1972 Porsche 914

Repair and Restoration - Part 2 - Passenger Side Suspension Console

It should be noted that a lot of work in this area is also documented in...

6/29/2007

Passenger side inside suspension console has terminal rust.  You can se the rust and crack near the bottom.

7/3/2007

Look at the rust that was just laying inside!

Pile of rust and parts.

Area behind suspension console looks good.

7/4/2007

The inner and outer suspension console are constructed as two pieces.  Both are welded to the box section of the longitudinals that curve up toward the rear shock mounts.  However there are two heavier plates that tied the inner and outer consoles together.  These are hand welded in place.  I was not sure how to go about removing the inner console as this means I have to deal with those two bridge plates somehow.  Do I remove the bridges and then cut out the inner console or just cut the bridges in two?  It turns out that what most people do is cut the bridges in two and leave one half on the outside console and when they replace the inner console, they just build new halves to the bridges.

This shows the bridges.

10/25/2007

Motor mount and inner suspension console mostly removed.  Some small bits still need to be removed.  This section uses a double walled construction.  The inner walls have a  corrugated pattern to add strength.  I plan to at the least re-skin the outer wall.  If the inner wall is rusted, I will rebuilt it as well.

I plan to start cutting tomorrow and wanted to get some "before" photos to document how everything goes together.

How bad will the inner wall be?

10/26/2007

I have started to remove the outer wall (skin) on the inside.  It is exposing the inner wall that is stamped with a corrugated pattern to increase strength.  I have also marked some cut lines.  I want to cut as little "good" metal out, but at the same time I would prefer that my replacement parts be straight forward to created and weld into place.  So I am trying for as many straight lines as I can.

More cut lines.  It also shows the rust at the bottom.  I will be keeping whatever I cut out to help aid in the creation of replacements.  Especially from the point of view of complex curves and inner/outer wall construction.

11/4/2007

Continuing to remove the outer skin.  Also cleaning up the old spot welds as I go.

12/24/2007

While media blasting the passenger longitudinal area, I decided to do a which pass at media blasting the work I have done.  After this photos were taken I sprayed the area down with Metal Ready.

This is not final prep, but it is amazing how nice it cleans up.  I still need to remove the outer skin on the top

3/22/2008

Actually been working on this awhile, but I am slow to take photos. What I am doing is working on the new skin.  Where the four cylinder motor mount usually resides, there is an indentation and I am replicating that in the new skin.

Here you see the two parts up against the good driver side.  I am creating a mirror image of this.

4/6/2008

I created a paper template of my skin.  Did my best to mark the location of the indentation that I am replicating.  This shows me about to trace the outline on my 18g sheet.

4/23/2008

I have cut and bent my skin.  I tried to take my time regarding bends as this needs to fit like a glove.  I then tack welded in the two parts that make the indentation.  I also test fit it at this point.

Tacked into place

Back

Now it is welded and grinded on the front.

Back doesn't have to look at pretty as the front.  I just grinded down the welds so that it fits in nicely.

Test fit as shown from the outside.

7/26/2008

Finally drilled holes for the rosette welds as well as primed the area to be covered with Zinc weldable primer.  Here is the end result.  It actually fit and looks very good.  Welds are not ground down at this point.

10/19/2008

I finally got around to welding in the replacement suspension console.  It went pretty well.  Basically I drilled all of my holes for my plug welds.  Then I media blasted the entire replacement part to remove the primer that was on it when it was delivered as well as any surface rust.  I then treated the entire part with Metal Ready.  I then painted the inside with POR-15.  I mostly wanted to make sure that the bottom (interior of the ear) was well coated.  Since the paint is thin enough to run, it works it's way pretty well into crevices.  I also lightly media blasted the section of the car that it will be mounted onto to remove flash rust, treated it with POR-15 as well.

Any surface that was to be welded, I didn't use POR-15 on.  After the POR-15 had cured, I painted the rest of the exposed areas with UPOL weldable primer.  Since weldable primer doesn't work as well as I would like, I also mark where each plug weld will be and using a stone on an air die grinder, I remove the paint to reveal the metal to improve the quality of the weld.  To ensure that the part fit well, I unbent the top part so that the bottom and side fit snugly.  I then measure the distance from the edge of the bolt hole to the center of the dimple on the firewall on the driver side and replicated this distance on the passenger side.  I then clamped the part into place.  I had to do this a few time because the act of clamping and pulling tight to the body will move the part enough to change the distance.

I then did a few select welds around the perimeter and rechecked my measurement.  Then continued on.  Once the bottom and sides were done, I hammered the top part over into place and then finished up the welds.  The photos below don't show it, but I then grinded down the welds so that they are mostly flush and then hit them with a flapper disc on a grinder to smooth them up a bit.  I am not trying to make them 100% invisible (as you can see the factory spot welds).  I don't want to "over restore".  Regarding the alignment of the new part, I think I am within 1 mm +/- or so.  Which should be good enough given the amount of adjustment that can be done on the outer suspension console mount.

Holes drilled, media blasted and POR-15 on the inside.

Body cleaned up, media blasted and POR-15 on select areas.  Mostly wanted to get it on the bottom (right hand side of this photo)

Weldable primer sprayed over the remaining exposed metal.  Stone on air die grinder used to knock paint off the surface so plug welds don't have to deal with primer.

Clamped into place.  Note how top flange has been unbent to allow for better alignment on bottom.

Welded into place.  Plug welds are raw and have not been brushed or ground down yet.

Same thing on the bottom.

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Last modified: September 05, 2006