Lord_Galva

After 6 months of hating the look of the fading roof, bubble forming spoiler, and cloudy wing the other shoe has dropped.
My lower hinge on the driver side door rusted off taking most of the weld with it.
I anticipated this happening so I bought a replacement 968 door from Parts Heaven three weeks ago.
On Sunday morning I opened my door and it nearly fell off!
I brought the car down to the highest rated body shop in my town, we have 6 body shops for some reason, and got a great rate to do the whole car. The catch is I am doing the tear-down and re-assembly myself. (secretly I really want to do it)
As of right now: most of the extra trim pieces, side skirts, front bumper, and driver door have been removed. (I will take some pics tomorrow)
I'm having a little trouble getting the front wings off the car. They seem to be stuck. I've removed the 11 screws shown on the parts diagram and the wing moves but is still attached to the body. Do I need to force it or is there some trick to getting them off? I'm having a friend help me with getting the hatch off the car tomorrow and it should be all naked by Thursday if there are no more snags.

jeff968

Front wings??? You mean front fenders? Good luck with the project. Same color I assume?

odurandina

a door rusting off ? on a california car ? make sure the fugly, gawdy, clubsport logo goes away forever. and why do i hate the clubsport thing so much ? first of all, they never should have put that crap (and done the sily wheel painting) on any of the cars.... but, i think any Porsche should at least have come with a Turbo as a minimum to qualify for getting, a gimmicky, corny sticker. love the color of your car though. probably my favorite 968 color.... on my car i'm struggling between, a couple of colors, but i'm going back and forth between Porsche Wakeboard Blue and Lambo Monterrey Blue (hopefully this winter).... good luck.

Lord_Galva

Yes, fenders. And yes same color.
And I love the wheel sticker combo so that will be back.

jeff968

The only thing to keep in mind is that the fenders are "glued" with sealer in addition to the bolts. You'll have to cut the sealer to get it to let go.

odurandina

plus 1 trillion.

great point Jeff.

there's hell to pay when you remove the fenders. including warpage if you're not careful...

Lord_Galva

I checked with the body shop before attempting to un-glue the fenders. They said I was doing extra work and to just leave them on. Looks like I should have asked.
The fenders are back on now, however the: spoiler, hatch, and hood have been removed and prepped. Just the rear bumper and passenger door are left. The body parts are piling up in random open places in my house. (I'm running out of room!) Looks like I have a perfect opportunity to re-seal the rear hatch during the time the car is being painted too. Sooooooooooo excited about this project.

notthd

The Fenders are fun to get off- especially the pass side one because the ABS controller and your windshield wash reso is stuffed up in there. Quite a bitch. One thing that may be frowned upon but works well is a propane torch. I use it to heat up the glue but be careful. The glue gets soft and the fenders pulled off pretty easy compaired to trying to cut the glue. May not be for all DYIers though.

If they have not done anything with the windshield an old trick I use is to insert a wire rope or cable under the windshield trim to raise it off the metal then tape it. This allows paint to flow under the trim as opposed to just masking it "the best they can". Make for a factory finish.

Also pull the windshield misters and emblems. Go all the way... When the time comes I have some reassembly tricks that will help with the molding and trim installs. They were posted some time back on my cab respray.
Good Luck


cheers, Mike

Lord_Galva

Nice. Yea, I've removed the misters and the hood emblem. The shop told me to also remove the antenna.
Did you tape the wire rope to the rubber? I want to try your suggestion. (pics would help) Shop told me that could be an issue if I don't remove the windshield. They are going to remove the side windows, which is good cuz I don't have the skills to touch those.

At any rate, today I've mostly done research into screw locations for the rear bumper and figuring out how to get the antenna off. So the rear bumper and passenger door are halfway off the car. Ten screws for the bumper, painfully difficult door wiring harness removal, antenna, and the 4 screws for the door and I'm done! with removing body parts.........

The biggest hurdle is getting the window and door electronics out of the passenger door.

Painting should start on Monday. There will be plenty of pics of the car stripped before and after. Stay tuned

dp951

Painting the 968 is not fun but worth the labor. ill be doing the engine compartment so as I finish building my other engine. FUF FUN FUN

odurandina

sometimes it's Monterrey Blue, Cobalt Blue, Jetstream Blue, Tahoe Blue, Minerva Blue....

other times, Polar Silver, Slate Grey..... Racing Green.

Lord_Galva

Finally was able to get a hold of my car painting friend and he said I have to wait 2 months before attaching any clear bra's or stickers.

The stickers I can wait for. Heck, just the plain car might grow on me. (but the white wheels will look odd) The bra is what I really wanted. Thankfully I have a 968 bra to keep the front safe from rocks until then.

Do those clear 3M bra's actually work?

Fox944

They work in that they protect your paint from chips. That said, they start to yellow and look like crap after a while.

TheBlau

I just did a bunch of research online about clear bra's and the verdict is - The 3M products are not great. They used to be the best available but a few other companies have come into play with better proprietary products. The 3M starts to yellow after a couple years, especially noticeable on lighter cars, and it's not quite as clear as some newer products.

Ventureshield is what the majority of people recommend and comes in a 60" width, enough to do the full width of a hood without seams if you want to. A handful of people are recommending the new XPel film - which is harder to apply than most of the other films but also comes in a 60" width. The Ventureshield and Xpel films are clearer/smoother than the rest of the competition out there.

For just a partial hood and partial fenders (typically about 18" up the hood), you can expect to pay $450-650. If you want full hood and fender coverage you'd be looking at $1000-1400.

Maintenance is just like your regular paint.

I have Ventureshield being applied next week (partial coverage only) and I'll take some pictures once I have the car back.

Lord_Galva

Dropped the car off yesterday to get painted. The car looked like it spent a night on the streets of Oakland. Awwwwwww
Hopefully I will get the car back before the 10 day estimate