boman993

Once again; I love these 3 cars. Absolute masterpieces!

This might be a dumb question but I thought I'd ask anyway..haha

So not saying that any of the 3 Speedsters would be subjected to a drive in the
rain; but in the event that you had to..Are the wiper arms shorter to
accommodate a shorter windshield or do they whisk over the top of the car? I've
been trying to compare the cars in photos..but can't tell..

Anyway, like I said; stupid question...

NineMeister

Yes, the arms are shorter; they have to be specially made to suit.

ilko

I haven't been on Rennlist as much lately and what a pleasant surprise! The car looks great, congratulations!!

JPP

Thanks for the compliment. I really like the 'as delivered' look on these cars ..and I wanted the car to look 'stock' or at least my fantasy of what a stock '98 Speedster would have looked like if I had been able to order one new back then. I guess it's working because I've had several comments from Porsche people on the street that think it's factory and when I tell them it was made to order in England, they are really surprised ...

Thanks Ilko!
BTW I'm on the road in New York this week, doing some business and visiting friends on Long Island so just checking in every so many days here ... I'll post some more photos when I get back next week.

curve lover

New thread ... 10 days without a post.
Sunk to page 6 already without even a 'tiil now.

REALLY? Before withdrawal sets in, Speedsterholics unite!

JPP

Ok, OK! I'm back .... I've been hard at work yesterday putting on the last hundred break-in miles doing a 'Wine Country' loop through the Anderson Valley, up into Calistoga and then down through the Napa Valley into the back door of Sonoma ... Here we are at a pit stop in Oakville at the Berringer Brother's Winery. It's good work if you can get it ...


So, I've had some requests for more detail pictures of the build to be posted here and I don't mind doing that, just don't want to wear folks out with it because there's a lot of information, so I thought I'd break it up into 4 or 5 separate posts so people can comment if they like and it's not so overwhelming....
I'd like to start with some discussion and photo's of what exactly was wrong with the original Turbo bodywork as it was delivered by Beverly Hills Porsche with the caveat that I have no information as to who actually did this work. I'm assuming that BHP's bodyshop did this work but it certainly could have been subcontracted out to a local body shop/fabricator for all 5 cars so the work didn't interfere with BHP's day to day bodyshop work .. but to be fair, I really don't know. All I can tell you and show you is what that work looked like when 9m disassembled the car and exposed the areas on the body where the work was performed and how that had affected the car structurally. When I first saw the car, I immediately saw the impact of these problems on the paintwork. It was cracking and crazing just below the seams where the rear quarters meet the bulkhead under the convertible top's lower rear edges ... at the time, I thought it was due to poor paint application and assembling the car before the paint was dry .. but the actual root cause was much more than that. 9m discovered that the entire row of inner welds that hold the longitudinal sills in place had been drilled through to remove the outer Narrow Body sills and then not rewelded all the way through, and the cuts to remove the NB quarters were not done properly to allow a large enough lip of metal to properly weld the new Turbo quarters on. The welding work quality was done very poorly, sometimes damaging the mating metal and they failed to install all of the critical Turbo quarter support structure. All of this caused the car to flex and twist much more than it was designed for and that created cracks in several places including where the Cabriolet top mounts to the chassis ... Here's some pictures that 9m sent me to show some of the damage, young children should probably leave the room now .... The sill welds shown here are just deep enough to attach the sill cover plate, but they didn't go through to re-attach the new sill to the longitudinal members ..
Here's the left side top attach point showing the entire forward edge cracked away from the B pillar and the mangled lap weld where the quarter attached to the bulkhead:

Here's the mangled right quarter to bulkhead lap welds ..


It's hard to see here, but the flexing has caused the cab top attach point to rip and tear away from the inner bulkhead:


Here's some of the Frankenstein welding scars showing the deformation of the quarter panel metal ... this was a new panel when they started ..



And the main underlying problem causing most of the damage .. the infamous 'Plug Welded' sill:


I spent 30+ years as a structural engineer in the aerospace industry and when this kind of retrofit work is done to an airplane, it's inspected at every step before the next panel is fitted to cover up the work to insure that each piece is properly installed and mechanically sound ... to be frank, I am still dumfounded that Porsche Exclusive didn't have some kind of system in place to insure that this work was done to factory specifications and included all of the inner support structure ... at a minimum .. before they would warranty these cars and sell them as 'new' factory vehicles ..

curve lover

^^ Good to have you back, JP

Bet you missed your west coast ride during your east coast trip.
Welcome back to the one you luv ... SpeedArena

JPP

Thanks Jäger, it was a very nice trip with beach downtime in Amagansett ... but it's good to be home again. You're right, VERY difficult to lock up the garage and leave SpeedArena home ...

Cactus

If any of the other 5 WB Cab owners see this thread they may be on the way to the liquor store....

JPP

... yes, with a side trip to their body shop and then a call to a Lawyer if they are the original owners ....

