Classic 911 restoration

[superlight7]

Earlier in the summer and after much looking I finally found myself a fairly tidy 1972 RHD 911E. At some time in its life it's had various colour changes...started blue and currently black.

My original intention was to build an RS Tribute but after much thinking Ive decided to build a historic track car, with my wife requesting a balance of comfort for trips to Spa etc.

Anyway looking for perfection I've stripped the car had all the panels dipped and got it booked onto the jigs starting next week for new sills and other bits and pieces to be sorted prior to repainting from bare metal to GP White.

It currently has a sun roof which I was thinking to remove so that I can have a rear cage installed, any advice on removing sun roofs.....my body'shop has a genius welder who assures me it's a very easy task to weld in a closure plate....comments?

The car came with many nice features such as original touring Recaro,s which although period I was thinking to change to something more supportive for track work......

I will keep the thread posted with developments but would appreciated any photos of your projects to give me inspiration.

[tuffer]

Pics please.

[Steve Rance]

When we acid dipped my 993 race car we found that the car originally had a sunroof that was welded in. I wanted the body to be absolutely perfect so we fitted a new Porsche supplied roof as well as many other new panels. The work was done by Tony Littlejohn of GTR motorsport. Tony is expert in 911's especially air cooled RS/RSR and competition cars. Give him a call, I'm sure that he will help

[thegoose]

Given the lengths you're going to to make it nice I'd suggest doing the job properly, meaning cutting the roof off, fitting the cage (much easier with roof off) and then fitting a non-sunroof roof.

[graemel]

Excellent choice Superlight. Sunroof panel. It depends. On mine they had to be real fussy. Unpicking all the inner skin of the sunroof and very cleverly using the existing sunroof panel to fill the void. Clever because I have no head lining, yet if you see it in the flesh you would think it was a non sunroof roof panel. Pics please.

[superlight7]

thegoose said:

Given the lengths you're going to to make it nice I'd suggest doing the job properly, meaning cutting the roof off, fitting the cage (much easier with roof off) and then fitting a non-sunroof roof.

I don't believe you can get the original roofs anymore and fitting a carbon pattern roof is not in keeping with a classic car..hence why we're looking to weld in a panel.

[superlight7]

graemel said:

Excellent choice Superlight. Sunroof panel. It depends. On mine they had to be real fussy. Unpicking all the inner skin of the sunroof and very cleverly using the existing sunroof panel to fill the void. Clever because I have no head lining, yet if you see it in the flesh you would think it was a non sunroof roof panel. Pics please.

Pics will be posted as we go along......don't suppose you have a picture sequence of your roof surgery.

[thegoose]

superlight7 said:

I don't believe you can get the original roofs anymore and fitting a carbon pattern roof is not in keeping with a classic car..hence why we're looking to weld in a panel.

I wouldn't suggest a carbon roof and didn't realise rooves (why does no-one spell it like that anymore?) weren't available. A friend got a new one for his 3.2 Carrera 3 or 4 years ago easily enough, guess they must be different for the earlier cars.

[Slippydiff]

superlight7 said:

I don't believe you can get the original roofs anymore and fitting a carbon pattern roof is not in keeping with a classic car..hence why we're looking to weld in a panel.

You can, it's a 964/993 item and is a complete assembly which includes the rear screen aperture, the front screen aperture and the scuttle. They're not cheap (circa £1100) PLUS fitting . . . (and it ain't a five miniute job !)

Here's mine :

[MrCooke]

Agree with the above - if you're spending tens of thousands on a build then a new roof is the answer. You may even find your local OPC is willing to deal a bit from the above price, under £1000 was acheivable last year .

On a less thorough build fitting a carbon roof panel works well and saves a good few kg. You cut the exiting roof back leaving 50mm all round then bond it on.

[freedman]

Fenn Lane do a metal infill panel to replace the sunroof. Corrcet size shape etc pics Ive seen on Pelican parts show a perfect finish post replacement

A much simpler and less labour intensive method than modding the existing sunroof panel

Panel itself is under £200.00

Edited by freedman on Tuesday 25th October 08:35

[BertBert]

Have you joined DDK Geoff? An abundance of resources and hepful knowledgable people there.
Bert

[superlight7]

BertBert said:

Have you joined DDK Geoff? An abundance of resources and hepful knowledgable people there.
Bert

Cheers Bert, thanks for the lead - cheques in the post.

[widow maker]

if the body shop are good anything goes i used to build million pound limos and this is a 2 meter patch welded and metal finished

[widow maker]

superlight7 said:

Earlier in the summer and after much looking I finally found myself a fairly tidy 1972 RHD 911E. At some time in its life it's had various colour changes...started blue and currently black.

My original intention was to build an RS Tribute but after much thinking Ive decided to build a historic track car, with my wife requesting a balance of comfort for trips to Spa etc.

Anyway looking for perfection I've stripped the car had all the panels dipped and got it booked onto the jigs starting next week for new sills and other bits and pieces to be sorted prior to repainting from bare metal to GP White.

It currently has a sun roof which I was thinking to remove so that I can have a rear cage installed, any advice on removing sun roofs.....my body'shop has a genius welder who assures me it's a very easy task to weld in a closure plate....comments?

The car came with many nice features such as original touring Recaro,s which although period I was thinking to change to something more supportive for track work......

I will keep the thread posted with developments but would appreciated any photos of your projects to give me inspiration.

leave your roof on fill the patch if the guys as good as he says you will never know this i a 2 meter patch welded and metal finished on an s class i did
leave [url]|http://thumbsnap.com/JEgzc2sa[/url

[superlight7]

Few pictures of what we started with:-

[cragswinter]

What engine lid are you going for? Back to flat?

(shameless attempt at buying a cheap ducktail )

Can you post up what spec you're going for? It's always interesting to see how things change as the build continues.

I'm on the phone but the pics look like it had flares on-you going back to narrow?

[anonymous-user]

thegoose said:

I wouldn't suggest a carbon roof and didn't realise rooves (why does no-one spell it like that anymore?) weren't available. A friend got a new one for his 3.2 Carrera 3 or 4 years ago easily enough, guess they must be different for the earlier cars.

Because the plural of roof is roofs - never has been rooves as roof does not follow normal rules. Sorry O/T I know......

[mollytherocker]

[quote=Slippydiff]

You can, it's a 964/993 item and is a complete assembly which includes the rear screen aperture, the front screen aperture and the scuttle. They're not cheap (circa £1100) PLUS fitting . . . (and it ain't a five miniute job !)

Here's mine :

[url]

quote]

Keep us updated with pics!

What they doing to that Mk1 Capri? RS3100?

MTR

[thegoose]

drmark said:

Because the plural of roof is roofs - never has been rooves as roof does not follow normal rules. Sorry O/T I know......

Actually you're wrong, I googled it last night after my post. I remember being taught rooves at school. Apparently both were considered acceptable for a time but it seems now that it's much more commonplace to use roofs, even though the same "evolution" (I would call it regression I think) hasn't happened to dwarf/dwarves, hoof/hooves, sheaf/sheaves etc.

It's interesting how language and usage develops. I remember that "scone" was always shown as having just one pronunciation "skon" but it's now acceptable to say "scohne" as well (forgive that spelling, they actually write it with accents in the dictionary and I don't know how to use them on here).