With the major mechanical stuff tended to, next item up was dealing with that corrosion in the driver’s side rocker. I’d considered holding-off on the bodywork until later --- outer rockers aren’t structural, and I was thinking about doing a re-spray, anyway --- sometime in the next couple of years --- just do all the body repairs then. But I didn’t: I wanted the rot in that rocker dealt with period --- and the sooner the better.
So John got started, sizing up the situation, first probing, then cutting into and around the perforation, sending me pictures as he went. But as he began poking into the space behind the rocker, John made a curious discovery: the rocker was filled with . . . . foam.
Effing FOAM!
Looked a lot like that liquid squirt-in expanding junk used for packaging. Never seen or heard of anything like it. All we could come up with was somebody must’ve thought that the foam would keep stuff out of the rocker. Instead, the foam became a sponge that held in moisture, which then rotted the panel. It turned out that the other rocker had the same foam treatment, just not as badly damaged --- as in, the rot hadn’t burned through, yet. So I decided to replace both outer rockers. Turned-out that he inners were fine ---- minor surface corrosion only (whew!) --- so everything was cleaned, treated, then primed, along with the replacement outers, then put back together.
One interesting note: John said he saw no trace of paint or primer whatsoever on the inner surfaces of those original rockers --- just plain old steel.
Meanwhile, the front quarters had been dismounted to do the rocker replacement. The driver’s side quarter looked original and spotless, but, the passenger’s side was not. The inner brace had some corrosion on it, which was odd, and then there was the more-usual fiberglass+bondo-patch made to a rust-perforation down at the bottom of the panel. Nice. I didn’t want to replace either of the quarter panels --- if it could be done, then I wanted to keep and repair as much of the car’s original metal as possible. As it turned out, John had access to a fabricator, who metal-finished the patch-repaired section of the lower right quarter. The battery boxes and trunk were good, the floor-pans un-marked, and John had already looked up inside the rear of the car, when he’d pulled the motor and trans; everything looked to be intact, original, and untouched.
Replacement rockers were ordered from Restoration Design, then everything was installed, primed and painted. John’s Body Guy was concerned about the paint because matching any two-stage finish is pretty much impossible, anyway --- let alone one that’s +10-years old. I told 'em that I wasn’t worried so much about the color match on the repaired sections; I was expecting to re-spray the whole car at some point, anyway . . . maybe after a few other things got attended to --- like tires, exhaust, re-finishing the wheels, etc. I just wanted the panels repaired/replaced, then protected and painted well enough to use the car. I’ll give John credit: everything got ordered, installed, and finished in short order.
Now I assumed that installing the outer rockers on a stock, original 911 would be a relatively simple, straight-forward kind of job. And maybe it is . . . for someone familiar with these cars.
As things turned out, the panels were installed well enough. But the fit and alignment were off. Not hugely, mind you, but, still . . . off. And on Porsches --- any ‘off’ is too much. Like the right front quarter. It had had the lower 6” section of its outer skin replaced, to repair that rust hole. The fender repair was done in metal, and looked well-executed . . . but, even from 10 feet away, I could see that things weren’t lining-up properly on the right side: the fender/door and fender/rocker gaps were off, and the fender contour didn’t match either. Everything could probably have been hidden by re-installing the rocker trim, but when I saw how things fit, well . . . I just left the deco off --- no sense putting good stuff over bad.
At least the car was solid now, and the mechanicals were in order. The ‘fit’ issues would have to wait.
1) The first cut into the damaged right side rocker
2) 'What the ---- ?
3) Further forward on the driver's side. This showed-up after removing the rocker deco. Keep in mind that all this is an original panel, being cut into. With me hearing about this over the phone and looking at digital pics.
4) Cutting into the forward part of the rocker
5) Another view
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