touareg

When you put it all back together, are you going to do anything custom, or keep relatively what the factory would have done.

FLT951

I'm sending Jay my catalog of colored wheels, side markers, rear deck emblems, faux (fake) decals
and graffiti artists. Something compelling will surely be born of that.

touareg

Sweet

Jay Wellwood

Current plans in addition to the custom paint will include custom upholstery, colored calipers, a hair dryer under the hood and of course the transition to manual transmission. I'm toying around with some other ideas...nothing firmed up yet.

Jay Wellwood

Finally finished the removal of the wiring harnesses. Those things have to weigh in around 25-30 lbs.

Managed to pull the majority of the brake lines and now I'm down to the windshield, a few fuel lines and then it's time to start the removal of the adhesive.

After that, then it'll be time to soda blast and then off for color.

On a side note - there is an interesting fact noted in the disassembly. The chassis has a marked number on the aft end, near the trunk lock area which is also stamped in each of the doors.

I'd be interested if anyone else has noted this as well.

black944 turbo

I would imagine that corresponds to the last four of your vin, no? It is very interesting that they did that even into the 90s.

I know on 356s it is done like that on every panel.

Jay Wellwood

No, the last four of the VIN are different.

While I'm careful to cite anything I find on Wikipedia as truth, apparently there were 1440 models produced in '92 for the US/Canadian market - which would allow for #1434 to fit in as a production line number. Of course, the same page mentions a total of 5,353 made in all of '92 - which would also allow for the theory of production line number.

black944 turbo

Interesting.

thomasmryan

the factory video of 'werks 1' doing the panamera shows the panel beaters working their magic then disassembling the cars for paint.....doors and other items are barcoded for final assembly.

your engravings are probably to keep pre-fitted parts on the right car.

touareg

Makes sense to me, I was reading an article about why ford doesnt make a 25k car that looks like a exotic, such as a ferrari, etc. Answer is panel fitment. Designing a car that can be quickly assembled panel wise, and not take a lot of tweaks to make it look "right" is desirable. More panels equals more messing around if things dont fit right.

Considering these cars were hand assembled, I would go for that, that is to say, these numbers were for matching parts before final assembly but after looking for flaws and fitment.

Jay Wellwood

Down to just stripping the adhesive stuff off and finally removal of the damaged windshield.

Interesting to see how the factory built these cars and what steps they took to seal off areas. Case in point, the upper trim pieces on the rear of the chassis. Bolt holes sealed with a putty type of tape and the longitudinal edges sealed with a combination of foam rubber and some black caulk type material which I suspect is some variant of the windshield sealant.

Clean up is going somewhat slow as the use of adhesive was quite liberal. Seems to go best by using a heat gun to soften, then lift off the bulk with a putty knife. Residual adhesive then cleans up pretty easily using 3M general adhesive remover.

On a related note - found the 1464 number written on both door cards and stamped in the trunk ledge.

touareg

Are those trim pieces around the trunk, abs plastic? How did you get them off?

Jay Wellwood

They appear to be fiberglass pieces. Held in place by nuts/washers (4 each side as I recall) along the top side. There are 2 Phillip screws on each side on the rear that hold them to the body under the center piece. Then you have to run a thin putty knife along the upper edge to loosen the piece from the body.

Jay Wellwood

For those watching (with horror or glee - yeah, it's kinda like a trainwreck...), we finally settled on the color-

https://rennlist.com/forums/968-forum/953249-green.html

For those not wanting to re-read, we've going with the Viper Green color (it's the one on the left side in the picture below).

Jay Wellwood

Since Wilma is getting some special treatments all her own, one feature unique to the 92 year models that I found intriguing was the recessed hood badge. Wilma was produced at some point after this unique feature was discontinued...but today I struck gold.

Found a local guy who had parted out a Slate Grey 92 Cab a few years back that still had a few parts he wanted to move on to a new home. After a few pictures swapped, it became obvious that the hood was one of those 'unicorns'.

Went by today and picked up the hood. For those who haven't seen one - a few pictures below showing the recessed hood badge. The hood badges are identical in shape, size and mounting method - including using the same backing gasket. Only the hood is different. Not sure how many of these recessed hood badges exist.

The hood came home today and just in the nick of time. The first parts (hood, doors, fenders, hinges and trunk lid) are on their way to get soda blasted tomorrow. Once done, they go on to the painters for preparation for paint. At some point in the near future the chassis will follow.