JPP

In addition to the rear quarter problems, the sills had been welded on unlevel and unaligned with the door bottoms and the front fender extensions were crooked and badly welded as well. All of it made the gaps slightly off so the doors had been adjusted to compensate and that caused more problems ...
You can see here the fender extension line where it meets the fender has lost it's crisp edge because the welding leaked through and filled the crease ... then they just painted over it


Here's the backside ... I don't think it could get any uglier .. when I first saw this, I though it was fire damage ..


When I shipped the car over to 9m, we all thought they would be able to just fix the existing bodywork to bring it up to factory specs ... but after a thorough examination, both Marc and Colin knew that none of the existing metal could be saved due to the shoddy fabrication work .. so we had to revise the cost budget for the work to include all new Turbo body panels from Porsche AND repairing the damage caused by the previous work so the new panels could be fitted ... Needless to say, none of us were too pleased with that, but there's only one way to go at this point and that is forward...

So, new Turbo quarters, sills and fender extensions plus all the proper Turbo inner support structure was added to the growing list of parts needed and everything is ordered ... and in a week or so, everything was in house and getting prepped.
New Turbo quarters .. for a coupe of course, that have to be prepped and primed then cut down for an open car ..


and new Turbo sills and rear quarter support panels also ...



Then boxes of other Speedster specific parts started arriving from Porsche ..
Here are the new rear and side Speedster bulkhead pieces that will have to be picked apart and prepped to be installed..


At this point, I am really glad to be in 9m's hands. I interviewed several shops in several states and even ones that claim to have done "many Speedster conversion" couldn't describe the process or discuss the types of modifications needed to prep parts ... none of them knew the differences between the inner support structures of a Narrow body car and a Turbo ... I walked away from that experience thinking that body fabrication craft is basically dead in this country .. and to be fair, the 993 is considered 'too new' for restoration .. just an 'insurance job' type of vehicle ...

Many parts that come from Porsche come as large assemblies, but only portions of those are needed for the Speedster unique modifications. The rear bulkhead is a good example of that because it is delivered as a complete, welded assembly, but we only needed the upper section where there is a triangular 'tent' section welded in to accommodate the folded Speedster top assembly ..


so, the welds are 'picked' apart and the piece is separated out and prepped for welding into the stock Cabriolet's bulkhead.


While new metal was being prepped, the cutting on the car was begun in earnest ... I have to say, getting the first pictures of the car being cut into was .... well, ... emotional .. This process is definitely NOT for the weak of heart ...



So, 9m's approach to the conversion is keep as many factory welds and factory installed parts undisturbed as possible throughout the process. I wanted to keep the original Arena Red color as well, so we decided to not completely strip and ecoat the car which preserved most of the factory coatings and sealants as well. Everything that was touched by 9m was brought back through a complete series of preparation, coatings, sealers, primers and finishes that met or exceeded Porsche factory practices and standards ... and everywhere the old and new overlapped, 9m restored the finishes in those areas so there is no evidence that they were ever there ...

Here's a shot looking through the bulkhead cutout forward to the dash .. you can see Marc and Owen have been busy cutting up there as well ... and I'll post more of that later ...

grahampeterm

Hi JPP
Great to see you getting the miles on SpeedArena and enjoying the revived engine BHP!

It is very scary seeing ones pride & joy being segmented! They look like an old sled once all the panel work is removed - at least being bolted to the substantial Celette jig, it ensures that the car only leaves 2 tracks in the snow

Graham

FisterD

I like that!
So will we be seeing SA in person sometime soon?

Cactus

All the details are insane! I can't imagine any place in the whole USA that would be able to do that correctly after seeing what a "high end" shop did to mine on the simplest of jobs

JPP

Hi Graham! Yes, the new power to the wheels is quite noticeable .. and I haven't really pushed the limit ... yet .. My stomach still turns a little when I review some of the 'surgery' pictures .. I'll be posting more of the gruesome details soon ...

Well, I'm negotiating the exact date with your dance partner as I type ... Methinks it will be somtime during the week of August 8th .. and I can't WAIT to get some real oil in her with some viscosity so I feel a bit more confident bringing the rev counter up a bit ..

Ryan, I feel your pain. I am old enough to remember that world class craftmanship and quality work WAS available right here in California in the 60's and 70's so I knew what I was looking for and not a single one of the people I talked to gave me any confidence that they would be able to produce a factory quality conversion. Not even close. I looked at every high end restoration shop you can dig up that has done Concourse winning work on Porsche cars in the past, all across the entire country ... New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Colorado and California. They all flunked the simplest list of questions of how they would approach the task and what would be involved .. some of their answers were obviously designed to eliminate any risk or responsibility for the finished product .. so much so that I couldn't imagine anyone doing any kind of business with them ... and the arrogance and PRICES!! I walked away from that entire exercise truly believing two things: That Porsche restoration craftsmanship in this country is DEAD and the reason why is because the insurance industry has created a business environment for bodyshops to do the LEAST quality work for the MOST profit and that level of work and service is now completely integrated into the restoration business ... . Ok, I'll get off my box now ...