off to be chemically stripped.

This process removes all surface coatings including body filler but doesn't touch the metal or even the rust for that matter.

It gets into every cavity and comes back bare steel.

I was taking so much metal out and not putting the new steel in yet because I knew I would be getting it dipped.

Quite a few of the areas especially sills etc. I need to rustproof after they are welded back in so doing it before dipping would not make sense.

 

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The bonnet on the other hand was not easy and due to lots of paint layers and body filler took ages to do.

Once stripped it was obvious there was some accident damage most of which was easy to fix with some panel beating and metal shrinking.

However the front leading edge on the driver side was particularly bad and because of the reinforcing steel it was not possible to get in behind this area so I am using a stud welder and slide hammer to try to pull it back out to the correct form.

I used a profile gauge to make a template and it is still a work in progress to get it right, partly because of the strength of this old steel.

 

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Meanwhile the shell was ready to be picked up, and just for reference 3 strong guys can lift it on and off a trailer (or 4 old geezers like me)

The worst part now is where do I start.

I am treating the bare steel with Picklex 20 a product which will protect the surface and stop corrosion for at least 12 months.

 

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Yeah Cal, the four is gone forever.

I did get serious about a Polopolous 4 cylinder, but @ $35K USD  it is not possible for me. 

Looks like being a 2.8 or 2.5.

I have two engines stripped down at the moment a 2.2 and a 2.7, but engine builds, even DIY are so much money.

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