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We can begin to see the new size (I was going to say shape and size, but the shape does not really change) of the new quarter windows from this picture. I was hoping to narrow the size of the B-Post a bit more than this, but I guess we will have to live with what we now are going to have.
I am going to cut the tail off of the car to move it forward, hopefully this weekend. I'll be cutting it at the front of the several vertical lines shown and then overlapping (underlapping?) the skin aft of the cut and moving it inside to one of the other lines. I'll probably start with the line at 2 1/2 inches and then begin to work the window rear corner piece into its new position, gradually working it in and trying to see how much more I can tuck the tail in as I go.
I pretty much have the other cuts for the tail figured out, except for the kind of sideways stanchion inside the bottom rear of the rear fender which I'll need to cut loose in some way. I think it needs to be moved with the tail, but I'm not sure just where and how to cut it loose. I am hoping that I might be able to drill out the spot welds and move it intack to a forward location, but we will see when we get into it.
Last edited by Jerry Feather; 03-24-2018 at 09:56 PM.
My plan to at least start cutting the tail off this weekend materialized, but not so much as I had expected. The delay was in finding the spot weld drill bits I had purchased some time ago in anticipation of the need on the project. Now I can't find them. I did find a pretty good substitute at HF today and have put one of them to use. They tend to loose their teeth in the process since they are not actually drill bits but rather small hole saws that cut a small ring around the weld spot.
I have one side of the welds cut out and some other cutting near it and will try to complete the other side in a while. Then I think I know just where to make the rest of the cuts to get the tail loose so I can do the final figuring for putting the tail back where we need it.
I have some more of it cut, but not loose yet. Tomorrow I think I'll plan and make the last four cuts, but I have to locate some registration blocks on it first and maybe weld back a previous cut I made by mistake.
I learned a couple of things in this exercise. One is that most of the spot welds are not actually welds. They are just melted spots in the sheet metal but not welded to the metal underneath. The other thing is that the cars may be held together to a great extent by the tough undercoating.
What I'm going to do next is mark and make the next 4 cuts that should totally sever the tail from the car. However I think I'll find that I need to soften and then penetrate and peal the undercoating that is likely still holding it together. Maybe also make some final cuts of metal that I may have missed in the cutting process. I'll then pull the tail skin off to the rear and then do quite a bit of cleaning of the exposed surfaces and in particular the ones that will be involved in the reassembly.
One of the reasons to take it completely off is that before I can put it back on I will need to remove the two tail stanchions that have the spot welds that I have just drilled out. I think those stanchions are spot welded to the tail ends of the frame and will have to be moved forward with the tail skins.
The undercoating is tough to clean off, but when I heat it with my heat gun then it is much softer to peel off with a chisel.
Jerry, I was so inspired by your project that I decided to do some sectioning of my own. But as an autopsy pathologist I clearly do not have the surgeon's hands you are blessed with. My cuts were a total failure:
Hi Rob. I can't tell from the picture just what you were trying to accomplish, and it might have been a failure, but it looks to me like all your cuts were totally successful. There are a lot of pieces of 928 there.
I made three more cuts at the tail of my project 928, but it is still intact. I need to do some welding on it before I make the final cuts because I made a couple of cuts right at one of the corners that don't need to be there and it will be very weak at those cuts when it becomes a separate piece. I also did some cleaning of the pieces cut loose so far to remove the rubber like undercoating. That stuff is really tough to remove. I have to soften it with my heat gun and then pry it off with a chisel.
Here are the other three cuts I made yesterday. I'm going to try this afternoon to cut it loose, and hope I am as successful as Rob . . . getting it loose that is
I made what I thought were the last cuts to separate the tail of the car, but found that it is still fastened by something back in the corners. At first I thought is may simply be the undercoating, but upon further forcing of the issue I found where the metal is bending and now think that there is a flange at the tail of the frame that is not completely severed. I'll try to figure out where and how best to cut it and then I
should have the tail off.
Then I will have to move the two stanchions that are holding the very back of the tail to the frame. They need to be carefully removed and moved forward to where the tail is going to end up and then welded back.
Last edited by Jerry Feather; 03-27-2018 at 10:43 AM.
03-22-2018, 10:46 AM
