Oosty

I spent a lot of time this summer stripping my '81 down to the tub in order to know the exact condition of every component. Finally removed the motor a few weeks back, which gave me eyes on what I had suspected since removing the suspension. A bent frame rail?! The passenger side suspension parts were a complete replacement with date codes more recent than build date. When I confirmed this damage to the frame my first reaction was that it was not worth fixing. There are a lot of superficial issues with this car...bad paint which I was planning on smoothing out and vinyl wrapping...poor bodywork in a rear quarter that I was planning on using to learn a few bodywork skills on...a small amount of rust around quarter windows and hatch...etc. I had factored all of these things into my plan for how I was going to get this car back on the road but I was not expecting something like this which I assume will affect the handling if not properly fixed.

I have since spoken informally to a guy with 20 plus years in the frame pulling business who feels that this might be a simple job and could be done in 2 hours for around $200.

So if any of you have experience with this kind of damage and the chances of it being able to be pulled straight please let me know your thoughts.


This shows how the frame is twisted outward




String attached at center of car

Driver side marked with sharpie on string. This is with the string pulled taught and placed in the bolt hole.

Passenger side mark comes up just less than an inch short

Shawn Stanford

If you find a guy who'll fix that for $200, let me know and he can do my car!

Oosty

Those pictures that you showed us of your car Shawn are what I think happened to this car. I imagine the damage to yours is similar?

I measured from windshield corners to the shock towers and they match exactly side to side so I think that the damage is limited to the forward mounting point for the control arm.

What have the quotes been on your car?

Shawn Stanford

I don't have any yet. The body guys near me are so busy I can't even get them to come by and give me an estimate. My brother showed my pics to a guy near him who said it looks like a sub-$1,000 job, but he's out in Jamestown, NY. I'm seriously considering that. So, if I'm willing to put it on a trailer and drag it Jamestown, I can certainly drag it to Philly!

docmirror

Here's my 42 cents worth. The 928 does not have a 'frame'. Your guy with the straightener rack has clearly seen the undercarriage and it telling you it MIGHT be an easy job at $200. Get him to put a top limit on the job, in the worst case. Because, with all unibody cars including the 928, once you start pulling and pushing stuff, there are other unintended consequences. The WSM does have some discussion on this and would be beneficial to read up on that. Don't forget that in almost all cases there is radial as well as axial body/chassis alignment. This will show up mostly on the weighted corner balance test, and how much adjustment needs to be made to the spring perch, or torque link, or damper rod to get the weight on all corners within spec.

You are working in an area where experts have come up dry before due to the very rigid chassis of the 928. It's hard to bend it, and when bent, it's hard to unbend properly. Steel has a memory but Aluminum does not. We are an all steel chassis with alum parts bolted on. It might be needed to loosen all the bolts from the fenders to the chassis, which leads to new issues with door and hood alignment. Don't forget potential windscreen corruption in our car also. I've had two non-928 cars straightened on the rack. Both were steel frame cars, and both were successful. Never done a 928, and would be cautious about anyone who would do the job for that price, and then stand behind their work within ALL the chassis tolerances found in the WSM. The $200 easy job might turn into a 2 day train wreck and make things worse. Good luck if you give it a try, let us know how it went.

Oosty

So I guess in dumbing the description of the damage down to my wife and friends level I forgot to raise it again for the forum. I shouldn't have called it a frame rail, my truck has a frame, my 928 doesn't even have an engine.

I did spend some time with the manuals and their bodywork section. The body straightening section was pretty tool specific if I recall..i.e. if you don't own the rack and all of the attachments this section will be a waste of time, or was heavy on drilling out spot welds and replacing entire sections which would be cost prohibitive

Has anybody had this kind of wheel impact damage and fixed it successfully, especially with modern methods or tools and if so at what cost? Or even better, has anybody found this to be an easy fix? Even a glimmer of hope would be okay.

Wisconsin Joe

Yes, AO had some pretty ugly damage fixed on the Coke car.

There's a thread with pics from when it was put on an alignment rack and 'pulled straight'.

Search "Coke Car" or "Coca Cola Car" and you should find it.

Oosty

Spent a little time in the Coke car thread and I think that the damage to that car was different to mine in that it look like a front impact had driven the chassis back along with all of that bodywork. My damage looks to be more of an outward twist of the forward control arm mount, as if the passenger wheel hit a curb/rock/stationary object forcing it outward. The doors and hood all open fine. I have replaced both the fenders and the doors(because I had a set of no rub strip fenders and doors) and although I have not attached them permanently I had no problem lining everything up with good gaps.

Thank you Joe for pointing me toward a thread that might have helped.

Hasn't anybody had this kind of damage that can share an informed view with me? How about those of you that owned them when they were new and you were less "mature". I know that my VW Golf had this exact damage inflicted on her by me in my youth!

davek9

I can only add that when the Coke Car was "pulled" straight, no heat was used, just pressure and beat with a large hammer and it pulled out.
We seen another that was hit harder and when we tried pulling it, it ripped the front sub frame from the Firewall

If whoever can not twist it back into spec, it may need a new section welded in-place, like my friend at the body shop said, anything can be fixed with enough $$$ and time.

Dave K
Ex Philly pub crawler

vetter59

The problem is going to be attaching the 928 securely to a conventional drive-on frame machine. There is not a conventional pinch weld underneath along the body to attach conventional machine's pinch clamp's to hold it firmly. Porsche used a different a repair system called a Celette machine, which attached the body via production holes underneath to attach fixtures too. Not to many shops have this equipment unless they very specialized in Porsche.
Because of the rigidness of the 928 uni-body , when bent, it require's higher than normal pressure's to move the metal back in to the proper dimension's. It may still be possible to attach it to regular machine and pull it, if just needs some minor tweaking, just more tricky to find some way to attach the body and depends on severity of the damage.