Flares.....

[Darren65]

Thanks Jens

[Darren65]

To Butt or to Lap Weld???

I visited Barry Carter this week to catch up on progress and discuss the RS modifications he'll be carrying out.....when it came to how the arches are to be fitted it caused him a huge degree of angst! ....

.....from what I've seen the arches on these cars were fitted using a very crude lap weld....simple, quick and effective although pretty ugly. Barry's standards are a few notches higher and he would rather a far neater butt weld.

Despite Barry's pleas I'll be sticking with the factory method unless anyone can show me it was done another way?.....











Cheers,

[letsrollbabe]

Darren,

I think the early Turbo flares were butt welded on, beginning in 74-75....so I think the flares would have been butt welded.

[RSTarga]

where were you told they were lap welded? That would cause future rust problems for sure.

[Darren65]

where were you told they were lap welded? That would cause future rust problems for sure.

....nobody's told me they were done that way and basing my assumption purely on the photos from the Maxted-Page restorations of #9092 and #9109 and he certainly knows a thing or two!......something to ponder as I'd much prefer to Butt Weld although would like to keep the small details correct.....we'll see!

In other news ....Barry always has a gem or two to share and this time he excelled...



....it transpires that the battery floor section of the front pan for IB cars is not available as a repair panel, this area on mine was toast and other options for various reasons made no sense so Barry fabricated his own repair section......from scratch and by hand .....



....a real shame that it won't be seen when the battery is in place....



.....soon to be welded in place...



....pretty damn cool imo!

Cheers,

[Chuck Miller]

Nice work Darren !!!!

Here's the deal with the period flares on my car:

They were ordered by the original owner, soon after the June sale, at the parts desk at Circle Porsche Long Beach CA. in '73 (along with the bumperettes and deco) They were put on in the day by the late Danny McLaughlin of A.I.R.

About 16 years later I showed Danny the car and he remembered it. Then looking and reaching in the wheel well he said "YEP, this was one of the first 3 or 4 RS flare jobs I did... about Oct. '73." He then said "These first few I did all wrong... I lap welded them... I got a sheet metal 'step tool' and stepped the body in one direction and the fender in the other so it would be a zero surface overlap... then welded them up" He then said "You'll ALWAYS have problems with these".

About a year later I did a complete body and paint on the car and the body guy said these fenders were put on wrong, they will always give you problems, would you like me to do them right?' … To that I said no, that it was part of the history of the car..... So here it is, about 30 years later, the fenders are still on the car..... and yes, I have lived with the obvious and inevitable problems since... In hindsight would I have made the same decision?

As to Danny McLaughlin thinking the factory lapped them back then, and he was just doing it like them... who knows??? … However, Danny did have an in with Vasek, and Lord knows Vasek had an in with the factory....

All I know is:
- Danny said after the first few (mine included) he started buttwelding them...
- AND... my lapped welded fenders will ALWAYS be problematic...until the next caretaker does them right... or takes them off completely...

- Under the fenders
- '89 body work

… and so it goes

[Yellow491]

Hi Darren
Our 1974/5 2.7 carrera,had the one and only factory m491 body,all arches were butt welded.
Thats some mighty fine tin work being done there.

[911MRP]

Hi Darren

Hope all is well.

I don't know about 74 arches but in 73 RS it is known there were difficulties in welding the extensions to the RS homologation spec thin guage panels of the earlier RS that took them longer due to rework etc. Porsche did a few RS in November 72 with production spec rear panels and that was quicker due to not welding to uniquely thin body metal but that experiment stopped by time my car built. Thin presumably until the thin guage rear quarters were consumed?. Since you are dealing with a replica and I suppose it's production spec later chassis I assume you will not have such issues ... having seen Barry work I'd follow his advice as he is a metal maestro. Butt weld correct imo and without revealing my fetishes on www I've had my hand up the eerrm... "RS"...of many a 73 RS to kop a feel of that butt

Always difficult to be sure all original but sharing my observations fyi

Best

[Darren65]

....Here's the deal with the period flares on my car:.....

....I appreciate the feedback Chuck, that's a fantastic story, thanks for sharing......I think you were right to retain the lap weld and retain the history

And thanks for additional input chaps.....having pondered what to do, irrespective of what may have been done, Barry was really struggling with the lap weld idea so we'll be doing a nice clean butt weld .....

.....however one ugly 'modification' we will be adding is to use a big hammer and add a little clearance for the oil lines .....







...

[Darren65]

I picked up a set of turrets from Ben Coles this week to modify the shock towers through the rear cross member.....



My understanding is that the RS cars were modified in the same way as the RSR's to allow for the fitment of Coilovers even though regular dampers were fitted to the former and I've seen Armando's excellent reference resource in this respect .... https://pbase.com/slidevalve911rsr/9...ossmember_rear ....

...however the modified turrets seem quite a bit wider and comparing my shell (top photo) to various 3.0RS cars the difference isn't obvious....question is was this mod definitely done to the standard 3.0RS or just the RSR's?....





Cheers,