The fender mounting rails up front needed some serious attention. The area wouldn't really be seen, as it's sandwiched between a fender, and a weather seal, but these were full of rust holes, and would continue to leak water, so some sections were replaced, and the smaller ones were just welded and ground down.
Fabricating the replacement section. I used a birch wood mold to bend the steel over. This was just a strip that I copies the hood curvature onto, and cut with a jigsaw. Took about 2 minutes, and gave me perfect curves for all the replacement sections that I had to pound into shape.
Before trimming down the final part.
Fitting the section.
Passenger side fender rail is worse...
This weekend my friend Cy came by to help out. His skills are impressive. He tackled the rear firewall replacement. Cutting the section out of the donor car, and cutting out the firewall and parcel shelf in the 912, he's no stranger to the cutting wheel.
Bye bye firewall...
With the new firewall tacked in, and parcel shelf (sorry, missing pics), the only replacement section left is the rear seats. I'm going to mock up some battery packs with accurate dimensions so I can remove the rear seat pans, and build the battery boxes right into the rear seat area of the car. They will be roughly the same dimensions, but much more square to accommodate the square Lithium battery packs.
Away from the car I've made some progress on procurements. I've managed to finalize the details on the 12 volt system, so I've ordered my DC-DC converter that will take 200 volts from the DC pack, and step it down to run and charge the normal 12 volt system for the car essentials. I've also ordered the DC motor controller, the Evnetics Soliton 1. A real solid, well reviewed unit capable of delivering 1000 amps to the motor! This translates into over 340 ft/lbs of torque. Much more than the car was designed for, and it will be a blast to drive. I've also done a lot of work tracking down suspension parts so that once the body work is done I'll get her rolling right away.
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