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The build of the Porsche 917 was going really slow. I didn’t get much time to work on the car. It was time to get the body fixed up. This was the most damage we have ever seen on the Porsche. We were lucky in the sense that we still had the mold for the back end of the Porsche. The problem was with the front of the car. I had a guy at work that was really good with fiberglass work. I took him to the car and showed him everything that needs to be done. He recon he could fix the back end without making a completely new cover. That was good news as I was battling getting resources to help me with the car.
Fixing the back cover
Johan, the guy helping me with the bodywork took the back cover of the car and cut out the damaged section. He then put the cover back into the mold and marked out with a marker pen what section of the panel he is going to need. He took the back end out of the mold and then the magic started. Johan did a layup of the panel that he just marked out. He made the panel so that it is the same thickness as the original body.
Johan turned the cover upside down and used a grinder to grind a lowered section all along the join line, it was approximately 30 mm to 40 mm either side of the join line. He cut glass fiber mat strips on the width of the lowered section. He glassed the bottom side, you could just see where the join line was. Once the fiberglass was dry he turned the body around. Once again he did the same thing and glassed the top side as well. Now Johan used some body filler to smooth the section out. He put the filler on nice and thick to that he could blend in the new piece of the body nicely.
Now the time-consuming part started, Johan had to sand down the complete back end. The body had some issues from a previous indecent that also had to be sorted out.
My words to Johan and everyone that helped me with the car was “This car must look like a 2 Million Rand car when it is done”. Everything has to be perfect.
Fixing the front
This was a bit more challenging than the back end of the car. There was no mold for this and everything had to line up properly. The left-hand section of the nose of the car was hanging by a thread. There were really bad cracks on a big section on the side that didn’t keep its shape. It was soft as the section was crushed. Johan worked out a plan to get it fixed up. When he was done with the front of the car you could not tell that there was any damage.
Johan had the structure of the car fixed, now it was fixing small pinholes and small marks. Like I said the car must look great.
Fitting the body back on the chassis
The moment of truth arrived, the body had to go back onto the chassis. The previous time the car was fixed after a crash it was only the back end that was fixed. The problem was that something did shift but my boss Mike wasn’t too worried about that. You could see on the door fitment that the gaps weren’t great. The doors did their jobs but they just didn’t look great.
We carefully put the nose on the car and started to fit all the mounting bolts. Nothing was tightened at the stage. We needed to see if the body is sitting straight and if not try to fix the issues. After some time the front was sitting as it should and it was once again bolted down. We fitted the back end of the car as well to check alignment and gaps.
It was a great feeling seeing the car come together. It was really great full that Johan was doing such a great job at fixing the body for me. I was getting some negative comments from some of the people at the company. They said why am I spending so much time fixing this car. It is not like Mike is going to race it again. You are not getting paid for this why do it. I said, “I am doing this for Mike, he was not just a boss but also a friend”.
Fitting the doors
The doors went onto the car and that looked crap. The doors just didn’t want to sit properly. Fiberglass is a funny material. If it is kept under tension and in a hot environment it will change its shape. That is what happens with the Porsche. After the crash, the car stood a few days before we started stripping the car, the doors were under tension as the body moved.
Johan had to cut the doors and get them to sit properly again. He also had to fix the gaps of the doors as it was just not right. The gaps were huge in some places and small in others. We had to adapt the doors to fit in with the body again.
Body ready to paint.
The Porsche was starting to look like something again. Johan’s work was done on the Porsche 917. The car was looking great. I was getting really excited to see that car back in black.
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