Late Nov. - Bare Naked Lady

Well, finally got her all stripped down and ready to start cutting out the rust and replacing the affected panels. I can't say that I've ever taken on a project with so much rust before, but the same rules apply. The only way to get rid of rust, is to cut it out. There aren't any short cuts or magic bullets when it comes to rust. It's like a cancer that won't quit. At this point I'm just trying to make progress in any way that I can. There are so many things to do, that I find myself popping around from task to task as opposed as trying to take a particular task all the way to completion. For example, I'll start to take the tar insulation off and down to bare metal, but after an hour or so with the scraper, it's time to move on to something else, finished or not.

One thing that has been driving me crazy is the amount of grease and engine oil left over. The undersides of all the rear body panels are coated in 44 years of oil and grime. Because of this, I finally decided to load it up on the trailer and give her a proper pressure washing. Although a generous amount of the grime ended up on my face.

Here's a pic of the grime. It's 1/8-1/4" thick all over the underside. What is it about horizontally opposed engines that make them leak so bad?

Grime face, post pressure washing. The car, not the face.

And here's how she ended Nov.

Mid Nov. - Stripping Her Down, Assessing the Damage

Had a productive evening last night by getting the car stripped down enough to take a good look at what I have, and the extent of the rust damage. Initially I was thinking that I really got a pretty bad chassis, and it would be too much work to bring it back, but the shop got a visit from the Bill Caswell team last night (more on that a little later) who needed to put the finishing touches on his Baja 1000 BMW e30 for the race this weekend. Bill's good friend Cameron, who does Porsche restorations in Chicago, was here and looked over the chassis giving it his stamp of approval, which made me feel pretty good about the project. Cameron is the man behind some recent tribute cars, including this Porsche Paris Dakar tribute car, and an uber-rare RUF Slant Nose 935 he restored. Too bad Cameron lives in Chicago because he is a Wikipedia of Porsche knowledge, and I know I could learn a lot from him.

One thing has become pretty clear early on. This has turned into a huge project quickly. Going from what would be a quick paint job and electric motor swap just turned into a ground up total restoration of a 912. I'm only hoping that I can stay on track and be zipping around in less than a year. I know just a restoration alone can take that long, so I really have to stay on track and not get too caught up in the process. I'm finding this tough as the car is so easily loved that cutting corners might not be wise.

Here's some pics of the progress. Interior, and most exterior parts have been stripped. Time to start sourcing the panels that I'll need to replace, and practice some welding on thin, aged, sheet metal.

The good news is that the front end is in really good shape, and has never been in an accident. It's really too bad that a car can avoid accident damage for 45 years, but is a victim of it's own doing by being covered in water soaked sound insulation for decades. Rust never sleeps. The doors, hinges, and alignment of them, including hood and trunk, are all real nice, so more good news there.

Bill's team needed a trailer to take the Baja e30 to Mexico, and since you can't rent one and take it across the border, we lent him ours from our POSRacing LeMons Team. This leaves us without a trailer for our track day at Buttonwillow this weekend, so now we have to rent one. Oh well, we just want to see Bill's e30 do well in Baja.

Here's some pics of the Baja e30 as the finishing touches were being put on it.

That's Sam Smith of Jalopnik fame in the last pic. He's going with Bill to Baja and has a Twitter feed that he'll be posting updates of Caswell's Baja status. There will also be a lot of stuff on Bill's $500 Craigslist Rally Car Facebook Page.

Alright, time to go source some panels.

Day 1 - Bringing Eva Home

Howdy all, and welcome to my project blog that will follow my little journey that should take me about a year. I'm embarking on a long project to fully restore a classic Porsche, and outfit it with an all electric drive system. I will try to stay current with this blog and post at least a weekly update. Part of me thinks I'm just doing this to remind me how far a person will go, just for the love of a car (I think I've been here before). In this case, something classic embraces the future, and in the process I hope to save a piece of history that otherwise might surrender to the mighty red worm (aka: rust).

OK, so on 11/15/2010 I brought home my new little girl, a 1966 Porsche 912. I say little because the 1965-67 912's have a much shorter wheel base (called a SWB Porsche) than the newer 911-12's, and have a real compact look. I've named her Eva, for 2 reasons. One, she will be an EV, and two, Wall-e is a pretty darn good waste of 2 hours. (and oddly enough, Wall-e's Eva looks like a 912) She has a lot more rust than I have time for, but it seems like every early Porsche has this problem due to the huge oversight of not galvanizing all of the body panels until 1976. Right now she's Bahama Yellow, but this will change to the Porsche Silver Metallic. This color was available as special order in 1966, but not as a stock option, so it's like we're going back in time to give her a 'special order' paint job.

I'm a little bummed that I have to spend the next couple of months working just to get a good rolling chassis, but then again I'm so picky I doubt I could go out and find exactly what I wanted. Either way, I'm excited to get this project 'rolling'.

So here she is, fresh off the trailer:

And here is a picture of my "goal" car:

Something for me to aspire too. Anyway, enough blogging for me, and time to get to work.