H.H.Chinn

Now after seeing and reading about the fastidious cleaning, sealing and finish process, I hope it's all going directly to paint or placed in a hermetically sealed bag.

NineMeister

The main reason why we took the decision to e-coat the car is because of the wide body re-panel, not the Speedster conversion itself. The turbo body update required the sills, kidney bowls and quarter panels to be replaced, and although we could have thoroughly etch-primed and probe-sprayed the new joints inside and out for a satisfactory protection level, given that we were colour changing the car slightly meant that we would have also had to hand prepare the engine bay and under bonnet areas. Add up all the time to do this work and the additional time to bare metal the rest of the car and you can soon see why the e-coat process won us over. Sure we will now have to seam-sealer all the joints and re-stonechip the floor, but the overall finish is now going to be as good as it can get with absolutely no compromises.

As you can probably gather, when it comes to unique projects like building another 9mRS or this one, 9m simply does not do compromise.

NineMeister

No need to rush, now it's e-coated that unpainted bodyshell could survive 1000 hours in salt spray.

H.H.Chinn

You'll have to go through the entire cleaning process if subjected to the above.
I was kidding, as throughout the entire cleaning/e-coat process none of the surfaces were ever touched by by hand.

grahampeterm

Well I collected the e-coated 'tub' this morning - how apt on the first snowy day of this winter! -1C lashing the car down onto a flat bed truck!
Roll on Spring and the warm weather!






Graham

NineMeister

... and it arrived safe & sound back at 9m, thank goodness.

Knowing Marc as I do, he'll probably have it back on the spit next week, warmed up in the booth and will be seam sealing all the panel joints before Xmas!

I'll post some more detail shots of the e-coated shell next week as soon as I get the chance.

JPP

No doubt, Colin. I'd bet Graham's car has better corrosion protection now than the factory 'White Bodies' you see coming up from the basement at the factory tour in Zueffenhausen!
Thanks for the info, this is indeed awesome to be able to follow along like this.

alpinadvl

not impressed.





ok.... impressed....

SuperUser

Nice

JimPA

This is a great testament to skilled artisans at work. Two questions please. Will you also e-coat the doors to prevent rust/corrosion? In the pictures of the wheels you posted a couple of weeks ago, how did you achieve the precision and sharp cutoff between the blue and silver on the spokes?

NineMeister

There is a problem e-coating late aircooled 911 doors because the door bars are held to the outer skin with structural adhesive; if you dip the doors with the door bar in place it causes the outer panel to distort badly. We found this out the hard way. For the 9mRS Clubsport programme where the car is fitted with a fully welded in roll cage, we cut out the integral door bar before it goes for e-coating and they come back looking like new, however for lightweights or road cars without a cage the bars have to be left in, so the doors are not e-coated.

The precision line on the wheel is done with lining tape & careful masking but it helps that we have a full water base colour scheme in-house so we can paint the silver first, mask then blue & remove the tape when the base coat is not fully dry. Once the whole base coat is dry the wheel is simply clear lacquered all over. I'm sure most bodyshops would use the same technique.

JPP

O.k., guy's, I know Boxing Day is over, even in Canada!! Time to put the pints down and get back to work, right?
What's new on Graham's Speedster project? I confess, I'm totally addicted to this thread and I'm 'Jonesin' .....

24FPS

thanks for those shots!
oh my.... a happy 2010 awaits graham & the speedster clone.
pick up yer pints (lol) & lookin' forward to seeing more amigos!

NineMeister

Don't worry folks, work on the 9m Speedster will be starting again next week. Then you might have to flip channels to the 964 board to also watch the progress of our new 9m64RS Clubsport project.

JPP